Jboussand

Here are the rules: I’ve been at zero a few times, come back a few times, and done it over and over. I’ve started entire new careers. People who knew me then, don’t me now. And so on.

I’ve had to change careers several times. Sometimes because my interests changed. Sometimes because all bridges have been burned beyond recognition, sometimes because I desperately needed money. And sometimes just because I hated everyone in my old career or they hated me.

There are other ways to reinvent yourself, so take what I say with a grain of salt. This is what worked for me.

I’ve seen it work for maybe a few hundred other people. Through interviews, through people writing me letters, through the course of the past 20 years. You can try it or not.

A) Reinvention never stops.

Every day you reinvent yourself. You’re always in motion. But you decide every day: forward or backward.

B) You start from scratch.

Every label you claim you have from before is just vanity. You were a doctor? You were Ivy League? You had millions? You had a family? Nobody cares. You lost everything. You’re a zero. Don’t try to say you’re anything else.

C) You need a mentor.

Else, you’ll sink to the bottom. Someone has to show you how to move and breathe. But don’t worry about finding a mentor (see below).

D) Three types of mentors

1. Direct. Someone who is in front of you who will show you how they did it. What is “it”? Wait. By the way, mentors aren’t like that old Japanese guy in “The Karate Kid.” Ultimately most mentors will hate you.
2. Indirect. Books. Movies. You can outsource 90 percent of mentorship to books and other materials. 200-500 books equals one good mentor. People ask me, “What is a good book to read?” I never know the answer. There are 200-500 good books to read. I would throw in inspirational books. Whatever are your beliefs, underline them through reading every day.
3. Everything is a mentor. If you are a zero, and have passion for reinvention, then everything you look at will be a metaphor for what you want to do. The tree you see, with roots you don’t, with underground water that feeds it, is a metaphor for computer programming if you connect the dots. And everything you look at, you will connect the dots.

E) Don’t worry if you don’t have passion for anything.

You have passion for your health. Start there. Take baby steps. You don’t need a passion to succeed. Do what you do with love and success is a natural symptom.

F) Time it takes to reinvent yourself: five years.

Here’s a description of the five years:

• Year One: you’re flailing and reading everything and just starting to DO.
• Year Two: you know who you need to talk to and network with. You’re Doing every day. You finally know what the monopoly board looks like in your new endeavors.
• Year Three: you’re good enough to start making money. It might not be a living yet.
• Year Four: you’re making a good living
• Year Five: you’re making wealth

Sometimes I get frustrated in years 1-4. I say, “why isn’t it happening yet?” and I punch the floor and hurt my hand and throw a coconut on the floor in a weird ritual. That’s okay. Just keep going. Or stop and pick a new field. It doesn’t matter. Eventually you’re dead and then it’s hard to reinvent yourself.

G) If you do this faster or slower then you are doing something wrong.

Google is a good example.

H) It’s not about the money. But money is a decent measuring stick.

When people say “it’s not about the money” they should make sure they have a different measuring stick.

“What about just doing what you love?” There will be many days when you don’t love what you are doing. If you are doing it just for love then it will take much much longer than five years.

Happiness is just a positive perception from our brain. Some days you will be unhappy. Our brain is a tool we use. It’s not who we are.

I) When can you say, “I do X!” where X is your new career?

Today.

J) When can I start doing X?

Today. If you want to paint, then buy a canvas and paints today, start buying 500 books one at a time, and start painting. If you want to write do these three things:

• Read
• Write
• Take your favorite author and type your favorite story of his word for word. Wonder to yourself why he wrote each word. He’s your mentor today.

If you want to start a business, start spec-ing out the idea for your business. Reinvention starts today. Every day.

K) How do I make money?

By year three you’ve put in 5,000-7,000 hours. That’s good enough to be in the top 200-300 in the world in anything. The top 200 in almost any field makes a living.

By year three you will know how to make money. By year four you will scale that up and make a living. Some people stop at year four.

L) By year five you’re in the top 30-50 so can make wealth.

M) What is “it”? How do I know what I should do?

Whatever area you feel like reading 500 books about. Go to the bookstore and find it. If you get bored three months later go back to the bookstore.

It’s okay to get disillusioned. That’s what failure is about. Success is better than failure but the biggest lessons are found in failure.

Very important: There’s no rush. You will reinvent yourself many times in an interesting life. You will fail to reinvent many times. That’s fun also.

Many reinventions make your life a book of stories instead of a textbook.

Some people want the story of their life to be a textbook. For better or worse, mine is a book of stories.

That’s why reinvention happens every day.

N) The choices you make today will be in your biography tomorrow.

Make interesting choices and you will have an interesting biography.

N1) The choices you make today will be in your biology tomorrow.

O) What if I like something obscure? Like biblical archaeology or 11th-century warfare?

Repeat all of the steps above, and then in year five you will make wealth. We have no idea how. Don’t look to find the end of the road when you are still at the very first step.

P) What if my family wants me to be an accountant?

How many years of your life did you promise your family? Ten years? Your whole life? Then wait until the next life. The good thing is: you get to choose.

Choose freedom over family. Freedom over preconceptions. Freedom over government. Freedom over people-pleasing. Then you will be pleased.

Q) My mentor wants me to do it HIS way.

That’s fine. Learn HIS way. Then do it YOUR way. With respect.

Hopefully nobody has a gun to your head. Then you have to do it their way until the gun is put down.

R) My spouse is worried about who will support/take care of kids?

Then after you work 16 hours a day, seven days a week being a janitor, use your spare time to reinvent.

Someone who is reinventing ALWAYS has spare time. Part of reinvention is collecting little bits and pieces of time and re-carving them the way you want them to be.

S) What if my friends think I’m crazy?

What friends?

T) What if I want to be an astronaut?

That’s not a reinvention. That’s a specific job. If you like “outer space” there are many careers. Richard Branson wanted to be an astronaut and started Virgin Galactic.

U) What if I like to go out drinking and partying?

Read this post again in a year.

V) What if I’m busy cheating on my husband or wife or betraying a partner?

Read this post again in two or three years when you are broke and jobless and nobody likes you.

W) What if I have no skills at all?

Read “B” again.

X) What if I have no degree or I have a useless degree?

Read “B” again.

Y) What if I have to focus on paying down my debt and mortgage?

Read “R” again.

Z) How come I always feel like I’m on the outside looking in?

Albert Einstein was on the outside looking in. Nobody in the establishment would even hire him.

Everyone feels like a fraud at some point. The highest form of creativity is born out of skepticism.

AA) I can’t read 500 books. What one book should I read for inspiration?

Give up.

BB) What if I’m too sick to reinvent?

Reinvention will boost every healthy chemical in your body: serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin. Keep moving forward and you might not get healthy but you will get healthier. Don’t use health as an excuse.

Finally, reinvent your health first. Sleep more hours. Eat better. Exercise. These are key steps to reinvention.

CC) What if my last partner screwed me and I’m still suing him?

Stop litigating and never think about him again. Half the problem was you, not him.

DD) What if I’m going to jail?

Perfect. Reread “B.” Read a lot of books in jail.

EE) What if I’m shy?

Make your weaknesses your strengths. Introverts listen better, focus better, and have ways of being more endearing.

FF) What if I can’t wait five years?

If you plan on being alive in five years then you might as well start today.

GG) How should I network?

Make concentric circles. You’re at the middle.

The next circle is friends and family.

The next circle is online communities.

The circle after that is meetups and coffees.

The circle after that is conferences and thought leaders.

The circle after that is mentors.

The circle after that is customers and wealth-creators.

Start making your way through the circles.

HH) What happens when I have ego about what I do?

In 6-12 months you’ll be back at “B”

II) What if I’m passionate about two things? What if I can’t decide?

Combine them and you’ll be the best in the world at the combination.

JJ) What if I’m so excited I want to teach what I’m learning?

Start teaching on YouTube. Start with an audience of one and see if it builds up.

KK) What if I want to make money while I sleep?

In year four, start outsourcing what you do.

LL) How do I meet mentors and thought leaders?

Once you have enough knowledge (after 100-200 books), write down 10 ideas for 20 different potential mentors.

None of them will respond. Write down 10 more ideas for 20 new mentors. Repeat every week.

Put together a newsletter for everyone who doesn’t respond. Keep repeating until someone responds. Blog about your learning efforts. Build community around you being an expert.

MM) What if I can’t come up with ideas?

Then keep practicing coming up with ideas. The idea muscle atrophies. You have to build it up.

It’s hard for me to touch my toes if I haven’t been doing it every day. I have to do it every day for a while before I can easily touch my toes. Don’t expect to come up with good ideas on day one.

NN) What else should I read?

AFTER books, read websites, forums, magazines. But most of that is garbage.

OO) What if I do everything you say but it still doesn’t seem like it’s working?

It will work. Just wait. Keep reinventing every day.

Don’t try and find the end of the road. You can’t see it in the fog. But you can see the next step and you do know that if you take that next step eventually you get to the end of the road.

PP) What if I get depressed?

Sit in silence for one hour a day. You need to get back to your core.

If you think this sounds stupid then don’t do it. Stay depressed.

QQ) What if I don’t have time to sit in silence?

Then sit in silence for two hours a day. This is not meditation. This is just sitting.

RR) What if I get scared?

Sleep 8-9 hours a day and never gossip. Sleep is the No. 1 key to successful health. It’s not the only key. It’s just No. 1. Some people write to me and say, “I only need four hours of sleep” or “in my country sleeping means laziness.” Well, those people will fail and die young.

What about gossip? The brain biologically wants to have 150 friends. Then when you are with one of your friends you can gossip about any of the other 150. If you don’t have 150 friends then the brain wants to read gossip magazines until it thinks it has 150 friends.

Don’t be as stupid as your brain.

SS) What if I keep feeling like nothing ever works out for me?

Spend 10 minutes a day practicing gratitude. Don’t suppress the fear. Notice the anger.

But also allow yourself to be grateful for the things you do have. Anger is never inspirational but gratitude is. Gratitude is the bridge between your world and the parallel universe where all creative ideas live.

TT) What if I have to deal with personal bullshit all the time?

Find new people to be around.

Someone who is reinventing herself will constantly find people to try and bring her down. The brain is scared of reinvention because it might not be safe.

Biologically, the brain wants you to be safe and reinvention is a risk. So it will throw people in your path who will try to stop you.

Learn how to say “no.”

UU) What if I’m happy at my cubicle job?

Good luck.

VV) Why should I trust you – you’ve failed so many times?

Don’t trust me.

WW) Will you be my mentor?

You’ve just read this post.

[See also, The Ultimate Cheat Sheet For Starting and Running Your Business]

I was scared to death. I thought I was going to cry.

Polls say people would rather be dead than speak in public. Seinfeld joked that a guy giving a eulogy would rather be in the coffin.

I’ve given 100s of talks but last week I wanted to die before I went on stage. I was speaking to an audience of about 200 CEOs. I felt inadequate and that they would hate me.

Claudia said, “Just take a deep breath. Do what you usually do.” And I did.

Here’s the operating theory: you don’t need 10,000 hours at anything to be the best. You just need to pretty good at something (a couple of 100 hours) and then you need to know how to give a good talk in public. Because so few people want to talk in public so you will stand out.

I wrote a post a year ago: “10 Unusual Tips to Be a Great Public Speaker“. I still follow those tips but…

Since the first post I’ve given a lot more talks to a varied set of audiences. I’ve spoken about everything from spirituality to business to creativity to entrepreneurship to failure.

And before each talk I’ve always thought to myself: “holy s**t, how did I write that post about public speaking. I’m more nervous than ever!”

So I have a few more tips. And these tips are as important as the first ten.

A) WATCH COMEDIANS. I watch great standup comedy before every talk. It puts me in a looser mood and makes me laugh, which relaxes me.

When possible, I will directly steal a joke from whatever comedian I’m watching. If they’ve tested out the joke, then it’s probably a good one and will work for me as well.

I even practice imitating their timing. The way they pause, the way they change voices and move around the stage, everything.

Comedians are the best public speakers and are up against the most brutal audiences so you MUST study comedians.

B) NO POWERPOINT. I used to think I always needed a PowerPoint. Because as useful as my words are: a “picture is worth a thousand words”.

This is total BS. If a picture is worth 1000 words then you are worth 100,000 pictures.

I compare Daniel Tosh stand-up with his TV show “Tosh.0″. In his stand-up it’s just him, making jokes, NO PowerPoint.

In “Tosh.0″, the format is that he watches YouTube videos and makes fun of them.

His stand-up is better than the show. Even though the show is great, it isn’t as fun as just watching him do stand-up.

PowerPoint will only distract from the main attraction: YOU.

C) CLOTHES. I ONLY dress in clothes I feel most comfortable in, even if everyone else is wearing tuxedos.

When I speak I have a specific “uniform”. I wear a t-shirt I had custom made that has all 67,000 words of my book, “Choose Yourself!” printed on it. And I wear a white shirt over it and black pants. Like a waiter. I’m at your service and I’ve chosen myself. BAM!

D) PAUSE. I had this unnatural fear that if I paused too much during a talk people would get bored.

But inserting pauses allows people to think about what you are saying. It allows you to breathe, it allows you to be funnier, it avoids the impression that you are rushing through the material. Take a drink of water. Walk from one side of the stage to the other. Whatever you need to do.

E) Q AND A. I enjoy Q and A as much as the talk itself. So I arrange beforehand to do the maximum amount of Q&A.

F) ABS. Always Be Storytelling. NEVER give advice in a talk. Nobody is smart enough to give advice.

Just talk about your own experiences and what you did to help yourself. Mix in interesting facts.

Straight out advice will never help anyone. Buddha himself realized this about public speaking. He said, “Don’t believe me on anything. Try this out for yourself.”

G) ABV. Always Be Vulnerable. Nobody wants to hear from Invulnerable Man. They want to hear where you are scared and vulnerable and feeling insecure. Because we all do.

Poor speakers create an artificial divide between themselves and the audience. They feel they need to do this in order to establish their own credibility.

Let me tell you – there is no such thing as credibility. In 100 years there will be no buildings named after any of us.

Somebody has to be on stage and some people have to be in the audience. That’s the only difference.

Don’t put any thought as to WHY you are on the stage or how you need to be “better” than the people in the audience. You aren’t better. You’re simply the speaker.

We all woke up lonely and confused this morning. What a miracle that we get to speak to each other.

And even better, we feed the soul by listening to each other. Ultimately, the best speakers are the ones who have put 10,000 hours into listening.

The biggest loss-making cars in Europe

CARMAKERS in Europe are facing a rough ride, with sales at a 17-year low region-wide. So it seems cruel of Sanford C. Bernstein, a brokerage, to remind them of their biggest commercial wrecks. Most major makers suffered billions in losses. Yet not all cars failed by accidents of poor design, ill-judged technological leaps or wildly optimistic production forecasts. VW knew its Bugatti Veyron, a quick and complex supercar made in tiny numbers, would not make money but hoped it might burnish the brand. Daimler believed it could transfer know-how from its sleek executive saloons to small cars. It did—but it brought the same high costs too: its Smart Fortwo had the biggest loss. Renault produced reasonable cars but was overly optimistic about sales. Fiat failed to compete with the VW Golf. As for tomorrow’s pile-ups? Bernstein reckons that the latest bunch of electric cars could some day join the list.

Paul Bogard recently published a book on darkness called The End of Night. Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh interviewed Bogard about the book, the night sky, astronomy, security, cities, and prisons, among other things. The interview is interesting throughout but one of my favorite things is this illustration of the Bortle scale.

Twilley: It's astonishing to read the description of a Bortle Class 1, where the Milky Way is actually capable of casting shadows!

Bogard: It is. There's a statistic that I quote, which is that eight of every ten kids born in the United States today will never experience a sky dark enough to see the Milky Way. The Milky Way becomes visible at 3 or 4 on the Bortle scale. That's not even down to a 1. One is pretty stringent. I've been in some really dark places that might not have qualified as a 1, just because there was a glow of a city way off in the distance, on the horizon. You can't have any signs of artificial light to qualify as a Bortle Class 1.

A Bortle Class 1 is so dark that it's bright. That's the great thing-the darker it gets, if it's clear, the brighter the night is. That's something we never see either, because it's so artificially bright in all the places we live. We never see the natural light of the night sky.

I can also recommend reading David Owen's 2007 NYer piece on light pollution.

Tags: astronomy   books   Geoff Manaugh   interviews   Nicola Twilley   Paul Bogard   space   The End of Night

Using data from the 1860 US Census, the Department of the Interior made this map showing the percentages, by county, of the slave population of the southern states.

Though this map was simple, it showed the relationship between states' commitment to slavery and their enthusiasm about secession, making a visual argument about Confederate motivations.

Schulten writes that President Lincoln referred to this particular map often, using it to understand how the progress of emancipation might affect Union troops on the ground. The map even appears in the familiar Francis Bicknell Carpenter portrait First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln, visible leaning against a wall in the lower right-hand corner of the room.

Here's a larger version. The numbers in some locations are staggering and sickening -- in many counties 75% of the population was enslaved and the rate is over 90% in a few places.

Tags: maps   slavery   USA

I would call this speculative, but it is nonetheless of interest, let me pull from Jason Kottke:

This is a presentation and therefore missing a bunch of key context, but Michael Dearing’s The Five Cognitive Distortions of People Who Get Stuff Done is interesting reading nonetheless. The five distortions are:

1. Personal exceptionalism
2. Dichotomous thinking
3. Correct overgeneralization
4. Blank canvas thinking
5. Schumpeterianism

That last one is likely a head-scratcher to those of us without economics backgrounds; here’s what Dearing has to say about it:

Definition – sees creative destruction as natural, necessary, and as their vocation

Benefits – fearlessness, tolerance for destruction and pain

Deadly risk – heartless ambition, alienation

Speaking of inexpensive time travel, listen as David and Ben Crystal perform selections from Shakespeare in the original accent, as it would have been heard at the Globe in the early 1600s.

(via @KBAndersen)

Tags: Ben Crystal   David Crystal   language   theater   video   William Shakespeare

Ezra Klein has an excellent piece on Larry Summers today, basically saying that he’s “the overwhelming favorite” to become the next Fed chair just because he’s an old Clinton hand, and is trusted by all the other old Clinton hands with whom Barack Obama has surrounded himself. (Interestingly, that’s a phenomenon unique to the economic team: no other department exhibits the same trait.)

The top slots on the economic team are all held by members of the Clinton clique. Sperling leads the National Economic Council. Lew is secretary of the Treasury. Furman is chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Sylvia Matthews Burwell, deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton administration, now heads OMB…

It stretches credulity to believe that a pure meritocratic process has simply and ineluctably led to the same six or seven people cycling among positions.

Klein’s thesis, when it comes to economic appointments, is that “the bar for each appointment is that the economic team already likes the candidate and knows he or she is good at the job and will work well with the other members of the team”. The reality of economic appointments to date is entirely consistent with that thesis, and I, for one, am convinced.

But here’s the problem: such a mechanism is a bad idea in principle, a bad idea in practice, and an especially bad idea when it comes to the Fed chairmanship in particular.

In principle, it’s even harder for a team like this one to learn from its mistakes than it is for an individual to do so. When the world changes, individual technocrats tend to change with it. But when a small, close-knit team is put in charge of running the economic policy of the global hegemon, they create the facts on the ground. In practice, what that has meant is a depressingly predictable cycle of laissez-faire regulatory policy leading to crises, which are solved with massive bailouts, which leave the financial sector largely unscathed, and free to continue taking excessive risks, safe in the knowledge that if and when things blow up again, there will be yet another bailout.

This cycle creates what I call Obama’s dangerously heroic view of economic technocrats — a view which, it should go without saying, works very much to the advantage of the very advisers who have helped him develop it. It’s a view which places crisis-management skills far above crisis-prevention skills, and which considers crisis-management experience as being uniquely valuable. It’s also a view which makes it almost unthinkable for Larry Summers not to be nominated to the Fed: short of nominating Terry Checki to the position, it’s hard to imagine a candidate with more crisis experience than Summers.

But it’s one thing having groupthink within the White House — it’s the job of a disciplined executive branch to implement clearly-articulated policies, and if the populace doesn’t like it, they can kick the incumbents out at the next election. It’s something else entirely to take one of the most central — and most political — members of the White House team, and nominate him to lead the independent board of governors of the Federal Reserve.

Make no mistake: Summers would be the most political Fed chair in living memory. Greenspan was pretty bad, especially when he testified — in clear support of the Bush administration’s tax cuts — that we had reason to be worried about budget surpluses. But Summers has been one of Obama’s closest economic advisers since the day that Obama took office: he’s much closer to Obama than Greenspan was to Bush.

Summers has spent most of the past five years doing everything in his power to shape and advance Obama’s agenda. Obama, of course, is very happy about this, and would love to reward Summers for his loyalty by handing him the Fed chairmanship.

Summers is not a consensus-builder; he’s the kind of person who, as chairman, would be convinced that he was right, and who would bully the rest of the board into doing exactly what he wanted them to do. (In this, he would have the active help of Obama, who would certainly nominate Summers-friendly names to the multitude of open board positions, and to the vice-chairmanship.) The result would be a central bank which had, to a first approximation, zero independence from the government, at least so long as Obama is president.

A non-independent central bank is a bad thing; a bullying central bank chairman who’s determined to get his own way is also a bad thing. (The Fed is run by a diverse board of governors for a reason.) But put the two together, and you get a uniquely toxic combination, a way to fulfill all the craziest conspiracy theories of Ron Paul. Having what Klein calls the “Clinton clique” in sole command of Obama’s economic policy is bad enough. But it would be much worse if they essentially managed to engineer a hostile takeover of the Federal Reserve Board.

When Tony Blair became prime minister of the UK in 1997, the first thing he did was to make the Bank of England independent. It was a signal that he was committed to orthodox economic policy, and that he was willing to be punished by an independent central bank should his policies go awry. It didn’t exactly work out that way, in the end, but his initial decision was clearly the right one, and came from a position of strength and self-confidence.

If Obama nominates Summers to the Fed, the message will be the exact opposite: that he’s not going to be comfortable unless he can install his own man to run the show. Obama, it seems, can’t trust Yellen to do the right thing — or maybe he worries that her actions will reflect the consensus of the board as a whole, and will therefore be less predictable and controllable. So he’s going to pass her over, and put a political operative in charge instead, albeit a political operative with genuine economic chops.

That’s a move even Clinton would never have dared make: he kept Greenspan at the Fed for his whole presidency. And it sets a horrible precedent: the next Republican president will henceforth have no compunctions whatsoever about appointing a party hack to the post. From here on in, if Summers gets the job, we won’t just be voting for president in presidential elections. We’ll be voting for Fed chair, too. And the Fed will become just as politicized as the Supreme Court has become.

Editor’s note: The excerpt below comes from a book published in 1875: A Gentleman’s Guide to Etiquette by Cecil B. Hartley. Hartley’s rules may be over 100 years old, but they’re just as true today as they ever were. There are some real gems here — some of which truly gave me a chuckle.

1. Even if convinced that your opponent is utterly wrong, yield gracefully, decline further discussion, or dexterously turn the conversation, but do not obstinately defend your own opinion until you become angry…Many there are who, giving their opinion, not as an opinion but as a law, will defend their position by such phrases, as: “Well, if I were president, or governor, I would,” — and while by the warmth of their argument they prove that they are utterly unable to govern their own temper, they will endeavor to persuade you that they are perfectly competent to take charge of the government of the nation.

2. Retain, if you will, a fixed political opinion, yet do not parade it upon all occasions, and, above all, do not endeavor to force others to agree with you. Listen calmly to their ideas upon the same subjects, and if you cannot agree, differ politely, and while your opponent may set you down as a bad politician, let him be obliged to admit that you are a gentleman.

3. Never interrupt anyone who is speaking; it is quite rude to officiously supply a name or date about which another hesitates, unless you are asked to do so. Another gross breach of etiquette is to anticipate the point of a story which another person is reciting, or to take it from his lips to finish it in your own language. Some persons plead as an excuse for this breach of etiquette, that the reciter was spoiling a good story by a bad manner, but this does not mend the matter. It is surely rude to give a man to understand that you do not consider him capable of finishing an anecdote that he has commenced.

4. It is ill-bred to put on an air of weariness during a long speech from another person, and quite as rude to look at a watch, read a letter, flirt the leaves of a book, or in any other action show that you are tired of the speaker or his subject.

5. In a general conversation, never speak when another person is speaking, and never try by raising your own voice to drown that of another. Never assume an air of haughtiness, or speak in a dictatorial manner; let your conversation be always amiable and frank, free from every affectation.

6. Never, unless you are requested to do so, speak of your own business or profession in society; to confine your conversation entirely to the subject or pursuit which is your own specialty is low-bred and vulgar. Make the subject for conversation suit the company in which you are placed. Joyous, light conversation will be at times as much out of place as a sermon would be at a dancing party. Let your conversation be grave or gay as suits the time or place.

7. In a dispute, if you cannot reconcile the parties, withdraw from them. You will surely make one enemy, perhaps two, by taking either side, in an argument when the speakers have lost their temper.

8. Never, during a general conversation, endeavor to concentrate the attention wholly upon yourself. It is quite as rude to enter into conversation with one of a group, and endeavor to draw him out of the circle of general conversation to talk with you alone.

9. A man of real intelligence and cultivated mind is generally modest. He may feel when in everyday society, that in intellectual acquirements he is above those around him; but he will not seek to make his companions feel their inferiority, nor try to display this advantage over them. He will discuss with frank simplicity the topics started by others, and endeavor to avoid starting such as they will not feel inclined to discuss. All that he says will be marked by politeness and deference to the feelings and opinions of others.

10. It is as great an accomplishment to listen with an air of interest and attention, as it is to speak well. To be a good listener is as indispensable as to be a good talker, and it is in the character of listener that you can most readily detect the man who is accustomed to good society.

11. Never listen to the conversation of two persons who have thus withdrawn from a group. If they are so near you that you cannot avoid hearing them, you may, with perfect propriety, change your seat.

12. Make your own share in conversation as modest and brief as is consistent with the subject under consideration, and avoid long speeches and tedious stories. If, however, another, particularly an old man, tells a long story, or one that is not new to you, listen respectfully until he has finished, before you speak again.

13. Speak of yourself but little. Your friends will find out your virtues without forcing you to tell them, and you may feel confident that it is equally unnecessary to expose your faults yourself.

14. If you submit to flattery, you must also submit to the imputation of folly and self-conceit.

15. In speaking of your friends, do not compare them, one with another. Speak of the merits of each one, but do not try to heighten the virtues of one by contrasting them with the vices of another.

16. Avoid, in conversation all subjects which can injure the absent. A gentleman will never calumniate or listen to calumny.

17. The wittiest man becomes tedious and ill-bred when he endeavors to engross entirely the attention of the company in which he should take a more modest part.

18. Avoid set phrases, and use quotations but rarely. They sometimes make a very piquant addition to conversation, but when they become a constant habit, they are exceedingly tedious, and in bad taste.

19. Avoid pedantry; it is a mark, not of intelligence, but stupidity.

20. Speak your own language correctly; at the same time do not be too great a stickler for formal correctness of phrases.

21. Never notice it if others make mistakes in language. To notice by word or look such errors in those around you is excessively ill-bred.

22. If you are a professional or scientific man, avoid the use of technical terms. They are in bad taste, because many will not understand them. If, however, you unconsciously use such a term or phrase, do not then commit the still greater error of explaining its meaning. No one will thank you for thus implying their ignorance.

23. In conversing with a foreigner who speaks imperfect English, listen with strict attention, yet do not supply a word, or phrase, if he hesitates. Above all, do not by a word or gesture show impatience if he makes pauses or blunders. If you understand his language, say so when you first speak to him; this is not making a display of your own knowledge, but is a kindness, as a foreigner will be pleased to hear and speak his own language when in a strange country.

24. Be careful in society never to play the part of buffoon, for you will soon become known as the “funny” man of the party, and no character is so perilous to your dignity as a gentleman. You lay yourself open to both censure and bad ridicule, and you may feel sure that, for every person who laughs with you, two are laughing at you, and for one who admires you, two will watch your antics with secret contempt.

25. Avoid boasting. To speak of your money, connections, or the luxuries at your command is in very bad taste. It is quite as ill-bred to boast of your intimacy with distinguished people. If their names occur naturally in the course of conversation, it is very well; but to be constantly quoting, “my friend, Gov. C,” or, “my intimate friend, the president,” is pompous and in bad taste.

26. While refusing the part of jester yourself, do not, by stiff manners, or cold, contemptuous looks, endeavor to check the innocent mirth of others. It is in excessively bad taste to drag in a grave subject of conversation when pleasant, bantering talk is going on around you. Join in pleasantly and forget your graver thoughts for the time, and you will win more popularity than if you chill the merry circle or turn their innocent gayety to grave discussions.

27. When thrown into the society of literary people, do not question them about their works. To speak in terms of admiration of any work to the author is in bad taste; but you may give pleasure, if, by a quotation from their writings, or a happy reference to them, you prove that you have read and appreciated them.

28. It is extremely rude and pedantic, when engaged in general conversation, to make quotations in a foreign language.

29. To use phrases which admit of a double meaning, is ungentlemanly.

30. If you find you are becoming angry in a conversation, either turn to another subject or keep silence. You may utter, in the heat of passion, words which you would never use in a calmer moment, and which you would bitterly repent when they were once said.

31. “Never talk of ropes to a man whose father was hanged” is a vulgar but popular proverb. Avoid carefully subjects which may be construed into personalities, and keep a strict reserve upon family matters. Avoid, if you can, seeing the skeleton in your friend’s closet, but if it is paraded for your special benefit, regard it as a sacred confidence, and never betray your knowledge to a third party.

32. If you have traveled, although you will endeavor to improve your mind in such travel, do not be constantly speaking of your journeyings. Nothing is more tiresome than a man who commences every phrase with, “When I was in Paris,” or, “In Italy I saw…”

33. When asking questions about persons who are not known to you, in a drawing-room, avoid using adjectives; or you may enquire of a mother, “Who is that awkward, ugly girl?” and be answered, “Sir, that is my daughter.”

34. Avoid gossip; in a woman it is detestable, but in a man it is utterly despicable.

35. Do not officiously offer assistance or advice in general society. Nobody will thank you for it.

36. Avoid flattery. A delicate compliment is permissible in conversation, but flattery is broad, coarse, and to sensible people, disgusting. If you flatter your superiors, they will distrust you, thinking you have some selfish end; if you flatter ladies, they will despise you, thinking you have no other conversation.

37. A lady of sense will feel more complimented if you converse with her upon instructive, high subjects, than if you address to her only the language of compliment. In the latter case she will conclude that you consider her incapable of discussing higher subjects, and you cannot expect her to be pleased at being considered merely a silly, vain person, who must be flattered into good humor.

Each column is interesting, for instance read down for “Most Compassionate.”  It’s funny how many individuals do the same for themselves, I might add, in what has to be one of the simplest and most common of all intellectual mistakes.

Those results are from the new Pew report, summarized by David Keohane here.  The French are growing increasingly disillusioned with the European project, and on key questions the French see the world as the Italians or Spanish do, not the Germans.  And there is this: “The report also takes down a few German stereotypes. Apparently, Germans are among the least likely of those surveyed to see inflation as a very big problem and the most likely among the richer European nations to be willing to provide financial assistance to other European Union countries that have major financial problems.”

I've posted this before, but it's so good, here it is again: a super-simple explanation of why differential gears are necessary in cars and how they work.

(via @stevenstrogatz)

Tags: cars   science   video