seeing that the life we were given is a gift. Don’t get me wrong: I love what electronics stand for, and I’d be a dummy to work in the communications business without embracing it all. I love pizza too; however, if I ate slices and slices of it on a daily basis, I’d be as huge as a helicopter spinning out of control. So it’s safe for me to say, here and now, that we are all (as a culture) addicted to electronics—to the point where we’re putting ourselves in the passenger’s seat, looking down and letting a smartphone do a lot of the work. You’ve got to admit that for the most part, we’re in the infancy stage of this modern electronics boom. The whole thing is really clunky at times—like us, it really can’t get out of its own way either. It’s trying desperately to be streamlined, but I shudder at how many people have developed physical ailments like “text neck,” carpal tunnel, poor eyesight, and disrupted sleep from all these toys. I promise you in less than ten years, we’ll all laugh at what we all went through during the “Wild Wild West” of twenty-first century technology. More importantly, after reading this book, I hope you put down the gadgets and move over to the pilot’s chair and literally soar up to the trip of your lifetime.
I’m sorry to break that news to you—especially if you’re one of those Millennials or Generation Zers who might live and breathe “glass half empty.” Even though in many marketing circles I might be past my prime (aka irrelevant), the in-your-face street smarts rulebook I have embraced doesn’t include a large-print section for mature audiences. People are people in my book—literally! Because there’s no prejudice here, I figured that it was time to pass on some of the in-the-trenches knowledge that I’ve gained over my more than a few decades of life, to those who might not yet have stepped into their own brighter light—bright enough to understand how precious, quick, and down and dirty living is. Yes, it’s time.... It’s time to understand you’ve made a very intimate pact with yourself to spend your energy on the “it” that makes you tick. Good or bad, you’ve made choices that mark you for the moment and could stick and define you forever. And if you don’t think you have the “it,” I can promise you that you do. After reading this book, I hope you will have the courage, without apology, to find that “extraordinary” in you—the real reason why you’re here.
It’s time to get out of your own way and make “things” happen.
I thought about writing this book when one Millennial paraded into my office for a job interview in flip-flops and shorts and all tangled up in wires from his earbuds—with such an entitlement issue that I was one step from asking this kid to leave before listening to his spiel. I realized that one Millennial after another was coming into my office, shockingly clueless about what his or her life’s purpose is. And many of those considered “older” continue to sashay into my firm as if they saw a ghost of career past—they don’t have a clue, either because they still believe they’re working in the glorious days of the 80s when everyone and everything seemed to be on steroids and sipping liquid lunches. (For those who don’t know, a “liquid lunch” is when you get bombed at lunch on martinis.) Both demographics—under and over thirty—are out of touch with the middle ground that mixes all of our lives together, and impacts how we all communicate with each other—no matter what our ages are. Whatever generation you fit into, please stop being so set in your ways, defeated before you take a risk, jaded, and opinionated about everything.
So, how can this Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life help you get out of your own way? I’ve set the book up in ten steps, and at the end of every piece there’s a mini “take-a-quiz” with five practical questions and a cheat sheet with answers. I promise you won’t feel like you’re reading CliffsNotes—it’s just a few easy-breezy flash questions to encourage you to think further about the subject at hand.
As an added bonus (here’s where the big pitch comes into play!), dotted throughout the book are a boatload of my version of “hashtag takeaways.” You’ll notice that my hashtags are full sentences. On Twitter, #hashtags are just one word or a #ShortPhraseWrittenInCamelCase. But part of my message is that we need to slow down, take a personal mental check, and actually say what’s going on in our subconscious. It’s all about what we mean to say. We can be brief. Our actions should speak louder than words...we should listen to that little voice inside our head, because it is the gut instinct that is usually spot on. So think of my “hashtag takeaways” as if you’re cracking open a fortune cookie to reveal “news you can use” at a glance. In reality, it’s me bottom-lining a thought for you in the hope that you’re listening.
I hope these communication formats in the book are ultimately of value—just like some people read hard books while others like e-versions. I hate it when I buy a book or a ticket to a movie or show, and it sucks—that’s money down the drain. I believe the customer is always right. Lemme get back to you if my publisher offers a money-back guarantee if this rant ain’t happenin’ for ya, OK?
#(Wink, wink.)
#(Insert Smiley Face here.)
Let’s show you some sample hashtag takeaways that further describe what the hell is peppered between these pages. Would one of these one-liners describe you?
#She helped the poor escape from the prison camps.
#He didn’t believe there was an environmental crisis.
#She was a shopaholic—didn’t give a shit about her kids.
#He discovered a cure for cancer.
Along with the Ten Steps I will soon be going through with you, and the whole “hashtag” shebang in the book, I will share snippets of my life story—how I saw myself, and see myself now—so that you can use my personal experiences as a thrust towards looking into your history and destiny.
We are in a world that texts, types, reads and speaks in 140 characters or less, with an attention span of a peanut. Boomers like me, who lived in a land that once was truly free from Big Brother meddling in our business, didn’t need an app to tell us how to think, how to date, how to be marketed to, and how to communicate. The sad truth is, in the world of the hashtag, it’s a real pipe dream if you think the galaxy is going to recite your Wikipedia page every time someone brings your name up—dead or alive. Respectfully, with that kind of mindset, you’re slightly delusional from how the world works. If you think that farkakte Facebook is going to create that eerie looped video of memories they’re known for after you die—hell no, papi! The party is “ovah” when you kick the bucket. Big Bro will press “Delete” because your life has used up way too much cloud storage! What people will remember is not your greatest novel or TV series, but a line or two of gossip—that’s right, “g-o-s-s-i-p,” better known as “potentially fake news”—that they heard about you. (“Did you hear he was a nasty sonofabitch?” “She was a trust fund baby and didn’t need to work after all...why didn’t she let the talented one take over her position?”)
After reading the Get Out of Your Own Way Guide to Life, I hope and pray you won’t feel the constant need to fit into a life like The Friggen’ Joneses. You know The Friggen’ Joneses: those “perfect” peeps who feel the need to breathe like, look like, talk like, compete with, and live like everyone else to stay relevant: be accepted. These are people who try and trick you from knowing their real age, because they’re afraid no one will aspire to be them any longer.
Ageism (at any age) is so last Tuesday in my book, so I’m not sure what The Friggen’ Joneses are worried about. It’s only a pain in the butt if we want it to be. For those of us who were alive in the 60s and 70s (two freakin’ fantastic decades, I might add), it seems as if the marketers of today feel the need to keep us locked up at the Woodstock Music Festival, continually playing a Janis Joplin track that no person under thirty-eight has ever heard. These marketing geniuses are desperate to split us up into “demographics” and niche everyone out as if we’re all products, separated up and down the aisles of a supermarket. What would the
