On this day

November 18th

Driveway moments

9 Days Ago

The driveway moment: When a report or interview really works, you can tell and we can tell. We can, because the story hits the top of the most emailed list at NPR.org. You can tell, because the story keeps you pinned in your car, in a parking lot, in your driveway, or at the side of the road—as you wait to hear how the story will end. In letters and emails, listeners named these occurrences “driveway moments,” and say they look forward to them, even when it means being late for work or dinner. So that’s your goal: make some driveway moments.

~ Jay Kernis, from Sound Reporting, pg xi

I’m finally heading into NPR’s book, Sound Reporting, and this big of context included by Kernis in the Foreword got me thinking…

What are you doing so that you even know when you’ve put out a “driveway moment?”

It doesn’t matter at all if we feel it’s a driveway moment. It matters if our listeners think so. Are you paying attention to your listeners? Do you have multiple ways for them to connect back to you?

I do think about “driveway moments” when creating episodes. It’s difficult however, given the way that I create my work; They have to simply happen. If one wants to create them, that requires planning, work and editing.

For me, when I encounter a listener (virtually or in real life) the only question I ask them is…

Has any episode grabbed you? …any particular moment or image?

And then I shut up and listen.

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Basic values

November 18, 2022

There are some consistencies in what we all value. For example, most of us tend to prioritize caring for others more highly than dominating and controlling others—the latter two “are among the least important values to most people in most societies.”

~ Chris Bailey from, https://alifeofproductivity.com/there-are-just-10-basic-values/

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I really enjoy sipping a cup of tea and taking a stroll through the gardens of others’ minds. Seeing the topiaries they’ve created never ceases to amaze me. Integration of knowledge is a hard problem (the hardest of all as a mere mortal?) Being able to see how someone has organized their thinking helps me examine how I’ve organized my thinking. Certainly, there are gardens I don’t bother visiting. But generally, being open and curious has led me to countless conversations of both the actual kind and the kind to which Niccolò Machiavelli refers.

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Leadership

November 18, 2021

People think that leadership is something that just happens. One is anointed a leader. One is promoted to leadership. One is born into leadership. And of course, this is not the case.

~ Ryan Holiday from, https://ryanholiday.net/18-things-i-stole-from-some-of-historys-greatest-leaders/

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Holiday is most famous for his work raising awareness of the ancient, but still very apropos today, philosophy of Stoicism. (Not to be confused with the very different english word, “stoic.”) But this article is all about leadership. It’s a wonderful survey of guide stars. I’m particularly fond of the idea that a leader doesn’t make things worse.

My bias towards taking action… my urge to make a change to make things better… far too often I make things worse. If my life had an omniscient narrator, there’d be a lot of scenes that start with, “Here Craig forgot a hard won lesson. Despite not having a clear idea how to help, he still put his two cents in.” (Cue slow-motion footage of car crash unfolding. Cut to black. Roll end credits.)

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Turmoil

November 18, 2020

It’s the pursuit of these things, and your attempts to avoid them, that leave you in such turmoil. And yet they aren’t seeking you out; you are the one seeking them. Suspend judgement about them. And at once they will lie still, and you will be freed from fleeing and pursuing.

~ Marcus Aurelius

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There’s nothing small about the world

November 18, 2018

(Part 66 of 72 in series, My Journey)

Now I realize I was not giving up anything of any use to anyone. The news never really added to my knowledge in any meaningful way. It just added a steady stream of limited and unsubstantiated viewpoints on select issues to my head, which is already full of limited and unsubstantiated viewpoints. The news doesn’t inform you about what’s happening in the world. The news only informs you of what’s on the news.

~ David Cain from, http://www.raptitude.com/2009/06/theres-nothing-small-about-the-world/

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One of the first steps I ever took in turning my life around was to get a handle on my information “diet.” In the beginning, there was TV. I was horribly mistaken in thinking that it was possible to obtain any useful news from TV. (There’s plenty of entertainment on TV if you’re willing to guzzle advertising with it.) Early on, perhaps around ~1993, I realized you could use RSS (and it’s many descendent flavors) to watch [as in, “notice when things are published”, not “mindlessly stare at”] information sources of my choosing.

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You might try mowing the lawn

November 18, 2013

Researchers in Sweden measured the health of almost 4,000 60-year-olds in the late 1990s. A dozen years later, they checked back in. The people who had been active but not “exercising” at age 60 had a 27 percent lower risk of heart attack and stroke over that time, and a 30 percent lower risk of death.

…

What kind of activity does it take to get those kind of numbers? Things like mowing the lawn, housework, fix-it projects, gardening, bicycling, and, for a nice Scandinavian touch, “gathering mushrooms or berries.”

~ Nancy Shute from, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/29/241618771/for-a-longer-life-you-might-try-mowing-the-lawn

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