Do Something

The other day I was reminded by the actions of a child cluelessly long on grit that we should try a little harder to finish whatever we start.

Duly noted.

The unspoken suggestion stood out during a day where people discussed how their “permanent record“ would not be damaged for not finishing.

Have we forgotten that our permanent record is not just recorded by what other people think or see? Have we forgotten that our hearts and minds are constantly carving neural pathways that create the semi-permanent thresholds that define our comfort zones?

If failure mid-course leads to not finishing time and time again, then ”doing something” becomes defined by just starting with less regard for finishing.

It‘s like taking photos of people jumping off things and doing tricks in the air. The still photo cares not about the landing but rather about the mid-course success. People looking at the photo are amazed and only a surprisingly small percentage of the people think about whether the trickster actually landed after the shot.

Bottom line: Starting something is the beginning and end of doing something if you don’t stick it out to the finish. Then again, starting is sometimes the hardest part. With that, I'll end.

Be Something

First time founders often build their brand successfully on instinct.

Founders have an idea.

Founders test the idea.

Founders give their idea a name and story.

When CEO's of established brands hire professionals to refresh their brand, the process follows the same pattern because this pattern is nearly universal. By universal, I mean that most things in the universe that operate with free will follow a pattern that goes something like this:

Be Something. (an idea)

Do Something. (and idea as reality)

Say Something. (a name and story for that idea)

Our brains even follow a similar pattern to propel us forward. First we decide to be a person in motion and we lift our foot and intentionally put ourselves off balance. We then decide to go in a direction by leaning that foot in a direction with the belief that we will land safely. We then find ourself in a place that can be defined as somewhere different from our starting point and our brain can say that we've done something.

In short the pattern of walking is looks like this:

Lift your foot.

Lean in a direction.

Land in a new place.

Lift.

Lean.

Land.

Words to live by, and simple reminder that the first step--no pun intended--toward change is deciding to be something else. In the case of walking that means being off balance if even for just a tiny moment.

A B C D E F ___?

Feeling pretty good about yourself for knowing that one, right?

Here’s another one: On your mark. Get set. ____.

Two in a row. You’re on a roll.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a _______. Great job, three in a row.

For many of us, the last one wasn’t as fun as the first.

The first one felt great.

The second one felt easy.

The third on was a mix of too easy, too silly and, “What’s going on here?”

You are thinking right now, “What’s your point Pete?”, and, ironically, so am I.

I’m thinking ‘out loud’ as I write first about how and why we remember these ridiculous patterns, and second about why we felt good on the first one for knowing the answer without any context, and then third how we walk right into the trap of the second, and then finally...but weirdly not sooner...we start asking questions about why I’m musing about such nonsensical things.

I’m asking myself the same thing.

Right now I’m wondering why you’re still reading, and am tempted to stop right here for no good reason.

“And leave us all hanging?”

Hanging on to what exactly? Hanging on to find out why I started this in the beginning?

I don’t know why. I really don’t.

It is, however, making me think that this may be the same roller coaster of emotions that the new-style TV series put us through.

What is that roller coaster? What is the pattern of those emotions and is it possible to replicate them to create this “don’t leave me hanging” feeling.

I’m not a language or journalism professional but I bet they would know.

But before I go there, I have found a point to make that will wrap this whole thing up for the time being. This entry came out of my brain as a stream-of-consciousness thought about how challenging unstructured data is to understand.

It’s a revelation of how incredible the task is to create artificial intelligence.

The nuance of learning the millions of patterns that humans experience every second without really thinking means exposing learning machines to random entries like this one and to make some sense of them even when for some of you this is literally non-sense.

That closure feels good for me even if I don’t take the time to write out the pattern.

That said...

“Live! From Detroit it’s _________!”

Doesn’t work right?

How do we know that?