I have some exciting news!

Before you ask, no it isn’t a promise to blog more… we all know I won’t keep that promise.  What I am writing to share is that I’ve decided to leave Autodesk to take a new job.

I am unsure how to do a dramatic pause on the internet.  So, if you could take a moment to gasp, hold your breath, and wonder “Oh my gosh! What could this mean?!” I’d really appreciate it.

I am going to be joining LinkedIn as their first “Senior Product Marketing Manager – Competitive Intelligence”.  My first major initiative will be to find a less adjective-heavy title that fits on a business card.  Today will be my last day at Autodesk after a great run.  I’m planning to take next week off to spend time with friends and family (<- I know this is the same thing that people who get fired say, but it’s TRUE!).  I’m going to be in Minnesota / South Dakota for part  of next week to visit my brother, his wife, and my little nephew, Espen!   I kick-off of my LinkedIn life on 5/15!

Note: For those of you wondering if I will mercilessly haze you for having shoddy LinkedIn profiles, in a word, “yes”. 😀 I am not sure what my actual job will be but I feel like this will have to be part of it!

In honor of my time at Autodesk, I thought I would do a quick “by the numbers”

2.5 :  Total time employed by Autodesk (6 months as a contractor; 2 years as a full-time employee)

   3 :  Work friends I made!  Friends defined as people I spend time with on the weekends.  Those doing the math, yes… its about 1 friend per year.  It takes me a while to warm up to people!

   4 :  Different managers over my tenure

   5 :  Titles!  Each title is like one of my children, I loved each one in its own unique way!  They are as follows:

6 Months:     Marketing & Strategy Consultant
4 Months:     Market Intelligence Research Analyst
7 Months:     Market Intelligence Manager
11 Months:  Audience Intelligence Lead
3 Months:     Senior Analytics Business Partner

   9 :  Number of times I came into the office on a Friday.  What can I say? I loved working from home!

14 :  Minutes it takes to walk from my current (Autodesk) office to new (LinkedIn) office.  My commute decreases by 1 minute!

Asian Style Mafia (ASM)

I have taken the brave step towards a more fashionable life style.  Given my near total inability to understand and appreciate fashion, I’ve retained the outside counsel and industry expertise of my most fashionable friends – Bernice, Hiroko, and Jenn – who have subsequently been renamed the ‘Asian Style Mafia’ (ASM).

Photo Credit: Adrian Fradd (please follow him on Instragram, he’s trying really, really hard to increase his followers)

While they all have vastly different styles and methodologies for shopping, my cadre of fashion consultants have tag teamed my wardrobe to drag me into a new era of black and gray statement pieces, knitted sweaters and browns, and high-confidence, high-fashion wardrobe changes.

The transformation from my tried and true “blue jeans and button-ups” to “fashion forward(?)” was easily as elaborate as caterpillar morphing into a butterfly.  The process launched with a clothing and closet review, where we discovered that 90% of my shirts are blue and 40% of them are “sports apparel”.  Additionally, small nuggets of knowledge were shared, like “Maybe don’t always wear shirts that have funny sayings on them…”

From there, an embarrassingly simplistic list of fashion needs was drafted, shared, and confided across the fashion cadre (think: a process similar to drafting the Constitution of the US with a white board and iPhones).  That list was the list that launched a 1000 Pinterest boards… err, 2 Pinterest boards focused on fashion-friendly options for Nicholas A Kroshus.

After hours of preparation before even stepping foot in a store, I was excited for my first trip!  I had a list of needs, 1000 possible ideas, and a credit card itching to be swiped.  At some point, I rediscovered why I am not fashionable – it’s cause shopping is terrible!  After hours upon hours of wandering through department stores, discount outlets, specialty shops, and hiding in a changing room while pretending to be changing… I heard the phrase that almost broke me, “Don’t worry about finding something, we may shop all day and not buy anything.”  At that point, a single solitary tear rolled down my cheek and Bernice had to walk me out of the store and buy me some Kettle Corn to placate my hysteria.

Eventually, we bought a jacket. Then another.  Then Bernice suggested a black t-shirt – purchased! And then we were pretty much done.  But those small steps for Nick were giant leaps forward for Nick’s closet.  After several more shopping trips, the closet is starting to have some new life breathed into it.
Compared to my previous fashion mantra of “decision fatigue is dangerous” and lived a life of limited clothing choices; the new, more fashionable life is filled with lots of colors and combinations.  That being said, the shopping process was an emotional spectrum ranging from sweaty exhaustion to loopy craziness.

Dating

With my new wardrobe and ever growing collection of online dating apps, I was ready to dive back into the dating world.  While it has been entertaining to keep swiping my way through the Bay Area, I coming onto some premise challenging facts.

Where my Minnesotans at? In the last six months, 3 of my friends have found Minnesota girls to start dating.  Which flies in the face of my earlier claims that there are no Minnesotans in the Bay available for dating. It’s unclear where these ladies were hiding, but I forced to start considering make an App (working title: MinnieLadiesForNick.com) to increase my odds of finding this elusive, black swan  (maybe, loon would be more apropos) of a lady.

When first dates get medical – Despite my inability to find cute, accomplished, Bay Area-based Minnesotans to date, I have been going on dates. While most of the dates have ended in an awkward high-five and a vague affirmation that “this was really fun.” At least one date stood out from the rest.  A few weeks back, I went on a date with a super cute lady who ticked all the key boxes (i.e., smart & ambitious (enrolled at GSB), loves to dance (wanted to go dancing on the first date), and interested in travel (well-used passport)).

The date was going well. A few drinks, some banter, and lots of laughter.  About an hour into the date, she leaned in and the following conversation ensued.

Date:  “You have a really intense stare, I’m sure you’ve heard that before.”
Nick: “Really? No.. I’ve never heard that before.”
Date: “Wow! Yeah, your eyes get pretty wide when you are listening.  Out of curiosity…do you normally have sweaty palms?”
Nick: *awkward chuckle* “… uh… only on first dates” *big, charming smile*
Date: “Hmph… maybe you have a thyroid condition.  You should think about getting that checked out.”

Full disclosure, she was a trained MD.  That being said, it’s tough to get geared up for a second date, knowing you may be lured into providing a more robust medical history.

Maybe my eyes DO get too wide – I was chuckling to myself a week later as I was recounting the story while out with some friends.  I was ready to dismiss the entire notion of an A) intense stare and B) a thyroid condition until I received even more feedback.  We asked a kindly looking gentleman (~50-60 years old) to take a photo of our group.  He happily obliged, took two quick pictures, looked down to review his handy-work and then paused.  He glanced up, stared at me and remarked, “Don’t try so hard.  Maybe a little less excitement in your eyes…” Any time you get serious ad hoc feedback from a stranger about your smile/stare, you are forced to confront the fact that maybe you are starting to develop ‘crazy eyes’, an ‘intense stare’, or a ‘thyroid condition’.  Either way, I am working REAL hard to look a lot more normal in my pics.

Alright, alright, alright… you can close your mouths and overcome your shocked astonishment at the re-emergence of my blog.  I do appreciate the support from folks to pick up my keyboard and dive back into writing.  It’s just tough at times… Maybe the best analogy is: writing an entertaining blog post is like the scene in Wedding Crashers where the little kid demands Vince Vaughn make him a bicycle out of balloons.

“Make me a bicycle, clown!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llA81OKUuN0

But the good new is that I did find my motivation, even if it was in the most unlikely place.  I was inspired to write now versus holding off a bit longer to increase the suspense and really craft an amazing blog.  My mom is hosting a baby shower for one of my cousins this weekend and I got the impression that is getting a little tired of trying to explain to my extended “relies” (for my ESL homies, “relies” is short for relatives) why I haven’t updated my blog recently.  Regardless, I am back with a variety of stories from good to bad; from a classic to a fad; and from funny to …err… funnier.

Marvelous March!

I had to invent my own scale to assess how amazing March was.  Simply put, March was three Shamrock shakes out of possible 3 Shamrock Shakes.

Yes.  Those are the three shamrock shakes I enjoyed over the month of March.  I wish I could have had more but after doing Whole30 in February my body had strong opinions about dairy (though, Adrian was quick to point out that there probably isn’t a lot of dairy in McDonald’s milkshakes!).   Regardless, my Shamrock Experience was less enjoyable than years past.  Typically,  I’d have half of the Shamrock Shake and then my stomach would put me in “Shamrock timeout” where I had to lay on the ground and think about what I did.  Regardless, I still love them!

Why was March so Shamrock-ing? There is no way I can pack all of the amazing stories into this one blog, but I’ll hit a couple highlights .

Birthday Celebration – ­After a relatively chill weekend to celebrate my 31^st birthday, I decided to organize and host an epic 32^nd celebration.  Between a big night of dining and dancing on Friday, an emotional, hockey-filled viewing of Miracle on Saturday, and a series of gladiatorial dodge ball sessions at the House of Air on Sunday … it was rewarding and exhausting.  I am not sure when or why, but there is an odd inflection point where things that are awesome when you are a kid become awesome again when you are an adult (specifically, dodge ball and naps; well, maybe naps were always awesome).

Playing dodgeball was amazing except for how terrifyingly good the kids were.  I wish I had taken some photos so you could see these kids… wait, no… nevermind, I am glad I didn’t take photos of random people’s kids.  Suffice to say, our opposition were like child-size Terminators with non-lethal projectiles.

One kid, who looked identical to a Japanese cartoon character, not only threw so hard it felt like getting hit a by a cannon ball; but, he was 100% willing to talk trash.  At one point, he looked at Jenn Kimbal and remarked, “You are twice my age and I smoked you!” Jenn, distracted by the fact that he thought she was 22, failed to notice the crazy gleam in his eye.

New Arrivals – Some close friends had a baby at the end of the month.  I don’t want to give it away who, but the new baby definitely takes after the dad.

So I learned to make websites …

While I realize I just finished a graduate program focused on business (pause, when I say “just” I am rounding down by almost two years… which seems crazy).  Moreover, that magical MBA experience required student loans so large that could have alternatively been used to purchase an above-average size home in an above-average neighborhood in Minnesota

BUT…

I figured scratch all that learning focused “bid-nass” and teach myself some super practical HTML, CSS and Javascript skillz.  I’ll save you the super boring details of how and simply share the outputs of my efforts.  Click the link below for a magical adventure through the website I designed for the leadership camp I volunteer with:

http://district5580ryla.org/

I’m sure the websites you frequent most regularly are better, but the RYLA 5580 website is at least on par with an “average” website and in some cases far exceeds the average.  While I am tooting my own horn here, I’ll just point out real quick that the website is mobile-friendly which actually took quite a while to figure out how to do.

Note: If you have paused here to draft an text/email/letter stating how there is some sweet program out there that does it for you; let me save you the time and say, “I know”.  I like stick to the age old adage of why do it the easy way when you can do it the real time-intensive and overly complicated way”!
When push comes to shove and someone asks “how long did this take”? I can lamely approximate, 100 hours..ish?  That being said, I have almost no ability to gauge how long this effort took and history (ie, the infographic) has taught me that I usually need to double or triple the number to get a better reflection of effort.

I’m not running for the North Dakota State Auditor …

But if I was I’m sure I would be awesome at it!  I’d have first learn what an auditor does, but then.. watch out, there’d be audits everywhere!

Hello Friends, Family, Loved-Ones, Miscellaneous Spam Bots and Everyone else!

First off, let me apologize for not posting for so, so, soooooo long!  I recently got caught up in watching the CW teen drama, “Vampire Diaries” and couldn’t shut it off.  I watched the the series 3 consecutive times.   Alright… that might be a lie.   In fact, I simply had writer’s block.  At first, I was busy with other things and didn’t mind the distractions; but, eventually I tried writing a post and nada.  Not a thing would come out.   I tried to fix it and stimulate some storytelling juju and got nothing.  I went as far as putting myself in “Blog Timeout” where I made myself write the phrase, “I will write a funny blog post.  I will write an funny blog post.” on my whiteboard 100 times.  Still nothing.  Thankfully, life and a trip to Europe conspired to help me and the juices have started flowing again.

Rather than catching you up on all of the exciting details from the summer (which, I plan to do eventually), I thought I would dive into the last week of amazing shenanigans, laughter and exploration and more!  It is easy to pick the place to start… Anouk & Michael’s (A&M’s) Wedding.

Before I even get into the fact that it was a blast to travel to France for an amazing celebration of two wonderful people (side note: If you are ever looking for a way to sound a bit more like James Bond and bit less like … Porter Hall; use the phrase “I am off to France for a dear friend’s wedding.”  Worked like a charm for me … mostly on the old women I sat by in the airport).

Wedding Location: Salins-les-Bains, France

Fort vs Castle (but definitely not a Palace)

While it is 100% certain that wedding was in an beautiful location.  There was small disagreement over the terminology of the physical structure, prompting a multi-week debate.  I, preferring the majesty and romance of attending a wedding in a chateaux, referred to the venue as a “castle.”  Adrian, being a fuddy-duddy, realist, called it a “fort.”

Conclusion: Undecided. The English-French translation for “Fort” has been lost in the annuals of time, so we likely never know who was right or wrong in this debate.

New & Improved Wedding Traditions

As some of you know… I loved weddings and have attended more than a few (Anouk’s wedding was my 51^st).  I can say unequivocally after attending this wedding that my dream woman is Danish  or at least has a strong connection to an amazing family that will help me pull off a nearly identical wedding as A&M’s.  (Those of you mentally keeping track of the makeup of my dream woman, will note we may be coming dangerously close to mutually exclusive qualities in the her “Qualities Venn Diagram”)

You are probably wondering what could make this wedding so great?  Why was it so much fun?   I’m glad you asked… for me it came down to a few wonderful Danish/French/Swiss trare just a few of the wonderful traditions:

Wedding MCs – That’s right.  Literally, two amazing people who volunteer to host the reception and help keep things moving forward.  In the US, we rely on a random DJ to announce the speeches and queue the Jock Jams classic “Are you Ready to Rumble” as the wedding party is introduced.  At this wedding, guests are prepare speeches, toasts, videos, PowerPoints (these individuals are people after my heart), and … wait for it… songs.  Then throughout the meal, the MCs help the guests perform or deliver whatever celebratory gesture they planned.

The Meal – Some of you have probably deduced, if there are a series of celebratory gestures the meal must take a bit longer than our usual US wedding.  Correct!  Unlike the 1-2 hour affair we have before the dancing starts… A&M’s wedding kicked off with an Amuse-Bouche (translated as “Mouth Amusement” and in this case it was some bacon, salsa, creamy-cheese dish.  In short, heaven).  After the Amuse-Bouche at 7pm, the food (and well-paired wines) continued to tumble out of the catering station until 1 am.  Literally,  more than five  courses of food and drink over six hours.  Well-played, French wedding, well-played!

Amuse my mouth!

These all seem neat, but what about the traditions?  I’m coming to those now…

First Dance – Yes, there was dancing.  It just didn’t get started till 1 am (an hour after most dances end at US weddings) and didn’t stop until 5 am.  For the first dance, all of the wedding guests surround Michael and Anouk who slowly started waltz.  After 15-30 seconds of waltzing, the entire audience takes one step in.  Another 15 seconds, the audience shifts in.  So on and so forth, until Michael and Anouk are waltzing in a 1×1 meter floor (<- yeah, metric system… feeling so European now).  At which point, Michael was lifted off the ground,  his shoes pulled off, and the toes of his socks were cut away by his helpful, yet quite inebriated friends.  It is unsure how many grooms have lost a toe to this tradition.

• Explanation: Supposedly, “in the olden days”, cutting off the tips of the socks was a signal to people that the groom was married.  When he visited others’ homes he would have to remove his shoes and reveal his toe-less socks… and kazaam… they would know he is married.   Note: It is unclear why the wedding ring wasn’t an obvious enough signal.

Watch out for the toes!

Bride/Groom Leave the Room – Sorry in advance to Michael and Anouk if this is a wedding spoiler.   When either the bride left the reception hall, all of the women (and Danes) would get up and kiss the groom on the cheek.  And when the groom left the reception hall, all of the men (and Danes) would get up  or women would get up and kiss the bride on the cheek.  I think the Danes just liked getting up and used this an excuse to refill their drinks.

• Explanation: I have no clue why, but it was fun.

Tinkling the Glasses – Similar to the US, when guests would hit their glasses with their knives or forks, the bride and groom would stand up and kiss.  Same-o, same-o.
              Version 2.0 – Stomp your Feet – When the guests would start to stomp their feet on the ground, the bride and groom had to crawl under the table to kiss.

• Explanation: No clue. Still lost.

Danish + Envy = Dan-vy

I have a serious case of Dan-vy!  The only thing better groomed and well-tailored than their suits, were their beards.  Moreover, they were incredibly fun and poorly behaved (a people after my own heart).  From the two guys who mooned the photo booth to the clever and inappropriate cheers and chants they lead throughout the night… I can only conclude that I need to make many many more Danish friends.

So… that was the first day of the trip!  Many more exciting tales to come (including a photo or two my lederhosen-clad trip to Ocktoberfest).

Photo booth + Props = Yes, please!

On to the next part of the dating mini-series!  Let’s hope whoever I end up dating never reads this post.

Tough (aka Brutally Honest) Love

Two years ago, I sat across from my mom in her kitchen while we chatted about my plans while I was visiting, that status on my friends, what I thought about my MBA, and (drum roll) my love life or lack thereof.  After a while the following, brutally honest conversation occurred:

Mom (Adeline or Addie, for short): Nicholas, why do you think you are single?
Nick: Ugh.. well.. ahhh [insert stammering here]. There are a variety of reasons, you know, ranging from how frequently I move to my commitment to my career, and…
Mom: Right… [insert skepticism here]… do you think it is because maybe your standards are too high?
Nick: Maybe. But, what part of my standards do you think I should lower?
Mom: All of them.

That was the first of several conversations that I would have about my standards and their effects on my ability to find and stay in a relationship.  Nine months after my mom broached the subject, Porter staged an intervention that went a little like this:

Porter: Maybe you should lower your standards, a bit.  I am not saying they should be as low as [unnamed Kiwi rugby player with an aversion to pants]; but, it would help if you lowered them a little.

Approximately, a year after that Carlton Brown offered more specific guidance. He suggested that instead of editing the long list of qualities I was hoping my next girlfriend would embody, I should figure out what are the few characteristics they absolutely should have.  In essence, I should identify my deal breakers (e.g., If the girl doesn’t like dancing, I should cut my losses and move on (This is an actual deal breaker)).  After a lot of wrestling with this idea and brainstorming out loud about what is important to me, Carlton offered one last very truthful piece of advice,  “At this point of your dating life, you shouldn’t have more than 3 deal breakers, maybe even just 2.”

I’m not the smartest person when it comes to dating; but, at this point I would have to be a moron to miss the consensus opinion of my friends and family.  These conversations prompted me to reflect on the fact that 1) I need to find new friends & family and 2) I should re-evaluate my standards (and/or deal breakers).

Prince(ss) Charming Checklist

I am not someone who dates a tremendous amount.  If I include my tumultuous on-again, off-again courtship of my 2^nd grade girlfriend, I’ve been in exactly 3.5 relationships.  I have worked to supplement my minimal knowledge by carefully observing (and judging) friends’ relationships AND I watching the first two seasons of Sex and the City.  Based on my robust secondary and primary research, I have concluded that expectations evolve over time for a variety of reasons – age, experience, and externalities (specifically, romantic comedies).

Initially, expectations and criteria were pretty simple…

If they checked “yes” or “maybe”, you were in!  The discerning elementary student may have tried to sweeten the deal by pursuing a girl whose mom packed Lunch-ables.  But that was about it.

At some point, the expectations start to rise.  The increasing expectations could be because of older siblings and parents, romantic comedies, advice gleaned from Sex and the City, or Disney.  The teenage and college years are spent establishing and refining the Prince(ss) Charming Checklist™.  The checklist, whether explicitly written or intuitively felt, is a collection of the all criteria and attributes that someone is hoping their perfect soul mate will exemplify.  The criteria range from physical attributes – age, height, weight, hair color, amount of back hair – to personality and values – religion, views on finances, values, do they believe in gravity.

Best case scenario, you fall in love with your soulmate the first week of college.  Typically, it is the person who helps you move into your dorm or the individual that fate partners you with during your college’s orientation square dance / hoedown (Fun fact: This actually happens at Gustavus).

If you don’t find your soulmate during the first two years, the Prince(ss) Charming Checklist™ criteria starts to shift but doesn’t seem to decrease.  You start to admit that you didn’t really want to date a 4-year Varsity Track Start who triple majored in Pre-Med, Pre-Law, and Ancient Greek…. Instead what you want is 2-year varsity golfer (better for networking) who quit so they could make time for volunteering.

If you are unable to pull off a successful “Ring by Spring” your senior year, you have to march into the real world clutching your diploma and dubious concern you may not find true love until you’re 24.  Thus begins the revising and elimination of criteria.  First things to go are the inconsequentials (e.g., matching horoscope signs, shared beliefs about the authenticity and power of Avril Lavigne’s song “Complicated”).

If Mr(s). Right still hasn’t saved you from a burning building by your mid-20s, you start to remove some of the more meaningful criteria (e.g., an appreciation for traveling (you want to see the world and live on the Falkan Islands while they hate leaving their house [and when I say their house, I mean their parent’s basement).

Somehow the late 20s sneak up on you.  If you’re smart and single, you’ve probably considered going to graduate school because that way you can at least step of the Life Treadmill for a couple years and try to figure out what the hell is going on.  If you skip grad school or end up, unfortunately, graduating… you arrive at the point where only deal breakers are left… (e.g., have the same faith, less than 10 cats, etc).

Eventually, sometime in your 30s you reach the bottom of the proverbial checklist valley, known simply as, “Not a Felon”.  At this point, you are basically looking for someone who doesn’t try to steal money from the offering plate at church.  Good luck with that.

I am not actually sure about the uptake that occurs after the “Not a Felon” valley.  Older friends promise me that after dating a few terrible relationships with absolutely no expectations or criteria, you learn that it is important to adhere to a few key standards.  I’ll report back in a few years on what I find.

And the Standard(s)… They came Tumbling, Tumbling Down!

The pace of descent to the “Not a Felon” varies for everyone.  There is no hard and fast rule (unlike the Icarus Bullseye – link).  While there are a number of things that influence individuals, the driving factors I’ve discovered tend to be as follows:

If you are like me, I imagine the lion’s share of your conversations with friends and family focuses on a very small range of topics – work, dating, and dating at work.  While I have thought about writing about my dating life in the past, I was hesitant because my friends and family are at very different of relationship stages.  While these differences normally aren’t a problem, it makes it especially hard to articulate the specific issues I am facing as a single guy in a mobile-first, digitally powered, text-before-you-call dating world.

Gone are the days of landlines, blind dates arranged by friends, and picking up your date and dropping her off.  Now, are the days of digital researching your potential date (guilty), overly long text exchanges fizzling into nothing (guilty) and an endlessly swiping left or right on the latest matching application (guilty).

For instance, many of my single friends can easily appreciate the timing challenges associated with juggling a variety of online matchmaking apps (Coffee Meets Bagel: noon; The League: 5 pm; Tinder: Semi-daily refreshes; Hinge: Hourly updates, etc.)… while, my married friends continue to ask me if I have created joined eHarmony yet.  Suffice to say, very different understandings of the technology-enabled dating scene.

As I pondered this challenge, I realized that I need to approach this the same way HBO managed to cover four wars, two presidencies and a trip to the moon:  a mini-series!  More specifically, an Online Dating Mini-Series by Nick Kroshus.

To start, we need to establish some common language by providing an overview of the online dating application ecosystem and share some basic background and strategies for how one (ie, me) approaches online dating.

App Dating Ecosystem

For those of you who have been out of the game for a while, let me introduce you to the average single San Franciscan’s collection of dating apps.

As saturated as the market is, I feel like we are only a few weeks if not months away from some new ways to categorize and partner people… hopefully, by pet ownership (dog lovers unite!).  Given the overwhelming number of options and the near full-time job time commitment, we’re lucky the “Dating as a Service” hasn’t sprung up.  Actually, come to think of it… sadly, “Dating as a Service” does exist and is utilized by some, when you use its more common name, “prostitution”, most buyers & sellers opt out of this market.

Icarus Geographic Dating Bullseye

Coupling the need to efficiently minimize dating “time sucks” with the desire to maximize the chances of finding a future soul mate, I’ve developed a mathematical dating theorem called the Icarus Geographic Dating Bullseye (or Icarus Bullseye, for short).  The Icarus Bullseye attempts to calculate the relative trade off between “Candidate Age” and  “Candidate Distance”, when altering the online matching preferences.  In short, if you could save yourself 20 minutes of travel, how much does your age preference shift up or down?

Icarus Geographic Dating Bullseye Mathematical Proof

Naming

The name is based on the Greek legend about Icarus.  Icarus built wings of feathers and wax to flee the Labyrinth in Crete.  Ignoring his father’s instructions to not fly too high or too low, he flew too close to the sun where his wings started to melt.  He tried to correct by flying closer to the sea where the feathers became damp and he fell into the sea.

Similarly, when dating, it is important to find a delicate balance of someone who lives far enough away where you won’t constantly be around each other, yet near enough that you aren’t spending all of your time traveling.

Factors

While I would personally never screen someone based solely on age and geography, it tends to be the primary (if not, only) method apps utilize to limit potential candidates.  So don’t judge me for using tools I have… or as the kids say, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game”.

Given dating apps primarily limit your ability to screen potential candidates by 1) age and 2) distance, the bullseye

In practice

Using myself as an example, the bullseye highlights the relative change in age ranges as the potential candidate is located further away.  I am much more willing to data wider age range of women who live closer to me, while my standards increase the further I have to go for the dates.

Age Range: Distance Traveled Ratio

Simultaneously, I don’t want to date anyone too close, cause… what if we break up? I don’t want them to be all up in my business at Whole Foods or the Muni.  Thus, a small buffer needs to be established and maintained.

Icarus Bullseye Buffer

Online Profile Screen Criteria

Anyone who regularly uses an online dating application, inevitably develops a system (often bad, but some are good) for quickly evaluating and deciding on the potential matches.  When contrasted with an inexperienced users (eg, married friends), it is almost night and day in how the app is used and matches selected.  When my married friends “play” a dating app, they scrutinize the nuances of each photo, read the user profile, debate if the match is a good person, and what qualities they likely exhibit in relationship.  While the added scrutiny likely leads to higher quality matches, the fact remains that the apps are mostly a numbers game and no one has large amounts of time to commit.

To give you some idea, I tried to articulate some of the considerations I use when evaluating potential matches.  The themes are ranked from least to most important and ultimately, I am hoping the match has a positive score after reviewing their profile.

Note: I don’t actually use this spreadsheet… at this point of my dating life cycle, I already have these criteria memorized.

Happy dating!

Hello Friends & Family!

Happy Friday & May Day! As another exciting week and month draw to a close, I thought I would keep you cats updated on the most recent monthly resolution.

 Pre-Amble to the Pre-Amble

As I was deciding if I should write about this month’s resolution, I struggled a bit if I wanted to talk about faith in my blog because it is such a serious topic and didn’t want to step on toes.  And then… I realized that the people who read my blog would be equally indifferent and/or accepting of this post for vastly different, yet valid reasons.

Half of the readers are from the Mid-west (whoop, whoop… aka No Coast) and would largely think, “most of us are Christian and if we aren’t, many of the people around us are… thus, not a big shocker that someone would write a post about the Christian faith”  (if I am being really honest, the next thought would likely progress to “why people shouldn’t have to say Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas is just fine, yadda yadda yadda”).

The other half of my posse are my San Francisco homies (whoop, whoop again?).  While they are less likely to have a specific faith (for instance, only ~20% of my MBA class said they practice some form of religion/spirituality), they are pretty accepting group.  In this instance, I imagine the thought process would be something like, “I don’t really believe in God, but it’s cool if you do” (and again, if I am being honest, they next would be something like, “I feel the same about your faith as I do about nude sunbathers at Dolores Park, crazy people protesting nuclear testing in Berkeley, and Tindr.  It’s not for me, but if works for you.. go for it.”)

Pre-Amble

Normally, I wouldn’t feel compelled to qualify my blog post, but given I am going to touch on the ultra-sensitive topic of faith… I figured I’d put a small pre-cursor out my observations and learnings were 1) intended to help me understand my own faith a bit more and 2) as accurate and “true” as I could I verify.

So with those many qualifiers established… let’s go!

“Be Still for God”

For the month of April, I decided on a faith-based theme, “Be Still for God”.  There were a lot of reasons for choosing this resolution now, but two biggies.

First, this theme was fit perfectly with April given Good Friday and Easter occurred at the beginning of the month.

Second, I watched HBO’s Going Clear documentary about Scientology at the end of March.  In that documentary, one of the interviewees talked about how most major practitioners of a faith can summarize the basic tenets and rationales of their faith in one or two sentences.  This prompted me to try to explain my faith, which I could do… but, as I was reciting the “what” and “how”, I realized I was a little less clear on the “why”.  So I said, “let there be a resolution, and there was a resolution, and it was good.” <- This is a little old testament humor, in case you didn’t pick up on that.

Background

For those of you who don’t know, I am Christian and have been for a pretty long time (like… my entire life).  As a family, we started out Catholic and made a mid-race switch to Lutheran when I was 10(ish) … basically, the same thing with less guilt.  Or as I like to say, “Lutheranism: all of the salvation, none of the sin!”

But, let’s be clear… less guilt; not, no guilt.  I think all parents are skilled at cajoling their children into doing the right things, but faith-based cajoling is extra effective. I remember trying to skip out of church when I was a teenager by explaining to my mom that I was too tired to go.

My mom would respond, “When you die and get to the pearly gates outside of Heaven, do you want St Peter to tell you that he is too tired to let you in?”

Checkmate, mom, checkmate.

What I set out to do…

When I set the theme of “Be Still for God” for the month of April, I had big plans! Like all my resolutions, I quickly overcommitted and fell drastically short of my goals.  In short, I aspired to:

*** If I say something you don’t understand, page down to the “What I learned section, it’s explained there” ***

 Read the Bible – 11% Complete – I somewhat arrogantly assumed I would just cruise through the Old Testament (aka Torah) and the New Testament. I even thought I might pick up a few books from the Apocrypha for giggles.  Suffice to say, that didn’t happen.

If you are questioning the specificity of the 11%, I know exactly how much I have read because my Kindle tells me so.  (I just had a moment where I imagined little Sunday School students 10 years from now singing a new age “Jesus Loves Me” where they swap ‘bible’ for ‘kindle’…”Jesus loves me. This I know, for the Kindle tells me so.”)

Back to the 11%, translates to: All of Genesis (7%), Exodus (3%), and 8 chapters of Leviticus (1%).

Make time pray / meditate – 25% Complete – Strong, strong start with a quick tapering off after the first few weeks.

Read Supporting Literature/Theological Studies – 0% Complete – Again, super uppity in my ambitions. Unless, you count reading part of the C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, I didn’t really have a chance to get to any of this.

Attend Church – 75% Complete – Crushed it! Bernice turned me onto a sweet rock band church called Reality SF.

Definition: “rock band church”

Beyond the fact that the church is amazing and I really enjoy the blend of historical exploration with theological application, it also is the largest collection of really attractive, really wholesome people I’ve ever come across in California.  At this point, I suspect they screen unattractive at the doors or there is some divine power making everyone amazingly beautiful/handsome/etc.   If I was Reality SF, I would rebrand myself to, “Come for God, Stay for the Beautiful People”.

Let’s pause, if you got this far.  You deserve a small reward.  Here is a longish, but worth it video created by the church Jack & Jenny attend.  Short explanation, the church leaders as the kids to help them write a song and then perform it based on the lyrics provided – it’ll make your day – https://vimeo.com/105906114

Top 11 Things I Learned that were TOTALLY Fascinating

As I was start this spirt journey / faith quest / [other badass sounding name], I quickly got a little confused by what I was reading.  For instance, how was Noah living to be 900 years old.  So, I decided I needed to augment my reading with some research.  I ended up listening to:

Dale Martin’s Open Yale Course “Introduction to New Testament History” – link 

Shaye Cohen’s Harvard Course “The Hebrew Bible” – link

I learned a lot and I’ll share some highlights.

1. Canon vs Gospel vs Holy Scripture?
   1. Canon – Collection of divinely inspired books, listed in a prescribed order, comprising a bible
   2. Holy scriptures – Texts that religious traditions consider to be sacred
   3. Gospel – Holy scriptures that account of the life of Jesus and his teachings.
2. Biblical authorship – When I was growing up, I sort of thought that Moses wrote the Old Testament and Jesus wrote the New Testament. When I hit confirmation, I figured out that there were disciples and followers who wrote some of the texts. As I studied the Bible from a historical context, there emerges a number of writers who have written or contributed in some fashion – anonymously or explicitly to the written scriptures.  This analysis is often called documentary hypothesis.
   1. Old Testament – Turns out Moses probably didn’t write it all (I could be wrong). Historians have an alphabet soup of individuals who contributed:
      1. J Writer – Yahwehist source, writes God in a more human fashion who expresses emotions and can be bargained with, etc.
      2. P Writer – Priestly source, writes more about rituals and laws, offering specific instructions on things like how to build a tabernacle
      3. R – The redactor, or person who compiled and edited the Torah together
   2. New Testament – Equally as interesting, historians believe a variety of scholars contributed.  The most fascinating idea is the belief that there is a common document (the Q Document) that 3 of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark & Luke)  drew from when writing their versions of Jesus’s life.

3. Languages … Hebrew, Aramic, Greek.. oh my! – Languages had a pretty big impact on how certain aspects of the bible are interpreted, compiled, and shared.
   1. Apocrypha Books (Tobit, Maccabees, etc) – These books are left out of the Protestant Bibles (but included in Roman Catholic Bibles) in part because their divinity was questioned based on the grounds that copies of the text existed in Greek but not Hebrew.
   2. Names – This can and does get confusing really fast, because sometimes names of individuals aren’t translated the same in all the books. For instance, the name: Judas (Greek) = Judah (Hebrew) = Jude (English)
4. When the Christian Bible became the Christian Bible – While I hate to draw on any learnings from Dan Brown’s DaVinci code – there is some truth to the idea that there are many different gospels and literary books. The Christian Bible as we know it wasn’t structured or canonized as we know it until 300-400 AD.
5. Out loud – The bible was intended to be read out loud. Initial writings were in scroll format and written in all capital letters without spacing, so it would have been difficult if not impossible to read it silently.  Moreover, reading it out loud allowed individuals to share it with others.

   Reading it out loud is definitely the way to go, even today.  I found listening to the Audible Bible 1 MILLION times better than trying to read it myself.

6. Prophecies & Prophets – There were a lot of prophets. The ones I found most fascinating where Apocalyptic Prophets, or individuals who foretell the end of time (which means most prophets).  One of the most fascinating aspects about prophecy is how biblical writers 1) established credibility and 2) historians use prophecies to date when a text is written.
   1. Credibility – When an individual wanted to make someone (or themselves) a prophet they would write themselves back in time. For example, if I wanted to establish prophetic gifts I would write as if I was born in 1960s and start predicating what would happen in the future up to present day and then make guesses about what happens next. Sound crazy, this definitely happened.
   2. Historical dating – The reason they know this happened is because there were prophets would get literally everything right up to a certain year and after that would never get things correct. Historians used these inconsistencies to determine when different texts were written
7. Revelation = Terrifying – If you’ve read this part of the New Testatment, it could literally give you nightmares. Two things, I learned…
   1. It is Revelation_ not Revelations. Lots of people say this wrong, it is the biblical equivalent of saying “Anyways”.
   2. Some historians believe that the Book of Revelation was meant to describe the downfall of Nero and the Roman Empire and may have already occurred (and/or has definitely occurred given the Roman Empire no longer exists).
8. YHWH – Pronounced, “Yahweh”, it is the tetragrammaton of the Old Testament spelling of the name of God. As I understand it, there was no way to summarize God in words, so early bible writers used YHWH to represent God without naming him .  Bonus fun fact from Noa… Religiously observant Jews are forbidden from saying the name of God when reading the Torah.
9. Creation Stories – Some historians believe that Genesis has two separate but equal creation stories, not one. (I’ll pause because I am sure your mind is blown). It is subtle, but grab your Kindle or Bible, flip to Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.  Beyond the obvious redundancy of the stories (where man is created twice), the two chapters have events occurring in different orders ([insert gasp here]).

Genesis 1:
Day 5: God whips up some fish and birds,
Day 6: God makes animals and Man,
Day 7: Rest.

But as the Thai like to say, Genesis is “Same, Same but Different”

Genesis 2:
Day Unknown: God forms Man. Boom.
Little Later: God seems man is lonely…
Little Later: God “will make a helper suitable for him” and brings forth wild animals and birds for Adam to name. So on and so forth… neat, huh?

10. Jesus = Fact – Specifically, historians agree with some certainty that Jesus existed. No credible historian would attempt to tackle the question of his divinity, but there is evidence to suggest that a person named Jesus existed and had followers.
    1. When you start to get to the divinity of Jesus, lots of really interesting ideas are offered, including:
       1. Jesus was always divine and came down to be with humans
       2. Jesus was adopted by God, while on Earth, and made divine through
       3. Jesus was human on Earth and became Divine when he died and ascended
       4. (My favorite) Jesus looked like he was human but was in fact divine, such that he was weightless. If Jesus walked on a wet beach he wouldn’t leave foot prints.

11. Jesus is a Ninja – Fact, Jesus trained as ninja under a wise shogun in Japan between 1207 and 1241 AD. Just seeing if you’re still reading.

Have a great weekend!

Hello Friends & Family!

I hope all is well and everyone is enjoying the warming weather (if you live in Minnesota) and the cooling weather (if you life in the Bay Area).  I have recently received a few calls for follow up on some of the earlier months’ goals and initiatives and what, if any, final outcomes occurred from the resolutions.  So, let’s dig in…

February Resolution … Embrace the Chaos, Creatively!

Overall, a huge success!  I happily threw myself into a variety of creative projects that achieved varying degrees of completion.  In order of least to most completion, I playfully dabbled in the following:

Writing a novel – 0% Complete – I spent significant time thinking about characters, plot, sub-plots, the moral of the story and then got hopelessly stuck on the minor-est of details – what to name the main character. Fail.

3D Print … my middle finger – 50% Complete – In a moment of frustration, I thought wistfully, man I wish I could send Person X a 4 hour Youtube video of my fist and middle finger being constructed micron layer by micron layer.  Essentially, achieving the greatest ‘Eff You’ ever.

I dove into the project with relish, worked many hours on digitally capturing the image – first by myself, which was disaster, and later solicited some assistance (big shout out to Adrian who was willing to take 60+ photos of my hand).  Once I imported the photos, I started creating the 3D model and almost immediately discovered my 3D design skills are less than impressive and nowhere near sufficient for the task.  … I had an odd bulbous bulge on my hand.  That being said, if anyone needs a digital model of a hand with 9 fingers, let me know.

Normal Hand … looks almost perfect

Bulbous Hand …obviously, something went wrong…

Compose a song – 75% Complete – As an homage to my Trinidadian heritage, I decided to explore my musical talent through rhythm and poetry.  Specifically, I composed more than half of an original Soca song.

I imagine this is less of a surprise to you then it was to me; but, creating beats and ‘riddims’ (<- Caribbean word for musical accompaniment) is really, really freaking hard.  Thus, I have the lyrics mostly drafted and a basic beat that underscores the music, but we’ll see how much more I can get done.  In my last listening … the song sounded more like John Travolta singing Grease Lightning (link) than Machel Montano singing Happiest Man Alive (link).

Infographic – 100% Complete – Big win!  If you haven’t checked it out yet… you should! It’s pretty sweet (link).  The only confession here, is the 15-18 hour estimate was an absolute lie.  In hindsight, this must have taken me over 30 hours.

Overall, it was an awesome month of dabbling in a variety of creative outlets and I am thrilled I tried.

March Resolution … Treat your body like a temple

The two most common questions I got throughout the month were: 1) Do you feel different?  Can you tell that your body is “cleaner”? and 2) Did you lose weight?

Do you feel different? Can you tell your body is “cleaner”?

When I started out on this journey, I had assumed that as time went on my entire life would change.  Basically, I thought I would experience something akin to the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the door and discovers a world of color.

I thought I would spring out of bed in the morning, colors would be brighter.  Possibly, I would start ending all of my conversations with “Namaste” or I spend my time eating kale while discussing vegan recipes with the Whole Foods cashier.

Suffice to say, none of these happened.

Do I feel better?

Yes.

What has changed?

Two things have changed for me…

First, my “relationship” with food has fundamentally changed. I use to blindly eat whatever was available and the number one priority when shopping was ‘convenience’ followed closely by ‘sweetness’.

…Old Nick… bought lots of peanut butter, ice cream, and snacks.

…New Nick… is focused on “healthy” and “fresh” as priorities. Last night when I went shopping at Safeway – I purchased 8 different types of fruits and veggies, 4 different types of meat, 0 dairy, 0 gains, 0 desserts.

Second, I no longer think I am addicted to sugar. In some low points of the sugar addiction phase, I would grab Peanut Butter M&Ms for breakfast or binge eat ice cream for dinner.  There was a certain degree of lack of self-control.  After my Whole30, I bought a package of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Oreos (which are awesome!) and haven’t eaten more than two in a day.

…Old Nick… would have crushed the entire package in a day and probably added some Nutella for kicks…

…New Nick… is pretty okay having a 1 or 2 in a day and doesn’t going overboard.

Did you lose weight?

I think so… I didn’t weigh myself before or after, so I am not 100% sure.  I do know that I have to tighten the belt more now than before.  But, that seems a bit relative and at the end of the day I could just be sucking in.  The goal is still to “look good naked*” which means, I don’t really care how much I weigh as long as I look good weighing it.

The reason I specify naked is because I am not above purchasing Man Spanx (aka male shapewear) if I thought I would pull them off.  I mean literally “pull them off”, I am worried I will put them on and then be stuck and need to have my roommates or the fire department use the jaws of life to get them off me!

Hello Friends & Family!

I hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather, longer days, and all the slushy, sunny goodness that is Spring!  In my ongoing march (<- pun intended?) through my monthly resolutions, I decided to take a plunge into the ultra-difficult commitment to healthy living.  Simply put, I decided to embrace the mantra “Treat Your Body Like A Temple.”

Those of you who know me, know I am willing to commit to some odd dietary ideas.  There was the month in North Carolina where I tried to eat a bag of spinach a day (like the spinach leaves were chips).  There were the two juice 3-day juice cleanses I completed, and by completed – I mean I drank juice while I stayed home and watched Netflix for 3 days. And let’s not forget the time I foolishly allowed a co-worker to convince me that “food is just energy and taste shouldn’t be a factor” – which is stupid.  So with history of dabbling in an interesting repertoire of healthy lifestyle choices, I had to up the ante.

March Resolution… “Treat Your Body Like A Temple”

For a while I have wondered if I could actually live for one month of clean healthy living. In essence, treating my body like a temple – eat right, exercise, get enough sleep, cut out the bad habits. My personal journey, similar to all great sojourners was fraught with peril and self-doubt. In a way, I am a bit like a modern day Food-Conscientious Lewis & Clark or possibly, a Culinary Christopher Columbus.

So here I am, one week after the most caloric and sugary two days of my year diving into a healthy living.  On Sunday evening, I wrote the basic guidelines for the month:

• Eat – only fruits, vegetables, meat. Which cuts out processed sugar, grains, and alcohol (which is just grains + sugar).  If you are craving more details, I am basically following the Whole30 plan.
• Sleep – 8 hours+ / day
• Play – Move 60 minutes a day; if little kids can do this, I feel like I should be able to ..

These guidelines seemed so simple, so easy to achieve, so … stupid.  It was difficult to explain the nuance of this journey without a little help from a graphic, please see chart below to understand the tumultuous emotional journey that is not eating sugar.

1. Day 1: Life is good, the birds are chirping, things are right in the world. Like all dieters, Day 1 is awesome – what could go wrong?
2. Day 2: 24 Hours without sugar. I start to feel a bit like Tom Hanks in Castaway.  I am mumbling to myself, I am constantly searching for something sweet, and even have started to have odd hallucinations about involving sugar.  Today, while getting coffee, I drifted off for a 30 seconds and had a vivid fantasy about ripping open a Splenda packet and devouring its artificial sweetener.  Safe to say, sugar addiction – confirmed.

…Here begins the bacon saga…

3. Day 3: I learn that bacon is an approved food for this diet. My heart leaps, I can’t stop smiling, and bacon becomes a staple in my meals (read more about transformation from a sugar addict to a b bacon addict below).  Life is good, 27 days suddenly seems very do-able.
4. Day 4 – 10:13 AM: A kind co-worker questions the veracity of my bacon claim. I do research and discover Whole 30 does not condone bacon, in fact they strongly discourage it.  A single tear rolls down my cheek.
5. Day 4 – 10:18 AM: Salvation! There is one small exception to the previous bacon restriction.  Paleo bacon! Bacon is back on the menu!
6. Day 4 – 6:05 PM: I have purchased my paleo bacon at Whole Foods (at the reasonable rate of $12.00 / lb), returned home and eaten the bacon. It is awful, life is back to not worth living.
7. Day 4 – 7:10 PM: I uncurl from the fetal position and resolve to continue to eat bacon no matter what! I will not be deterred by trace amounts of organic sugar that constitute less than 2% of ingredients.  I return to Whole Foods for non-nitrate, non-sulfate, uncured, organic bacon!

 … Here ends the bacon saga…

8. Day 10 – My body starts to detox from 30+ years of eating sugar. It is tough describe how terrible I felt from day 10-12, but the closest sensation I can think of is: imagine your three or four closest friends fill socks with quarters and then beat you with these make shift weapons for an entire day.  I felt terrible – I had strange aches, I got headaches by early afternoon and had to leave work to go lay down.  Thankfully, when I Googled “Whole30 body ache” – I got 8,090 results, so I knew I wasn’t alone.
9. Day 12+ – Things start to feel normal. I have yet to experience the “Tiger Blood-like energy” or an “eagerness to jump out of bed in the morning”, but I am no longer craving sugar constantly.  My body and mind feel mentally alert without any stimulation beyond some coffee and an apple.
10. Today – My body continues to have minor schizophrenic reactions. Mostly, because I have run out of new, interesting food to eat. I want basically want anything for breakfast other than eggs and bacon.  And while I have moved away from spinach and chicken for launch, steamed veggies and bacon has run its course as well.  I find myself going back to the same question over and over again  how people can lead a condiment-less life?

BaConfusion (get it?  it’s ‘bacon’ and ‘confusion’ combined)

I also, have started to wonder if I really understand the parameters outlined.  The website says don’t worry about calories or tracking weight, just eat natural food.  This seems fine in principle, but I am wondering if I will really be better off if I replace sweets with bacon.  Which, I can assure you is starting to happen.

Watching TV, can’t have chips? Eat bacon.

Want a snack for the BART ride, can’t have M&Ms? Eat bacon.

Want a peanut butter sandwich? Eat bacon.

I am not saying bacon has been the solution to _ALL_ my problems, but I am not sure it couldn’t solve some major world issues…

Want countries to reduce or eliminate nuclear programs? Eat bacon.

Worried about climate change? Eat bacon.

Dating & Dieting

Healthy Eating Takeaways & Thoughts

People have asked me about the experience and my overall thoughts so let me summarize. I imagine, some of these people will already know or have experienced themselves.

• I think about food … a lot! But not, the fun thinking of looking up interesting restaurants on Yelp or pinning new recipes online; instead, my thinking is in the vein of hunter/gather-thinking.  I almost always thinking about where to get food, how to make food, or eating food.  Note: when I say hunter/gather, it has a modern twist… I hunt down deals at WholeFoods and gather things off the shelf.
• Shopping – Twice as much, twice as long
  • Twice as long – Shopping takes me twice as long for two main reasons.  First, I usually walk through and select all of the things I normally buy.  I get to the register, realize I can have almost none of it and have to walk back, replacing everything and finding items that fit the restrictions.  Two, I have to read all of the ingredients and usually have to Google more than one thing to figure out if it is okay.
  • Twice as much – Not volume, price.  I know this isn’t shocking to anyone, but really, eating healthy vs processed/fast/etc is significantly more expensive.  I would say that this cost 2-3x what I normally spend on meals.  Lauren Wilkerson-Hall suggested this diet, thus I plan on invoicing a bill to help cover the additional cost.
• Sugar is in everything – On one hand, I expected this.  On the other, HOLY CRAP IT IS IN EVERYTHING!  I had a reasonable expectation that it would be in many things – desserts, peanut butter, alcohol – but it is core ingredient everywhere.  It is added to some salt brands (which I assume is at the atom-level structure, it is in apple sauce (cause, fruit isn’t sweet enough), it is even in bacon (I don’t know where exactly)!
• Condiment-less Living – Is not really living.  Sugar is in almost every condiment and when I tried to make my DIY version, it tasted awful.  Trust me, homemade, sugarless ketchup sucks … leave it to Heinz, they know what they are doing.

Dieting & Dating

While you would think that one restricts the other, there has been an interesting and statistically significant change in behavior.  The only “no sugar” exception I allowed myself was that I could have a drink if I was on a date (to avoid it being weird and all).  With just a slight incentive, I basically turned into a dating machine.

I am not saying they were all the best dates, but with the right incentive anything is possible.

Every few months, I am compelled to switch the person that cuts my hair…
I desperately crave a “Mute” option for all Uber / taxi rides…
I never use the same personal trainer more than once….

Why?

My affable demeanor, boyish good looks, and willingness to agree with whatever a stranger says creates an unsustainable web of lies.  For instance, my most recent hair stylist thinks I am an ex-felon who enjoys going to dance clubs and was born and raised in Oakland.  None of these are true.

In my defense, she talks fast and aggressively uses a shaver when cutting my hair, which makes it hard to hear.  Unfortunately, when I do hear her … I face a Nick Kroshus-esque Conundrum™.  She is over-sharing a lot of crazy stories … and I don’t want her to feel bad for saying crazy stuff… so… I try to normalize the situation by agreeing with her or … worse, fabricating my own crazy stories.

I was never really sure why this kept happening (other than because of my boyish good looks and nobody wants me to change those!)… until the Berkeley-Haas MBA came to the rescue (I haven’t figured out how to insert music on my blog yet, but please image the “Dun Dun Dun” sound here).

In my Negotiation course, I learned a great deal about the art of value creation, negotiating strategies and gambits, and outright haggling.  One lesson that was especially interesting to me was a quick review individual’s conflict management styles.  Where the professor shared a slide (Exhibit A) and chatted through the dynamics and manifestations of each style.  You can largely imagine the attributes, “Competitors” are willing to be uncomfortable to get what they want, “Collaborators” are the uber-negotiators.

Exhibit A

Unfortunately, I didn’t fit neatly into one of these buckets. What I learned was that I am an Accoma-voider (and, I am not the only one … word to my homies, Steph White & Anthony Valente.)!  Beyond its dinosaurian sounding name, an Accoma-voider is a Conflict Management Style that is like a weird love child of an “Avoider” and “Accomodator” (Exhibit B).   Essentially, blending the blends the worst parts of both .  When I am not actively avoiding any conflict, I am typically folding like a house of cards during it.

Exhibit B

Note 1: I am a bit Type A and my professor’s poorly formatted slide (Exhibit A) drove me nuts, so I recreated it.
Note 2: It is tough to find a photo of someone accommodating and avoiding, so I just went for young and confused.

To combat this syndrome (and save me from having to find another hair stylist), I’ve create my own Accoma-voider rehab.  It’s in its start-up stages and needs more development, but primarily… I hung around Lauren and Porter while they planed their wedding and when a conflict arises; I lean in and try to tolerate the discomfort as long as possible.  Sometimes, I have to fan the flames a bit – but their marital spates are a small price to pay for my future mental health.