Being Bored

I was watching the daily show last night and a commercial came on for weight watchers. Along with several seemingly good features offered by Weight Watchers program was the fact that it will teach “ways to eat filling foods so you don’t eat when you’re bored.” Now I understand that some people have eating problems and this isn’t at all meant to address that topic. I feel as if boredom is an issue that affects our country and it is ruining America.

I haven’t been bored in so long. I don’t really get bored, ever. The reason for that is my natural human curiosity. Curiosity which was oppressed or restrained throughout my childhood. Again this is not a topic about me, I’m making the point that Americans have become so mentally lazy that discovery or self-discovery at a young age is frowned upon. Sure there is a segment of each generation that becomes early adopters and trendsetters/makers, but the bulk of each “class” (meaning a sort of graduating class) turns into “do what they tell you and don’t raise your hand unless you have the right answer” people.

“I am Rick Wagoner, I have worked all my life to be CEO of GM and now that I’m here I’m not going to anything differently than the last guy, lest I screw something up even worse than were screwed now.”

These are the people who are running our large companies into a wall. Really smart and competent people who simply play by the old rules and do what their or their companies legacy behooves, rather than thinking forward and making something better.

Cars depend on technology. But if Intel made chips that were only slightly faster than their previous generation, there would be no reason to buy new chips. Same logic applies to Apple; if the new macbooks were the same as last year but they put 2009 in all their marketing, people would not rush to buy them. If you were to take a 1992 ford Taurus and compare it to a 1999 ford Taurus there was little difference. In 1992 the Ford Taurus was the best family sedan on the road. In 1999 the Camry and Accord had leapfrogged Ford and GM two times over. But look at a 1992 Camry and compare it to a 1996 camry then compare to the 1999 Camry. Each is significantly better than the last.

The car comparison is a perfect example or fading American industry in the face of international competition. The same thing happened to the financial industry last year. Sure there were lots of really complicated things that made all this happen, but imho it was laziness. Laziness on the part of the SEC to regulate the industry, but really laziness on the part of the executives to really analyze what was happening. “We have been trading mortgages and subprime loans and all sorts of credit swaps for years now, how could anything go wrong?” Well the world changed and technology and communication advances made it easier to do business far away. People took loans they couldn’t afford because the guy who gave them the loan was 2000 miles away, what are they gonna do? The guy who sold the loan doesn’t care at all what happens to it because his company just bundled all the loans and sold them to somebody else “Not my problem.” The credit traders kept buying debt and re-bundling it and reselling it - and making money - “as long as other people want to buy this debt there’s no reason we can’t make money off of it” What happens when no one wants to buy that debt anymore? And when the music stopped the ball of debt fell to the ground and everyone involved just stood up and pointed fingers and dealt blame and did nothing.

UNC and Duke are good at basketball every single year. Every year they are good. They aren’t good because they have long term contracts with the best players. They are good because their coaching staff trains them to work together as a team, to work as hard as they can, to the best of their ability. The Yankees were so good for so long because they worked as a team, they won close games - in the 9th inning! And their players developed into a team. Today the Yankees are lazy, they just spend as much money as possible on the best players and expect them to win.
GM was the largest auto company in the world for so long, not because it was the best or worked the hardest, but because it was the only biggest auto company in the world. Today there is competition and GM’s competition is working harder than them, evolving faster, and making better products.

I doubt there are many people who know more than Rick Wagoner about the auto industry. Its hard to argue that there is a more talented baseball player than Alex Rodriguez. In 2007 Lehman Brothers was one of the richest companies in the world. But how many World Series has A-Rod won for his team? How is GM doing? We know what happened to Lehman.

I’m not blaming Arod for the Yankees playoff miss last year, but I’m blaming the Yankees for Arod. They brought him in to win, they didn’t so its his fault - blame him. Last time I checked there are 2o-some people on their roster? But its easy to blame Arod. Its easy to blame Rick Wagoner and Fuld and every other high profile person who’s catching blame. That way we avoid the curiosity that might reveal our own piece of guilt. We avoid self-discovery that could expose a flaw in ourselves. We avoid actually doing anything and we move on. Its all ok, this was all Maddoff’s fault, he’s gone now so everything is ok. The inauguration hype is another perfect example. All the people who mocked Bush’s “Magic Wand” statements are now expecting Mr. Obama to wave his magic wand and fix everything. “I voted, I did my part so they better fix everything!”

Well your part isn’t done. We aren’t along in this thing alone. This is a huge world and there are hundreds of people you see everyday, hundreds of millions of people in this country and over 6 Billion on this earth. Take that into perspective next time you make a decision. Teams are built - not made, teams become champions and heroes arise from champions. Heroes are not made with blame, cynicism, or hate. They are made through hard work, effort, and desire to succeed.

The underlying reason that people in this country are getting fat because they eat when they are bored is the same underlying reason why so many problems are surfacing throughout this country’s economy. We are lazy, we are quick to blame and we lack desire to succeed. Aiming for good enough will end your streak pretty quickly. Being bored is being lazy. Read a book, write a blog, see what twitter is all about - go for a jog or a walk, do something productive. But rest assure blame is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but it doesn’t get you any where.

The world has fundamentally changed, and everyone who remains lazy and bored will be left behind. This includes companies, people, businesses large and small. Its time to innovate and look at yourself and your competition and decide whether you are going to be better/faster/smarter than them, or blame some market condition for you’re situation. Its hard on everyone, so try something new and learn something. Or just sit there in your rocking chair, blaming and doing nothing, bored.