Easter 2009

"Suzuki Roshi, I've been listening to your lectures for years," a student said during the question and answer time following a lecture, "but I just don't understand. Could you please put it in a nutshell? Can you reduce Buddhism to one phrase?"

Everyone laughed. Suzuki laughed.

"Everything changes," he said. Then he asked for another question.
- taken from Zen Is Right Here

In the Christian religion, today marks the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians believe that this day celebrates a fundamental change in the story of humanity--one in which Death shall have no dominion over the human spirit. It also marks the beginning of Spring and the changing of the seasons. Change has been on my mind so I thought this quote would be appropriate.

No heavy duty comments or insights into the human condition. The surface of my pond is very still right now--largely due to a vacation I took the week before last. I'm sure somthing will change though--it's just a matter of when and not if.

Namaste

Shhhtyle

"Fashions fade, style is eternal."
- Yves Saint Laurent

"Your clothes should speak, not yell."
- Aladdin Dimas, master tailor and owner of Artful Tailoring (http://www.artfultailoring.com/)

It's starting to warm up here in the Phoenix valley, and with the change of the season comes a necessary change in dress. In a few weeks here my weekend attire will switch from jeans and a sweater to shorts and a t-shirt. My dark suits will be lovingly put away--but will get some use when I go to San Francisco at the end of this month--and be replaced with khaki pants and light weight dress shirts. And as I was preparing my suits for storage I got a lightning bolt of an idea: "Why not purchase a summer suit?"

I did some searches on the internet this morning for summer suits and found what appeared to be a beautiful khaki summer suit at J. Crew. Additionally, the pants and jacket appeared to be reasonably priced. For the most part, I treat the internet with a healthy does of contempt. It is a powerful tool, and is best for generating information. For discernment there is nothing better than putting "some boots on the ground" and checking out the items in person. So my activity for today was taking a "field trip" to the mall, and doing some scouting--not to be confused with shopping--for some appropriate spring/summer attire.

I learned last year that if you want to get outstanding service at any retail establishment you need to look sharp. I put on a pair of slacks and a pressed white dress shirt. Big mistake. When I walked into J. Crew every sales associate on the floor was looking at me like a piece of meat--and not in a good way. On four separate occassions different sales associates came over and asked if I needed some help or wanted a changing room to try something on. Each time they got the same answer: "No, thank you." Additionally, the khaki suit that I had seen online and thought to be lovely wasn't so great looking in person. The words "sweat shop" and "made in Taiwan" went racing through my mind each time I touched the material.

While driving home I went back through the history of where I have purchased my clothing. Back in high school I used to think that Banana Republic and J. Crew were great places to buy clothes. My closet had about three or four pairs of khaki pants and several collared shirts from both retailers. Out of college I thought that Brooks Brothers was really top of the line when it came to work apparell and thought, "Gosh, I've really upgraded from Banana Republic." After discovering the Barney's Sale last year I thought I found a "Forbidden City" of fashion, but this thought was quickly rescinded when I took some of the items in to be altered by my current tailor. Recently, I've added some custom shirts to the wardrobe. To be truthful, the thought of putting on some of the shirts that I had previously purchased from Brooks Brothers make me cringe.

Towards the end of this thought sequence I said out loud, "What is style?" I got an answer in the form of a mental image which is as follows: Sean Connery in his James Bond days wearing a three-piece suit and tie, backing the whole ensemble with a wolfish grin. Upon contemplation, there aren't any absolute here but more clues as to what what makes something stylish or appropriate. In the case of Mr. Connery, the three-piece suit is appropriate as England is horribly cold and central heating was spotty at best back then in jolly old England. More importantly, the posture and the grin are as much a part of the ensemble as the suit is.

More than anything else, I believe that individual style is about doing "your act," or said another way, "Wearing what you love." The odd thing about this statement is that nobody can tell you how to do "your act" or tell you what you love to wear. It's a process. It takes time to figure out what makes a person feel their best, and there are certainly going to be missteps along the way--just ask my sister about my orange Amoeba Records t-shirt that I wore with great pride and enthusiasm from 2004 through 2005. If Gerry Kaiser's dog didn't use that shirt as a chew toy I would probably still be wearing it to this day.

My act is pretty simple, but it took quite a long time to put together. I'm sure it will evolve over time, but feel pretty certain that the basics will be the same for quite some time. They are as follows: (1) Hair cut every two weeks, (2) Two pairs of black oxford captoes shined every two weeks; pair A is worn for one week and then pair B is worn the week after, (3) Pressed white dress shirt--French cuffs worn once or twice per week; (4) Properly altered slacks. I probably won't win any awards from GQ for creativity in fashion, but I feel good every day and know that there will rarely be a situation where I will feel out of place due to what I am wearing.

Upon my last visit to see my tailor he told me, "Custom and properly altered clothing give a man confidence." Can a shirt alone give a man confidence? I don't think so. But what I think he is getting at is at the heart of what I believe style is--getting the details right. Regardless of what "your act" is, getting the details right seems to be a common thread--pun intended--in looking great and feeling confident. When you get the details right, it's hard NOT to be feel good--whether it is the work product you are producing or their clothing you wear.

Vacationing at Home

"I have the pussy so I make the rules."
- seen on a random woman's shirt while buying charcoal at Ace Hardware

As part of my company's cost cutting measures I have been on unpaid leave this past week. Instead of going to Southern California or to San Francisco--which is usually what I will do when I have more than two days off of work--I chose to vacation at home this time.

Towards the end of 2008 I had a conversation with Aunt Shelly about staying at home for a vacation. She warned me about making such a decision, stating that she did this once and felt more tired when she returned to work after the break than before she left. I spoke with my friend Wade about such a phenomenon and he offered the following piece of advice: "Do one or two productive things per day."

From what I have gathered from Wade's maxim combined with personal experience, there is a fine balance between optimal enjoyment and sheer boredom while a person is on vacation. The normal guidelines for productivity are thrown out the window, and it can feel like one has an absolute Ocean of Time on their hands. But Time is tricky thing; that Ocean can evaporate really quickly. If one is not careful, you can find yourself listing your two achievements for the day as (1) bathing and (2) taking a nap for five continuous days--I know from firs thand experience.

On Monday I started the day off with a swim lesson, cleaned the house, and finished off the day with some weight training. Tuesday, I took a field trip to a grocery store called Ranch Market--which caters to the enormous hispanic population living here in Phoenix--with a friend I haven't seen in over four years; we had a fabulous lunch of ceviche and street tacos, and practiced our Spanish. Today I made a return trip to Ranch Market as I was craving carne asada; the woman in the taco line gave me a strange look when I ordered six carne asada street taco. I didn't care. I was on vacation.

Tonight my friend Jeff came over for dinner--I needed a test subject for my barbeque chicken as this was the first time I had made it--and to watch Lost. The chicken turned out well, but due to technical difficulties we missed the first 35 minutes of the television show. While we were waiting and praying for the show to come on, we killed half of a blueberry pie and chatted.

So far, Wade's advice has been absolutely spot-on. I've been able to feel good about the use of my time, and get some much needed "down-time" as well. As far as unpaid time being a "bad" thing, I think I've been able to make the most of it.

Namaste

Breakthrough

"Who had I become? Just another shark in a suit? Two nights later at a conference in Miami I had a breakdown. Breakdown? Breakthrough."

- taken from the movie Jerry Maguire

Back when I was playing college tennis our coach had a gentleman by the name of Scott Williams come talk to the team at the beginning of our season. After a brief introduction where we learned that Scott was the captain of an Eco Challenge team based out of San Francisco, he put in a video of the last race he and his team competed in--which showed all individuals doing all sorts of crazy things in extreme physical conditions.

After the video was over, he asked the entire team "How many of you have ever quit?" The room was silent. "C'mon. Hold up your hand if you have ever quit." Hands started being raised, including Scott's and our coach's, and quickly after everyone in the room had their hand up. "And how did quitting make you feel afterwards?" Again, the room was silent. "I'll bet you didn't feel to good after you quit, right?" Everyone in the room was nodding. We were all quiet, but the guy had us. "Looking back on the situation, I bet that if you would have dug in a little bit deeper--not that deep even--and just hang in there, you would have been able to finish."

I don't remember word for word what he said after that--I was so awe struck by his last line that my ability to remember the details was shut down. Scott went on to say that as captain of his Eco Challenge team, he would not allow any of his teammates to quit a race. If any of them approached him during a race and said, "I want to quit," he would then give them the canned response of, "I know you want to quit, but you are not going to." He then quickly organize his team and figure out a way to finish as a team.

After my swim lesson this past Tuesday I was seriously contemplating quitting swimming. I was tired of the nagging shoulder problems, the limited volume that swim due to these injuries, and my lack of progress over the past year. Then I reflected on the aforementioned talk that I heard as a sophomore in college, and recognized that if I did quit how it would make me feel and the need to dig in just a little bit deeper.

I went up to my room, looked at my stroke in the mirror, downloaded some tape of Michael Phelps swimming, and started to reimagine the stroke--all the while taking notes feverishly as to where the breakdown in my stroke was most likely occurring. Prior to getting in the water with Coach Kevin this evening, we discussed some of the possibilities and issues that I had identified and we able to quickly identify where my stroke was breaking down and what has been causing my ongoing shoulder pain. It was the breakthrough moment I had been working towards for the past two years. If I hadn't dug in that extra little bit that breakthrough moment would never have occurred.

Earlier this week I received an email from a good friend of mine who is knee deep in starting his own company. He's lucky in the sense that he has a mentor who is a certified billionaire who is coaching him through this process. My friend had two comments regarding the coaching from this gentleman: (1) The most important thing that he has received is encouragement from someone who has been wildly successful in the business world. Nobody can tell you how to run YOUR company, but encouragment and some direction along the way is priceless. (2) Success is mostly about negotiating and minimizing your failures. It seems that if a person can do this, learn from their failures as they go, and stay in the game long enough, then success is the natural by product of such efforts.

Namaste

In the Clearing Stands a Boxer...

"If there's magic in boxing, it's the magic of fighting battles beyond endurance, beyond cracked ribs, ruptured kidneys and detached retinas. It's the magic of risking everything for a dream that nobody sees but you.

- Eddie "Scrap-Iron" Dupris as portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Million Dollar Baby

Any movie with a Morgan Freeman voiceover is a good movie in my book--Shawshank Redemption and Million Dollar Baby come to mind immediately. Although I didn't like all the white trash stereotypes that entered into the movie or the whole thing about the Hillary Swank character getting paralyzed. Anyway.....

As part of my new workout routine I jump rope for at least 15 minutes a day. It's a great workout. It burns the lungs, works the stabilizer muscles in the shoulders, and the calves. Sometimes when I am hitting the rope and am in a good groove, I imagine a Morgan Freeman voiceover inserted into the soundtrack of my life. I hear the man saying the above sequence, only tailored to accounting. I imagine that beautifully weathered voice talking about footing the 10-K over and over and over, tieing out the document to make sure each number is perfect, then doing a clean read late into the night; working until the cleaning crew has left and leaving the office knowing that you have met the high standard of a professional. I usually have these thoughts during my 5 AM workouts when I am a little bit loopy. I also imagine my company's CFO saying, "Hit 'em in the head! Hit 'em in the stomach!," in his beautiful Scottish brogue while I am jumping rope.

So what's new with me? Not a whole lot, really. I haven't written much lately as my colleagues and I are up to our shoulders in SEC reporting fun. I've worked each weekend since returning back from Christmas vacation, and the work is starting to take its toll on my mind--in case the jump rope sequence wasn't any indication of this. I had breakfast with a friend of mine this morning, and my contribution to the conversation was all over the place. Random thought I had had over the past several weeks which had not been articulated previously came flowing out of my mouth even though they didn't relate to the conversation at hand. My mind is trying to funnel out all the backlog of thoughts that it has been harboring for the past several weeks. Whether you like it or not, often times one's mouth has a mind of it's own.

My plan for tomorrow is simple: decompress. I don't know exactly what will happen, but I have images of sleeping in, sitting on my back patio with an enormous cup of coffee, and enjoying the beautiful weather of Phoenix without an agenda.

Those are all my thoughts for now.

Namaste

Some Change.....

Some change comes down for the better
You feel it move
Then some come around like the weather
You take that in too

But like some change in your pocket
Sometimes it seems to be too little too late
I guess it's time to break out a few pesos
Cause I'm getting to where I like the view
And if you're feeling lucky and you ain't just passing through
You might change some too
- taken from Some Change by Boz Scaggs

Change--it's one of my favorite topics. It's been on my mind and of other peoples' minds a lot lately. We've recently entered into a new year, and with the new year comes resolutions and a renewed commitment to be a better person. The country has recently elected a new president, and most people are looking to this individual to bring about change to the country--namely in the form of economic improvement.

Two years ago I went to a lecture on improving one's communication skills and the benefits that are reaped from such improvements. About fifteen minutes into the material, the speaker said, People don't change." On a gut level I disagreed with the man's statement. I believe that all human beings are capable of change. In terms of a practical matter though, people rarely change unless they are in a great deal of pain, or there is an inordinate amount of incentive involved.

One of the things that I read on Gordon Byrn's blog was a statement to this effect: People rarely have enough influence to individually make a significant impact on any situation. How much impact will President Obama have on this country? Hard to say. He alone cannot solve the economic troubles of this country. The effects of two decades plus of "over leveraging" are being dealt with. The liquidity being injected into the economy by TARP is the equivalent of throwing ping pong ball at an elephant. Much like the person in the aforementioned song, the change that we have right now is too little, too late.

On the individual level, I think that all any individual person can do is clean up there personal balance sheet, have some blood money in the bank, and keep moving forward. As the economy deleverages there will be some bargains to be had.

In terms of my own life I am not in the middle of change of paradigm, but I am trying to take off some of the dead weight I put on over the holidays as well as improve my flexibility. I've committed myself to losing a pound a week for the next ten weeks, and practicing yoga twice a week indefinitely. As I get older flexibility will become more and more important. From what I have seen there aren't a lot of yogis and yoginis out there with walkers or wheel chairs.

On a practical note, as we all enter the Obama era and get ready to work through what looks to be a really, really bad recession, my instinct keeps telling me one thing: make your individual change small, but be consistent with working through that change. Human beings aren't wired to accept change easily, in fact we are wired to go with what has worked before as this is what has kept us alive. If you want to see change in your life you have to treat it just like it's spare change--some dimes here, and a quarter or two there, and you suddenly have a dollar. Yes, this analogy might be obvious, but it's the Truth.

Namaste

Into the Future...

I think a lot of problems we've been experiencing have come from the fact that no one embraces the miracle and amazement of the present. So many people--steampunks, fundamentalists, hippies, neocons, anti-immigration advocates--feel like there was a better time to live in. They think the present is degraded, faded and drab. That our world has lost some sort of "spark" or "basic value system" that, if you so much as skim history, you'll find was never there.
- Patton Oswalt as taken from the February 2009 issue of GQ

I've had some interesting comments outside of the blog forum regarding my post entitled "Being a Man Is Back in Style." A few people have made the comment that the 1950s and 1960s weren't without their flaws. I agree with this statement. My whole point for the post is this: an educated and conscious person will look back into previous generations, look at the mistakes that were made by those who came before along with the things that they deem to be beneficial and make appropriate decisions in the present and future based on their evaluation.

As part of my ongoing quest to bring the suit back into the workplace I paid a visit to my tailor yesterday to have a jacket altered. After taking the measurements for the alterations he asked me very directly, "How much did you pay for this?" He was not born in this country so their isn't any taboo over asking such questions about the cost of an item one purchased. After I told him he rolled his eyes, tilted his head, and said, "Before you purchase another suit, come see me first," and then pointed out a few flaws in the suit that he would do his best to adjust.

Over the past year I have finally gotten into a financial position where I can go and purchase a well made suit, pay the price, and not get stressed out over the cash outflow. As I began to do research as part of the purchasing process I found out that the suits made today are basically built to last three or four years. In the 1960s, men purchased suits with the intent to pass them down to their sons. These garments were made to last over a decade.

Much of the manufacturing and assembly of such items is done overseas right now as the cost is significantly lower. Yes, the price of things are lower now, but the care and the craft have probably decreased proportionally to the cost.

My thought for the future in my professional life is pretty simple: work with care and craft, get the details right, and build strong personal relationships. If anything, I would ultimately like to become the equivalent of a Master tailor in the accounting world and apply the same level of craft, attention to detail, and "feel" to my work each day. It's a high standard, but I do think I can achieve this level of competence with daily training and the support of my co-workers--who are pretty solid in their own right.

My thought for my personal life is slightly different and would be summarized in the following words: You are going to die, so enjoy this--whatever it is--while it lasts. I could lose my job tomorrow, and it would totally suck. Truth be told, I would probably freak out. With that said, the trick would be for me to find the goodness in each day in the midst of all the mental noise and economic uncertainty. After all the worst thing that can happen to any person is death, and that is going to happen anyway.

Namaste