Dedication

Comments (Archived):

1. Done!

   1. or just getting started

      1. Hah. I talked with a friend/mentor who observed that many people in our age range are thinking forward to retirement, but that I sounded so engaged in/excited about my work. (Which I am.) I think that’s one of reasons I come here, beyond learning — so many engaged people who aren’t looking forward to hanging it all up one day.

         1. When you work with your mind, I don’t see why you would ever retire

            1. True, as long as your mind continues to work with you.

            2. Want to insure that it does–keep your body working with it!The true core of wellness as a movement beyond the huge market is just that–connectedness of mind and body and the power that comes from taking control of that balance.

            3. Well, if this prevents Alzheimer’s, then you’re a genius Arnold.

            4. Hardly.But I do believe strongly that life is 20-30 years longer than it was 30 years ago.If you want those years to be in the middle of life, pay attention to your mind/body/nutrition piece.You should my friend.And as an investor you should as well. There’s money to be made by understanding that the agricultural world is moving to nutrient density to feed this rather than calories per acre.

            5. I think ag should move to calories per acre instead of bushels per acre to measure success. Bushels per acre is an accounting measure, calories economic.

            6. Nutrient density is both economic and beneficial and in trend with where whole foods (the concept and the store) are going.I know that I only really understand this from a premium market perspective but that premium market is just exploding and crossing economic stratas like never before.Premium juices will cross $20B this year and the category is expanding to envelop consumable supplements (like activated charcoal) as well as soup and more and more).Big dollars here.

            7. Well you know I have a theory [1] which I call “the rotting shufflers”. These are people that live in row houses in Philly in what was lower to middle middle class areas. They worked hard at blue collar or nominal white collar jobs. They put all of their effort into their kids who are now lawyers, doctors and accomplished. Those kids moved away and now have their own life. The parents on the other hand rot away because they never did anything for themselves other than dedicate themselves to raising their kids and earning a living. So now they just shuffle along the avenue, watch tv, read a book, go to lunch. It’s a sad existence. Oh yeah, they visit doctors as well quite often.But I don’t think you can force feed this stuff for benefits. It’s either a built in and you do automatically or you don’t.[1] All non-scientific, non provable just a pattern I’ve noticed.

            8. My dad is a great role model for this. While he gave all of us agita during a recent solo cross-country road trip (bad weather he wanted to muscle through), he’s continuously learning (Photoshop, history) and goes to the gym 3 mornings a week.(And to the bad weather, someone I’m pretty sure I met here, Brian Dailey, gave me real time info about a terrible winter storm in Nashville via Twitter that helped us to convince dad to stop a bit earlier than planned. Thanks, AVC. Thanks, Twitter. And especially Brian.)

            9. Personality / performance connection ( mind : body ) is more & more obvious to me.The core of who you are tends to dictate the core of your capabilities / strengths & weaknesses

            10. #truth

            11. Great point, you can make a meaningful blog post out of that one sentence.If you don’t do it, I think I will, except only perhaps 100 people will get to read it then 🙂

            12. The former Dean of my law school is still a professor there (tenure really is for life) and taught himself Russian in his 90s. His advice to me when I went to fix his computer one day (paraphrased) was to not waste too much time in the pool hall, there are too many interesting things you can learn.

            13. What’s good about how you work is that you have developed side hobbies and interests which you can intersperse with your work. And while your work can be a grind, you aren’t tied down to that grind and you do it of your free will. [1]When I met my mother in law a few years ago she told me that she would never retire. (She is a school teacher). Now all the sudden she wants to retire because essentially it’s the same thing everyday and the rewards (and battles of being a public school teacher) have, I guess, taken a toll on her. (That’s not what she said, that’s what I think is going on based on other info I have..)[1] Meaning you aren’t working because you have to earn a living or earn enough to provide for retirement.

            14. That is a great way to put it. I have many friends that work with their bodies: electrician, machinist, plumber, drywaller, even nurse.Yes all take more intelligence than most give credit for, but they are working with your body and after a long time you’ve seen and solved almost all problems, so its not really working with your mind, its using your mind.All ask me what the hell am I doing, and I say I love what I do and cannot imagine not doing it. I have said before we are so lucky on this. I cannot imagine a job where the thing I look forward to most is retiring.It really is why I didn’t go into investment banking. People would tell me that what you do is work like a slave for two years. Then you take two years off and get your MBA, then you come back and work like a slave for another 3-5 years, but after those 10 years you make managing partner, and make a ton of money. Then in another 10 or 20 you can retire.

            15. Have you read Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft? A good read on the mental/intellectual side of physical work.

         2. Same observation here. It floors me. I feel as though I’m just now really getting started. The possibilities are exciting.

            1. Especially when what you’re putting out into the world needs your years of experience to be truly excellent.

            2. My view is that each day you should look at yourself in the mirror and see yourself in the middle of your life.

         3. Yeah I have no reason to say this but I have to say that when I was in high school I didn’t even know that many of the types of women that I run into here on AVC, as well as ones that I deal with, (that are both young and old) even existed in the world. I actually re-thought this after reading one of your replies the other day. [1]In the 80’s, Inc. Magazine did a small number of stories on women entrepreneurs but that’s about it.Gotham Gal has almost certainly highlighted more interesting accomplished women in 6 months than Inc. (from memory) wrote about in that entire decade.[1] Good thing my wife doesn’t read this blog.

            1. In HS I never would have imagined myself conversing with a bunch of business people. Thank goodness the world isn’t as it seemed to our high school selves.

            2. You crack me up. (That last comment about your wife.)Unfortunately, in high school I didn’t know women like the ones in this blog existed either.And I didn’t know that those geeky nerdy guys would be the ones I’d someday relate to. Although come to think of it even then I’d get into these deep exhilarating discussions with some of those guys. Not a lot of that was happening in high school corridors but I was always a strange one.

2. Digitisation. Delineation. Determination. Devaluation. discontinuation, of this line of swyping

   1. Digestion

      1. Decompression

         1. The sum of it all, Dissertation.

            1. Next week: assumption, assertion, etc.

3. Nets?

   1. sort of. i have seasons. but i’ve never considered myself a real fan of the Nets

      1. Hard to connect with that team.

4. Many know a ritual of passover is eating Matzoh, the unleavened flat bread.A simple reason is it reminds us of the Israelites leaving Egypt in the middle of the night after 210 years of slavery.We commemorate how they had to flee without being able to wait for their bread to rise by eating unleavened bread throughout the 8 day Passover holiday.A deeper more spiritual reason for eating the flat Matzoh is to remind us to be humble and keep egos in check. Just like the Matzoh is flat and free from haughtiness so we should be.For weeks before Passover orthodox Jews clean their houses for traces of bread and bread products. The simple reason is that we shouldnt have any in our homes over the Passover period.The more metaphysical reason is to remind us to hunt down pride and ego. The external search is just there to catalyse the internal one. Namely to find and eradicate haughtiness and hubris and remember to be humble. Its easy for us to inflate our egos and become overly prideful, to have a puffed up sense of self. The lesson of the simple Matzoh and the other Passover rituals are to remind us not to.

   1. That’s a great mantra for Passover for me. Humility. Thanks. I’m going with it

      1. Once a year I guess.

         1. You have to be humble at least once a year

   2. I will take this thought with me all day.Thanks!

      1. Me too

         1. Your ego and self glorification are quite remarkable. You are thrilled by the love of your fan club no?

            1. Yup. Another thing I am dedicated to is myself

            2. Cue another blog post — Discretion 😉

            3. touche

   3. Thank you Rabbi LIAD

   4. .Good thoughts. Good read. Well played.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

   5. Many know a ritual of passover is eating Matzoh, the unleavened flat bread.Many probably don’t know that some of the faithful celebrate this way.At least I didn’t:http://nypost.com/2015/04/0…

   6. Love this LIAD. Thanks.

5. And being Good Friday, in my mind today is dedicated to the Passion of Christ and his Crucifixion.

   1. https://twitter.com/david8h…

      1. Although, I think Judas would probably have been the clueless one. Things didn’t go quite as planned.

   2. Have a festive crucifixion

      1. The celebration is on Sunday, marking the resurrection. There is nothing festive about a crucifixion.

         1. Amazing the stark contrast between Friday and Sunday.

      2. Please. That’s obnoxious

6. Hag sameach!

7. Curious what got you going on deciding to do a D-series (aside from the fun & challenge of it)? Why did you pick the letter D as a starting point & do you plan on covering the alphabet? I can imagine the series “AVC from A to Z”.

   1. Fred’s only interest in a D round

      1. Fred gets an A for this series of Ds.

         1. 🙂

   2. i realized on weds morning that i was already two posts into it so i decided to make it a challenge to do three more. it was fun.

      1. It reminded me of essay challenges in high school, when the teacher picked a topic, and you had to write an essay in 30 mins. The twist here is it’s just one letter and multiple topics.

         1. But that’s an assignment and not driven internally.I remember when I had a boat. There were days when I would just take it out and go where I wanted and anchor, take a nap after eating lunch on the boat, just feel the breeze and so on.Then there were the days when people would come down and want to be taken out on the boat. That was work. It was like a job. It wasn’t anywhere near as much fun. All the sudden my job was to entertain them. I had to drive the boat fast (for the husband). [1] They women talked and took away the silence. The husband asked me the same questions that all the other people had asked before. A totally different experience.[1] Which burned a ton of gas which back then was pretty cheap compared to today. Funny how some guests would offer to pay for the gas (when we went to fill-up) and some wouldn’t

            1. haha…i hear you 🙂

      2. picked my college major the same way 🙂

      3. see my crossword rendition above 🙂

8. Since this is such an important time of the year for so many around the world, I hope we find a renewed sense of all we share and less of what divides us.

   1. Amen.

      1. It seems more likely that our getting disconnected is what led to the development of different races. interesting new article in Science Mag about how Europeans evolved to look the way they do: http://news.sciencemag.org/…Apparently, up until about 8,000 years ago, most Europeans were dark skinned.

         1. Interesting historical backdrop, but the issues we currently have are more recent in their original making, no? We need to see to solve today’s issues with today’s realities.

9. Dedication. More than waking up and just doing it every day, but doing it with a purpose in mind. Happy Hour Yoga today at 6PM. Have a good Passover or Easter, which ever you celebrate.

10. That’s a great point – I think I’ll take dedication to a daily level. Have a good weekend everyone.

11. I ended up in Israel as a non-Jew (falling in love with an Israeli woman, what can you do), and it is amazing to see how the story of Peseach manages to bind an entire people together as one family.

12. And here I thought today’s post was going to be ‘Defenestration, Feature Friday’Happy Holiday

    1. Good Friday.

13. Just a point of information, I might give you props for dedication when it comes to the Jets and Knicks. But try being a Cubs fan for a while. : ) I will be there Sunday.

    1. maybe this year!!

14. “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no one could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” — Goethe

    1. .The future belongs to the bold. Always has. Always will.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

15. I know first hand how much dedication it takes to be a Mets and Jets fan. There’s always next season. 🙂

16. .You want dedication? You want dedication? You can’t handle dedication! [OK, so it isn’t as good as Jack Nicholson but you got it, right? Tell me you got it.]Coach Wilson (Final Four weekend metaphor, thanks for understanding) serves up dedication every day with this blog.While I — like you — have bit my tongue and been silent about the time zone issues of the Wilson clan moving to the Left Coast, it is still one hell of a performance.You want dedication? Look no further than AVC.com.Please note this is NOT hectoring.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

    1. Fawning?

       1. .Fawning? Deer season doesn’t open until November and I never, ever shoot fawns though they are like veal and taste wonderful.I am often accused of fawning — it is my natural condition.Oh, or is that hectoring?Can’t tarry, Easter eggs to be dyed.Happy Easter! I hope it snows where you live.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          1. Easter looks good for us but I haven’t put away the snow shovels yet. Happy Easter, Jeff, for you and your family.

             1. .It will be 80F today in the ATX. The azaleas are blooming. I am planting more today. For whatever reason, I got the fertilization right this year and mine are spectacular.Happy Easter, Tom, and I hope it doesn’t snow.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          2. Reaction to things that you say is rooted in the way a person is raised (or influential early friends that they spent time around) and the sensibilities that their parents instilled on them. As such (the way I was raised) it’s easy to see why Tom reacted the way that he did.I remember being on a first date with a girl once. She didn’t ask me at all about what I did or about myself, zip. I asked her all sorts of questions it was almost an interview. (Girls have told me that..) I never ended up in a relationship with her but later we did become mini friends (maybe that lasted a few months..then I found someone and didn’t feel it was appropriate.). Anyway at one point after that first date I brought up how she never asked me any questions. She replied that her mother told her that “if people want you to know about what they do they will tell you, never ask”.I was raised quite differently. It was not unusual at all for someone to come into our house or see our car and say “hey how much did you pay for that?”. And nobody would ever get insulted by that.I remember growing up my dad telling me that if he told a story to one neighbor they would think he was smart and if he told the same story to another neighbor they would think he was a thief.Anyway, knowing a bit about what you have said about your dad this all makes total sense.

    2. I think blogging us something you can do anywhere thankfully

       1. .Fred, because Tom Labus accused me of “fawning”, I will NOT point out the typo in your comment.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

17. Startups and the Sedar, In 1923, a Ad guy names Jacobs convinced Maxwell House Coffee, then owned by the Cheek Neal Coffee Co. out of Tennessee (it’s now owned by Kraft Foods, Inc.), to invest in an advertising campaign targeting Jewish consumers. What a move! Focus on power users!

18. This Week at AVC…the crossword puzzle is complete.

    1. Haha, totally brilliant!Can we get Fred to also post D-tion on Saturday and Sunday so we can put those on diagonals in the crossword?

       1. oh no…i would have to work on it again 🙂

          1. DIFFERENTIATION on the bisect with Deflation.DURATION for how long it takes to make a unicorn startup.

19. GooDDD week, Fred – both the posts and the comments. In appreciation, I’m DDDedicating this song to the AVC community: DDDire Straits – Walk of Life:https://www.youtube.com/wat…

20. nice theme..my peewee hockey coach preached “4D” (even had stickers made for our helmets)DesireDisciplineDedicationDetermination

    1. i only covered on of those in my D week

       1. well then it seems you have a few topics for next week…

       2. There’s always next week.

21. Happy Easter too 🙂