Hasta La Gadget!

I am sneezing in between paragraphs, coughing at the completion of each sentence and wiping my bloodshot eyes as I proofread this column. I see no need to visit the doctor, for I know this horrible cold will pass.

The symptoms always dissipate approximately one week after I have attended a wedding.

I don’t know what it is about an event that bonds two people in holy matrimony, but I always end up sick after partaking in one…and that includes my own. A mere two days after saying, “I do” to the love of my life, the “sickness” of “in sickness and health” took center stage as I spent the next seven days sneezing and expelling phlegm off a Hawaiian balcony. My bride was sympathetic to my plight, collecting tissues and making trips to the gift shop for cold medicine, but I think that’s only because, in 1993, iPhones and mobile apps were a mere glint in Steve Jobs’ eye. Otherwise, she would have been perfectly content to play Candy Crush and eat macadamia nuts on the beach until I felt better.

I’ve even caught summer wedding colds, an illness that garners no sympathy. Tell someone in January that you are suffering from nasal distress and they will offer chicken soup, babysitting services and maybe even a willingness to take your shift driving the weekly car pool. Do the same thing in August and you come off as Wimp #1.

Maybe it’s all that hugging, touching and kissing that goes on during a wedding reception, particularly in the receiving line. A recent study in the biomedical journal Microbiome concluded that 80 million bacteria are transferred during a kiss. It should be noted that the subjects in this study kissed for 10 seconds, an inordinate — and creepy — length of time in a receiving line. Furthermore, the subjects touched tongues. Again, creepy, even if you are an ex who is still on friendly terms with your now married former soulmate.

But even a one second peck for the bride and, possibly, her mother must generate some nasty bacteria. How else to explain my post-wedding acute viral rhinopharyngitis? (Note: Using the scientific name can make you sound like less of a wimp).

Who knows? Maybe I touched an already contaminated individual in the obligatory wedding conga line that snaked through the banquet hall. Or picked up something on the dance floor — and by that I mean the floor itself — when I was one of a hundred or so revelers writhing on the hardwood during the “a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now” portion of Shout. Or didn’t realize I was in line behind the guest who fondles every puff pastry on the hors d’oeuvre tray before choosing one.

Whatever the cause, I need to pinpoint it quick because it won’t be long before weddings make up the bulk of my social life. We all know wedding invitations come in spurts; they begin in your 20s as your high school and college friends take the marital plunge. When children enter the picture, the invites cease, save for those on their second or third go-round. But, in the blink of an eye, your friends’ kids become adults, find their partners and walk down the aisle. It’s just a shame my immune system can’t keep up with the increasing number of celebrations I’ll soon be attending.

How come I never see hand sanitizer or spray at a wedding? I can’t walk 10 feet through an airport, health club or office building without constantly being reminded that disease is lurking throughout and I should take proper precautions. A bottle of Purell next to the guest book could do wonders for my future health.

Perhaps I should start bringing my own line of defense. Donning a surgical mask while waiting to greet the bride and groom may be overdoing it but some antibacterial wipes in my suit pocket should do the trick.

They’ll come in handy when, instead of kissing the bride, I offer a congratulatory, 10-second fist bump.

(c) 2014 GREG SCHWEM. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC

“It is through gratitude for the present moment that
the spiritual dimension of life opens up.” -Eckhart Tolle

Another step that awakens your spirit through adversity is gratitude.

The word “gratitude” comes from the root word gratus(Latin), which means pleasing. One interpretation of gratitude might be that when we are pleased with something or someone, we are grateful. If we look deeper within ourselves, we also might see that when we are feeling grateful, we are pleased with the world around us.

Gratitude reminds us to find our happiness in everything — in exceptional things, in mundane things, in good things, in so-so things and even in terrible things.

Our aches and pains, our new grandchild’s first smile, our moments of doubt and fear, our upbringing, what our teachers thought of us, what our friends think of us, what the state of our retirement plan is, our illness, aging, the process of dying, a phone call from an old friend — all are part of an automatic feedback system directing us to pay attention.

We can be grateful in both large and small ways. When we are feeling thankful, we can be more receptive to making a difference in our world.

When our hearts are open, forgiveness and gratitude evolve simultaneously, each supporting and nurturing the other. Rather than focusing on the “what might have been more, better, or different,” why not start being grateful for what you’ve chosen? In these moments, we find our blessings. And because of our blessings, we are grateful for our lives.

I believe that when people approach the end of their life and know they have only a short time left to live and no time to waste, they open up their hearts more profoundly, knowing they have less, not more, time to live. When I review my life and pay attention to the ways I might have studied a second language or had children or bought that water property in Florida, or my retirement, or traveled to Japan; I stop, slow down, remember who I am, and forgive myself, awakening to the depth of my compassion for myself.

Forgiveness takes on a life of its own. I now have a “bucket list” of what I want to accomplish before I pass on. Writing and completing my book, Wheelchair Wisdom before the end of the year was item #3 on that list!

I am so grateful to my spiritual teachers and my husband, Michael, who have supported me and encouraged me to look inward — deeper and deeper, as I did my best to stay present and share this fantastic journey with you.

I am especially grateful to Michael, who unconditionally supports, believes in and loves me after 35 years of marriage, during most of which I have had Multiple Sclerosis. I know that when I take the time to be grateful, I become more loving, forgiving and respectful. When I am most grateful, I feel connected to the world and I can more easily look for only the good in all people and all events and leave the rest — the responsibility of fixing the broken pieces — to a higher power. It is only then that I can relax and truly cease to judge my own life.

I am also grateful for the simple action of using my thumbs, which I have always taken for granted; and which, in my present reality, I need to operate my electric scooter. I use my right thumb to accelerate my scooter (walk forward), and I use my left thumb to back up my scooter (walk backward). I am grateful for how my fingers grasp things and extend so I can type, or scratch my nose or even put on my lipstick and mascara.

I am grateful for my body. It never ceases to amaze me that my body produces and destroys blood cells every second, and that my heart needs only one minute to pump my blood through my network of cells and tissue and back again. It’s been doing this minute by minute, day by day, for over 65 years. Obviously, this is a matter of life and death for me, but I have no idea how it works; and it seems to work remarkably well in spite of not knowing.

In January 2005, I was with my father in the last few days of his life, and I was reminded yet again that it is true that each of us has only a short time here on earth. Even though my dad was in a coma, I spoke to him. I shared with him everything that I always wanted to say — how thankful I was that he gave me the opportunity to attend art school, how I stole quarters from the top drawer of his dresser when I was little, how he always believed in me and how he refereed the fights between my mother and me. My husband, Michael, is like my father in many ways; and for this, I am grateful for his kindness.

Gratitude is ultimately the work of the heart.

I am prepared. I do not fear death. With the calm, stillness and inner peace I have in my heart, I often wonder if I will have enough time to complete my life to the point where I can say at the end, “I am fulfilled.” But whether I have enough time to attain that fulfillment or not, I am grateful for my life, the people in it, and the opportunities that have been presented to me. I know that whatever comes forward is timed perfectly.

I am grateful for the awareness to know that.

There are times when I must yank on my reins, stop and force myself to be reminded of my blessings. At such times, I look out my office window at the glorious fall foliage on the trees. I must force myself to slow down and enjoy a most glorious sunset. I remind myself to be silent and dwell only in the present moment, knowing it is the only moment there is. In the moment we find our blessings.

And with our blessings come our gratitude and contentment, which also exist in the present, with the self-love that naturally accompanies them.

Wishing you and yours a peaceful Thanksgiving,

Warmly,

Linda

Black Friday Special: My book, Wheelchair Wisdom, is now available on Amazon.

“…A book brimming with fearlessness, optimism, and a sense of possibility.”
-Arianna Huffington, President and Editor-in-chief, The Huffington Post Media Group

Are you a Diamond or Graphite?

Clue? You could be either. It’s all a matter of organisation.

The world of high growth tech start-ups typically revolves around speed and deft execution. Every day is an ongoing race to do things bigger and better; a day can blur into a week which blurs into a month, the only constant factor being change: product shipping, new team members joining (11 for us the other week!) and new offices opening. A break might consist of a meeting conducted over a brisk walk around the block, twice if you need to discuss something in detail. Juxtaposed against this permanent state of acceleration, Stream, with its no fixed schedule and anarchic approach, seemed both mysterious and alluring.

I am not the typical start-up employee. I have adopted the start-up mentality as a way of life but, in the beginning, its fluctuating dynamics were foreign to me. I joined Percolate from Sotheby’s, the esteemed auction house and the oldest company traded on the NYSE. Naturally, it is a place deeply entrenched in tradition, and it is a very well-oiled machine. I worked in the Watches and Clocks department, where I spent my days with objects that were often several hundred years old, ranging from complex Patek Philippe watches similar to this one just sold last week, to vintage Rolexes, to utterly charming 19th century automatons, like this Ethiopian Caterpillar.

When I arrived at Percolate, it was clear from the beginning that not only was rapid change a way of life for us internally, the media landscape was also changing dramatically. As I spent day after day sitting with clients and agency partners listening to their challenges in this evolving new world, everybody acutely felt the challenges that social and mobile had introduced to their marketing efforts in some way, shape or form. All of us in the industry are well aware that these factors have extraordinary, and difficult, implications for marketing, largely because the operational infrastructure that exists today does not support either this type of scale or pace of production and distribution.

At Sotheby’s, when I was confronted with a problem, I had all the best restorers, herpetologists and ornithologists on speed dial to fix any problems that arose, no matter how rare or obscure. If I needed to identify a single feather on a 200 year old object, I knew who to call. Unfortunately, no such Rolodex existed in this brave new world. To be clear, there were many experts in marketing, in digital, in branding, and so on, but there was no roster of tried and true experts, in the sense that we were all contending with a very new landscape. We were watching the merging of two previously separate disciplines: marketing and technology, and the challenges we encountered simply hadn’t existed before.

My most memorable and fruitful conversations with clients and agency partners in this context always revolved around the resulting new challenges; they often lingered on difficult questions with no clear answers, and they were always stimulating and thought provoking. I often wished that I could spend the entirety of these meetings only discussing these issues. They seemed to warrant much more time than simply the first 15 minutes of a meeting. To think of these challenges as merely context seemed to be a massive understatement to me.

I wasn’t sure what to expect of Stream, but I knew in advance that there was something irresistible about its dialectical format, especially given it would take place in the birthplace of dialectics: Greece. My inner nerd was completely thrilled just hearing about this. Of course, I was also very curious having seen the attendee list, which drew from across a wide span of industries and roles. However, industry conferences often give me reason to hesitate, as I find those worthwhile attending are few and far between. Too often, keynote addresses can drag on as speakers on the conference circuit rehash presentations given multiple times at other conferences, and conversations are harried with everybody hurrying to exchange as many business cards as possible.

Set aside the fact that there are no keynote presentations at Stream, and conventional powerpoints are in fact banned – what I quickly came to realize about Stream, additionally, was that it broke down a series of barriers, making it a very different conference experience, namely because:

1. Conversations are off the record
2. For better or worse, you are confined to a geographically limited space for an extended period of time
3. Hierarchy is deconstructed with anybody hosting a discussion on any topic

Moreover, the environment is designed for chemistry. The existence of only one coffee bar means that chance encounters are highly likely in the afternoon when jet lag kicks in. Communal dining means that somebody (anybody) could sit down next to you during lunch or dinner. These often yielded the best and most unexpected of conversations.

The attendees of Stream, of course, are vital to this chemistry. I read an interesting blurb tucked into the back pages of the FT last week which referenced the research of Yale sociologist Professor Nicholas Christakis, who studies how people interact when they come together in groups. He uses an analogy to compare graphite to diamonds, thinking of humans as metaphorical carbon atoms, who can come together to form either substance, depending on how they are arranged.

This insight cast light onto what I found to be the most remarkable aspect of Stream – that somehow, the Stream team had assembled a group of people, who when they came together, formed not merely a common substance like graphite, but something much rarer and brilliant, akin to a diamond. My initial inclinations around that attendee list were right on target; some of us may never have crossed paths outside of Stream, and most of us would never have wound up in the same place all at once, otherwise.

There were a number of conversations about talent at Stream, but what wasn’t addressed was that while attracting and retaining talent when it comes to individuals is certainly a tough challenge, constructing groups and building teams to collaborate and work effectively together is perhaps even more difficult, and I would argue, even more important. As marketing merges with technology, it becomes increasingly important to collaborate across these disciplines that were once separate.

The constant change which defines our industry today also requires constant creativity to deal with its ever evolving set of challenges. For the mind to contend with the unknown, it can benefit from the removal of parameters. What if there were no established way of doing things? What if you could discuss anything? What if you could create anything? I think of our annual hackdays at Percolate where the business and product teams come together to dream up new ideas and products, temporarily removed from any firm roadmap or client requests, and the unexpected, brilliant ideas that always emerge from it. Stream, similarly, was a unique environment, devoid for rules, for precisely this type of open ended discussion so important to navigating the difficult challenges we face today as an industry. I attribute its success to the chemistry and environment so thoughtfully constructed by the Stream team, not only in terms of format, but in terms of the group dynamics that would take shape over the weekend – it was no small feat.

Thank you, Martin and Yossi, for inviting me. I hope you’ll invite me again!

I don’t really know what to say about Ferguson.

So, I’m just going to make a list of what I’m thankful for.

I am thankful to be able to have grown up with enough hard knocks to know how scary and dysfunctional this world can be when ignorance takes the place of reason and dysfunction takes the place of compassion. This has given me an understanding of the downtrodden.

I am thankful to have grown up with enough privilege to feel like an important and contributing member of this society, a person of worth, who has something to say and something to do in this world. This has given me the passion to move past the aforementioned hard knocks.

I am thankful to now raise a child in Mississippi, a place that is in constant transition, a place that has seen the darkest and most violent times of our nation’s history while simultaneously producing some of the most inspiring art and music and literature. I am thankful to raise my child here because I have so much to teach her about where we’ve been, where we are and where we are going.

I am thankful to work with young people, to see the anger and hope and passion they put into their status updates, texts and tweets in response to last night’s decision. They are our hope, and their conviction will save us.

I am thankful for the Browns, for their courage to respond to this decision with dignity and grace, calling for people to focus their energy on fighting injustice instead of fighting each other. This family has been through the absolute worst — the loss of a child. The last thing they want now is for others to lose the same thing.

I am thankful for those who protect us, for those who promote peace and tolerance. They make incredible sacrifices to shield us from harm, in our cities, on our streets, even in the protest line.

I am thankful for the protestors, who wholeheartedly follow these words of my hero, Henry David Thoreau: “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” Those who participate in true civil disobedience are those who shame wrongdoers deliberately and thoughtfully. These peaceful protestors are an inspiration, and I am thankful that their conviction will continue to push the conversation about race relations in this country forward.

I am thankful for the anger I feel, the anger I have about this young man’s avoidable death, about the lack of justice for his family. I am thankful to be so angry because it gives me hope. If we can feel such strong emotions about a complete stranger’s death, doesn’t that mean we have the capability to make meaningful change? I once heard that the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. I am thankful that, of all of the things we are in the wake of last night’s decision, very few of us are indifferent. And that means there is hope.

If you’re looking for someone special to spend Thanksgiving with, you might want to try posting an ad on Craigslist.

That’s what Nashville resident Nick Schmidt did, and the self-described “28 year old felon with no high school degree, and a dirty old van one year younger than me painted like Eddie Van Halen’s guitar” told HuffPost Live on Tuesday that the post had in fact scored him a date for Thursday’s meal. That’s right: one lucky lady will have the luxury of having Schmidt perhaps propose to her or start a fight in front of everyone, as he so kindly offered in his ad.

“I got a real response the next day offering me to come to this girl’s Thanksgiving get-together with her roommate and friends, and then go over to her parent’s house, eat food, shoot guns, have a good time,” he recounted. “So I took her up on it and we still have the plans set.”

“She offered to drive and everything,” he added.

We hear wedding bells ringing in the distance!

Watch the clip above to hear more about Nick Schmidt’s Craigslist Thanksgiving.

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