Christmas Trees and Memories

I like to reflect back now and then on experiences I had with my Dad, Rodger Goodwin. He was born in 1911 and he lived for 90 years.

One of my favorite times to spend with my Dad was shopping for the Christmas tree and then decorating it. I know I am a lot like him - even as far as picking a tree based on the shape of the tree, the spacing of the branches, the pine needles and the size of the trunk.

We would visit the lots with all of the pine trees, and for the many years in Cleveland and then Lexington, Ky., I can remember how very cold it could be wandering around a snowy land of trees.

My Dad always wore his heavy leather mittens that could manage the cold and the snow, and then heave our tree into his station wagon. I can see him in his hat with fur trim and heavy winter coat, and his rubber galoshes.

We must have gone at night for our trees, because I recall how much I liked how the lots were circled with cords of large white bulbs - it always looked so magical.

Why so much fuss over the our trees over the years? We expressed our artistry many ways, and creating a beautiful tree was important! Putting the lights on to make sure there was plenty of color, and then placing the special ornaments just so was important. When it was all said and done we would just sit back and stare in a dreamy kind of way at the sparkle and take in the fragrance of the pine.

Outliers: Gladwell Weighs In

Greetings - I am interested in Malcolm Gladwell's new book "Outliers." So I went to his website and he discusses it there - and since I have not read it yet I am providing some of his thoughts. I like to cover innnovation, creativity and ways that people approach life. In statistics, an outlier is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data. Dictionary.com says an outlier
is a person who lives away from his place of work or an extreme deviation from the mean.

Here is what Gladwell says.

"I think this is the way in which Outliers is a lot like Blink and Tipping Point. They are all attempts to make us think about the world a little differently. The hope with Tipping Point was it would help the reader understand that real change was possible. With Blink, I wanted to get people to take the enormous power of their intuition seriously. My wish with Outliers is that it makes us understand how much of a group project success is. When outliers become outliers it is not just because of their own efforts. It's because of the contributions of lots of different people and lots of different circumstances— and that means that we, as a society, have more control about who succeeds—and how many of us succeed—than we think. That's an amazingly hopeful and uplifting idea.

"I write books when I find myself returning again and again, in my mind, to the same themes. I wrote Tipping Point because I was fascinated by the sudden drop in crime in New York City—and that fascination grew to an interest in the whole idea of epidemics and epidemic processes. I wrote Blink because I began to get obsessed, in the same way, with the way that all of us seem to make up our minds about other people in an instant—without really doing any real thinking. In the case of Outliers, the book grew out a frustration I found myself having with the way we explain the careers of really successful people. You know how you hear someone say of Bill Gates or some rock star or some other outlier—"they're really smart," or "they're really ambitious?' Well, I know lots of people who are really smart and really ambitious, and they aren't worth 60 billion dollars. It struck me that our understanding of success was really crude—and there was an opportunity to dig down and come up with a better set of explanations."

How Does an Iconoclast Think?

I like to cover stories about innovation on this blog, but I think this has interesting scientific merit so I am posting on WendSight, too.

From an Emory University press release we learn about a new book: Iconoclast: A Neuroscientist Reveals How to Think Differently (Harvard Business Press, 2008) - Gregory Berns, MD, PhD, shows us how the world's most successful innovators think and what we can learn from them.

Berns is distinguished chair of neuroeconomics, professor of economics at Emory University, and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Emory University School of Medicine. He focuses his research on human motivation and decision-making through a blend of neuroscience, economics and psychology.

"Iconoclasts are individuals who do things that others say can't be done," explains Berns. "An iconoclast defies the rules, but given the opportunity, can be an asset to any organization because of the skill to be creative and innovative despite adversity."

The book examines the stories of famous and not-so-famous iconoclasts to learn something about creative decision-making, innovation and creativity and the ability to control fear, and to look at the neuroscience behind those processes. Berns profiles people such as Walt Disney, the iconoclast of animation; Natalie Maines, an accidental iconoclast; and Martin Luther King, who conquered fear.

Berns says that many successful iconoclasts are made not born. For various reasons, they simply see things differently than other people do.

"Certainly there are people who are born this way, but what I have been able to learn about these individuals is that most successful iconoclasts are people who are skilled at handling failure and particularly at handling fear - fear of failure, fear of the unknown," says Berns. He also discovered a trait that ultimately distinguishes the people who are really successful is social intelligence.

"A person can have the greatest idea in the world - completely different and novel - but if that person can't convince enough other people, it doesn't matter," says Berns.

Moon and the Sun

The moon is in the west; the sun is in the east; over the lake. Tennessee summer 2008.

The Light Flickers Through the Trees

Now and then I like to think about a special moment when everything feels so right. Everyone has this kind of moment - sometimes it lasts a few seconds, sometimes for a few minutes, or sometimes even a few hours.

When I was 28 in 1978 and moved to Tallahassee with John, he started graduate school in September and I was awaiting the start of school for me in January. I worked at night waiting tables, but my days were free. I really mean free, and daydreamy and kind.

The special moments came frequently then, and I think it was because I could live energetically and creatively and quietly in the very moment. Here is how many days went: I would get up early, pack a lunch, pack a blanket, pack Sasha [Sasha Isadora Dylan, my sable collie] and Camus [Autumn's Moonhaze Camus, my tri-color collie] and jump in my fantastic speed demon navy blue metallic VW Rabbit and drive to the Gulf with my windows open and my hair blowing back.

About an hour's drive from Tallahassee was Alligator Point, a funky beach area where you could throw down a blanket anytime. To reach this beach, you drove along quiet two-lane roads that were bordered by sandy turf and scruffy trees common to the Florida Panhandle. By driving early you could see the sun flickering through the skinny pines.

Once at the beach the sun was up higher and the sky was a flat powder blue with an occasional wisp of white. The sand was white with a few shells coming in near a sandbar. Sasha, Camus and I would walk along the water's edge, playing and soaking in the sun.

After a few hours I could feel the hot sun tanning by body and warming my skin - such a fantastic feeling. With the sun high in the sky, I would make my journey home to take a cool shower and cover myself in a soothing cocoa butter, and then put on a soft, clean cotton shirt and shorts and a pair of flip flops.