Nike’s winning logo.
Nike’s marketing slogan, “Just Do It” might be the greatest pitch tagline of all time. Those three words capture everything that their ad campaign sought to convey. The cash registers haven’t stopped ringing since Nike launched that line back in 1988. It helped them double their already healthy market share in the decade afterwards. And the profits just keep coming. Continue reading
I know several people that are always amped up about some major public issue. It might be guns, Obamacare, tax policy, the governor’s latest stupid statement…pick the poison.
Here’s the thing I’ve learned. None of these people can affect a damn bit of difference about their issue of the day. I like most of these people, but their sense of doom wears me out. Continue reading
Olympic swimmer, Ryan Lochte, at 2012 games in London.
2013 is setting up as a year of pushing boundaries and skirting limits. It’s all about embracing new things and recognizing fresh possibilities.
By the time you read this, I’ll be wrapping up my first swim lesson with my new coach.
In 2010, my lovely wife, Mary, decided that she was tired of all the smack-talking that her co-workers were doing about competing in a triathlon. She decided that she was going to show them what the Mary Baumer Experience was all about. That June she participated in her first sprint triathlon. Since then, she’s completed five sprints and last August, she completed her first Olympic-length triathlon. Continue reading
Ben Franklin was an autodidact.
An autodidact is someone who is self-taught. In today’s parlance we might call them a “self-directed learner.”
Autodidacts were common in Colonial America. Many of our founding fathers were autodidacts as well as polymaths. Ben Franklin might be one of our nation’s most famous autodidacts. Franklin abandoned formal education at age 10 and we all know how that turned out. Continue reading
When we were young, we became familiar with the story of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” It is one of Aesop’s Fables and is numbered 210 on the Perry Index for those who care about these things. The moral of the story, and Aesop’s Fables always had a moral, was that “a liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.” Continue reading
Gassing up JBE1 at Pownal Center Store before heading into the teeth of the snowpocalypse.
Last night, I watched a press conference by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. If this was a comedy sketch, it couldn’t have been funnier. It wasn’t. I posted the video in my previous JBE post, so check it out. Continue reading
Snow’s coming; get your water, bread, and toilet paper.
Maine won’t ever be confused for a literary hotbed. With our low population density (save for Portland), and lack of any real literary engine; like a major publication featuring writers; the state will continue to be known more for lobsters than literature. Continue reading
Photograph by Ethan Levitas, The New Yorker.
There is a fascinating article in the latest (February 4) issue of The New Yorker by Michael Specter, on Dr. Oz. I say fascinating because the man that Oprah dubbed “America’s doctor” has bounded over the barricade that separates celebrities from the rest of us relegated to anonymity, or perhaps semi-obscurity. Continue reading
My journey of reinvention is firmly rooted in DIY sensibilities. My thinking, my approach to challenges, and things that hold significant value for me–like my publishing–all emanate from an ethos that says, “I can do this.”
Perhaps the seed for that was planted back in Crown Point, Indiana. I was 21, with a pregnant wife, no job, and I was 1,500 miles from home and extended family support. Unemployment was over 14 percent and I didn’t have much in the way of life or employment skills. Continue reading