Lincoln and Dealing with Change
Nov 18 2012

I saw the movie Lincoln last night. I left this comment on Fred Wilson’s post about the movie:

“I saw the movie last night and was deeply impressed with how it was done and the actors rendition of all of their parts. Watching a movie like this gives you perspective on what we have to deal with today in most of our (very lucky) daily lives. The fear & demons Lincoln had to wrestle with must have been tremendous. One line I remember went something like “We can show people that democracy does not have to be chaos.”

As I observe start-ups and small businesses I’ve been involved with, those who have thrived attempt to manage chaos with some sensible structure, coordination among team members, & meaning. Those who don’t have that belief/skill set tend to build continuously chaotic companies with high turnover. Like with a child, the first year or so of chaos and sleepless nights are understandable, but after that healthy parents and healthy kids are expected to start “growing” up so to speak and communicate differently.”

On facebook I posted: “The movie Lincoln is a must see. So well done. Saw it last night. Definitely gives you perspective regarding what people were dealing with then vs. now. Standing up for your beliefs in a smart, intelligent, strategic way is not easy and most go the easy route because the fear of rejection is so huge in many of us.”

The amount of change in our daily lives today gives us very little time to think about our decisions.  We often make decisions hastily without taking the time to analyze what is sometimes an overwhelming amount of information.  We often don’t make decisions at all because we are too used to the the status quo, we worry what people will think of us, or we are paralyzed with the amount of information we feel we need to sift through.  In Lincoln’s time the conflicting information he was receiving was also tremendous, and in his situation there were people’s lives at stake…not just jobs, profits, losses, and Wall Street earnings that many of us deal with today here in the United States.

Author: | Filed under: entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, movie reviews, working dad | Tags: , , | 1 Comment »

Crazy, Stupid, Love
Sep 12 2011

What a great title and a really good movie.  A friend and I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love this past weekend and it was really good.  Steve Carrell (the Office) pulls off his character well.  Even though it’s been out for a while, it was sold out at Alamo Drafthouse Village but had tons of seats open at Regal Gateway so unfortunately we couldn’t snack & drink while we watched the movie.

Marriage is hard.  Life is complicated.  Raising kids is rewarding but exhausting.  Teenage kids are teenage kids.  This movie makes the stupidity of love & marriage “funny” and acknowledges the imperfection of humanity.  It reminded me of American Beauty but it was less dark.  I’m amazed when people can stay married for over 25 years.  I mean, what are the odds of picking the winning horse (or lets just say the horse you will back in sickness, in health, in bad behavior, in richness, poorness, in decency, in bad judgment, in affection, in rudeness, etc.) or them picking you 50 years in a row?  I guess like there are few people who can win or finish the Iron Man Triathlon, there seem to be fewer marriages making it past their children’s graduation from high school.

So, what is love?  It’s crazy, it’s stupid and it usually makes no sense.  In the case of this movie, it means fighting for your soul mate (even if it’s teenager stalker like).  It meant people admitting to and owning their mistakes.  It comes down to communication and listening.  When I was a teenager, I believed in soul mates.  As I got older, not so much.  According to How Many People Do You Have To Meet To Find Your Soul-Mate, you have to meet 23 for a 50/50 chance of finding them.  If you do happen to find them at some point in your life, chances are they will be unavailable.

A guy I once knew told me that “men fall in love; women settle.”  He told me not to think about it too long, because I would realize it was true.  I guess the biological clock or other familial or economic necessity is stronger than the desire for a soul mate.  Plus, if you found him or her and you had babies they’d probably be messed up, kind of like with inbreeding.  🙂 Yuck!  That certainly would explain a lot of literature.

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