Vinceland

Godin writes “The most important thing you can do is choose who you’re hanging out with.”

What a crucial decision. Think of all the people you hang out with and how just hanging out with them has affected your life already. All of those little decisions, every day, ganged up to stick you right where you are today.

The article Seth wrote about suggests that decisions are contagious. Like the decision to over-eat, the decision to do drugs, or the decision to move to Portland, Oregon. If you hang around people who do these things, you’re way more likely to decide to do the same thing.

What’s scary about it for me is how all of those little decisions can have some seriously large consequences. For example, Imagine that I decide to grab a slice of pizza with a co-worker and he decides to drive, I ride shotgun. I would not have decided to do that if he had not suggested it, even though I eat too much pizza. It was an easy decision, one I might not have come to without him mentioning that he had decided to go for pizza.

He chooses the joint, we get some slabs. I have never been to this pizza joint, but I trust his decision, because, hey, it’s just pizza, right?

The cheese is rotten and I get terrible diarrhea. I am poisoned, I am sick for days. My business suffers and my wife’s life changes because I am home sick. Our dogs get less exercise and decide to chew up our favorite pillow. Our lawn grows thick and our flowers die. My mom wonders what’s wrong with me and asks why I am sick all of the time. I spend money on medicine. I get sick on the rug and stain it. I am dehydrated, miserable and my clients forget about me, even for a few days.

My life is changed, for the worse. Nothing good came of that pizza trip. It cost me a lot.

Someone who might know the dude who took me to pizza should have warned me about him. He is a shitty restauranteur, he eats garbage, he’s got a steel stomach, he’s clueless about Portland, he’s got bad luck. How was I to know?

I might never have met this dude had I not decided to hire him as a contractor. (This is not a true story…FYI) He convinced us he was a good widget-maker, a widget wizard. So we hired him, and he took me to pizza and I got sick and all that other shit happened.

One simple choice that dude made was contagious, I went along without making up my own decision, and shit happened. You can see how other people’s decisions around you can severely affect your life.

Is that effect going to be Good or Bad? Great or Terrible? Wonderful or Disastrous? Amazing or Disgusting? Perfect or Failure? Spot-on or Jacked? Helpful or Harmful? Successful or Eternally Damning?

• Who to work with?
• Who to sit next to?
• Who to go out to lunch with?
• Who to have a beer with?
• Who to go fishing with?
• Who to eat with?
• Who to hire?
• Who to ask a favor of?
• Who to ask advice from?
• Who to invite?
• Who to partner up with?
• Who to go to the show with?
• Who to grab a ride from?
• Who to collaborate with?
• Who to play with?
• Who to love?
• Who to pick up?
• Who to meet?
• Who to follow?
• Who to remember?

For me, it all started in the sandbox at Rock Spring Country Club. It was there I met my best friend, Russ. I had landed in his world. I had to make the first move.

Russ had a bigger, better Matchbox car collection and he built better tracks and bridges for them. He figured out how to dig down into the wetter sand to get the good stuff, the stuff that held together. He had his corner of the box dialed and always had the best roads for his cars. I wanted some of that shit.

So over time, I started nudging my pudgy ass over towards him. Sometimes crying, rainy weather or a crap in a diaper would get in the way and set me back days in my quest. But I persisted, checking out his cars, stealing a drive through his matchbox-car-sand-world when his mom came and picked him up. When Russ got back, he saw the tracks from my cars, he knew I’d been there. But he played it cool and never got pissy.

Eventually, we were able to communicate in rudimentary ways. Smiles, frowns, hand and/or foot gestures, the occasional grunt. As time went on, Russ accepted my presence and actually welcomed it. We began to build bigger tracks together and our car collection morphed into one gigantic Matchbox garage with more trucks, cars and rescue vehicles than the Rock Spring sandbox had ever seen before or since. We soon became unstoppable and that little sandbox by the lake was our conquered domain. Very few children dared to compete against the mechanical wizardry Russ brought combined with the raw creativity I contributed to our team.

Russ and I collaborated on many projects through childhood, teen-age life and into college. Most of those involved either lego’s, golf clubs, beer, girls, snowboards, skis, trucks or lacrosse sticks. Almost all of them were successful and we supported each other through those crazy formative years. More often than not, I supported Russ, a crutch, so to speak. But that gave me something to focus on, so we both ended up in a better place.

I hung out with Russ a ton from 2 years old to 22 years old. Many of Russ’s choices affected mine, and vice-versa. His choices backfired on us once in a while, but never to the point of being deadly… dangerous maybe… but never life-threatening. My choices probably screwed us a couple times, but we worked it out together, like building sandbox bridges for matchbox cars.

It was a good partnership. There’s a reason that we hung out so much. It’s the same reason that he’s my best friend. (It’s also the reason I am married to Meghan.) I still hope he’s making good choices these days. And I am glad it was Russ in the sandbox and not some dumb-ass.

I realized the other day that my favorite two things in the truck were Sirius and the Center Console.

• Sirius is the stupider of our two dogs, and my favorite.
• The center console is the best feature of the Silverado, and my favorite.
• Sirius tends to roll over, urinate on his own belly, and lap it up.
• The center console is many things at once, and does it all well, like a seagull.
• Sirius is great because I’ve never seen him be a real asshole. He doesn’t know how.
• The center console changes my seat into a couch.
• Sirius would be a great bird dog.
• The center console keeps me from touching the man beside me.
• Sirius never licks me when I’m not expecting it.
• The center console holds cans, cups and large bottles, with shock absorption for no loss of precious juice.
• Sirius has an underbite like a boxer and his lips get caught up on his jacked teeth.
• The center console is like a condo for my crap.
• Sirius is smooth and black.
• The center console is smooth and black.
• Sirius leaves poo bombs where ever he cares to.
• The center console has just enough padding to cushion my sensitive spots.
• Sirius can’t crap without urinating on himself at the same time.
• The center console flips up to act as a backrest for a middle- front- seat- rider.
• Sirius chases invisible cats along the fencelines of our back yard.
• The center console has a misty locker area underneath for illegal items.
• Sirius runs straight some days and crooked most days.
• The center console is the perfect mobile personal dinner table.
• Sirius breaks out of the yard sometimes, but he stops soon after and just stands there looking around, as if he’d crossed into another dimension. He’s easy to catch in this state.
• The center console helps perfectly position my ass in the seat every time.
• Sirius hates his leash and gentle leader.
• The center console provides the perfect separation between two men on the road to the fishing hole. Elbows never touch. There is no awkward closeness or unwanted contact of the skin.
• Sirius is totally content to sleep, any time, any place. One the road trip from east to west, he slept 12 hours a day, and then slept all night too.
• The center console has three slots: one for my drink, one for my Treo, and one for my Ipod.
• Sirius lives to have some part of him touching some part of you.
• The center console has no life.
• Sirius is waiting for me most of the time.
• The center console exists at the galactic core of the vehicle.
• Sirius has no idea what stars and planets are.
• The center console makes driving more comfortable.
• Sirius is not a picky eater, but he appreciates some savory sauce or extras thrown in every now and then.
• The center console remembers nothing.
• Sirius has a very short memory, and life span.
• The center console makes no decisions for itself.
• Sirius has pulled some stupid moves in his limited days.
• The center console makes the stereo look like an idiot.
• Sirius is nice to children.
• The center console would never fit in an Audi.
• Sirius seems at home in large vehicles.
• The center console is a platform for ideas.
• Sirius is named after the dog star, and a movie character.
• The center console has a pretty lame future.
• Sirius has a disfunctional unit.
• The center console is something I look forward to leaning against, every day.
• Sirius is the master of just one thing: His own little life.

Unused: “Eardropper“.

Or, Eardroppr, if Web 2.0 is your thing.

My theory is that people have too much to worry about these days. It forces people to medicate and relieve their stress in one way or another. It also forces people to be less-than-perfect just to get by in their daily lives.

We need to worry about less to be better at whatever we’re good at.

I realized the other day that almost everything I do is a worry. I worry about something, and I take care of it. If I don’t have to worry about it, nothing needs to be done. Does that make sense? Lately there have been very few days with “no worries.” Like, none.

It’s almost as if I don’t do anything unless I make it a worry for myself. How do I make things for myself to worry about? Let’s count the ways: I-cal, Basecamp, Backpack, Highrise, Sticky notes, reminders, cell phone memos, saved email, file folders, Treo 650…

What are you worried about?

• I watered the flowers and plants because I was worried they’d turn brown before Meghan’s parents came to the house.
• I cut my hair because I am worried I might grow a mullet.
• I do laundry and shower and shave because I am worried I’ll look shitty… and my wife might leave me.
• I work hard because I’m worried I won’t have enough dough to support our living habits in the long run.
• I call home because I am worried my mom will be pissed that I haven’t called home in a while.
• I eat because I am worried I might become too skinny.
• I drive a newer car because I am worried a cheaper, used one might be a pain in the ass.
• I hire a painter because I am worried about two things: 1. I won’t do a good enough job. 2. I won’t have time to finish the job.
• We’re picky about who we hire at Instrument because we’re worried that we might not pick the right person for the job.
• We take our dogs to the park because we’re worried they might destroy the house with all of the pent up energy inside of them.
• I play video games because I am worried… well those are just for fun.
• I go fishing to catch fish and put them back because I am worried that if I don’t teach them what it’s like to get caught and released, they might get caught by someone else and NOT get released. I am an educator of the fishes in this way.
• I plug things in because I am worried I might walk into something in the dark or run out of battery power on my laptop or eat bread instead of toast.
• I wear pretty normal clothing and shoes because I’m worried I might look like an a-hole.
• I spend money when I need to, spend money when I want to and work hard and work smart because I am worried I might run out.
• I need to hook up the Tivo because I am worried I am not getting the full value out of the $60 cable bill we endure every month.
• I keep my wallet, with my keys and my phone, together in the same places most of the time, because I am worried I won’t be able to find them when I need them.
• I keep old letters, papers and pictures because I am worried I might forget how much they meant to me when I first received them.
• I read websites, blogs and news stories because I am worried I might not be aware of important things. These things also make you look smarter when you’re talking to smart people.
• I look around and notice and listen because I am worried things might pass me by that would be enjoyable, important or totally crucial to see and hear.
• I make sure the people I care about know that I care about them on a regular basis, with honest words and actions.
• I try to plan ahead, but not too far, and I like to know what’s coming so I can plan, because I am worried about unpleasant surprises. More surprises are unpleasant than those that are desireable.

So, if I look worried or distressed, don’t worry about me. It’s totally normal, daily behavior.

Well, not really.

But it is the perfect truck for us.

And it even has a Flex Fuel badge to make me feel better about myself.

Thanks Lori!!