Gray Matter Musings Archives - Page 8 of 19

Here’s Why You Always Ask The Obvious Question

By Chris Carosa on June 1, 2021

How many times does this happen to you?

Someone asks you for help in dealing with another person. It could be a negotiation, it could be to convince them, it might even be to ask them for a favor. You judiciously listen to their plight, absorbing where each party stands and what exactly the person seeking your help wants.

In your mind, you construct a verbal argument carefully built to nudge the other party towards the position sought by your friend. You start by suggesting your associate ask the Continue Reading “Here’s Why You Always Ask The Obvious Question”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A.T. Poffenberger, marketing, Negotiating, Persuasion, sales

‘There Must Be A Pony In Here Somewhere!’

By Chris Carosa on May 11, 2021

If you’re old enough to remember simpler times, you’ll recall this title as the punch-line to one of President Reagan’s favorite jokes. The gag revealed not only Reagan’s engaging sense of humor, but also a lot about his political philosophy and his outlook on life.

The essence of the story goes something like this. It’s Christmas morning and two young brothers hurriedly amble towards the Christmas tree to discover their gifts. On one side lay piles of wonderful toys for one of the boys. He looked at it and sorrowfully said, “They’ll all be broken in a day or two.” The other boy’s gift, on the other side of the tree, was nothing but a pile of manure. He quickly grabbed a shovel and began to dig, joyfully telling his dour sibling, “There’s must be a pony in here somewhere!”

It’s the age-old tale of the wonders of optimism contrasted with the annoyance of Continue Reading “‘There Must Be A Pony In Here Somewhere!’”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Advertising, Agate Club, attention, Christmas, J.E. Verree, optimism, psychology, Ronald Reagan, Walter D. Scott, Willam E. Mason

The Great American Maxim: Stand Alone And Win

By Chris Carosa on May 4, 2021

“The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort. Let the game do its work… If a champion defeats the meaning for which the game was designed, then he must lose.”

So says Mr. Bartholomew in 1975’s classic film Rollerball. It’s an American tale. An epic retelling of the classic mantra that fills the heart of every red-blooded citizen from the very founding of our country.

Don’t believe me? Just look at some of the most popular books, films, or any other place where a character must confront personal and public obstacles in heroic fashion. The most compelling of those stories are built around a single individual.

No, it doesn’t take a village to succeed, it takes self-discipline, self-reliance, and, ultimately, Continue Reading “The Great American Maxim: Stand Alone And Win”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Batman, entrepreneur, James Caan, Jim Carrey, Jonathan E., Mr. Bartholomew, Rollerball, success, Superman, The Justice League, you

Let’s Start Laughing Again!

By Chris Carosa on March 30, 2021

Everybody loves to laugh. So why don’t we anymore?

This isn’t funny. It’s true.

If you want to know the reason why, go to almost any social media platform. For that matter, read any headline. Whether from the right or from the left, you’re vilified once you stray too close to the shoulder of an ever-narrowing path.

Time was you could walk smoothly in a sea of honest humor. You’d laugh. You’d cringe. You’d get that awkward feeling. But it was all good. You accepted this variety of hits and misses because you liked to laugh. And there were enough hits to keep you laughing which made the trade-off worthwhile.

It seems today people would rather get angry than laugh. They’d prefer to take the easy Continue Reading “Let’s Start Laughing Again!”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged blame, Chris Rock, College, gag, gig, joke, laughter, self-depricating humor, stand-up comedy

How Has Your Workday Changed?

By Chris Carosa on March 16, 2021

It’s been a year. For twelve months we’ve been (or at least many of us have been) working from home. Even those fortunate enough (or unfortunate enough, depending on your perspective) to have returned to the office have discovered there’s no going back to what once was.

If you can take a moment (do you even have a moment anymore) to sit back and consider the evolution of work, it may strike you we’ve come full circle.

Skipping caveman times, let’s accelerate right up to what is known as the “Agricultural Economy.” You remember learning about that in school, don’t you? It existed pretty much Continue Reading “How Has Your Workday Changed?”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Agricultural Economy, Content Economy, Covid, Covid Economy, Industrial Economy, Judeo-Christian, Middle Ages, Office Economy, remote work, Thomas Edison, virtual convention, virtual meeting, work from home, Zoom, Zoom fatigue

Forget About The Known Unknowns, It’s The Unknown Unknowns That Get You Every Time

By Chris Carosa on March 2, 2021

There’s an old adage that stipulates “generals are always fighting the last war.” This says more about the stultifying effects of age and experience than it does about military acumen.

As we live our lives, we accumulate knowledge. We use this knowledge to provide convenient short-cuts when we make decisions. That’s a good thing.

But those short-cuts assume a certain kind of status quo that cannot exist. That’s a bad thing.

Since we’re on the subject of old adages, there’s one from ancient Greece which warns “you can never step foot in the same river twice.”

At first that makes no sense. Why, just about any GPS will lead you to the same river time and time again. You can even dip your toe in each and every occasion.

Ah, but is it really the same river? Has not the water you touched that very first instance traveled far down the river and probably emptied itself into some larger body of water?

You see, a river is like time. It is constantly moving. The only way to make it stand still is to Continue Reading “Forget About The Known Unknowns, It’s The Unknown Unknowns That Get You Every Time”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged ad lib, Be Prepared, decision making, fork in the road, game theory, Greece, Heraclitus, improv, mad lib, Military, river, scenario analysis, war game

Blackballed Again: Are You Prepared?

By Chris Carosa on February 23, 2021

Be honest. If the title had been “Are you prepared to be cancelled?” would you be reading this first sentence? Or how about “Are you prepared to be de-platformed?”? Would that have lured you in? Or does it sound too geeky?

The fact is, those modern-day synonyms merely reflect an awful tradition that dates back centuries, if not to the beginning of man’s time on Earth.

Indeed, there’s a really bad 1986 movie called The Clan of the Cave Bear. It stars Daryl Hannah, whose main character is ostracized from her Neanderthal family. As far as I can tell, they blackballed her because, unlike all the brunettes in the clan, she had blonde hair. (Of course, being caveman times and the lack of adequate shower facilities, perhaps it would be more accurate to describe her as a “dirty blonde.”)

In terms of good cinema, there’s always Looney Tunes’ 1953 cartoon “Bell Hoppy,” featuring Sylvester the Cat voicing the phrase “Blackballed again” when the Loyal Order of Alley Catz Mouse and Chowder Club declines his membership.

Most of us have had the unfortunate experience of being left out. It usually happens when Continue Reading “Blackballed Again: Are You Prepared?”

Posted in Business Tips, Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Australia, cancel culture, Daryll Lamonica, de-platform, diversication, diversity, facebook, Google, media, The Clan of the Cave Bear, Trump, YouTube

Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME

By Chris Carosa on February 9, 2021

Search for the term “criminal hubris” and chances are you won’t find anything (except, hopefully, this woeful column). We know what a criminal is. We know what hubris is. But there is no definition of “criminal hubris.”

Yet there is, and it’s staring at us right in the face. Metaphorically, it’s all around us. Cinematographically, it resides on the screens we watch. Its roots, however, lie within the body of literature – both philosophical and dramatic – we ought to be most familiar with.

Whether as a metaphor for real-life, a character in a story, or an actual crime, “criminal hubris” is easy to spot (if you’ve got a trained eye), hard to avoid (if you’re arrogant), and, best of all, wonderful to watch (because it hoists offenders with their own petard quite regularly).

Before I reveal the “7 Steps of Criminal Hubris” let’s explore the origins of “hubris” and Continue Reading “Criminal Hubris: It Gets Them Every TIME”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged Aristotle, contempt, criminal, Greek, Hamlet, hubris, insolence, James Bond, James Cagney, Kuzco, Macbeth, O.J. Simpson, rhetoric, Shakespeare, slighting, spite, Superbowl, The Emperor's New Groove, Time Magazine, White Heat, World Series

OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…

By Chris Carosa on January 26, 2021

I’m finally confused.

What day is it?

Maybe it was the Holidays. Maybe it was non-stop football. Whatever it was, my internal chronometer, once an adept timepiece, can’t tell whether Monday, or Thursday, Tuesday or Saturday, Wednesday or Friday.

And Sundays? Isn’t every day Sunday now?

Lest you think this represents a sudden onset of temporal disorder, bear in mind that, for a few years now, my question has been “What week is it?”

You see, when you write for publication, you write for a deadline. That deadline rarely is Continue Reading “OK, I’m Ready To Admit It…”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, Memoir of a Real Life, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged cicadia, cicadian cycle, circadian rhythm, football, internal clock, Lake-effect Snow, suprachiasmatic

What 2020 Revealed About Us (And Maybe You, Too)

By Chris Carosa on January 5, 2021

“The Sea Rises,” 1894, an engraving in The Writings of Charles Dickens, volume 20, A Tale of Two Cities

It began as the best of years and ended as the worst of years. Did it?

Or perhaps it was the best of years and it was the worst of years.

If that second phrase sounds familiar, you’re either an astute historical observer or you’re well versed in Victorian literature (or both).

In 1859, Charles Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities. The novel opened with the following:Continue Reading “What 2020 Revealed About Us (And Maybe You, Too)”

Posted in Gray Matter Musings, The Compleat Carosa Commentaries Tagged A Tale of Two Cities, American Revolution, Andrew Cuomo, Annus Horribilis, Charles Darnay, Charles Dickens, French Revolution, gamer, optimism, Sydney Carton, wicked