Last week I came back from my trip to California. It’s good to be back with the Brunch this week and girl do I have a lot of thoughts.
Family Slice: My Potsticker
The hardest part of traveling is being away from my family. Kim and I are pretty bad at being apart. As a matter of fact, I call Kim my potsticker. Like, I could shake my body to try to get away, but she would just be stuck to my chest like a potsticker to the side of a pan.
And when I came home from my first trip to America, my friends, curious about my new girlfriend, asked me, "How is she?" I just said, "Nothing is complicated." Thirteen years, twelve of them married, it's still the same. She's just not complicated, and when I was young, complicated relationships were one of my pet peeves. Like, really? Do we have to play the game of dating? I mean, there seems to be this unwritten rule that you don't cuddle, text, or call too much, but Kim and I - we fell asleep while on Skype. We were absolutely inseparable. I'm not a couples therapist, but let me say this: if you're in a relationship and everything is complicated, just know that when you're getting married, it's not magically getting easier. It's what I thought in my first marriage, and I witnessed the opposite in my marriage with Kim.
Anyway, last week, Kim dropped me off at the airport, and I was swooning over her. I was going to have another event in October, but I canceled it because I didn't have it in me to travel more. I’m at my best when I’m with my best friend.
This Week’s Special: Actually, Last Week’s Special.
I always delete my IG after I upload a reel. It's just better for me. I don't have the mental capacity to deal with the hate I get online, compounded with the vitriol there.
Last week, after I posted a reel, I was reminded again how good that decision was for my mental health. There was an IG account that popped up a few times that said something along these lines: "Chappell Roan is from Missouri - the state where a Governor's race is happening. One candidate helped murder an innocent man tonight, and the other candidate said that it's wrong to murder innocent people and she wouldn't do that. But ya know, 'there's problems with both sides'."
For those who missed it, before the highly discussed execution of Marcellis Williams by the state of Missouri, Chappell Roan refused to endorse Kamala Harris and the internet broke in half. Chappell Roan defended herself by saying, "I'm voting for Harris, but I'm not going to endorse her; those are two different things, and besides, there are problems on both sides."
Whenever I see a false dichotomy, my hair begins to rise.
Lately, I've been seeing more of these comments that all follow the same structure: present a complex situation as only having two outcomes and then policing that their view is the only way to pursue justice. So let's dissect this comment together.
"Chappell Roan is from Missouri": This sounds like a fallacy from the start. Chappell Roan doesn’t owe allegiance or an explanation on behalf of her home state.
"One governor is pro-death penalty and the other is against it": This is a classic bifurcation fallacy in the making. Do you notice that this person is dividing an entire realm into only two options?
"But yeah, 'there are problems on both sides'": And now the creator tries to make a direct connection between Chappell Roan’s earlier statement and the more recent events in Missouri. Do you notice how a bifurcation fallacy just feels off? We all can probably sense that something is wrong with this statement, but we can't quite put our finger on it. In this case, the bifurcation is compounded with a straw man argument that has nothing to do with what's at hand.
Chappell Roan's comment about there being problems on both sides of America’s political parties has nothing to do with being pro- or anti-death penalty, and that's the problem right there. The notion is that if you aren’t wholeheartedly Democratic, you must be anti-social justice. That if you aren’t wholeheartedly voting Democratic, you are somehow pro-death penalty. In order to pursue social justice, you have to use your star power and endorse Kamala Harris.
It pains me, but this policing of social justice is not bringing us together at all. It's especially jarring because the person who posted this has about half a million followers and is knowingly and willingly using false dichotomies to push their point.
Just for context - the incredibly tragic and unjust Marcellus Williams case dates back to 1998 when Williams was arrested. He was subsequently convicted of murder in 2001. Over the course of his time in prison, his case has been reviewed multiple times, and his death sentence had been stayed.
The number of posts on Social Media that demanded justice just felt a little... disingenuous. Williams had been in prison for so long, and at the eleventh hour, many progressives decided to post about how absurd the situation was and got aggressive when others didn't post anything. They even made statements like, "If you're not outraged by this today, you're going to find yourself on the wrong side of history." Williams and many others deserved our attention long before now.
Listen, I know what I believe in. I don't believe in the death penalty, and I will vote for Harris. But I don't owe it to anyone to post that anywhere. On the contrary - why don't you come and talk with me so you can get to know me? You'll learn that I have very solid convictions formed over many years of thought and experience.
Crust of the Matter: Am I the Asshole?
Sometimes, it’s good to retell stories in the Bible in a different way. We’re so intimately familiar with the stories that we tend to forget that we have blind spots. So one of my favorite methods of retelling bible stories is to use something that I see on Reddit a lot called Am I the Asshole (AITA). Essentially, it is a subreddit where users ask the community to rate if something that they did is terrible or not.
Can you spot what bible story I retold below? Email me back or leave your thoughts in the comments.
I (45M) work at a company that has been around for decades and prides itself on maintaining a very traditional office culture. We have a clear hierarchy, and it's generally understood that new hires should be seen and not heard. They're expected to learn the ropes quietly and not draw too much attention to themselves.
Recently, we hired a new employee, Susan (28F). From her first day, she seemed to have trouble fitting in with our office norms. She started speaking up in meetings and offering her opinions, which was pretty awkward since that's not really how we do things here. To make matters worse, she started wearing business casual clothes, while our standard office attire has always been strictly business professional.
I felt like Susan's behavior was disruptive and disrespectful to our company culture. I didn't want to single her out, so I decided to write a company-wide email to remind everyone of our expectations. In the email, I politely but firmly stated that new hires should focus on learning and observing rather than speaking up unnecessarily. I also reiterated our dress code and emphasized the importance of maintaining a professional appearance.
My intention was simply to reinforce our company values and help Susan and any other new hires understand what's expected of them. However, some of my colleagues think I went too far and that my email was too harsh, especially since I didn't address Susan directly.
AITA for sending this email and trying to maintain our traditional office culture?
EDIT: To clarify, our employee handbook does state that new hires are expected to observe and learn before contributing heavily to meetings. The dress code is also clearly outlined. Susan received this handbook when she was hired.
BYTES: Leaders are Made
I love Big Think videos. Whenever a new one comes out, I click on it and get ready to have my brain challenged. A few days ago, however, I clicked on the above video. Let me first ask you: Do you spot something about the opening statement there?
The academic who is talking is Michael Watkins, who has a PhD in decision science from Harvard. Needless to say, he is a solid scientist, and I would highly recommend his work on anything that is related to leadership. That is probably why I’m even more surprised by his opening statement that some people are born with a certain endowment.
There is not enough longitudinal data to link strategic thinking to the trait approach.
Falling back on the trait approach is problematic because historically, we value objectively bad traits for leadership over learned skills and strategies. I.e., any trait we have is more likely to get in the way quality leadership.
Maybe the editors of the video failed to nuance his statement, or maybe Dr. Watkins was trying to evoke a response. However, It sounds like he is saying that strategic thinkers are both born and made, but I believe that this is a dangerous statement to make.
Just in case you’re wondering what I’m going off about - let me take a couple of steps back and illustrate my point with some data.
Above is a table of the total medals won by country in the 2024 Olympics. Any person could quickly see the correlation between the wealth of the nation and the amount of medals won.
Of course, there are many folks who love to visualize these things, so take a look at this table that shows the correlation between Olympic medals and GDP Per Capita.
![A scatter plot graph by Reddit user atoziye_ illustrating the correlation between Olympic medals and GDP Per Capita. Each dot represents a country. The x-axis shows GDP Per Capita, while the y-axis shows the number of Olympic medals won. The graph demonstrates a positive correlation, with wealthier countries generally winning more medals.]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!UAmb!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7e3a5317-7870-4e7a-9b2c-681dfc260f52_1300x1000.heic "A scatter plot graph by Reddit user atoziye_ illustrating the correlation between Olympic medals and GDP Per Capita. Each dot represents a country. The x-axis shows GDP Per Capita, while the y-axis shows the number of Olympic medals won. The graph demonstrates a positive correlation, with wealthier countries generally winning more medals.]")
This one shows the correlation between Olympic medals and total GDP.
Some astute readers may notice that India ranks pretty low on this list even though it has a relatively high GDP. However, the top three sports followed by fans in India are cricket, football (soccer for you Americans), and kabaddi. While I can't say for sure that that is the reason why India doesn't score as high in the medal count, I can entertain the thought that a) Olympic medals are tied to the wealth of a nation and b) Olympic sports bias toward Western sports.
So, what does this have to do with the trait approach in strategic thinking and leadership? Well, it leads back to the notion that what we value and what's objectively true do not always align with each other. We may value "strong" leadership, but there is no stable data that suggests "strong" leadership is actually good for businesses. Another more pressing point is that these supposed endowments are not necessarily innate.
Think about the elite athletes of the Olympics. Watkins states that they begin by having been born with endowments that make them better at their sports. But are they really born with endowment or did we just conflate it with privilege?
Pie to Go
🗓️ I just received word that I am invited to speak at QCF Conference in Atlanta and the Queer Joy Summit online. Every since I got it in my head to write a book I’ve been working hard on getting more speaking engagements and I must say last year was amazing! Thanks everyone for believing in me.
🏋🏽♀️ Another gym update. I’ve just hit 4 months of going to the gym consistently with the last 8 weeks being 5 days a week. When I started my journey I want to lose weight and get more skinny but instead I gained 8 lbs and grew visibly. My waist and back have never been this lean though!
🧭 This week is my second Spiritual Direction session with Esmé June from Drawing Close and I’m ready for it! Last months session was absolutely life changing. I think everyone should pursue direction so go check out Esmé June or Bridget Black from Soul Kin if you’re interested as well.