” …stopping MAX production for one quarter would shave 0.3 of a percentage point from quarterly annualized GDP growth. “

WSJ, citing Wilmington Trust study

What’t Boeing CEO to do ? Other than hang his hat.

If I were him, I would have set up an Emergency Task Team back in March. The Task Team should have been coordinating all efforts at securing this program. They cut back production seriously: from 590 to 42 a month is a steep fall. Could they have done better ? Hard to say, because halting production makes sense when the FAA fell behind on their schedule, which they did when their approval didn’t come out on schedule. (was it October they were saying ?)

Perhaps Boeing should have cut production when the FAA dragged its feet.

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg in Oct. : “That accountability starts with me.”

I will say that individuals’ lack of responsibility is what created this situation. Every individual’s lack of responsibility compounds an error in size. It’s not the CEO’s fault if individual responsibility is not taken. Individual errors become halos in organizational errors.

Well, let me put your mind at ease. I’ve watched it, and I’ve enclosed yesterday’s episode (which is free). I watch it when I catch it sometimes.

Billions is a pretty drama, very intense, yet I don’t see it a formative movie. I haven’t reviewed it because I don’t get much from it. Watching rich people fight and screw each other…there’s really no conclusion for me. That is not to say I don’t appreciate Brian Kopelman and David Levien’s artistic geniuses. But I thought watching The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (Alex Gibney on HBO) was more interesting.

Some things don’t sit down well with me. For example:

-They had a Russian oligarch sit in for a SWF decision-maker -makes no sense.

-The whole idea of a former intern, Taylor, starting her own fund after leaving Axe Capital is silly. Taylor is a woman who shaves her head, dresses like a man and makes decisions like Popeye the Sailor Man. In last year’s Season 3, Taylor bonds with a nerdy VC named Oscar and beds him. You don’t bed someone over your love of the game NetRunner or Star Wars.

-The main character, Axe, barely resembles real life characters. Number one: If you work with them, you just don’t see that much of them. 99.99% of times these people conduct business though an intermediary. People ask me: Is this how it is ? One piranha bigger than the other ?

What you <b>don’t understand</b>. **If you work there in real life**:

You are too insignificant to them. You're a fly on the wall. This guy (or gal) doesn't even remember your name (unless you're named like their pet dog).  Nobody cares and nobody will listen to you. Let that amount to something.

People who work in the big money space will back me up on this.

That being said, I heard some good things in Sunday’s episode.

Quotes from S04 E01 · Chucky Rhoades’s Greatest Game:

“Like a honeybee, take what you pick up here and drop it there,

Just make sure at the end of the day.

You’re the one who ends up with all of the nectar.” -Wendy Rhodes

“Intentions don’t matter at all to me,

I reward actions,

And I punish them, too.” -Axe

Wendy Rhoades sitting in as Performance Coach…that doesn’t sit well with me. A company that needs a Full-Time “performance coach”: doesn’t happen. This Wendy character seems to be administering HR policies, plus too many things rest with her. If she were real, she’s be a liability in any company. The jobs she does are too many, her accountability-in-line too small. You can’t have somebody like that with too many hats on.

Those in hedge funds will back up what I’m saying.

Knuckleheads and dumbshits will have a hard time sorting it out.

People may know some of the language patterns, i.e. the use of …because to elicit compliance, or the three pair enumeration; after all, I mention those in my book also.

But there’s more stuff, too.

“A person might, you know _______”

“How does it feel when you _____”

“I’m curious to know______”

These little seemingly innocent language patterns can subdue people…to your will. The Salad cards may be out-of-print if you wanted the Ericksonian series; the Irresistible influence cards are still sold.

How the “hypnotic slap jack” is played if you have the cards

• The dealer places a card (not a jack) at the middle of the table.
• The player at the dealer’s left makes a sentence using the language on the face-up card. Then they place their top card in the center of the table, and turn it face up.
• When a Jack is played, the first player to slap their hand on top of the center pile wins these cards and adds them face down to the bottom of their pile, leaving the Jack face up in the center.
• If a player slaps a non-Jack, they give the top card of their own pile face down to the person who played the non-Jack. That person adds it to bottom of their own pile.
• When a person runs out of cards, they are out.

I won’t finish this post without giving you a link to other Tools of the Titans.

And a recipe.

How does it look ?

How does it taste ?

Tip of the day: To get a feeling of diaphragmatic breathing, the correct and best way to breath, you can stand straight with your back against the wall and elevate the balls of the feet and toes by a heavy book or a rolled up towel – tip courtesy of Roger Love, vocal coach to top Hollywood stars.

But we’re not here to talk about the markets. We’re here to talk about you. At the start of the year I gave you my take on New Year’s Resolutions (Part I and Part II). If you’ve read those, you’ll know I don’t think in terms of yearly goals/accomplishments, because I prefer to work by the hour and, by extension, by the day. Let the hour be the measure of your mastery. 8760 hours in the year. There’s so many of them, you couldn’t fit them in a bag if you tried. Working with the hour (or minute) timeframes gets rid of the excuse “not having the time to___”.

Assuming you made certain yearly goals (and again, I am against those) and you’ve met only part of them, let’s say, 60%, or a specific area (i.e.: financial) came up short…what do you do ?

If you continue to work on a yearly-based goals..do you keep them, change them, or what ?

Do you have a sensitivity model for your goals ? Meaning a least/base/fantastic model ? Some people have those…like financial spreadsheets. Of course, that doesn’t work for “take a trip to Greenland” type-of-goals, you either took the trip or you didn’t. But sensitivity models would work for financial, or even skills-type of goals. (i.e.: my skills at golf, how often I played golf this year. Just make sure it isn’t how many tweets I’ve send or some nonsense).

If you’re working with yearly goals instead of fluid non-timely goals (which I prefer), the most important thing is not to beat yourself over the head over the goals that you did not accomplish this year.

When I talk about compressing time, it’s really about excluding linear time. The only time is NOW. You have no LOSSES. “Reflecting back” over last year’s is what losers do.

People take out the trash every day (every week) as it gets filled. Do the same thing…with everything.

It is the end of this year. Perhaps you take out things you no longer need to the local charity. These things were just sitting gathering dust in the garage. You need to take out of your life everything that’s been gathering dust.

Clean. Trim. Remove. Dispose.

And so it is with the goals you haven’t met. Say goodbye. (BTW, I’ve never met anyone who accomplished all of their goals. They either came up short or exceeded).

Remove the people, places, and situations in your life that didn’t go as you intended. Remove the distractions. Trim the deadbeats that don’t return your calls, emails and proposals. You must remove the people who are there in your life only for the joyrides. (That’s a biggie !) Whoops, you’re talking about my girlfriend, Max. If that’s the case, you know what to do.

Goals for the New Year must be new. If you didn’t make $ 103,230 in the old year, set a new goal for the new year. It can be higher or lower. Notice that is has to be specific (can’t be I’ll make 6 figures income next year). But to make any kind of goals, you must first be a good gardener.

Good luck in your gardening adventures and Merry Pitmas !

I can draw a parallel between the victory of Donald Trump and the disorientation felt by the global elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I think global elitism is anathema. The days for setting up glorious agendas that don’t matter are behind. Most people seem to have the basic understanding that individual effort is the lever that works, and refuse to let a wack-a-doo or two do their show for them.

What is Davos ? Davos is a networking event by invitation only. Pure and simple: networking. The hush hush you read about is non-sense. I give you the real scoop, like no Harvard behavior economist does. If you’ve active in any profession, you would have gone to conferences or meetings. Networking is essential in business. So why are topdogs [sic] like Marc Benioff of SalesForce.com or Stephen Schwarzman go there for ? They need no networking, one might say. That is the wrong thing to say, they still need networking. They are out to spread goodwill toward their causes, making the link between business and NGOs, for example, or art and science.  The background is PROMOTE. Promote your business, cause or perspective. The danger at Davos that nobody tells you about is the herd mentality ! Davos is prone to the same flaw that abounds everywhere else: the sheep mentality. That’s where Davos participants go wrong, creating the myth of the ‘DavosMan or Woman’. Some Davos folks believe they’re somehow responsible for the wrong or right turns of the world and they have grown into some “guardians” of the galaxy. The man who only takes care of his parcel in life suffers not such illusion. It is an extraordinary sense of self aggrandizement that, paradoxically, induces “taking title” to the “state of the world”. It’s like taking ownership to the wind.  People shun simplicity and dream of glorious pandemonium.The simple man from the past did not suffer from that self delusion.

I personally like the SuperReturn Conference, in my field, better. The vibe is different. It is a healthier, better working environment. Just like Davos, SuperReturn has different series on different continents and is coming up in February.