Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth‪®‬ Alan Weiss

The old apothegm is that the first generation starts it, the second expands it, and the third ruins it. Probably not so true any more.

It’s not about a mandatory spendthrift or wasteful generation. It’s more about hunger.

I don’t know about you, but I grew up poor, and when I was fired as president of a consulting firm, we had relatively little money in the bank and two small kids with private schools and a wedding ahead of them. We also had elderly parents who needed our support.

So I did whatever was necessary to make money. I would charge $25 for resume reviews for people looking for work. I charged $750 to speak, though I often did it for free to get in front of potential clients.

That hunger subsided when I had “made it,” but it has never really left. I don’t work hard, but I work very smart. I pursued success and create tougher goals and higher standards for myself.

I think the metaphorical third generation I mentioned may just be bored. They don’t want to expand the business further, the don’t want to start another, and they have no hunger. Their education and living standard have been taken care of.

You can’t make your kids poor. The second generation might have experienced a period of your hunger, but not the grandchildren. They assume you were always well off. They think that’s what life provides.

My son would respond, when I was making a case about “the old days,” that “I know, Dad, you were barefoot, wrote on a shovel with charcoal, and walked to school three miles in the snow.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and it was uphill in both directions.”

The best leaders and most successful people I’ve met also exemplify generosity. This is not an accident.

“Generosity” means “giving or sharing,” and being liberal in so doing. It isn’t primarily about money, but it is about credit, recognition, time, listening, coaching, supporting, and so forth. If it’s authentic, then it’s consistent, not situational. I’ve always thought the award winners who get on stage and thank 20 people are many times those whom the people being thanked have thought of as horrible, selfish people with whom to work.

Generosity is often about hard work and sacrifice, not merely “giving.” Writing a check is easy, serving at a soup kitchen is harder, chairing a nonprofit board that’s in trouble is harder still.

Caitlin Clark led basketball statistics in scoring, but she was also very highly rated in assists. Mentioning someone laudably in public (and on social media) is generous, as is not mentioning negatives. Refraining from complaining, especially over minor issues is generous. We often call it “giving the benefit of the doubt.”

Developing people is generous. Maya Angelou has noted that “we train animals, but we should educate people.” We shouldn’t assume people are somehow “damaged” and require remedial work (which most self-help books do). We shouldn’t project our personal shortcomings to others, as if they must be universal to salve our egos (this is called “projecting”).

Being vulnerable and honest is generous. To admit our mistakes and fears to others is a generous act, encouraging them to feel safe doing so, and enabling them to try to help us and that we will willingly listen. We should also overlook minor flaws that may discomfort us but are trivial in the large scheme of things.

I had a coaching client who told me he was annoyed when one of his customers chewed on the ice from a drink. I asked if this were somehow dysfunctional. He said it was just irksome. I suggested he just live with it and forget it. But, ungenerously, he told the client that the habit was irritating. The customer then told him to “get lost.”

Refraining from holding a grudge or harboring resentment is generous, as is never taking things personally. (I didn’t make a sale at this time in this place to this person. That doesn’t mean the person doesn’t like me or that I’m not worthy.)
And remember Joseph Epstein’s famous observation: “The true measure of generosity is not how much one gives but how much, after giving, one has left over.” It’s a fundamental concept or philosophy about life.

I was required to engage in a “liberal arts” education at Rutgers. That meant that I had to have credits in languages over two or three years, science every year, history for two years, and English for two years. Although I majored in Political Science, because I thought I was going to law school (!), these other classes were required.

The length and amount of education is far less important than the quality and depth of education. A lot of people attend school (sometimes for far more than four years) and simply get their “ticket stamped.” I sat next to a great many students who were no better off leaving school than they were entering it except that they had more job prospects.

In these times, with competence more sought than credentials, that might no longer be true. Airlines are looking for qualified pilots whether or not they have a college education. We have a shortage of air traffic controllers. Do they need college educations? An electrician doesn’t.

We tend to focus on business books and the “idea du jour.” I had a client who wanted to change her Fortune 100’s organization every time she went to a new seminar or read another book.

It is okay to be the smartest person in the room—someone has to be. It’s not okay to try to be the second smartest. You’ll earn what that means when you listen to the podcast.

You’ll also hear my two key criteria to determine intelligence. See if you pass my test.

Al McCree is a former fighter pilot who has flown 196 missions! He is an executive in the music business and has managed all kinds of talent. He’s also worked with top business executives.

We talk about the differences and similarities of combat flying and the competition of the music business and the challenges of changing hearts and minds in a business setting. Ironically Al thinks music can be a distraction at work, even though we see so many people with ear buds in all kinds of workplaces.

I challenge Al a bit on his belief that DNA and genetics are important for success. We both reflect on the wonderful, developmental feedback we obtained at the Johnson O’Connor Research Foundation (and why he can play a musical instrument and I can’t, authoritatively validated).

We fondly recall Jeanne Robertson, a brilliant speaker and storyteller who, in a beauty contest, enthralled the judges with her “talent” of twirling an invisible baton, which she lit on fire and had it descend on the judges’ heads.

The role of luck is analyzed in any pursuit, and Al feels it’s a stronger factor than might be realized. But what is luck, really? And before we end we discuss how to exemplify what will make your kids successful, especially if they’ve led a privileged life and may not have the parents’ “hunger.”

Primary and secondary

1 End the “warehousing” of children
• Chronology is silly and hundreds of years old
• Socialization is important, but not at this cost
• Move kids as they learn
• Measure learning by outcomes: application, tests, etc.

2. Stop defaulting to college educations
• Prepare for a range of employment opportunities
• I sat next to too many duds in college
• Teach life skills: civics, account management, do-it-yourself repairs (remember shop and home economics)
• Growing tendency to hire competence and not credentials

3. End the teachers’ unions control of schools
• Introduce carrots and sticks for teachers
• The Rubber Room in New York City
• Albert Shanker’s quote
• Randi Weingarten’s $600,000
• The customers are the parents and kids, not teachers
• Make the job rewarding and also demanding
• Recreate school “open houses”
• End the mainstreaming of behavioral problems
• End the inclusion on non-English speakers
• My experience with Tourette’s Syndrome
• Teachers have lowest grade point averages and attend the worst academic schools
• Former president of URI: People with poor finances and/or grades go to inexpensive and mediocre schools
• Get rid of failed progressive nonsense like “new math”
• Allow for school choice of all kinds with vouchers

4. Change school financing
• The affluent/tax/attraction/more tax trap
• Pool money within the state for equal distribution
• Create true equal opportunity with equivalent resources, quality, teaching across the state

5. Enforce discipline
• Assistant principle might go to jail for stopping a female, black student from heading for a fight, she claimed he physically abused her in doing so. She had threatened the fight.
• Mandate school officers. Anyone who says that children are fearful of uniforms and police should understand they’d be more fearful of being beaten up or shot at.

6. Apply common sense and avoid political correctness and the woke
• Teachers may not involve themselves with personal, sexual, gender, and similar issues without involving parents, including names kids use, how they dress, and how they want to be addressed.
• Teachers’ personal politics, gender beliefs, and religious beliefs are not permitted in the classroom.

Not just about the government or the banks or big Pharma, but even sports when YOUR team loses! “The refs were crooked, it was rigged.”

9/11 was an “inside” job, and we never landed on the moon.

Key elements: belief in a pattern underlying the event; provocative and deliberate plans; coalitions or groups are involved, even disparate ones; there is a clear and present danger; secrecy that is hard to justify or believe by non-conspirators. Groups blamed are typical targets: wealthy, politicians, business leaders (especially bankers), historically stigmatized minorities, such as Jews or Roma.

Conspiracists defy pragmatism and evidence, e.g., “Princess Diana actually killer herself or faked her death.”

The threat of lack of control forces insecure people to find cause and effect outside of their control that explains their fate. (THEY are out to get me/us.) Paranoia is a key element, involving perceived victimization, social isolation, and the refusal to admit that others succeed by their talents and hard work. Paranoia generally starts individually but then lends itself to “groupthink.”

Conspiracy thinking, or the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories, shares several characteristics with paranoia. Both involve ideas that harmful outcomes can be attributed to malevolent agents rather than to more benign or non-agentive causes. Other similarities in concept are notable, for example, both paranoia and conspiracy thinking represent suspicions that can be hard to falsify and may concern events or theories that later emerge to be true, for example claims about pandemic demands by the government that, scientifically, were incorrect and ineffective.

In an increasingly volatile age, without confirmations of power and control, people default to these “settings.” This will become worse.
Perhaps paranoid to begin with, see this as a conspiracy, though I doubt that Trump ever did.