#(also let's all ignore the fact this was his last race win of 2009 and with Brawn bc I'll start sobbing and won't stop)

[racingliners]

Jenson Button's post-race team radio after winning the Turkish Grand Prix, his 6th win of the season and 7th of his career - Sunday 7th June 2009

transcription under the cut

Andrew 'Shov' Shovlin: Well done! Awesome! Jenson that was unbelievable, unbelievable. Great job! Uh, Mix 1.

Jenson Button: Ah haha! What can I say? What can I say guys? Oh, you have built me a monster of a car. You're all absolute legends. Thank you so much, thank you so much for this.

[myimaginarywonderland]

The curious case of one Lance Strulovitch

Ah yes. Lance Stroll. Hated by many, cared about by a few and adored by even less. A man whose career and accomplishments are among some of the most underrated across the grid (note: This is biased as I am in fact a fan if you couldn't guess it before. )

Moving on, let's get serious. This is a post I have debated doing for a long time and seeing how some of the few fans of him are getting some of the worst treatment (probably nothing that will ever compare to his) I thought it was time to finally sit down, spend my night researching and get to work.

This will be an semi analysis of Lance career with the point of proving why Lance is in fact severely underrated and deserves more recognition for his accomplishments. It will also try to paint the picture of why he is not at all the villain some of you want to make him out to be but most importantly I am doing this for the fans, the lovely few who have made me laugh so many times and stuck with me and him through some of the highs and lows. You guys deserve to have a post (even if it's by me) that you can actually use to show people when they once again try to discredit our boy. Of course there will be biases in this but I am trying my very best to try to be as objective and give as many references for the facts I am going to state as possible so it is easy for you to fact check and correct me if I made mistakes which might happen, I am just human after all.

Enough about me let's start with the beginning of Lance career aka Lance early carting career.

Lance started carting in Canada when he was about 10 years old. In his first two years (2008/2009) he won every single thing in Canada he competed in. He then in 2010 was signed as a an eleven year old to the Ferrari Driver Academy which started his move to Europe where he for example finished 9th in a series. In 2012 he won yet another championship and finished 4th in another as well. Bear in mind this was during a time where he had to adapt to a whole different continent and had way more competitors whose names you might be quiet familiar with. He raced another year in a European carting championship where he finished 6th. 

https://www.racefans.net/lance-stroll/

On to his Start in the Formula categories

In 2014 Lance moved up to Formula Racing. He competed in the Florida Winter Series 2014 where he once again was behind Max Verstappen. In the Italian F4 championship the same year he won it by nearly behind 100 points while still missing the last three races. In 2015 he firstly won the Toyota Racing Series by over a 100 points over his next teammate. Then he competed in the European FIA F3 championship where he came 5th behind drivers such as Felix Rosenqvist. He was the second highest placing rookie behind Charles Leclerc. Notably this season was not great for him and he made some errors. The next year he won the championship by over 150 points. Yes we can’t ignore the huge amount of money and resources that were put into Prema that year. But can you really blame anyone? Every parent would do what Lawrence did especially when you have seen the way your kid can perform while doing what he loves even if it seems immoral to some. There are rumours he got some places because of team orders but nothing has ever been proven and frankly you don’t get that huge advantage with just orders. He consistently finished in the top 10, only 2 times not in the top 5.

Now, it is important to mention that just like Verstappen he immediately went to F1 after his win of F3. Once again Lawrence contributed to him moving but looking at stats you really can’t argue that Lance was bad or did not deserve it. I mean you don’t become a Ferrari junior driver at 11 purely by being some wealthy guys son. I have said this already for Max whose career at that time looked even more promising than Lance but it still applies the same: Both should have done 1 or 2 seasons in F2. They were both still inexperienced when they came into F1 which is why I think Lance rookie season is both quiet impressive and yet to be taken with a grain of salt and more treated like an extension to his Formula career. 

https://www.autosport.com/fia-f3/news/prema-orders-to-help-stroll-ruining-european-f3-russell-believes-4991939/4991939/

https://www.autoweek.com/racing/formula-1/a1857276/report-lance-strolls-father-spent-80-million-get-son-f1-seat/

Let's now move on to his F1 career which I will divide into the seasons

The start to Formula 1 aka 2017

His start wasn’t great. His first race he had break problems. But immediately in his second race he got into Q3 only to be taken out in the race. Next race the same thing with a different car. In his fourth race he was one place of from being in the points. Fifth race still bad qualy which equals bad race. Monaco crash happens, this time his fault as he pushed to hard. By now people are mad at him even though his bad start was entirely not his fault.

And then comes Canada. After what probably to Lance feels like his worst qualy yet, finally he gets point in the race with a P9. Sure there were DNFs but Lance did great overtakes and we finally got to actually see and experience why he was chosen so early by Ferrari. You can hear the relief in his voice. Now follows Azerbaijan arguably one of his best races. He just drove and kept cool. Hell, he nearly would have gotten P2 had it not been for the last seconds. A podium, the last real podium for Williams since years (nothing against George but Spa was a joke) and the only podium of that season by a rookie who until last race was completely butchered by everyone for his bad performance in qualy especially. Next race there’s not really an attempt to score points since Lance has a penalty for a gearbox change. Next race he qualifies right behind his teammate and gets P6 in the race. Next race another small penalty and bad qualy lead to P11, two positions behind his teammate. Another bad qualy+ suspension problems lead to no points. In Malaysia he is just about 3/10 of and finishes P8, one position above his teammate. Singapore is quiet crazy and even though it’s another bad qualy  it’s P8. Lance in Italy not only finishes P5 but also due to penalties becomes the youngest front row starter at P2 and gets P7 in the race. Next race it’s P11. The Hungarian GP is bad all around as is the British without any real result. The Austrian GP sees him finish P10 just behind his teammate. 

His season is bad but considering his poor qualifying some of his results are genuinely impressive. As is the fact that he was just thrown in there. The reason he looks so bad is truly due to his qualy and the fact that many compare him to Max who was hyped as a prodigy since day one yet had the same path say in skipping F2. 

2018- a season to forget

Williams had a big performance drop. So there’s barely any hope of Q2. The first three races are P14 which are bad qualifyings but semi good races. Azerbaijan sees both drivers in Q2 and Lance finish P8. The next raced are uneventful expect the Canadian GP where Lance’s car gets loose and he takes out Brendon with him on accident and Monaco sees him just of the points. France sees his tyre poop. The British GP saw him not set a time in qualy yet still finish P12. Italy once again good race, sees him qualify P10 and finish P9. The rest is unsuccessful because of the poor car performance and still the lack in consistent qualy pace.

Not really a bad season as much as a bad car and therefore lack of performance.

https://www.racefans.net/2018/06/10/369966/

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.williams-strategy-in-france-optimistic-stroll.2DQi6GCUlay0sie64KwqSw.html

2019- The first real competitive season

The first race sees Sergio qualify higher yet Lance finishes higher. Next race Sergio finishes 4 places ahead of Lance. Next qualy Lance is once again behind but only 3/10 behind Sergio and the next it’s 4/10. Azerbaijan where he was 4/10 of has Lance in P9. In the Canadian GP Lance is just 1/10 of Sergio and finishes in P9. The most remarkable has to be Germany where he finishes P4 in a crazy race. In Belgium he finishes P10 even though he has an engine penalty making him start at the back. In Monza Lance out qualifies Sergio with P9 but finishes P12 behind Sergio and his P7 in the race. Japan has Lance out qualify Sergio yet again and in the race finishes P9.

Sergio generally outpaces Lance by 3-4 positions which definitely gets closer and closer towards the end as well his qualifying pace improving (obviously excluding any retirements/DNFs). Considering his teammate was one of the best drivers the two seasons prior that wasn’t in a top team I think this season was pretty impressive towards the end. 

2020- What could have been

The first race Lance was only 2/10 of Sergio’s pace but suffered a lose of the engine in the race. The second race Lance out qualifies him and finishes just behind Sergio. Third race Lance once again out qualifies Sergio and gets 4th. When Sergio is absent because of Covid Lance qualifies P6 and scores P9 in the race. He also qualifies P6 the other race Sergio is absent and finishes the race in that position. When Sergio is back Lance qualifies behind him in P5 and finishes the race in front of him. The next race he is once again just behind Sergio in P9 and finishes the race in that Place in front of Checo. Italy sees Lance 3/10 of Sergio and finish in P3. 

The Tuscan GP sees Lance half a tenth of Sergio just behind him until a picture took him out of the race while has was in P4, potentially on the way to another podium. This is where his bad luck kicks in. First lap in Sochi, taken out by Charles. Then he misses Germany for Covid. Portugal he and Lando crash (I would say racing incident.) Imola is uneventful. 

In Turkey Lance obviously takes pole but people don’t realize how impressive that is. Beside Max the closest is his own teammate who is over a second and a half behind him. He lead the race for over 30 laps until a wrong pit strategy that he openly disagreed with put him 9th where he eventually finishes the race which could have been at least a top 5 or podium finish (he was in the top 3 before the pit stop and came out 4th), most likely would have been a double podium for the team. Bahrain saw him being taken out (though again in my eyes no fault of himself since Daniil made a risky move too late.)

In Sakhir after another mid qualy he takes third! Coming from 10th to 3rd but this is obviously overshadowed by Sergio’s win (even though they were the only non top team to get both drivers on the podium at the same race if you consider RedBull a top team) The last race where he finished tenth. 

So now, let’s truly look at his performance. In the races where both participated, Lance outqualified Sergio four times. The other times he was within four spots of Sergio or in 4 instances were he performed badly up to 9 behind which puts him an average of about 4.3 positions of Checo which is including penalties and stuff. 

Now let’s look at the actual result. He did not participate or rather finish 6 races in comparison to Sergio’s 4. 4 of those (accidents and Covid) are completely out of his control. In terms of race finishes it’s also very impressive. From the 8th races they both finishes Lance has scored better in 3 by around 1.5 points. Lance scored around 4.6 worse when Sergio was better yet again one was butchered strategy. They were very much behind each other when they both performed which everyone ignores? Lance also looks bad because his qualifying was and still is not good Hut he definitely improved and at some points was on pare with Sergio. He could have only been like 30-40 points off which with Checo’s win is not that bad once again.

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-tuscan-grand-prix-puncture-causes-massive-stroll-crash-at-mugello.1687519877478116194.html

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-russian-grand-prix-sainz-and-stroll-crash-out-in-chaotic-sochi-race-start.1687515300528811143.html

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-portuguese-grand-prix-stroll-and-norris-collide-at-turn-1.1687510148078074772.html

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2020-bahrain-grand-prix-stroll-flips-and-crashes-after-kvyat-contact.1687510862145773128.html

2021-the fight against a world champion 

The first race Lance qualifies P10 and finishes in that position why above Seb. He once again gets P10 and finishes P8, above Seb the next race. The next race Seb is above Lance and neither finish in the points. The story off Lance out qualifying continues and Lance finishes just out of the points. It switches the Seb outqualifying and both finish in the points, with Seb P5 and Lance P8. The next race sees Lance struggle all weekend, eventually out with a tyre failure while Seb gets a podium. The next race sees Lance once again not set a qualy time yet still finish only 1 place behind his teammate in P10. In Austria he once again out qualifies Seb in P10 and finishes P8. In the Austrian GP he qualifies 10 and finishes 13. The British GP eventually sees Lance P8. In Hungary Lance is 1/10 off but crashes into Charles so he doesn’t finish. The Dutch GP sees him 12th since Qualy. The Italian GP sees him finish 7th.  In the Russian GP he qualifies 8th and finishes 11th, just outside the points and in front of Seb. Turkey sees him qualify and finish 9th. In US he is 12th, two places behind Seb even though he started further back. In Mexico he starts from the pit lane duo to gearbox change and finishes 14th. Brazil seems him collide with Yuki (in my opinion more Yukis than Lances fault.) We move to Quatar where Lance is 3/10 of Seb and finishes 6th, clearly one of his better races. In Saudi Arabia the Aston Martin pace sucks ass and yet Lance is only just outside the points. Abu Dhabi he deserves any credit for managing the cluster fuck that the FIA decision was which he was in the middle where neither he nor his engineer fully knew what was going on and he rightfully complained. 

So, that means that there were 4 times Seb qualified better than Lance yet in the races where both finished, Lance finished ahead of Seb more often and was only about 2 places of expect for 2 times. That is impressive and if it weren’t for Sebs podium Lance might even be ahead. The car was shit yet that was the season Lance was closest to any teammate with maybe his most consistent qualies against a 4 time WDC. 

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/video.2021-hungarian-grand-prix-stroll-crashes-into-leclerc-at-race-start.1706897442128904725.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK5SbgqcjIA

So now, what's our conclusion?

Now look at all these years and some of the bad luck and tell me how Lance is so mid/bad. He had an incredible rookie season that most didnt expect after his bad start, he was really close to Checo in the second season racing against him and he has pretty much been on pair with Seb a former WDC since day one. Lets not forget that Seb has had a world champion.

Lance has had a world championship driver, Sergio (one of if not the best mid field driver since 2015) and a guy who for a few seconds was world champion to go against when he was put way too early into F1 in machinery that most of the time was less than ideal. 

When you discredit him remember who he was against. There’s drivers like Pierre who are rated better than Lance yet someone like Pierre has had an equal performance with less challenging drivers if you exclude Verstappen who no one expected him to beat. He’s been against Hartley who was not highly rated in F1, Kyvat who is mid and a rookie that wasn’t really hyped. Meanwhile Lance with less experience almost managed to match his formerly highly experienced teammate. 

This isn’t meant to discredit another driver but people need to realise that Lance has had anything stacked against him since day 1. That is crazy. And yet if you truly look at it besides his admittedly still often bad qualifyings he has done great and matched a lot of teammates at one point if not beaten them through pure skill. 

The only reason why he truly is as bad as some of you claim is his qualy which you also can see clearly improved even if it's still not ideal.

You also have to realise that Lance might have been regarded as a direct Verstappen rival would he have grown up in Europe. Many people don't want to admit this but F1 at it's core has a direct link to Europe and it's very much harder if you are from any other continent to ever be regarded as highly as someone who has grown up here and whose junior career has been watched since day one. Yet still people tried to compare him to Max who had a direct road to a top team since his junior career. It's just not possible. They are similar in some ways but completely different in most.

Lance is as deserving as everyone else in his F1 seat. He's also underrated because people refuse to see him when he actually just does his job. The media only pays attention to him when he makes mistake but even then compared to some of the most beloved drivers who get defended every time his mistakes in terms of racing incidents have been rare and often not his fault. People refuse to admit his talent and the potential lying within him.

Some of you are so focused on why certain drivers are so good that you forget that for those drivers everything had to align just right to actually make them show their talent and that that can't happen to everyone.

Some drivers are like Max who had a top team promised to him since the beginning. Some drivers like George have proven themselves over and over again. Some drivers like Charles have an aura of natural talent. Neither of those applies to someone like Lance. He also doesn't have the natural sweet charisma of Lando or the redemption story of Pierre.

Lance is just performing to the best of his abilities and it's quiet enough if you ask me. He has steadily improved and there have been more than a few occasions where we saw the flashes of brilliances that have gotten him a seat.

Maybe you read through all of this. If you did thank you. I really tried to be honest and objective until the conclusion. I get that I might not even change anyone's opinion but I had this one my chest for a long time and felt like sharing it so yeah.

[borntobelime]

Shidge Galra/Altean AU

This is another AU I talked with @nicht-vobla but honestly i have something else also in mind to give her as a tribute from our chats .... This one is for  @besh-drawing-stuff  HAPPY BIRTHDAY (so its kinda like a late birthday gift ) (because the idea i had kinda reminded me of your rose Goddess Au (you’ll see why )  I Call It  : Warrior’s Lullaby 

During the destruction of Altea a couple of Altean Alchemists launch a Cryopod into space inside the Cryopod is there baby girl Katie for many many years the pod traveled through the universe until it entered the atmosphere of planet Olkarion the pod crushed into the forest close to the great tree the olkari found the pod and soon discovered what was inside the olkari named Reiner took in the baby under her care and raised her as her own.

Inside the pod she found information that confirmed that the baby was an altean  there was a small video projector on a recorded message  it was too damaged to project the images and the full video  but some of the audio  was not as damaged she made out the important parts of it ….My name is Samuel  my wife Coleen…and……...……………. whoever finds this pod please look after our child Katelyn protect her from what we can not…………….. the galra are taking over we don’t have much time  ………..  .she could only make out those parts she knew very well from history of the destruction of Altea and the race itself fearing for the child’s and her planets safety she gave her a new name …..Your name is Katelyn this your Altean name  it will only be known between us  (reiner would never have kept her in the dark) ….from now on you are one of us dear on  i will give you a second name an olkari name …. Pidge …..Pidge grew up with the Olkari even though she knew only knew very few about where she came from her only clues was her old name stories about a planet  she never seen she wasn’t always feeling alone her powers grew stronger as she grew older been an Altean growing up in the forest her magic adapted differently not only she learned the Olkari  magic  her connection in nature grew so it was able to use nature magic she could make plants grow and move and heal Reiner was very proud of her daughter’s gifts she always tried to find anything she could based on altean alchemy to help her in to learning but  unfortunately there resources were very low to all this lost knowledge , Pidge didn’t had any trouble fitting in but always been aware of she is not olkari   she would use he chameleon like abilities to try and fit in even wear her hood  as to also wear her at first with other kids  but Reiner told her to be herself but if she felt more secure that way she will not stop her from doing so and so she was her passion in tech and knowledge her love for nature 

Commander Takashi Shirogane also known as Commander Shiro or Champion  from the Galra Empire proud of his race he was born raised in in a environment of constant violence

conquered planets in the name of the emperor Zarkon defeated all his enemies or more like executing them wherever in the arena or on a war  learned to live with the words Victory or Death a true Galran warrior

He was sent off on a scout mission quite a boring one for his taste  to planet Olkarion to gather data on the quintencesse there the quintencensse signals were indeed very unique so he hopes he gets the opportunity to invade the planet when he returns with good resorts  but  there was a glitch on the system of his ship and he lost control of it and crushed on olkarion during the night …the crush was hard his wounds were too deep  he was  impaled by parts of  the ship .the last thing he remembers is a figure tearing a hole on his ship’s  ceiling from the outside ……….

He wakes up in a small room his vision a bit blurry and he hurts everywhere and he feels like his is burning with fever the only thing he can tell is  the  figure is trying to treat hi  …and a warm light over his injuries …...a few days he is recovered enough not to sleep out of consciousness and then he meets her or more like grabs her shawl and removes it revealing a beautiful creature …and the last thing he sees is a vine grabbing him and hitting him hard against the wall . Later waking up tied up on a bed and the woman’s glowing  hand on his head after a lot of negotiations of he will not try anything funny she untied him and as his recovery progresses enough for him to stand he gets to know his savior  ..Pidge offers him to show him around the forest …..she understands what his motives are knowing been a galra and what he wants from her planet so she tries to show him the importance of every existence (yes think of it like the avatar(2009 film)  or pocahontas )  …… she gets him a cloak  so he can stay low and for the next days  she shows him around the city how a civilization can grow without wars she shows him the forest and even go on a boat ride and last but not least the great tree (that is a weeping willow like  ) that glows in the night ………..they look at the night sky for once shiro feels something he never felt or knew if he could feel …..Peace is that what it is ?………... she is like i wish i could go around the universe and travel on different places…...for one moment he thinks maybe he could  do that show her the universe but no he is still  royal to the empire and yet why does he feel so confused about it …and so he asks her why you are not an olkari so why do you love this place ….its my home , just because i am not a olkari doesn’t mean this is not my home ...home can be anywhere you want to ..they stay here in silent …they fall asleep under the stars …shiro wakes up finding pidge a few feet away seeing listening to a small audio the recorded message from her lost family she says i know they are not here anymore i never met the never seen them   but what  i know is  they really cared about me and that is all that matters Mama told me this tree is a symbol of everything is connected i come here to think often and sometimes its like i  feel there presence .....she  wanted me to have this to know no matter what i will they watch over me ..do you have someone like that ………….no ...i was raised by the military as long as i remember  ...do you ever wonder about it ? no the galra don’t wonder about things like that she says i asked you not the galra ...then the answer is the same no i don’t or had someone to make me even wonder if i am watched over ….she takes of her necklace  …….now you do she smiles ….......pidge with her abilities tries to rebuild his ship totally nerding out on it and his arm because how different galra technology is ..but  when she finished  shiro offers her to come with him to save her and not her planet she refuses to do so ..he says i  don’t know when they will come if they come but the least i can do is to find a way to open negotiations i can try that when he takes off  a galra armada are starting invading by Sendak they get a message Shiro ordering to  stop the invasion claiming he found on this planet very valuable resources that could be lost during the attack   ….Sendak says denied saying  he has  orders from the hire ups  who ? …. Haggar comes out  she  came to research the data she gathered from shiro’s  last update  they we couldn’t get in contact with so she arranged commander’s sendak’s armada  to invade …..Shiro blames himself  over the fact it was his fault after all  he speed up the invasion .....before he makes a decision to turn back or join sendak he gets a message of the emperor himself to report his absence he has no choice but to follow the order ….meanwhile as the galra attack and destroy the city and the forest …..Pidge tries to fight protect her home but the galra win and so everyone is under their  rule . she tried to make a one last stand but she loses due to the witch Haggar’s powers been far great ...Haggar see her potential and takes her as her prisoner planing to turn her into a druid just like her .

Shiro comes back to the galra everyone welcoming him back after the sudden disappearance it feels like he never left and yet he feels different he feels she changed him …..he soon gets news about olkarion before sendak suggests to drain the planet shiro stops him saying the olkari are more useful alive…fearing for what happened to pidge …...3 months later after trying to research every possible way Pidge could survive maybe she evacuated or maybe she is with the rebels of the olkari...or maybe she is ...dead ? no he can’t think of that ….. he visits Haggar receive a report for a  mission  but Haggar is not there yet he hears a sound coming out he would usually ignore that that but he got curious so he enters the door and so he finally sees her on Haggar’s lab strapped and starting to change … her marks growing her hair turning a bit white and a blue tone starting to slowly spread on her body …...she begs shiro to help her shiro can’t move from the shock haggar comes in and sees shiro …..Beautiful isn’t she …She will make a fine druid to serve the empire…….I tried to see  her memories ….but  she is still strong i can’t read her yet  very well  but it will not matter she will not need them here is the report commander  you may go…..she turns and shiro is about to leave but hears a faint…. Please help me ..Shi..ro….haggar turns did you hear something ? no ma’m ...i must have been imagining things….she turns only to face shiro’s attack it knocks her out  shiro tears the straps off and picks pidge bridal style the alarms start he fights his way through the sentries into a ship for escape   her condition getting worse  but they reach the planet Olkarion and he takes her to the great tree there she  starts to transform back into her old self …..you saved me ….i am never letting you go again …and they kiss ..they know they can’t stay for long on the planet  but they have enough time for pidge to reunite with Reiner

On the day of there departure Reiner asks Shiro to look after her Shiro simply says Always….You have my word .

And so the couple travels around the universe seeing new worlds together and they join the rebellion and the blades in hope of saving Olkarion and  for a better future  

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Joe Biden’s case to win the 2020 Democratic nomination is fairly simple. As Barack Obama’s two-term vice president, he’s the most familiar brand in the field. He’s ahead in the polls (it’s emphatically not a tie for the lead with Bernie Sanders; Biden’s polling is quite a bit better). He’s also the best-performing Democrat in polls against President Trump, and he gains a lot of support from Democrats on the basis of his perceived electability. And while he might not be the most liberal Democrat, that isn’t necessarily a disadvantage; roughly half of voters in the Democratic primary identify as moderate or conservative,1 which could be a plus in a field where many candidates are running to the left.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Biden’s path to the nomination is easy. Not by a long shot. But before we start to poke holes in Biden’s candidacy, let’s ruminate on his advantages a little longer. There’s a case to be made that the media — in seeking out shiny new objects like Pete Buttigieg, and in ignoring the preferences of older, more working-class and more moderate Democrats who still make up a large part of the Democratic base — is overlooking the obvious front-runner in Biden. Arguably, in fact, media elites have the same blind spots for Biden that they had for Trump. There aren’t likely to be a lot of Biden voters in most journalists’ social circles, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.

The case for why Biden is the front-runner

Former vice presidents usually win their party nominations when they seek them. Let’s start with his credentials: Biden was vice president until about two years ago. And as Biden might put it, that’s a Big Fucking Deal. Of the nine previous cases in which a current or former vice president sought his party’s nomination since World War II (not counting cases such as Lyndon Johnson’s where the vice president had ascended to the presidency beforehand), he won it six times:

Vice presidents usually win their party’s nomination

Former vice presidents who sought their party’s nomination since World War II

Candidate VP Years Year Nomination Sought Early Polling Avg.* Won nomination? Alben Barkley 1949-53 1952 — Richard Nixon 1953-61 1960 — ✓ Richard Nixon 1953-61 1968 — ✓ Hubert Humphrey 1965-69 1968 — ✓ Hubert Humphrey 1965-69 1972 24% Walter Mondale 1977-81 1984 34 ✓ George H.W. Bush 1981-89 1988 37 ✓ Dan Quayle 1989-93 2000 7 Al Gore 1993-2001 2000 54 ✓ Joe Biden 2009-17 2020 28 TBD

* Polling averages aren’t calculated for years before 1972. Early polling averages for past election cycles use polls conducted in January through June of the year before the primaries. Biden’s average includes the most recent poll from each polling firm in FiveThirtyEight’s polling database since Beto O’Rourke’s entry into the race on March 14. Vice presidents who ascended to the presidency before seeking another term aren’t included.

Source: polls

Sure, you could nitpick at this. Most former vice presidents sought the presidential nomination at the first possible opportunity; Biden waited four years, and candidates who waited — small sample size warning — don’t have the same track record. And Biden’s polling is somewhere in between the vice presidents who failed to win the nomination (such as Dan Quayle in 2000) and the ones who achieved it (such as Walter Mondale in 1984). But for a lot of Democrats, among whom Obama is still extremely popular, the vice presidency will go a long way toward answering questions about Biden’s electability, fitness for the office, and policy positions.

Biden is leading in the polls, and it isn’t that close. Speaking of that polling: While Biden’s polling isn’t spectacular, it’s stronger than anyone else’s in the field by some margin. In recent surveys,2 he’s averaged 28 percent in national polls (ahead of Sanders’s 20 percent) and 25 percent in Iowa polls (better than Sanders’s 18 percent). And while New Hampshire is a potential liability for Biden in Sanders’s backyard, South Carolina — populated with moderate Democrats and African Americans — is a potential strength.

Biden is outpolling Bernie

Most recent poll from each polling firm in FiveThirtyEight’s polling database since Beto O’Rourke’s entry into the race on March 14*

National Pollster Dates Biden Sanders Ipsos 4/17 – 4/23 24% 15% Morning Consult 4/15 – 4/21 30 24 Change Research 4/12 – 4/15 21 20 Monmouth University 4/11 – 4/15 27 20 USC Dornsife/LA Times 3/15 – 4/15 27 16 Emerson College 4/11 – 4/14 24 29 HarrisX 4/5 – 4/6 36 19 Quinnipiac University 3/21 – 3/25 29 19 McLaughlin & Associates 3/20 – 3/24 28 17 Fox News 3/17 – 3/20 31 23 CNN/SSRS 3/14 – 3/17 28 20 Average 28 20 Iowa Pollster Dates Biden Sanders Gravis Marketing 4/17 – 4/18 19% 19% Monmouth University 4/4 – 4/9 27 16 David Binder Research 3/21 – 3/24 25 17 Emerson College 3/21 – 3/24 25 24 Public Policy Polling 3/14 – 3/15 29 15 Average 25 18 New Hampshire Pollster Dates Biden Sanders University of New Hampshire 4/10 – 4/18 18% 30% Saint Anselm College 4/3 – 4/8 23 16 South Carolina Pollster Dates Biden Sanders Change Research 3/31 – 4/4 32% 14% Nevada Pollster Dates Biden Sanders Emerson College 3/28 – 3/30 26% 23%

* Where the pollster conducted versions of the poll with and without Joe Biden, the version with Biden is used.

Source: Polls

Maybe it seems as though I’m casting Biden’s polling in a pretty friendly light given that I just wrote an article about how Sanders’s polling wasn’t all that impressive. But there’s a gap between where Sanders is polling and where Biden is, and empirically, it’s a relevant one. Based on historical data, we estimate that candidates with high name recognition who are polling at 20 percent (Sanders) in early national polls can expect to win their nominations about 15 percent of the time, other factors held equal. But candidates who are polling at 28 percent (Biden) win their nominations something more like 35 percent of the time, or roughly twice as often.

It’s also possible that Biden will get a bounce in his polls after his announcement, as Sanders did and as Kamala Harris did and as Beto O’Rourke sorta did. Perhaps that doesn’t matter much since announcement bounces tend to fade (as Sanders’s and Harris’s did). But we should note that the comparison between Biden and Sanders isn’t strictly apples-to-apples. Biden has been leading Sanders even as an unannounced candidate while Sanders has been actively campaigning.

Biden’s support is pretty robust. Biden’s support isn’t just name recognition either. He has the highest favorable ratings in the field and relatively low unfavorable ratings — in recent early-state and national polls, an average of 74 percent of Democrats said they viewed him favorably, compared with 15 percent who said they viewed him unfavorably. His ratio of favorable ratings to unfavorable ratings is 4.8, which essentially ties him for second-best in the field with Harris and puts him only slightly behind the leading candidate, Buttigieg.

Biden’s favorability ratings are near the top of the pack

Average of favorability ratings among Democratic voters in recent national, Iowa and New Hampshire polls

Morning Consult: U.S. Monmouth: Iowa Saint Anselm: N.H. Average Candidate Fav. Unfav. Fav. Unfav. Fav. Unfav. Fav. Unfav. Ratio Buttigieg 38% 9% 45% 9% 42% 6% 42% 8% 5.2 Biden 75 14 78 14 70 18 74 15 4.8 Harris 49 12 61 13 54 10 55 12 4.7 Booker 44 12 54 16 56 11 51 13 3.9 O’Rourke 47 11 60 13 46 17 51 14 3.7 Sanders 75 16 67 26 67 25 70 22 3.1 Klobuchar 28 13 51 10 31 13 37 12 3.1 Castro 28 12 36 9 24 8 29 10 3.0 Inslee 17 7 26 5 10 6 18 6 2.9 Warren 55 19 67 20 58 30 60 23 2.6 Hickenlooper 16 9 32 8 15 10 21 9 2.3 Delaney 14 9 31 12 17 7 21 9 2.2 Gillibrand 32 14 37 17 33 18 34 16 2.1 Gabbard 16 11 29 13 16 13 20 12 1.6

Only candidates whose favorability was asked about in all three polls are included in the table.

Morning Consult poll was conducted April 15-21, Monmouth University poll conducted April 4-9 and Saint Anselm College conducted April 3-8.

Sources: Polls

Whether this will last is anyone’s guess, but in talking with the Biden campaign, they think their candidate’s strengths are fairly self-evident — that voters perceive Biden as authentic, as experienced, as concerned with the middle class, as fighting for Obama’s legacy — and that these personal qualities will be more important and enduring to voters than Biden’s policy positions. Plus, he already survived one early challenge intact; so far, a series of accusations by women about inappropriate touching has hurt Biden’s numbers only at the margins.

Biden is viewed as electable, and that matters to Democrats. But perhaps Biden’s biggest strength — although it can also be read as a bearish signal, as I’ll explain later on — is the perception that he can beat Trump. In a recent Quinnipiac University poll of California, for instance, 35 percent of Democratic voters said he had the best chance of beating Trump — more than the 26 percent who put Biden as their first choice. Only one other candidate, O’Rourke, polled higher on electability than on first-choice support (and O’Rourke’s difference was within the margin of error).

This gets into some uncomfortable territory for Democrats. Only about 25 percent of voters in the Democratic primary electorate are straight white men.3 But the two leading candidates in the polls are straight white men. Democrats care a lot about electability this election cycle, and sizable minorities of Democratic voters have said that they worry about whether nominating a woman or a gay candidate would reduce their chances of beating Trump. But there’s a fine line between saying “vote for me because I’m the most electable candidate” and “vote for me because I’m a safe white guy,” which is why Biden will have to be careful in how he speaks about electability.

Biden can also point toward concrete evidence of his electability in the form of head-to-head polls showing him performing well against Trump. On average in polls conducted since Sanders’s announcement on Feb. 19, Biden leads Trump by 7.1 points, whereas Sanders leads Trump by 3.5 points. Meanwhile, the other Democrats who have been polled frequently are roughly tied against Trump.4

Biden fares better than others in polls against Trump

Head-to-head matchups against Trump in national polls since Feb. 19, 2019

Pollster Biden Sanders Warren Harris O’Rourke Booker Buttigieg Change Research +5 +4 +2 +1 +1 — — Civiqs +0 +1 -2 -1 -1 -2 — D-CYFOR +11 +9 +3 +2 — +3 — Emerson +6 +3 -3 +1 +2 — -3 Fox News +7 +3 -2 -2 — — — HarrisX +9 +3 -4 -6 -4 -7 -9 Morning Consult +8 — — — — — — PPP +13 +8 +6 +7 +6 +7 +4 Rasmussen Reports +5 -3 — — — — — Average +7.1 +3.5 +0.0 +0.3 +0.8 +0.3 -2.7

The most recent poll from each polling firm is used for each matchup, dating back to polls from when Bernie Sanders officially entered the race (Feb. 19). Where a pollster included versions of a poll with and without Howard Schultz, we list the version without Schultz.

Sources: Polls

But are these head-to-head polls actually a meaningful signal? To a first approximation, I’d say “no.” For one thing, presidential polls simply aren’t very accurate a year-and-a-half before a general election. (Even half a year out is marginal, for that matter.) For another, candidates with low name recognition tend to poll poorly in early, head-to-head matchups, so while the polls are somewhat interesting to look at for Biden and Sanders, they really don’t say very much about the lesser-known Democrats. For a third, Biden may have benefited from the fact that he hasn’t officially been running for the nomination and therefore has been somewhat above the fray. Sanders’s numbers with general election voters declined after he announced his candidacy, and Biden’s conceivably could too. For the time being, however, the polls give the Biden campaign a good talking point.

If some of the Biden campaign’s justifications for its electability argument are flimsy, others have some basis in reality. Other factors held equal, more moderate candidates tend to perform better in presidential elections, and Biden’s appeal to working-class white voters and African Americans could conceivably reduce or even reverse the Electoral College disadvantage that cost Hillary Clinton the presidency.

Biden’s “lane” is relatively clear. Although I wouldn’t go overboard with this, since “lanes” in the Democrcatic primary are still blurry, Biden faces relatively little competition for some of his base voters. In 2016, according to the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, 25 percent of the Demoratic primary electorate was in the baby boom generation or older and identified as moderate or conservative. Another 14 percent of Democrats were baby boomers or older and identified as “liberal” but not ��very liberal.” Candidates such as O’Rourke and Amy Klobuchar will try to compete for those voters, but other candidates who might have done so — such as Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown5, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg — declined to run for president. Democrats obviously did not clear the field for Biden — that so many candidates are running is a bearish indicator for him. But he did clear his own orbit, at least.

Biden also has some big liabilities

While there are several reasons to think Biden is not as strong as he appears in the polls, there are other critiques that I don’t find as convincing. So let me run through those quickly, just so you know I’m not ignoring them. They are:

First, I’m not convinced that Biden’s positions on long-ago controversies such as school busing are liable to hurt him much. Although it’s not quite the same thing, we’ve found that voters tend to apply a high discount rate to presidential scandals; a new scandal can hurt a candidate, but older ones tend to be priced into his stock. It’s reasonable to infer that the same is true of issue stances, especially in the case of Biden, when Democrats have eight years of more recent data in the form of his tenure as Obama’s vice president. And Biden’s not really trying to out-woke or out-liberal other Democrats anyway; his voters are older and more moderate.

Second, the initial evidence from polls seems to be that Democrats are fairly indifferent toward accusations that Biden touched women inappropriately. I don’t want to totally dismiss this as a risk factor for Biden; there could be other accusations later that Democrats view differently, and party activists may care about the accusations even if rank-and-file Democrats don’t. Nonetheless, Biden is helped by the fact that (i) his base is older and less progressive and therefore less likely to view this sort of conduct as inappropriate and (ii) voters feel like they know him given his eight years as vice president.

Third, while it’s worth noting that Biden’s previous presidential campaigns, in 1988 and 2008, flopped, the boilerplate criticism that he’s a “bad candidate” also strangely ignores his mostly controversy-free performances as a vice presidential candidate in 2008 and 2012 (and as a surrogate for Clinton in 2016). Plenty of politicians have learning curves as candidates, and although Biden will make his share of gaffes, I’m not sure that he’s necessarily more at risk of them than other, less-experienced candidates.

But there are several areas of real concern for Biden.

He’s really old for a presidential candidate. Biden is currently 76 and would be 78 upon taking the oath of office; the same age that Trump would be at the end of his second term. (Sanders is 77, so he has some of the same problems, of course.) And while there isn’t any hard-and-fast medical rule about how old is too old to run for president, 62 percent of general election voters (!) said they’d have reservations about voting for someone older than 75 in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, far more than the share who said they’d have reservations about a woman, an African American, or a gay or lesbian president. While you could argue that age is priced into voters’ assessments of Biden, there hasn’t really been a news cycle devoted to the age of the candidates yet, although there probably will be at some point.

Despite Biden’s credentials as Obama’s heir apparent, his party support may be lukewarm. Traditionally, former vice presidents are strong in a “Party Decides” model of the race in which party leaders and party activists have a lot of influence — or at least, are good leading indicators — over who rank-and-file voters eventually pick. In Biden’s case, however, the reception from the Democratic Party establishment has been mixed. He has some endorsements, including from the only Democratic senator (California’s Dianne Feinstein) and governor (Cuomo) to have endorsed a candidate from outside of their home states so far. But he isn’t wracking up dozens of them, as Clinton already had at this point in the cycle in 2016 or Al Gore did in 2000. Nor, obviously, has Biden cleared the field of other candidates as Clinton and Gore did. And while Biden enjoys some support from former Obama staffers and donors, he by no means monopolizes it, with some ex-Obamaworld people having gravitated toward candidates such as O’Rourke and Buttigieg. (Obama himself is not expected to endorse a candidate anytime soon.) Party activists in the early states are also lukewarm on Biden and in some cases are actively opposed to him, based on surveys and interviews with them.

All of this makes Biden difficult to assess. He’s somewhere in between being a traditional, next-in-line front-runner, with the polling and party support to match, and a factional candidate, where the faction is the old guard of more moderate, working-class Democrats. Factional candidates sometimes can win their nominations, but it’s a harder road to navigate, especially given a Democratic nomination process where delegates are awarded in a highly proportional fashion and a plurality of support is not necessarily sufficient to avert a contested convention.

“Electability” could be inflating Biden’s numbers. In the California poll I mentioned earlier, Biden was the first choice of 26 percent of voters, but 35 percent of voters thought he was the most electable. The flip side to this is that only 13 percent of voters said they thought Biden had the best policy ideas. The same share of voters, 13 percent, thought Elizabeth Warren had the best policy ideas. But only 4 percent thought she had the best chance to beat Trump. And only 7 percent of voters had her as their first choice.

In essence, voters are averaging out how electable they see the candidates with how they see them on the issues. We shouldn’t necessarily expect that formula to change. Democrats really want to beat Trump, and they think electability is important.

But we could see assessments of the candidates’ electability even out as lesser-known candidates become more familiar to voters, perform well in the debates and eventually start winning primaries and caucuses. In 2008, for instance, electability was initially a huge advantage for Hillary Clinton, but that perception eroded after Obama won endorsements from trusted leaders, began to perform as well or better than Clinton in head-to-head polls against Republicans, and won Iowa, a general-election swing state that largely consists of white, working-class voters. That helped Obama gain ground in the polls against Clinton; voters no longer felt like they had to make a tradeoff between beating John McCain and picking the candidate they really liked.

It’s easy enough to imagine a similar process taking place this time around for Warren or Harris or Buttigieg, as voters grow more comfortable with how a woman or black or gay candidate would perform in the general election. Women candidates also performed extremely well in Democratic congressional primaries last year, so there’s a chance that several of the male candidates lose ground to women as perceptions of electability evolve beyond voters’ initial, gender-driven priors.

Harris and Cory Booker are likely to erode Biden’s support among black voters. Recent polling has shown Biden performing strongly among African American voters. Morning Consult has had him with around 40 percent of the black vote in its recent national surveys, for instance, and Quinnipiac had him at 44 percent in its national poll last month. Biden has also been performing well in polls of South Carolina, where about 60 percent of the Democratic electorate is black.

This is a real asset for Biden. Black voters — especially older black voters — tend to be more moderate than white Democrats, so they fit fairly naturally into his constituency. His tenure as Obama’s vice president undoubtedly also gives him credibility with black voters. Nonetheless, there are two major black candidates in the race, and Harris and Booker probably stand to gain ground with black voters as they become better-known, not unlike how it took some time for Obama to win over black voters in 2008. The Biden campaign also said they expect some erosion, although it thinks that Biden could hold 25 percent to 30 percent of the black vote even once it occurs. That’s a fairly reasonable expectation, but it does mean that Biden’s overall numbers would decline a little bit from where they are now.6

His media coverage will probably be unfriendly. The conventional wisdom about Biden has already been wrong at least once. His winning chances plummeted in betting markets after New York magazine published an account from Lucy Flores that Biden made her feel “uneasy, gross, and confused” when he allegedly kissed her on the back of her head at a campaign event of hers in 2014. But they later rebounded once a variety of polling showed that Democratic voters hadn’t changed their perceptions of Biden by much. So it’s possible that the media is underestimating how robust Biden’s support might turn out to be.

Media coverage could nonetheless be a problem for Biden. Within the mainstream media, the story of Biden winning the nomination will be seen as boring and anticlimactic. That tends not to lead to favorable coverage. Meanwhile, some left-aligned media outlets may prefer candidates who are some combination of more leftist, more wonkish, more reflective of the party’s diversity, and more adept on social media.

If Biden is framed as being out of touch with today’s Democratic Party and that narrative is repeated across a variety of outlets, it could begin to resonate with voters who don’t buy it initially. If he’s seen as a gaffe-prone candidate, then minor missteps on the campaign trail could be blown up into big fumbles. Biden might not have the sort of openly antagonistic relationship with the media that Hillary Clinton did — but he could have similar sorts of problems with it gradually sapping his favorability ratings.

Two theories for how Biden can wage his campaign. Neither are sure to work.

As I mentioned earlier, Biden is unusual in that he embodies some aspects of a traditional, odds-on front-runner (good credentials, a claim to being the party’s natural successor, reasonably strong polling) and some of a factional candidate (lukewarm support from party elites, inability to clear the field, much stronger support with some demographic groups than others). That’s a challenge for him, because each of those archetypes involve different strategies.

As a front-runner, Biden would seek to build consensus by not being too combative with other candidates, playing it safe on policy, spending time before different Democratic constituencies (e.g., unions, black evangelicals) and seeking endorsements among these groups, putting a lot of time and effort into fundraising, and projecting forward to the general election by emphasizing his strengths against Trump. In essence, he’d go into a risk-averse, “prevent defense” mode. The goal would be to win Iowa and/or South Carolina, at which point the field would winnow and Biden could use his fairly broad favorability to appeal to the rest of the party and glide to the nomination. In this strategy, Biden is probably perfectly happy to have Sanders in the mix, since Sanders as a factional candidate soaks up support from candidates who might otherwise leapfrog Biden. Not to mention, Biden is probably a favorite against Sanders in a two-candidate race.

The problem with a prevent-defense strategy is that you tend to lose a few yards on every play even if you avoid giving up a long pass. And it’s not clear whether Biden’s position is robust enough to withstand this. If you’re Hillary Clinton and you start out with 60 percent or 65 percent of the vote, you can lose quite a bit of that support and still come out ahead. But if you’re Biden and you start out with 25 percent or 30 percent, there’s much less margin for error. Is Biden’s floor higher than everyone else’s ceiling? Maybe, but it’s not hard to imagine Sanders or Buttigieg or O’Rourke or Klobuchar or pretty much anyone else cobbling together 20 percent or 25 percent of the vote in Iowa, winning the state and sending the race on an entirely different trajectory — or Harris or Booker causing problems for Biden in South Carolina.

Alternatively, Biden could adopt a more combative and defiant approach, leaning into his differences with the rest of the field, not playing it safe in his public appearances and perhaps even pushing back against the “identity politics” of the left. The idea would be to prop up his floor — to ensure that he won the 25 percent of Democrats who are older moderates — at the cost of lowering his ceiling. But this would also entail risk. He’d be resigning himself to being a factional candidate, and like Sanders, Biden could have trouble building consensus later on once the had field winnowed, even if he’d won some early states.

So those are two deeply challenging paths to the nomination. Still, both are plausible, and having two paths isn’t so bad in a field in which a lot of candidates don’t seem to have any path at all.

[junker-town]

20 sports movies we love that will ease your boredom

WireImage

It may be hard to find real sports to watch right now, but there is an ABUNDANCE of great fictional sports at your fingertips.

Televised sports are on hiatus for the foreseeable future. It’s a tough (but obviously necessary) blow, considering we’re all stuck inside with little to do, and sports would be the perfect diversion right about now.

Thankfully, there are hundreds, or possibly thousands, of sports-centric movies available to wile away the hours. Some might even be convincing enough to get you to yell at your screen, or feel the inimitable catharsis that comes from watching your team (the good team, obviously) win.

Below are some of the SB Nation staff’s go-to sports flicks, with information about where to stream them included. The majority are also available to rent via Amazon, YouTube, Google Play and the like.

Hot Rod (2007)

Available on Netflix, Prime and Pluto.

Insofar as failing to jump over things with a moped is a sport, Hot Rod is about sports. It’s an extremely dumb, pleasant movie with no stakes whatsoever, and it is my number one.

— Seth Rosenthal

Yes, it’s hilarious — but even more importantly, it has the ability to absorb you before you realize it and not let your mind wander out of its grasp. Distraction grade: 10 out of 10

— Will Buikema

Creed (2015)

Available to rent

Too many Rocky sequels to count, but this one really engages with the mythos around the character and who gets to take part in that myth. Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson are two of Hollywood’s brightest stars, and while it’s frustrating they were not awarded like Sylvester Stallone for their performances, all three are terrific here. Also: unlike the original Rocky, this movie recognizes that boxing includes dodging and blocking as well as punching!

— Pete Volk

Goon (2011)

Available on Netflix.

You could probably analyze Goon for commentary about how we glorify violence in hockey, or you could sit back and enjoy a genuinely hilarious movie. It has everything you want in a hockey film. There’s a dim-witted but lovable bouncer who gets a chance at a hockey career in the minors, and a grumpy Quebecois prodigy with a physicality issue. There’s gratuitous blood and gore, and Liev Schreiber getting into fights, and a hint of bromance. There are even cameos from former NHL players, and one from current Dallas Stars forward Tyler Seguin in the film’s 2017 sequel, Goon: Last of the Enforcers, which is also on Netflix.

If you don’t mind some exaggerated violence and slapstick comedy (and particularly if that’s what you’re into), I highly recommend it. Plus, the soundtrack slaps.

— Sydney Kuntz

Bend it Like Beckham (2002)

Available on demand with Starz and DirecTV

It’s funny, it’s sweet, and the fact that you’ve definitely seen it before doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it again. It made Keira Knightley an international star, and Parminder Nagra picked up the FIFA presidential award. Beyond the film, it represented a crucial moment in David Beckham’s relationship with his country. He’d gone from villain in 1998 after that red card against Argentina, to hero in 2001 after that free kick against Greece. Eight months later this came out, and canonized him as a national treasure.

— Andi Thomas

High Flying Bird (2019)

Available on Netflix

What better to watch during a period without basketball than a movie about basketball personnel that takes place during a time of no basketball? High Flying Bird, shot entirely on iPhone by Steven Soderbergh, follows a top rookie and his ambitious agent during an NBA lockout, as they try and change the owner-heavy economic structure of the NBA.

— Pete Volk

Escape to Victory (1981, also just known as Victory)

Available on demand with Cinemax and DirecTV

Sylvester Stallone is an Allied solider in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp. So is Michael Caine. In there with them, for some reason, is Pele, Bobby Moore, Ozzy Ardiles, and half of Ipswich Town’s 1981 UEFA Cup winning squad. And wouldn’t you just know it, they have to play an exhibition against a handpicked German side, for reasons of propaganda. Will they escape … to victory?

— Andi Thomas

Goal of the Dead (2014)

Available on Shudder

”Some kind of a riot. They are burning cars.”

”Given the refereeing, no wonder.”

French football superstar Samuel Lorit faces off against his hometown team in a cup game. His formerly adoring fans now all despise him. And then a tainted steroid injection turns pretty much everybody into zombies, straight from the 28 Days Later school of hard-running mouth-frothers. Good blood-soaked fun, if probably a bit too long. But then all films are too long these days. Return of the King won a million Oscars, and that didn’t have a ‘roid-raging zombie kicking a man’s head off his neck and into the goal.

— Andi Thomas

Fighting with My Family (2019)

Available on Prime and Hulu

Maybe the only worthwhile WWE Studios release ever? I’ll await the flame from fans of The Marine 5: Battleground in the comments. What would have otherwise been yet another vanilla sports inspiration story is elevated by a terrific cast, led by newly Oscar-nominated Florence Pugh.

— Pete Volk

The Damned United (2009)

Available to rent

An adaptation of a brilliant but bleak novel about Brian Clough’s doomed spell at Leeds United, the film dispenses with most of the book’s harrowing existential loneliness and discovers a surprisingly soft-hearted buddy story underneath. Michael Sheen disappears uncannily into his role, absolutely nailing Clough’s astringent self-possession, but Colm Meaney almost steals the film as Clough’s nemesis, Don Revie. A reminder that English football, back in the ‘70s, was a strange, drizzly place full of strange, compelling people.

— Andi Thomas

Hoop Dreams (1994)

Available on HBO, Kanopy and DirecTV

One of the best American documentaries. Also one of the best movies about dreams, who crushes them and how they evolve. It is also one of the best movies about race and poverty in America. All in all, this is one of the best movies about the allure and grace of basketball. A phenomenal film!

— Pete Volk

Horse Feathers (1932)

Available via the Internet Archive

I grew up watching the Marx Brothers with my dad, and I would be remiss not to mention this college football-centric classic. Turns out the “amateur” status of college football players was a joke in the 1930s, too!

— Pete Volk

Minding the Gap (2019)

Available on Hulu

Only tangentially about sports, since the group of kids at this documentary’s focus are skateboarders, but this is one of the great modern American documentaries about growing up, difficult friendships and toxic masculinity. Highly, highly recommend.

— Pete Volk

Starship Troopers (1997)

Available on Showtime, CBS All Access, DirecTV and Vudu

There are several reasons Starship Troopers is memorable — the broadly written anti-nationalist commentary! The exploding bugs! The co-ed showers! That one fight scene soundtracked to Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You,” for some reason! — but space football is the only one that fits with our theme. In the future, America’s favorite sport is played in high school gymnasiums on old wrestling mats. There are no special teams or roughness penalties. The ball is Nerf’s rough approximation of a baked potato wrapped in foil.

Johnny Rico, our protagonist, wins and is escorted off the field a hero. Roughly 20 minutes of film later, he’s left to die on an alien planet. Shit’s real, yo.

— Christian D’Andrea

Rush (2013)

Available on HBO

If you liked Ford V. Ferrari, you’ll probably love this. Retelling the true story of James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda’s intense Formula 1 rivalry, Rush has fantastic racing scenes and benefits from focusing on the wildly different personalities and approaches of the two rivals.

— Pete Volk

A League of Their Own (1992)

Available on Showtime, and very often randomly on cable

It almost feels redundant to list this classic, which you’ve probably already seen once or dozens of times. But if you have seen it, you know it holds up better than most of the feel-good, strings-swelling-styled sports hagiographies of the 1990s. A more-or-less accurate retelling of a vital and often ignored part of American sports history, conveyed via an all-star cast and too many quotable lines to count. The “hard” may be what makes it great, but there’s nothing hard about watching this iconic and genuinely uplifting movie. (I also wrote more about it here.)

—Natalie Weiner

Speed Racer (2008)

Available to rent

One of my favorite movies of all-time, taking many aesthetic cues from anime and seamlessly bringing them into the live-action world with breathtaking visual effects. Speed Racer is visually explosive and a delight for the senses, with a grounded conflict at its core (a family business getting bought out by a heartless corporation). In my opinion, this is sports + movies in their best balance with each other.

— Pete Volk

The Heart of the Game (2005)

Available to rent

A hardscrabble team works diligently to overcome the odds, with a few twists. The movie centers on a girls basketball team from Roosevelt High School, 10 minutes from where I grew up in Seattle, and the star of the team gets pregnant. Bring tissues.

— Natalie Weiner

Uncut Gems (2019)

Available to rent

No movie better captures the anxiety of being a sports fan, or the bad decisions you make because of your fandom. Also sports luminaries Kevin Garnett and Mike Francesa deliver excellent performances. My favorite 2019 release! Louis wrote more about it here.

— Pete Volk

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Available on Starz and DirecTV

This is the height of me on-my-bullshit, but please allow it: Scott Adkins and Michael Jai White are generational action stars, and this entry in the excellent Undisputed series shows their singular talents at their best. White plays an ex-boxer framed for a crime and sent to prison, where he fights for his freedom in an underground MMA ring. Adkins plays the terrifying Yuri Boyka, the reigning prison champ. This is so up my alley it’s not even funny, and hopefully it’s up yours, too!

— Pete Volk

More Than a Game (2008)

Available on Starz

It’s very easy to take LeBron James for granted. After all, he’s been doing otherworldly things in the NBA for almost two decades now. Sometimes it just seems like he’s always existed, like he’ll just be inevitable forever. At a time when we’re (hopefully temporarily) deprived of watching him play basketball, it’s worth revisiting this great documentary about his origin story. Yes, he overcame seemingly insurmountable odds, but the part that sticks with you is the people around him — those who believed in him completely, and who he has been just as loyal to in return.

— Natalie Weiner

[sportsleague365]

Manchester United have had some world-class talent play for them in the 21st century. Paul Scholes, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Edwin van der Sar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robin van Persie, David De Gea, some of the Premier League’s finest and most adored players since the dawn of the new millennium have worn the red shirt to great acclaim. Even the players considered to be underrated, like Dimitar Berbatov, Ashley Young and Daley Blind, are actually rated about fair for their ability. But that is not to say everyone gets the praise they deserve. Some players, in fact can spend years playing for the Red Devils and never get the credit due them. Obviously Paul Scholes used to be like this, but the general public has now admitted how wrong they were about him. And Ryan Giggs is in a permanent state of being underrated but also getting a fair shake when it comes to praise. The following 10 players, however, are still waiting to be given the right amount of praise for their quality and contributions to Manchester United Football Club. Who makes up this list? Who are the most underrated players United have had since 2000? Read on a find out! 10. Jonny EvansGames played:198 Titles won:Community Shield (4), 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, Premier League (3), League Cup (3) “Jonny the Killer” is often criticised because Sir Alex Ferguson famously felt comfortable selling Gerard Piqué as he had Evans on the books. But that’s an enormous disservice to Evans who was a wonderful defensive talent who excelled with the ball at his feet. His ability to defend ruggedly and switch the play elegantly brought defensive power to some disorganised United sides. Never given the full trust of any manager, he nearly always delivered when called upon and sadly his time at the club came to an end just when the ideal coach for him (Louis van Gaal) arrived. Sure, his post-United career hasn’t been great, but he was really great in red. 9. Antonio Valencia Games played:329 Titles won:Community Shield (3), League Cup (2), Premier League (2), 2015/16 FA Cup, 2016/17 UEFA Europa League The Ecuadorian was signed to “replace” Cristiano Ronaldo so was a disappointment from the start. But in truth, for the job he was asked to do, Valencia was superbly suited. Played a huge part in Rooney’s excellent performances as a no. 9 and helped Dimitar Berbatov and Javier Hernandez too. A rugged performer who has won two titles for United from two different positions, first as a winger and then as a full-back; a genuinely reliable full-back, too. His form has fallen off a cliff since the summer and he is now atrocious, but one cannot let that overshadow how relentless and reliable he was for a long time. 8. Wes Brown Games played:362 Titles won:Premier League (5), FA Cup (2), UEFA Champions League (2), Community Shield (3), League Cup (2) Everyone always talks about what could have been with Spurs defender Ledley King if only he had avoided injuries. But Wes Brown is just as big a case. A superbly gifted natural defender the equal of Rio Ferdinand (and far superior to Nemanja Vidic) he just could never stay fit enough to get any rhythm going. The exception being 2007/08, of course, when he played a full season and Manchester United won a European Double as perhaps the best team in the world. 7. John O’Shea Games played:393 Titles won:Premier League (5), Community Shield (4), 2003/04 FA Cup, League Cup (3), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup Where to start? A multi-functional defensive presence who excelled at right-back, centre-back, left-back (where he nutmegged Louis Figo) and even defensive midfield. Is known as a cult figure for his incredible goals at Anfield and Highbury, but through all his time at United he was actually a really solid defender and a competent attacking presence. Was a key defensive presence as United came within one game of retaining their European Double in 2009. 6. Darren Fletcher Games played:342 Titles won:2003/04 FA Cup, Premier League (4), Community Shield (3), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, League Cup (2) For years Fletcher was regarded as “teacher’s pet” who was only in the side because he shared a nationality with Sir Alex. No one believed the boss when he said Fletcher could be as important to the team as Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo. But then, in 2007 he just sort of, was? In truth Fletcher had been dominating big games for years (he was an expert at subduing the magnificent Patrick Vieira) but in 2007 developed into a genuine top-tier talent whose rise and rise was only ended by a cruel illness. How far could he have gone otherwise? Who knows, but he did pretty damn well regardless and set a blueprint out for youth prospects who lacked a bit of razzle dazzle. 5. Park Ji-Sung Games played:205 Titles won:League Cup (3), Premier League (4), Community Shield (4), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup A cult figure because Sir Alex Ferguson always called on him to add defensive energy in big games, but Park was so much more than just a legs man. He was a brilliant attacking midfielder with genuine quality. His appreciation of space and where to find it and how best to exploit it was supreme and his ability to punish lax defending is one of the reasons he would always torment Arsenal. An incredibly underrated player and a key part of the Title win and Champions League final run of 2010/11, neither of which would have been possible without him. 4. Wayne Rooney Games played:559 Titles won:League Cup (3), Premier League (5), Community Shield (4), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, 2015/16 FA Cup, 2016/17 UEFA Europa League Manchester United’s record goalscorer finally left the club at the end of the 2017 season having lifted the club’s first-ever Europa League, but that he does so under something of a cloud is a shame because for damn near a decade Wayne Rooney was a world-class presence at the heart of the Red Devils attack. A frenetic dynamo whose only enemy, whose only true rival, was his own in-built capacity for self-destruction. The last five years of his career have led people to forget just how brilliant, just how supreme, he used to be. Teams the world over feared Wayne Rooney because he wasn’t just skilled, he was relentless. He was physical and determined and afraid of absolutely nothing. When he took the field against Bayern Munich in 2010, playing on a twisted ankle terrifying Bayern to such a degree that United raced into a 3-0 lead, that should have been his Willis Reed moment. The exact time we canonised him. But then his injury flared up, his team-mates let him down, and United lost. His moment was gone. Brief resurgences in 2011 (who can forget the hat-trick vs. West Ham or the goals vs. City and Barcelona?) and again in 2012 where he led a ramshackle United side to cruelly lose the Title on goal difference were phenomenal, but while the decline sped up in 2012 it began in earnest that day in 2010. Obviously he can’t be the most underrated. There’s still an army of fans who consider him world-class, and many coaches believe he hasn’t spent the last half-decade wandering around the United pitch looking more like a contest winner than a professional footballer. But there’s an equally large contingent of people who wilfully ignore all the moments of magic simply because he declined so quickly. Forget the goalscoring record (well, don’t forget it) and just look at all the magical moments he’s delivered. The sheer number of them, from his show-stopping debut all the way through to that uproarious record-breaking strike against Stoke. 3. Nani Games played:230 Titles won:Community Shield (4), Premier League (4), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, League Cup (2) Regarded as a bit of a joke because of the way he left the club in ignominy and his lackluster career since (he can now be found in the MLS). But from 2010 to 2012 Nani was superhuman (including a masterclass against Bayern Munich in the 2010 Champions League, and even before that was an incredibly decisive figure with an absolutely wicked celebration. A wonderful crosser of the ball, an old-school two-sided winger who could create, dribble and score. There’s a reason Sir Alex Ferguson brought him on for Wayne Rooney in the 2008 Champions League final: Nani was a big game specialist. 2. Louis Saha Games played:124 Titles won:2005/06 League Cup, Premier League (2), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League The best strike partner Wayne Rooney has ever had. Louis Saha was signed in January and no one thought too much of it, but he instantly proved to be more than capable of stepping up to perform at the level United would want. As United transitioned away from the orthodox style of play with Ruud van Nistelrooy up-front to the fluid war machine they were in 2008 and 2009 (with Rooney, Cristiano and Carlos Tevez up-top), Saha was the key middle-man, melding the two styles splendidly. Had he not been so good, Sir Alex would have been unable to evolve his team. Saha was an absolutely essential play to the modern Manchester United. Such a shame that injuries ruined him, as there was surely more to give from this fabulous Frenchman. 1. Michael Carrick Games played:463 Titles won:Premier League (5), Community Shield (6), 2007/08 UEFA Champions League, 2008 FIFA Club World Cup, League Cup (3), 2015/16 FA Cup, 2016/17 UEFA Europa League Manchester hadn’t won the Premier League in three years. Then they signed Michael Carrick and won it three years in a row, also bagging the Champions League along the way. Obviously it’s more complicated than that, but since the very moment of his arrival Michael Carrick has been a key part of the Red Devils. That it took Robin van Persie openly exclaiming how good he was in 2012 for Carrick to finally get the widespread appreciation he deserves is baffling. Moreover, it still didn’t extend to his pre-2012 United career. Carrick has had some ropey moments, as all footballers have, but his brilliance and importance to Sir Alex Ferguson’s final great side cannot be understated. He was that midfield, the metronome that made it all work whether he played with Scholes, Fletcher, Anderson or Owen Hargreaves. Carrick hung up his boots in the summer, ending a 12-year playing career with United in which he won five Premier League titles. He moved on to instantly become a well-loved and well-respected coach at the club, taking a position of prominence first under José Mourinho and then under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. United fans should expect to see plenty more of Carrick on the touchlines, could he one day get the big job? Don’t rule it out! Source link The post The top 10 most underrated Manchester United players since 2000 appeared first on 10z Soccer. #ManchesterUnited #MichaelCarrick #WayneRooney

[douglassmiith]

When? is the Most Important Question for Entrepreneurs. (The Answer: Now?)

When do you launch? When do you act? When do you change? The cofounder of Square has answers.

March 5, 2020 13 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

I am an entrepreneur, but I am also a glassblower, and every glassblower has a mentor.

In fact, we all have the same one: Lino Tagliapietra. Glassblowing is the only profession I know where everyone agrees on who the best practitioner is. Nobody knows who the best accountant or mortician or loan shark is, but the world’s best glassblower is Lino. 

Everyone learns from the Maestro, usually by meeting someone who has met someone who has taken one of Lino’s classes. Maestro’s classes are legendary, right down to an admission process that would impress the Harvard registrar. There was even an essay question, and a collection of T-shirts for sale to salve the pain of rejection. It took me 15 years to earn a place, but I was finally admitted. 

Lino’s class lasted two weeks, and during that time, each student was allowed to ask Maestro one question. Everyone obsessed over his or her question, and as a result most questions followed the same format: A student would ask Lino how to do something impossible with glass. We would then sit in rapture as Maestro demonstrated how to do it. But when the day came for my question, none of the other students even paid attention to Lino’s answer, for my question was so basic that they already knew it. Or so they thought.

I asked the best glassblower in the world how to put a simple foot on a bowl.

You’ve seen this before. Imagine any kind of glass bowl, and now imagine it resting perfectly atop a small glass base. That’s the foot — it keeps the bowl upright. Putting a foot on a bowl is not complicated; the basic technique is taught in every beginner class. By this point in my career, I had performed the process at least a thousand times, but I could never get comfortable with the move. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. I had studied different techniques, purchased different tools, but nothing worked consistently. Sometimes the foot would proudly elevate the bowl on top; other times it looked like it had frozen while trying to escape. Every time I needed to apply a foot, I got anxious. So, after 15 years of stress and failure, I used my one question to ask the Maestro how to do this right. 

Related: 4 Benefits of Finding a Mentor

I expected him to answer me as he had the other students, by demonstrating the proper technique, but that is not what Maestro did. Lino told me to make a bowl, which I did promptly. Then he told me to make a foot, which is simply a hot gather of glass taken directly from the furnace and shaped into a tennis-ball-size glob. I made the foot.

He then told me to put the foot on the bowl, but just as I was about to let the hot foot drop onto the colder bowl, he said: Wait. I stood there with the bowl in my left hand and the foot in my right until he gave the second half of the lesson: Now. I let the now slightly less hot foot fall, and it went on perfectly. This blew my mind. 

I was expecting a lesson in how, but Lino gave me a lesson in when. I already knew how — I had been doing the how part right for 15 years. My problem was when. If you make a shape out of glass that is too hot, you can make the shape, but the glass will just collapse afterward. If the glass is too cold, however, it becomes too stiff and you cannot make the shape in the first place. It’s timing, not technique. 

I left the studio that evening thinking about all the other places in my life where I had done the right thing at the wrong time. How many times had I spoken when the other person was not ready to listen? How often had I been too late or too early with the right answer? I saw a cascade of failures over my lifetime resulting from knowing how to do something but ignoring when to do it.

I decided to become a student of when. I wasn’t in search of some formula for perfect timing — I knew that didn’t exist outside glassblowing. Instead, I wanted to learn the patterns that can help us when opportunities arise. And in my study of entrepreneurial companies, several patterns kept reappearing. This is what I want to share with you…now.

Schools teach how. We learn to copy what works, with the emphasis always on the how and not the when. In my various academic studies, I learned how to construct complicated mathematical models, but I never learned when presenting such a model was inappropriate. I learned to reason logically, but I never learned when logic might offend someone. I learned contract law, but I never learned when to just shake hands.

It is difficult to fault our schools for emphasizing how, since it is difficult to study when. Determining how to perform a task means repeating the steps over and over until you achieve a successful result. Once we learn how to do something, the formal learning usually stops. We then learn how to do the next thing.

Related: How to Launch a New Brand: 4 Tips that Work

But timing does matter. So how do we approach it? Instead of trying to see time as an overwhelmingly infinite set of temporal options, I find it easier to just ask, “When should we begin?” There are really only two answers to this question: now and later. Now is often the right answer. In this world of highly similar products, speed is a huge advantage. If you create innovation first, economics tells us that you can profit from it only until your competitors copy you. And there is good reason to believe that you won’t have much time. The history of simultaneous innovation also suggests that someone else has had the same idea, so, again, the reward goes to the first mover. 

In fact, now is so often the right answer that many successful people default to it. They always want to be first. But sometimes, it really is better to wait.

If you are racing through the streets of Europe, the type of race matters. Formula 1 drivers in Monaco wind through streets so narrow that there are very few opportunities to pass. The car in the pole position usually wins the race. But in a bicycle race through those same streets, the leader will often become exhausted before the race is finished, handing victory to those who waited patiently in the slipstream. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, being first is not always best. This is because innovations build on each other. I call it the “innovation stack”: One innovation makes another innovation possible, which makes yet another innovation possible. Innovation stacks are at the core of world-changing businesses; they are the result of entrepreneurs who solve the right problem at the right time by building upon what’s already possible. This means that, when a critical element of your company is outside your control, waiting can be the best option. It’s possible to launch too early. 

Do you recall the first social network? Wrong — it was GeoCities back in 1995. Friendster came next in 2002 and did better. Then Myspace elbowed out Friendster beginning in 2003. Finally, Facebook took over. Why are we not all connecting with each other over Geo chat? Part of the answer is that GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace all launched before mobile computing was commonplace. Without always-on access to the system, as well as a camera in everybody’s pocket, the appeal of a social network is diminished. 

Should we fault GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace for not anticipating the looming ubiquity of mobile devices? Each of those companies was OK for its time, but Facebook’s timing was fantastic. Facebook had a dozen components of its innovation stack ready when mobile exploded, and then it quickly purchased Instagram when Instagram was beating it in mobile. 

You can be too early. Quick, name the 18th search engine company. (Ahem — you might want to Google that.)

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

So, what then? If you are purposely waiting for the right moment to move, is there anything to do in the meantime? Yes. The decision to wait implies that at some future time you will have to move, so you still have plenty to do. You work on all the other elements of your innovation stack — everything else that you’re creating — so that when the final element exists, everything else is ready to go.

For example, consider what happened at my company, Square. We began in 2009 by developing mobile card readers — those small devices you can plug into a phone or tablet and then swipe a credit card through. But at the time, Visa and Mastercard had rules specifically prohibiting the kind of technology we were creating. We spent a year trying to convince them to change their rules — and while that happened, we worked on other elements of our innovation stack, with the hope that the last piece would eventually happen. It was a gamble, but when Visa and Mastercard finally agreed to change their rules, the rest of our stack was ready to go, and the gamble paid off. 

Waiting for one element should not impede all the others. This is risky, of course — but most of the entrepreneurs I studied took this same type of risk, even if it made them uncomfortable.

Now let’s talk about moving now.

How does now feel? Well, in my case, I get nervous. Toward the end of my first year at Square, I was actually having “mild” panic attacks about all our unresolved issues. I remember pulling off the road one day and running into a pharmacy and getting a bottle of aspirin to fight the heart attack I was sure I was having. But this was good, in a crazy way. Here’s why: Right feels early. 

If the timing feels right, you are probably too late. That’s because we, as people, move in herds. If the innovation feels right to you, it probably feels right to a hundred other people with the same idea. If it feels too early, in my experience, that’s a good time to leave the walled city. There is no way to know when the unknown is arriving, but it will probably arrive sooner than you think.

There’s a secondary benefit: When you act now, you can actually create change — sometimes supplying whatever the missing element is in your business. In other words, leaping can cause you to grow wings. 

In Square’s case, let’s return to the permission we needed from the card networks. We built a system that violated their rules…but had we not already built the system, Mastercard and Visa probably never would have bothered to rewrite their rules to accommodate us. Our system gave them something to aim for. Once Mastercard (and then Visa) agreed to revise its regulations, the tone of our conversations was basically “Square is cool, so how do we make it compliant?” 

Southwest Airlines has a similar story. It created the low-cost-­airline model, but it did so in an era in the 1970s when the federal government regulated airline prices. It could have waited for the laws to change, but it chose not to. Instead, it proved itself as best it could; it operated only in Texas, which, because it wasn’t crossing state lines, meant it wasn’t subject to federal laws. Soon people took notice of its demonstrably better price, speed, and service — including Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, who led the fight to deregulate the industry. By moving before the country was ready, Southwest created the environment in which the country could be ready.

At that point, the big question was: Is Southwest ready to take full advantage? And the answer was yes — it was more prepared than all of its competition.

Related: 6 Ways to Launch a Business

This is an important part of timing. You have to be ready when the missing elements suddenly appear. I have seen the following pattern in dozens of entrepreneurial companies: Their innovation stack begins to function, and then the world suddenly changes; but because their company is still evolving, they can quickly capitalize on this new world order before any other firm can adapt to the new ecosystem. 

At the time of deregulation in 1978, Southwest Airlines had already been flying passengers around for seven years as a small regional airline. But because of its earlier battles with the airlines and regulators, Southwest’s flights, planes, finances, pricing, staff, pilots, passengers, and a dozen other blocks in its innovation stack were ready before deregulation hit. When the change came, Southwest was already in the air doing 500 knots, the only company prepared for a world where leanness and low cost would win the day. It had happy customers, lower fares, better punctuality, better safety within Texas, and a culture that was accustomed to adapting quickly. Now it just had to scale everything up. 

When is not a science. Not even the world’s best econometrician knows exactly when to make a move. Experience helps, but by definition it is impossible to have experience for anything that is truly new.

I find, however, that simply being aware of the temporal components makes my enterprises more nimble. I race to be ready early. But as soon as I feel ready, a voice in my head asks, Is the world also ready? 

If the world is ready, then creating an innovation stack comes with a responsibility to create a market for as many new customers as possible. You are rewarded with a massive market that is nearly impossible for competitors to steal, so long as you can grow fast enough. This is fun, stressful, and necessary work. Your time indeed has come. 

 Adapted from The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, by Jim McKelvey, to be published March 10 by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Jim McKelvey.

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[riichardwilson]

“When?” is the Most Important Question for Entrepreneurs. (The Answer: Now?)

When do you launch? When do you act? When do you change? The cofounder of Square has answers.

March 5, 2020 13 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

I am an entrepreneur, but I am also a glassblower, and every glassblower has a mentor.

In fact, we all have the same one: Lino Tagliapietra. Glassblowing is the only profession I know where everyone agrees on who the best practitioner is. Nobody knows who the best accountant or mortician or loan shark is, but the world’s best glassblower is Lino. 

Everyone learns from the Maestro, usually by meeting someone who has met someone who has taken one of Lino’s classes. Maestro’s classes are legendary, right down to an admission process that would impress the Harvard registrar. There was even an essay question, and a collection of T-shirts for sale to salve the pain of rejection. It took me 15 years to earn a place, but I was finally admitted. 

Lino’s class lasted two weeks, and during that time, each student was allowed to ask Maestro one question. Everyone obsessed over his or her question, and as a result most questions followed the same format: A student would ask Lino how to do something impossible with glass. We would then sit in rapture as Maestro demonstrated how to do it. But when the day came for my question, none of the other students even paid attention to Lino’s answer, for my question was so basic that they already knew it. Or so they thought.

I asked the best glassblower in the world how to put a simple foot on a bowl.

You’ve seen this before. Imagine any kind of glass bowl, and now imagine it resting perfectly atop a small glass base. That’s the foot — it keeps the bowl upright. Putting a foot on a bowl is not complicated; the basic technique is taught in every beginner class. By this point in my career, I had performed the process at least a thousand times, but I could never get comfortable with the move. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. I had studied different techniques, purchased different tools, but nothing worked consistently. Sometimes the foot would proudly elevate the bowl on top; other times it looked like it had frozen while trying to escape. Every time I needed to apply a foot, I got anxious. So, after 15 years of stress and failure, I used my one question to ask the Maestro how to do this right. 

Related: 4 Benefits of Finding a Mentor

I expected him to answer me as he had the other students, by demonstrating the proper technique, but that is not what Maestro did. Lino told me to make a bowl, which I did promptly. Then he told me to make a foot, which is simply a hot gather of glass taken directly from the furnace and shaped into a tennis-ball-size glob. I made the foot.

He then told me to put the foot on the bowl, but just as I was about to let the hot foot drop onto the colder bowl, he said: Wait. I stood there with the bowl in my left hand and the foot in my right until he gave the second half of the lesson: Now. I let the now slightly less hot foot fall, and it went on perfectly. This blew my mind. 

I was expecting a lesson in how, but Lino gave me a lesson in when. I already knew how — I had been doing the how part right for 15 years. My problem was when. If you make a shape out of glass that is too hot, you can make the shape, but the glass will just collapse afterward. If the glass is too cold, however, it becomes too stiff and you cannot make the shape in the first place. It’s timing, not technique. 

I left the studio that evening thinking about all the other places in my life where I had done the right thing at the wrong time. How many times had I spoken when the other person was not ready to listen? How often had I been too late or too early with the right answer? I saw a cascade of failures over my lifetime resulting from knowing how to do something but ignoring when to do it.

I decided to become a student of when. I wasn’t in search of some formula for perfect timing — I knew that didn’t exist outside glassblowing. Instead, I wanted to learn the patterns that can help us when opportunities arise. And in my study of entrepreneurial companies, several patterns kept reappearing. This is what I want to share with you…now.

Schools teach how. We learn to copy what works, with the emphasis always on the how and not the when. In my various academic studies, I learned how to construct complicated mathematical models, but I never learned when presenting such a model was inappropriate. I learned to reason logically, but I never learned when logic might offend someone. I learned contract law, but I never learned when to just shake hands.

It is difficult to fault our schools for emphasizing how, since it is difficult to study when. Determining how to perform a task means repeating the steps over and over until you achieve a successful result. Once we learn how to do something, the formal learning usually stops. We then learn how to do the next thing.

Related: How to Launch a New Brand: 4 Tips that Work

But timing does matter. So how do we approach it? Instead of trying to see time as an overwhelmingly infinite set of temporal options, I find it easier to just ask, “When should we begin?” There are really only two answers to this question: now and later. Now is often the right answer. In this world of highly similar products, speed is a huge advantage. If you create innovation first, economics tells us that you can profit from it only until your competitors copy you. And there is good reason to believe that you won’t have much time. The history of simultaneous innovation also suggests that someone else has had the same idea, so, again, the reward goes to the first mover. 

In fact, now is so often the right answer that many successful people default to it. They always want to be first. But sometimes, it really is better to wait.

If you are racing through the streets of Europe, the type of race matters. Formula 1 drivers in Monaco wind through streets so narrow that there are very few opportunities to pass. The car in the pole position usually wins the race. But in a bicycle race through those same streets, the leader will often become exhausted before the race is finished, handing victory to those who waited patiently in the slipstream. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, being first is not always best. This is because innovations build on each other. I call it the “innovation stack”: One innovation makes another innovation possible, which makes yet another innovation possible. Innovation stacks are at the core of world-changing businesses; they are the result of entrepreneurs who solve the right problem at the right time by building upon what’s already possible. This means that, when a critical element of your company is outside your control, waiting can be the best option. It’s possible to launch too early. 

Do you recall the first social network? Wrong — it was GeoCities back in 1995. Friendster came next in 2002 and did better. Then Myspace elbowed out Friendster beginning in 2003. Finally, Facebook took over. Why are we not all connecting with each other over Geo chat? Part of the answer is that GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace all launched before mobile computing was commonplace. Without always-on access to the system, as well as a camera in everybody’s pocket, the appeal of a social network is diminished. 

Should we fault GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace for not anticipating the looming ubiquity of mobile devices? Each of those companies was OK for its time, but Facebook’s timing was fantastic. Facebook had a dozen components of its innovation stack ready when mobile exploded, and then it quickly purchased Instagram when Instagram was beating it in mobile. 

You can be too early. Quick, name the 18th search engine company. (Ahem — you might want to Google that.)

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

So, what then? If you are purposely waiting for the right moment to move, is there anything to do in the meantime? Yes. The decision to wait implies that at some future time you will have to move, so you still have plenty to do. You work on all the other elements of your innovation stack — everything else that you’re creating — so that when the final element exists, everything else is ready to go.

For example, consider what happened at my company, Square. We began in 2009 by developing mobile card readers — those small devices you can plug into a phone or tablet and then swipe a credit card through. But at the time, Visa and Mastercard had rules specifically prohibiting the kind of technology we were creating. We spent a year trying to convince them to change their rules — and while that happened, we worked on other elements of our innovation stack, with the hope that the last piece would eventually happen. It was a gamble, but when Visa and Mastercard finally agreed to change their rules, the rest of our stack was ready to go, and the gamble paid off. 

Waiting for one element should not impede all the others. This is risky, of course — but most of the entrepreneurs I studied took this same type of risk, even if it made them uncomfortable.

Now let’s talk about moving now.

How does now feel? Well, in my case, I get nervous. Toward the end of my first year at Square, I was actually having “mild” panic attacks about all our unresolved issues. I remember pulling off the road one day and running into a pharmacy and getting a bottle of aspirin to fight the heart attack I was sure I was having. But this was good, in a crazy way. Here’s why: Right feels early. 

If the timing feels right, you are probably too late. That’s because we, as people, move in herds. If the innovation feels right to you, it probably feels right to a hundred other people with the same idea. If it feels too early, in my experience, that’s a good time to leave the walled city. There is no way to know when the unknown is arriving, but it will probably arrive sooner than you think.

There’s a secondary benefit: When you act now, you can actually create change — sometimes supplying whatever the missing element is in your business. In other words, leaping can cause you to grow wings. 

In Square’s case, let’s return to the permission we needed from the card networks. We built a system that violated their rules…but had we not already built the system, Mastercard and Visa probably never would have bothered to rewrite their rules to accommodate us. Our system gave them something to aim for. Once Mastercard (and then Visa) agreed to revise its regulations, the tone of our conversations was basically “Square is cool, so how do we make it compliant?” 

Southwest Airlines has a similar story. It created the low-cost-­airline model, but it did so in an era in the 1970s when the federal government regulated airline prices. It could have waited for the laws to change, but it chose not to. Instead, it proved itself as best it could; it operated only in Texas, which, because it wasn’t crossing state lines, meant it wasn’t subject to federal laws. Soon people took notice of its demonstrably better price, speed, and service — including Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, who led the fight to deregulate the industry. By moving before the country was ready, Southwest created the environment in which the country could be ready.

At that point, the big question was: Is Southwest ready to take full advantage? And the answer was yes — it was more prepared than all of its competition.

Related: 6 Ways to Launch a Business

This is an important part of timing. You have to be ready when the missing elements suddenly appear. I have seen the following pattern in dozens of entrepreneurial companies: Their innovation stack begins to function, and then the world suddenly changes; but because their company is still evolving, they can quickly capitalize on this new world order before any other firm can adapt to the new ecosystem. 

At the time of deregulation in 1978, Southwest Airlines had already been flying passengers around for seven years as a small regional airline. But because of its earlier battles with the airlines and regulators, Southwest’s flights, planes, finances, pricing, staff, pilots, passengers, and a dozen other blocks in its innovation stack were ready before deregulation hit. When the change came, Southwest was already in the air doing 500 knots, the only company prepared for a world where leanness and low cost would win the day. It had happy customers, lower fares, better punctuality, better safety within Texas, and a culture that was accustomed to adapting quickly. Now it just had to scale everything up. 

When is not a science. Not even the world’s best econometrician knows exactly when to make a move. Experience helps, but by definition it is impossible to have experience for anything that is truly new.

I find, however, that simply being aware of the temporal components makes my enterprises more nimble. I race to be ready early. But as soon as I feel ready, a voice in my head asks, Is the world also ready? 

If the world is ready, then creating an innovation stack comes with a responsibility to create a market for as many new customers as possible. You are rewarded with a massive market that is nearly impossible for competitors to steal, so long as you can grow fast enough. This is fun, stressful, and necessary work. Your time indeed has come. 

  Adapted from The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, by Jim McKelvey, to be published March 10 by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Jim McKelvey.

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“When?” is the Most Important Question for Entrepreneurs. (The Answer: Now?)

When do you launch? When do you act? When do you change? The cofounder of Square has answers.

March 5, 2020 13 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

I am an entrepreneur, but I am also a glassblower, and every glassblower has a mentor.

In fact, we all have the same one: Lino Tagliapietra. Glassblowing is the only profession I know where everyone agrees on who the best practitioner is. Nobody knows who the best accountant or mortician or loan shark is, but the world’s best glassblower is Lino. 

Everyone learns from the Maestro, usually by meeting someone who has met someone who has taken one of Lino’s classes. Maestro’s classes are legendary, right down to an admission process that would impress the Harvard registrar. There was even an essay question, and a collection of T-shirts for sale to salve the pain of rejection. It took me 15 years to earn a place, but I was finally admitted. 

Lino’s class lasted two weeks, and during that time, each student was allowed to ask Maestro one question. Everyone obsessed over his or her question, and as a result most questions followed the same format: A student would ask Lino how to do something impossible with glass. We would then sit in rapture as Maestro demonstrated how to do it. But when the day came for my question, none of the other students even paid attention to Lino’s answer, for my question was so basic that they already knew it. Or so they thought.

I asked the best glassblower in the world how to put a simple foot on a bowl.

You’ve seen this before. Imagine any kind of glass bowl, and now imagine it resting perfectly atop a small glass base. That’s the foot — it keeps the bowl upright. Putting a foot on a bowl is not complicated; the basic technique is taught in every beginner class. By this point in my career, I had performed the process at least a thousand times, but I could never get comfortable with the move. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. I had studied different techniques, purchased different tools, but nothing worked consistently. Sometimes the foot would proudly elevate the bowl on top; other times it looked like it had frozen while trying to escape. Every time I needed to apply a foot, I got anxious. So, after 15 years of stress and failure, I used my one question to ask the Maestro how to do this right. 

Related: 4 Benefits of Finding a Mentor

I expected him to answer me as he had the other students, by demonstrating the proper technique, but that is not what Maestro did. Lino told me to make a bowl, which I did promptly. Then he told me to make a foot, which is simply a hot gather of glass taken directly from the furnace and shaped into a tennis-ball-size glob. I made the foot.

He then told me to put the foot on the bowl, but just as I was about to let the hot foot drop onto the colder bowl, he said: Wait. I stood there with the bowl in my left hand and the foot in my right until he gave the second half of the lesson: Now. I let the now slightly less hot foot fall, and it went on perfectly. This blew my mind. 

I was expecting a lesson in how, but Lino gave me a lesson in when. I already knew how — I had been doing the how part right for 15 years. My problem was when. If you make a shape out of glass that is too hot, you can make the shape, but the glass will just collapse afterward. If the glass is too cold, however, it becomes too stiff and you cannot make the shape in the first place. It’s timing, not technique. 

I left the studio that evening thinking about all the other places in my life where I had done the right thing at the wrong time. How many times had I spoken when the other person was not ready to listen? How often had I been too late or too early with the right answer? I saw a cascade of failures over my lifetime resulting from knowing how to do something but ignoring when to do it.

I decided to become a student of when. I wasn’t in search of some formula for perfect timing — I knew that didn’t exist outside glassblowing. Instead, I wanted to learn the patterns that can help us when opportunities arise. And in my study of entrepreneurial companies, several patterns kept reappearing. This is what I want to share with you…now.

Schools teach how. We learn to copy what works, with the emphasis always on the how and not the when. In my various academic studies, I learned how to construct complicated mathematical models, but I never learned when presenting such a model was inappropriate. I learned to reason logically, but I never learned when logic might offend someone. I learned contract law, but I never learned when to just shake hands.

It is difficult to fault our schools for emphasizing how, since it is difficult to study when. Determining how to perform a task means repeating the steps over and over until you achieve a successful result. Once we learn how to do something, the formal learning usually stops. We then learn how to do the next thing.

Related: How to Launch a New Brand: 4 Tips that Work

But timing does matter. So how do we approach it? Instead of trying to see time as an overwhelmingly infinite set of temporal options, I find it easier to just ask, “When should we begin?” There are really only two answers to this question: now and later. Now is often the right answer. In this world of highly similar products, speed is a huge advantage. If you create innovation first, economics tells us that you can profit from it only until your competitors copy you. And there is good reason to believe that you won’t have much time. The history of simultaneous innovation also suggests that someone else has had the same idea, so, again, the reward goes to the first mover. 

In fact, now is so often the right answer that many successful people default to it. They always want to be first. But sometimes, it really is better to wait.

If you are racing through the streets of Europe, the type of race matters. Formula 1 drivers in Monaco wind through streets so narrow that there are very few opportunities to pass. The car in the pole position usually wins the race. But in a bicycle race through those same streets, the leader will often become exhausted before the race is finished, handing victory to those who waited patiently in the slipstream. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, being first is not always best. This is because innovations build on each other. I call it the “innovation stack”: One innovation makes another innovation possible, which makes yet another innovation possible. Innovation stacks are at the core of world-changing businesses; they are the result of entrepreneurs who solve the right problem at the right time by building upon what’s already possible. This means that, when a critical element of your company is outside your control, waiting can be the best option. It’s possible to launch too early. 

Do you recall the first social network? Wrong — it was GeoCities back in 1995. Friendster came next in 2002 and did better. Then Myspace elbowed out Friendster beginning in 2003. Finally, Facebook took over. Why are we not all connecting with each other over Geo chat? Part of the answer is that GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace all launched before mobile computing was commonplace. Without always-on access to the system, as well as a camera in everybody’s pocket, the appeal of a social network is diminished. 

Should we fault GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace for not anticipating the looming ubiquity of mobile devices? Each of those companies was OK for its time, but Facebook’s timing was fantastic. Facebook had a dozen components of its innovation stack ready when mobile exploded, and then it quickly purchased Instagram when Instagram was beating it in mobile. 

You can be too early. Quick, name the 18th search engine company. (Ahem — you might want to Google that.)

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

So, what then? If you are purposely waiting for the right moment to move, is there anything to do in the meantime? Yes. The decision to wait implies that at some future time you will have to move, so you still have plenty to do. You work on all the other elements of your innovation stack — everything else that you’re creating — so that when the final element exists, everything else is ready to go.

For example, consider what happened at my company, Square. We began in 2009 by developing mobile card readers — those small devices you can plug into a phone or tablet and then swipe a credit card through. But at the time, Visa and Mastercard had rules specifically prohibiting the kind of technology we were creating. We spent a year trying to convince them to change their rules — and while that happened, we worked on other elements of our innovation stack, with the hope that the last piece would eventually happen. It was a gamble, but when Visa and Mastercard finally agreed to change their rules, the rest of our stack was ready to go, and the gamble paid off. 

Waiting for one element should not impede all the others. This is risky, of course — but most of the entrepreneurs I studied took this same type of risk, even if it made them uncomfortable.

Now let’s talk about moving now.

How does now feel? Well, in my case, I get nervous. Toward the end of my first year at Square, I was actually having “mild” panic attacks about all our unresolved issues. I remember pulling off the road one day and running into a pharmacy and getting a bottle of aspirin to fight the heart attack I was sure I was having. But this was good, in a crazy way. Here’s why: Right feels early. 

If the timing feels right, you are probably too late. That’s because we, as people, move in herds. If the innovation feels right to you, it probably feels right to a hundred other people with the same idea. If it feels too early, in my experience, that’s a good time to leave the walled city. There is no way to know when the unknown is arriving, but it will probably arrive sooner than you think.

There’s a secondary benefit: When you act now, you can actually create change — sometimes supplying whatever the missing element is in your business. In other words, leaping can cause you to grow wings. 

In Square’s case, let’s return to the permission we needed from the card networks. We built a system that violated their rules…but had we not already built the system, Mastercard and Visa probably never would have bothered to rewrite their rules to accommodate us. Our system gave them something to aim for. Once Mastercard (and then Visa) agreed to revise its regulations, the tone of our conversations was basically “Square is cool, so how do we make it compliant?” 

Southwest Airlines has a similar story. It created the low-cost-­airline model, but it did so in an era in the 1970s when the federal government regulated airline prices. It could have waited for the laws to change, but it chose not to. Instead, it proved itself as best it could; it operated only in Texas, which, because it wasn’t crossing state lines, meant it wasn’t subject to federal laws. Soon people took notice of its demonstrably better price, speed, and service — including Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, who led the fight to deregulate the industry. By moving before the country was ready, Southwest created the environment in which the country could be ready.

At that point, the big question was: Is Southwest ready to take full advantage? And the answer was yes — it was more prepared than all of its competition.

Related: 6 Ways to Launch a Business

This is an important part of timing. You have to be ready when the missing elements suddenly appear. I have seen the following pattern in dozens of entrepreneurial companies: Their innovation stack begins to function, and then the world suddenly changes; but because their company is still evolving, they can quickly capitalize on this new world order before any other firm can adapt to the new ecosystem. 

At the time of deregulation in 1978, Southwest Airlines had already been flying passengers around for seven years as a small regional airline. But because of its earlier battles with the airlines and regulators, Southwest’s flights, planes, finances, pricing, staff, pilots, passengers, and a dozen other blocks in its innovation stack were ready before deregulation hit. When the change came, Southwest was already in the air doing 500 knots, the only company prepared for a world where leanness and low cost would win the day. It had happy customers, lower fares, better punctuality, better safety within Texas, and a culture that was accustomed to adapting quickly. Now it just had to scale everything up. 

When is not a science. Not even the world’s best econometrician knows exactly when to make a move. Experience helps, but by definition it is impossible to have experience for anything that is truly new.

I find, however, that simply being aware of the temporal components makes my enterprises more nimble. I race to be ready early. But as soon as I feel ready, a voice in my head asks, Is the world also ready? 

If the world is ready, then creating an innovation stack comes with a responsibility to create a market for as many new customers as possible. You are rewarded with a massive market that is nearly impossible for competitors to steal, so long as you can grow fast enough. This is fun, stressful, and necessary work. Your time indeed has come. 

 Adapted from The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, by Jim McKelvey, to be published March 10 by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Jim McKelvey.

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source http://www.scpie.org/when-is-the-most-important-question-for-entrepreneurs-the-answer-now/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/03/when-is-most-important-question-for.html

[scpie]

“When?” is the Most Important Question for Entrepreneurs. (The Answer: Now?)

When do you launch? When do you act? When do you change? The cofounder of Square has answers.

March 5, 2020 13 min read

This story appears in the March 2020 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »

I am an entrepreneur, but I am also a glassblower, and every glassblower has a mentor.

In fact, we all have the same one: Lino Tagliapietra. Glassblowing is the only profession I know where everyone agrees on who the best practitioner is. Nobody knows who the best accountant or mortician or loan shark is, but the world’s best glassblower is Lino. 

Everyone learns from the Maestro, usually by meeting someone who has met someone who has taken one of Lino’s classes. Maestro’s classes are legendary, right down to an admission process that would impress the Harvard registrar. There was even an essay question, and a collection of T-shirts for sale to salve the pain of rejection. It took me 15 years to earn a place, but I was finally admitted. 

Lino’s class lasted two weeks, and during that time, each student was allowed to ask Maestro one question. Everyone obsessed over his or her question, and as a result most questions followed the same format: A student would ask Lino how to do something impossible with glass. We would then sit in rapture as Maestro demonstrated how to do it. But when the day came for my question, none of the other students even paid attention to Lino’s answer, for my question was so basic that they already knew it. Or so they thought.

I asked the best glassblower in the world how to put a simple foot on a bowl.

You’ve seen this before. Imagine any kind of glass bowl, and now imagine it resting perfectly atop a small glass base. That’s the foot — it keeps the bowl upright. Putting a foot on a bowl is not complicated; the basic technique is taught in every beginner class. By this point in my career, I had performed the process at least a thousand times, but I could never get comfortable with the move. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. I had studied different techniques, purchased different tools, but nothing worked consistently. Sometimes the foot would proudly elevate the bowl on top; other times it looked like it had frozen while trying to escape. Every time I needed to apply a foot, I got anxious. So, after 15 years of stress and failure, I used my one question to ask the Maestro how to do this right. 

Related: 4 Benefits of Finding a Mentor

I expected him to answer me as he had the other students, by demonstrating the proper technique, but that is not what Maestro did. Lino told me to make a bowl, which I did promptly. Then he told me to make a foot, which is simply a hot gather of glass taken directly from the furnace and shaped into a tennis-ball-size glob. I made the foot.

He then told me to put the foot on the bowl, but just as I was about to let the hot foot drop onto the colder bowl, he said: Wait. I stood there with the bowl in my left hand and the foot in my right until he gave the second half of the lesson: Now. I let the now slightly less hot foot fall, and it went on perfectly. This blew my mind. 

I was expecting a lesson in how, but Lino gave me a lesson in when. I already knew how — I had been doing the how part right for 15 years. My problem was when. If you make a shape out of glass that is too hot, you can make the shape, but the glass will just collapse afterward. If the glass is too cold, however, it becomes too stiff and you cannot make the shape in the first place. It’s timing, not technique. 

I left the studio that evening thinking about all the other places in my life where I had done the right thing at the wrong time. How many times had I spoken when the other person was not ready to listen? How often had I been too late or too early with the right answer? I saw a cascade of failures over my lifetime resulting from knowing how to do something but ignoring when to do it.

I decided to become a student of when. I wasn’t in search of some formula for perfect timing — I knew that didn’t exist outside glassblowing. Instead, I wanted to learn the patterns that can help us when opportunities arise. And in my study of entrepreneurial companies, several patterns kept reappearing. This is what I want to share with you…now.

Schools teach how. We learn to copy what works, with the emphasis always on the how and not the when. In my various academic studies, I learned how to construct complicated mathematical models, but I never learned when presenting such a model was inappropriate. I learned to reason logically, but I never learned when logic might offend someone. I learned contract law, but I never learned when to just shake hands.

It is difficult to fault our schools for emphasizing how, since it is difficult to study when. Determining how to perform a task means repeating the steps over and over until you achieve a successful result. Once we learn how to do something, the formal learning usually stops. We then learn how to do the next thing.

Related: How to Launch a New Brand: 4 Tips that Work

But timing does matter. So how do we approach it? Instead of trying to see time as an overwhelmingly infinite set of temporal options, I find it easier to just ask, “When should we begin?” There are really only two answers to this question: now and later. Now is often the right answer. In this world of highly similar products, speed is a huge advantage. If you create innovation first, economics tells us that you can profit from it only until your competitors copy you. And there is good reason to believe that you won’t have much time. The history of simultaneous innovation also suggests that someone else has had the same idea, so, again, the reward goes to the first mover. 

In fact, now is so often the right answer that many successful people default to it. They always want to be first. But sometimes, it really is better to wait.

If you are racing through the streets of Europe, the type of race matters. Formula 1 drivers in Monaco wind through streets so narrow that there are very few opportunities to pass. The car in the pole position usually wins the race. But in a bicycle race through those same streets, the leader will often become exhausted before the race is finished, handing victory to those who waited patiently in the slipstream. 

In the world of entrepreneurship, being first is not always best. This is because innovations build on each other. I call it the “innovation stack”: One innovation makes another innovation possible, which makes yet another innovation possible. Innovation stacks are at the core of world-changing businesses; they are the result of entrepreneurs who solve the right problem at the right time by building upon what’s already possible. This means that, when a critical element of your company is outside your control, waiting can be the best option. It’s possible to launch too early. 

Do you recall the first social network? Wrong — it was GeoCities back in 1995. Friendster came next in 2002 and did better. Then Myspace elbowed out Friendster beginning in 2003. Finally, Facebook took over. Why are we not all connecting with each other over Geo chat? Part of the answer is that GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace all launched before mobile computing was commonplace. Without always-on access to the system, as well as a camera in everybody’s pocket, the appeal of a social network is diminished. 

Should we fault GeoCities, Friendster, and Myspace for not anticipating the looming ubiquity of mobile devices? Each of those companies was OK for its time, but Facebook’s timing was fantastic. Facebook had a dozen components of its innovation stack ready when mobile exploded, and then it quickly purchased Instagram when Instagram was beating it in mobile. 

You can be too early. Quick, name the 18th search engine company. (Ahem — you might want to Google that.)

Related: The Complete, 12-Step Guide to Starting a Business

So, what then? If you are purposely waiting for the right moment to move, is there anything to do in the meantime? Yes. The decision to wait implies that at some future time you will have to move, so you still have plenty to do. You work on all the other elements of your innovation stack — everything else that you’re creating — so that when the final element exists, everything else is ready to go.

For example, consider what happened at my company, Square. We began in 2009 by developing mobile card readers — those small devices you can plug into a phone or tablet and then swipe a credit card through. But at the time, Visa and Mastercard had rules specifically prohibiting the kind of technology we were creating. We spent a year trying to convince them to change their rules — and while that happened, we worked on other elements of our innovation stack, with the hope that the last piece would eventually happen. It was a gamble, but when Visa and Mastercard finally agreed to change their rules, the rest of our stack was ready to go, and the gamble paid off. 

Waiting for one element should not impede all the others. This is risky, of course — but most of the entrepreneurs I studied took this same type of risk, even if it made them uncomfortable.

Now let’s talk about moving now.

How does now feel? Well, in my case, I get nervous. Toward the end of my first year at Square, I was actually having “mild” panic attacks about all our unresolved issues. I remember pulling off the road one day and running into a pharmacy and getting a bottle of aspirin to fight the heart attack I was sure I was having. But this was good, in a crazy way. Here’s why: Right feels early. 

If the timing feels right, you are probably too late. That’s because we, as people, move in herds. If the innovation feels right to you, it probably feels right to a hundred other people with the same idea. If it feels too early, in my experience, that’s a good time to leave the walled city. There is no way to know when the unknown is arriving, but it will probably arrive sooner than you think.

There’s a secondary benefit: When you act now, you can actually create change — sometimes supplying whatever the missing element is in your business. In other words, leaping can cause you to grow wings. 

In Square’s case, let’s return to the permission we needed from the card networks. We built a system that violated their rules…but had we not already built the system, Mastercard and Visa probably never would have bothered to rewrite their rules to accommodate us. Our system gave them something to aim for. Once Mastercard (and then Visa) agreed to revise its regulations, the tone of our conversations was basically “Square is cool, so how do we make it compliant?” 

Southwest Airlines has a similar story. It created the low-cost-­airline model, but it did so in an era in the 1970s when the federal government regulated airline prices. It could have waited for the laws to change, but it chose not to. Instead, it proved itself as best it could; it operated only in Texas, which, because it wasn’t crossing state lines, meant it wasn’t subject to federal laws. Soon people took notice of its demonstrably better price, speed, and service — including Massachusetts senator Ted Kennedy, who led the fight to deregulate the industry. By moving before the country was ready, Southwest created the environment in which the country could be ready.

At that point, the big question was: Is Southwest ready to take full advantage? And the answer was yes — it was more prepared than all of its competition.

Related: 6 Ways to Launch a Business

This is an important part of timing. You have to be ready when the missing elements suddenly appear. I have seen the following pattern in dozens of entrepreneurial companies: Their innovation stack begins to function, and then the world suddenly changes; but because their company is still evolving, they can quickly capitalize on this new world order before any other firm can adapt to the new ecosystem. 

At the time of deregulation in 1978, Southwest Airlines had already been flying passengers around for seven years as a small regional airline. But because of its earlier battles with the airlines and regulators, Southwest’s flights, planes, finances, pricing, staff, pilots, passengers, and a dozen other blocks in its innovation stack were ready before deregulation hit. When the change came, Southwest was already in the air doing 500 knots, the only company prepared for a world where leanness and low cost would win the day. It had happy customers, lower fares, better punctuality, better safety within Texas, and a culture that was accustomed to adapting quickly. Now it just had to scale everything up. 

When is not a science. Not even the world’s best econometrician knows exactly when to make a move. Experience helps, but by definition it is impossible to have experience for anything that is truly new.

I find, however, that simply being aware of the temporal components makes my enterprises more nimble. I race to be ready early. But as soon as I feel ready, a voice in my head asks, Is the world also ready? 

If the world is ready, then creating an innovation stack comes with a responsibility to create a market for as many new customers as possible. You are rewarded with a massive market that is nearly impossible for competitors to steal, so long as you can grow fast enough. This is fun, stressful, and necessary work. Your time indeed has come. 

  Adapted from The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, by Jim McKelvey, to be published March 10 by Portfolio, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC. Copyright © 2020 by Jim McKelvey.

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source http://www.scpie.org/when-is-the-most-important-question-for-entrepreneurs-the-answer-now/

[lindyhunt]

Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?

The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.

PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.

Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.

As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.

So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?

FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019

GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.

Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.

So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)

Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.

I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.

But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.

My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.

My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.

PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)

I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.

Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.

I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)

Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(

— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019

Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.

What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”

They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?

GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!

Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.

I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.

But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!

Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.

So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.

And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.

But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?

PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.

But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.

Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.

[jessicakehoe]

Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?

The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.

PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.

Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.

As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.

So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?

FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019

GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.

Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.

So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)

Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.

I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.

But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.

My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.

My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.

PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)

I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.

Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.

I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)

Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(

— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019

Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.

What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”

They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?

GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!

Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.

I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.

But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!

Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.

So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.

And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.

But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?

PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.

But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.

Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.

The post Does Bryan Singer’s Film <em> Bohemian Rhapsody</em> Deserve to Get Awards Love? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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[andrewdburton]

How to build confidence and destroy fear

My mission at Get Rich Slowly is to help readers achieve personal and financial freedom. I want to help you master your money and your life.

Generally speaking, we focus almost exclusively on the financial side of the things. This week, I’m going to shift gears and share some of the things I’ve learned about overcoming fear, finding happiness, and achieving personal freedom. (Don’t worry. We’ll get back to the hard-core financial talk very soon.)

In December’s discussion of wealth habits, I talked about what T. Harv Eker calls “financial blueprints”. Actually, I talk about them all of the time. Understanding your money blueprint is a vital part of changing your relationship with money.

Our blueprints are created through lifelong exposure to money messages received from people around us, especially our family and friends, and from our country’s culture and mass media. Eker says the unfortunate truth is that most of us have faulty blueprints that prevent us from building wealth.

“When the subconscious mind must choose between deeply rooted emotions and logic, emotions will almost always win,” writes Eker.

He says that most of us are motivated by fear, especially when it comes to money. We don’t call it fear, though. We say we’re motivated by security. Eker notes — correctly — that fear and security are essentially two sides of the same coin. The tough truth is that money doesn’t dissolve fear.

Eker writes:

Fear is not just a problem, it’s a habit. Therefore, making more money will only change the kind of fear we have. When we were broke, we were most likely afraid we’d never make it or never have enough. Once we make it, however, our fear usually changes to “What if I lose what I’ve made?”

Like Eker, I’ve found that fear motivates a lot of people. Instead of making decisions based on goals and desired outcomes, most folks make fear-based decisions. As a result, they get less out of life than they’d hoped, less out of life then they might if they knew how to overcome their fears. (For more about this, see last week’s article about scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset.)

I’m not judging. I’ve been there. For years, I let fear rule my life. But over the past decade, I’ve learned how to quell many of my fears. Better still, I’ve learned how to act in spite of my fear. As a result, my life (financial and otherwise) has drastically improved.

Today, I want to teach you how to destroy fear and build confidence. To begin, let’s talk about death.

Note: Long-time readers have seen some of this material in other forms. This is my attempt to gather all of it into one place.

The Regrets of the Dying

Australian singer-songwriter Bronnie Ware worked in palliative care for many years, spending time with men and women near death. As she worked with her patients, she listened to them describe their fear, anger, and remorse. She noticed recurring themes.

In 2009, Ware wrote about her experience in a blog post that went viral. She turned that article into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. When people die, she says, they often express one or more of the following sentiments:

“I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” People (especially men) often find themselves trapped on what economists call the hedonic treadmill. They work to achieve material wealth and status, which should bring happiness but doesn’t. Instead, they want more. So, they work harder to achieve even greater wealth and status, which should bring happiness but doesn’t. And so on, in an endless cycle. People trapped on the hedonic treadmill are never happy because their reality never meets their ever-increasing expectations.

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.” In order to keep the peace and avoid rejection, we sometimes bottle our emotions inside. But refusing to be open and honest leads to a life of quiet desperation. Sure, the barista at the coffeehouse might laugh if you ask her to dinner; but it’s also possible that dinner could lead to the love of a lifetime. On your deathbed, you’ll regret the things you didn’t say and do far more than the things you’ve done.

“I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends.” In Aging Well, George Vaillant summarizes more than fifty years of Harvard research into adult development. “Successful aging [is] best achieved in relationship,” he writes. “It is not the bad things that happen to use that doom us; it is the good people who happen to us at any age that facilitate enjoyable old age.” In The Blue Zones, his book about populations of people that live longer than most, Dan Buettner writes that two secrets to a long and healthy life are making family a priority and finding the right “tribe”. At the end of their lives, people who failed to foster friendships regret it. (Here’s my summary of The Blue Zones.)

“I wish I’d let myself be happier.” Happiness is a choice. Your well-being doesn’t depend on the approval or opinion of others. Happiness comes from one place and one place only: You. This idea, which is well-documented in happiness research, is the key to personal and financial success. (On Thursday, we’ll explore this notion at great length.)

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, and not the life others expected of me.” Ware says this regret is most common of all. “When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it,” she writes, “it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.” We spend too much time doing the things that others expect of us. (Or the things we think are expected of us.) But living for the approval of others is a trap. We can never hope to please everyone. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to please anyone – other than yourself.

These regrets share a common theme. In each case, the dying lament having spent too much time seeking outside approval instead of focusing on their own feelings, values, and relationships. This is true regardless of wealth and social status.

Ware isn’t a nurse and she’s not a scientist – her observations are based on experience, not empirical data – but from my reading over the past decade, her conclusions match the research into happiness and human development.

Money can’t buy happiness – at least not directly. Money is a powerful tool, it’s true. Abused, it brings sorrow and suffering. Used wisely, it opens doors, delivers dreams, and fosters joy. Although wealth is no guarantee of well-being, the more money you have, the easier it is to flourish.

But here’s the truth: You don’t want to be rich – you want to be happy.

On your deathbed, you want to have lived a life without regret. To do that, you need to face and defeat your fears. You need to find joy in day-to-day activities, and use that happiness as a platform to procure passion and purpose. You need to forge freedom, both personal and financial.

The Source of Fear

Our lives are filled with fear.

Some of our fears are physical. We’re afraid of spiders, snakes, and dogs. We’re afraid of heights, crowds, and enclosed spaces. We’re scared to jump out of airplanes (or even to fly in them), to go swimming, or to touch a drop of blood. We’re afraid we might be mugged.

Some of our fears are psychological. We’re afraid of failure, darkness, and being alone. We’re afraid of the future. We’re afraid of death. We’re frightened of being judged by others, and scared to ask someone for a date.

Some fears are rational. I, for instance, am scared of bears. This is a healthy, rational fear. Bears will eat you. When you ignore your fear of bears, you can up like Timothy Treadwell, the man profiled in the film Grizzly Man. (Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone.)

If you’re walking alone at night and a thug demands your money while holding a gun to your head, you’ll feel afraid and rightly so. This is a natural, rational fear.

These healthy fears have a biological basis, and are the product of millions of years of evolution. A fear of snakes (or bears) has helped the human race to survive. A fear of heights keeps you from spending too much time in places where you might fall to your death.

But sometimes rational fears can become irrational or excessive. It’s one thing to be nervous while walking on the edge of a crumbling cliff high above a river; it’s another to suffer a panic attack on the seventeenth floor of a well-constructed, glass-enclosed office building. (Or to worry about a bear attack in Paris!)

Still other fears are mostly (or completely) irrational, yet they’re very common. An estimated 75% of all people experience some degree of anxiety when speaking in public. I’m one of them. I’m aware of no biological basis to be afraid of giving a speech in front of 500 strangers, yet doing so makes most of us sweat and stammer.

Healthy, rational fears keep you alert and alive. Irrational fears and anxieties prevent you from enjoying everything life has to offer.

If It Bleeds, It Leads

If our lives are filled with fear, that may be due in part to the prevalence of internet, television, and radio. Our fears are fueled by the modern mass media, which makes money highlighting extreme and unusual events.

Here, for instance, is the front page from the 18 January 2014 on-line edition of USA Today:

Human trafficking! Attacks on Americans! Identity thieves! Remains of dead boy! Elsewhere on the front page, there are stories about extreme weather, a new truck that burst into flames, the background of a high-school gunman, a gay teacher forced to resign, and so on. And this is a normal, uneventful day.

If you pay attention to the news, you might think terrorist attacks are common, bicycles unsafe, and that it’s dangerous to let children play unattended in the yard. Yet statistically, terrorist attacks are exceedingly rare, riding a bike increases your life expectancy, and your children are safer outdoors than you were when you roamed the streets twenty or thirty years ago.

The events in the news are newsworthy only because they’re the exception, not the rule. They’re statistical outliers. Yet because we’re fed these stories daily, we think these things happen all of the time. As a result, we’re afraid to live normal lives.

I have a friend who’s reluctant to leave her home. Because she’s been assaulted in the past — an unfortunate event, but a statistically unlikely one — she lives in fear of being assaulted in the future. It’s true that by appearing in public, my friend runs the risk of being assaulted again. It’s far more likely, however, that doing things outside the house would bring her pleasure and fulfillment.

To some degree, each of us is like my friend — but not as extreme. We are all filled with fears, and these fears hold us back.

To live a richer, more fulfilling life — a life without regret — you must first overcome your fears. You can start by exposing yourself to new experiences, by interacting with your environment and allowing it to change you.

It all begins with the power of “yes”.

The Power of Yes

For a long time, I was afraid to try new things, to meet new people, to do anything that might lead to failure. These fears confined me to a narrow comfort zone. I spent most of my time at home, reading books or playing videogames. When opportunities came to try new things, I usually ignored them. I made excuses. I wasn’t happy, but I was complacent. I was safe.

Then I read a book called Impro by Keith Johnstone. It changed my life. (Fun trivia: Here’s where I learned about the book.)

Impro is a book about stage-acting, about improvisational theater, the kind of stuff you used to see on the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? I’m not an actor, nor do I want to become one, but several of the techniques described in the book were applicable to my everyday life.

In one section, for example, the author explains that in order for a scene to flow, an actor has to take whatever situation arises and work with it. She needs to accept and build upon the actions of her fellow actors.

Once you learn to accept offers, then accidents can no longer interrupt the action. […] This attitude makes for something really amazing in the theater. The actor who will accept anything that happens seems supernatural; it’s the most marvelous thing about improvisation: you are suddenly in contact with people who are unbounded, whose imagination seems to function without limit.

I thought about this passage for days. “What if I did this in real life?” I wondered. “What if I accepted offers and stopped blocking them?” I began to note the things I blocked and accepted. To my surprise, I blocked things constantly – I made excuses to not do things because I was afraid of what might happen if I accepted.

When online acquaintances asked to meet for lunch. I’d refuse. I was scared they might think I was fat or stupid. (Or that they might be an axe murderer!)

When a local television station asked me to appear on their morning show as a financial expert, I was afraid of looking like a fool, so I refused.

When a friend wanted me to join him to watch live music at a local pub, I declined. I’d never been in a bar (yes, I’d led a sheltered life) and was nervous about what might happen.

When another friend asked me to bike with him from Portland to the Oregon Coast, I said no. It was a long way. It seemed difficult and dangerous.

These are only a handful of examples. In reality, I blocked things every day. I refused to try new foods. I didn’t like to go new places. And I didn’t want to try new things. Or, more precisely, I wanted to do all of this, but was afraid to try. My default response was to find reasons something couldn’t be done instead of ways to make them happen. Because I focused more on possible negative outcomes than potential rewards, I avoided taking even tiny risks.

After reading Impro, I made a resolution. Instead of saying “no” to the things that scared me, I’d say “yes” instead.

Whenever somebody asked me to do something, I agreed (as long as it wasn’t illegal and didn’t violate my personal code of conduct). I put this new philosophy into practice in lots of ways, both big and small.

When people asked me to lunch, I said yes.

When people contacted me to make media appearances or do public speaking gigs, I said yes.

When friends asked me to go see their favorite bands or to spend the evening chatting at a bar, I said yes.

As a result of my campaign to “just say yes”, I’ve met hundreds of interesting people and done lots of amazing things. I’ve eaten guinea pig in Perú and grubs in Zimbabwe. I’ve climbed mountains in Bolivia and snorkeled in Ecuador. I’ve learned to love both coffee and beer, two beverages I thought I hated. I’ve learned to ride a motorcycle. I’ve shot a gun. I’ve gone skydiving and bungie-jumping. I published a book. I sold my website (and bought it back again!). I wrote a monthly column in a major magazine.

These things might seem minor to natural extroverts, but I’m not a natural extrovert. I’m an introvert. These were big steps for me. These experiences were new and scary, and I wouldn’t have had them if I hadn’t forced myself to say yes.

In recent years, I’ve come to look at saying “yes” like playing the lottery. Every time I do something new, there’s a chance I’ll win big. Let me explain.

The Lottery of Life

My work nowadays involves meeting and chatting with folks from all walks of life. They email me to say, “Want to have lunch?” and I say, “Of course!” We talk about podcasts or travel or bicycling or comic books. Whatever strikes our fancy. When we’ve finished our tea or Thai noodles, nothing seems to have happened — not on the outside, anyhow.

What’s happened, though, is that we’ve both received lottery tickets. By meeting and chatting and sharing ideas, we’ve been given tickets in the lottery of life.

I also get a ticket whenever I try something new. (Because I now try new things all of the time, I’m accumulating a lot of lottery tickets.)

I get tickets when I say “yes” to things that are scary or difficult too. When I spoke at World Domination Summit in 2012 — something that scared the hell out of me! — I got a lottery ticket. When I flew to Ecuador to talk with people about Financial Independence, I got a lottery ticket. When I introduce myself to strangers or “important people”, I get a lottery ticket.

But note that these tickets are rarely handed to me. To get them, I have to take risks. I have to move outside my comfort zone. As much as I enjoy sitting on the couch in the evening watching Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Kim, neither one of us receives a lottery ticket for doing so. To get tickets, we have to do things.

The prizes in life’s lottery are many and varied.

When I learned Spanish, for instance, I received a winning lottery ticket that has paid off in all sorts of ways. I made new friends (my tutor, my English student), traveled to new places (Perú, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador), read new authors, tried new food, watched new movies, and so much more.

When I was in Quito a couple of years ago, I rode the teleférico, the cable-car that carries visitors 4000 feet up the side of a nearby volcano. During the fifteen-minute ride, I chatted with two couples that spoke only Spanish. If I hadn’t learned Spanish, I couldn’t have understood them, much less conversed. But because I do speak Spanish, I enjoyed a pleasant chat about one couple’s life in Venezuela and the other couple’s life in Quito. Plus I garnered a restaurant recommendation for later that evening. Yet another small prize I won simply because I took the time to learn another language.

That’s an example of receiving a small payoff from the lottery of life. Sometimes, however, you hit the jackpot.

In 2008, I received an email from a blog reader. He’d be in Portland the following week and wanted to know if I had time to meet for lunch. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s do it.” I met the reader and his wife at a local Thai restaurant. We had a great conversation. I was impressed by his story and his drive. I gave him blogging tips. He told me stories about traveling the world. His wife showed me how to stretch my injured hamstring.

Over the next year, my new friend shared a couple of guest posts at Get Rich Slowly. He stayed at my house one night when he got stranded in Portland.

Eventually, this guy — whose name was Chris Guillebeau — moved to Portland. Our friendship grew. In 2010, I joined Chris for a train ride from Chicago to Portland. On that trip, he shared a crazy idea. “I want to create a conference and hold it in Portland. I want you to be on the planning team,” he said. For the next three years, I helped to organize the World Domination Summit, which grew into a grand party for 3000 people.

Saying “yes” to lunch with one stranger had a ripple effect that continues to spread throughout my entire life. Because of that one action, I’ve met hundreds of incredible people, some of whom have become close friends. I’ve traveled to Norway. I’ve spoken on stage before one thousand people. Chris and I collaborated to create the Get Rich Slowly course. (And the payoff continues: I’ll be presenting a three-hour workshop on Financial Freedom at this July’s edition of WDS.)

Not every meeting or experience pays off so handsomely, of course. In fact, some are disasters! But most provide some sort of reward, and sometimes those rewards are enormous. Prize-winning tickets are so common and fruitful, in fact, that I’ve almost become addicted to playing the lottery of life. I relish making new acquaintances, going new places, and trying new things.

I used to think I was unlucky. Good things happened to other people, never to me. Everyone else had more fun than I did. Now, eight years since learning to say “yes” to life, I know the truth. Success breeds success. When you do something well, you open doors to new opportunities. When you fail to act, doors remain closed.

Wishing won’t make you happy or wealthy, and good things don’t just happen. Luck is no accident. Luck isn’t magic and it’s not a gift from the gods. You make your own luck.

Luck Is No Accident

What we think of as “luck” has almost nothing to with randomness and almost everything to do with attitude. According to psychologist Richard Wiseman, only about ten percent of life is truly random; the remaining ninety percent is defined by the way we think. Wiseman says we have more control over our lives — and our luck — than we realize.

John Krumboltz and Al Levin, the authors of Luck is No Accident, agree. In that book, they write:

You have control over your own actions and how you think about the events that impact your life. None of us can control the outcomes, but your actions can increase the probability that desired outcomes will occur. There are no guarantees in life. The only guarantee is that doing nothing will get you nowhere.

This has certainly been true in my own life. When I sat at home, afraid to do things and meet people, I was “unlucky”. Once I took action, my fortunes changed.

Wiseman says that “lucky” people share four attributes:

Lucky people make the most of opportunity. This is more than just being in the right place at the right time. Lucky people must be aware when an opportunity presents itself, and they must have the courage to seize it.

Lucky people listen to their hunches. They heed their gut instincts.

Lucky people expect good fortune. They’re optimistic. They think win-win. They make positive choices that benefit themselves and others. They tend to assume the best.

Lucky people turn bad luck into good. They fail forward, learning from their mistakes and finding the silver lining in every cloud. There’s a Spanish saying, “No hay mal que por bien no venga,” which can be roughly translated as, “There is no bad from which good could not come.” Lucky people believe this.

In Impro, Keith Johnstone writes:

People with dull lives often think their lives are dull by chance. In reality, everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them by their conscious patterns of blocking or yielding.

This, my friends, is truth — perhaps the fundamental truth.

Our attitudes produce our luck. Choice is the backbone of life and meaning. This theme will appear repeatedly at Money Boss, and not just when discussing luck and fear.

At the heart of happiness is choice. We make meaning in our lives through our choices. At its core, freedom is about the ability to choose. And our financial states — for good or ill — are largely defined by choice.

Everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them. Learn this quote. Learn to love it. Because you already live it, whether you know it or not.

Allow me to pause for a moment to acknowledge that yes, some people enjoy better circumstances than others. Systemic poverty is a genuine problem. It’s a barrier that some people have to overcome in order to achieve success. And yes, shit happens. You could get hit by a truck tomorrow. To me, these things are obvious and should go without saying. Yet, if I don’t explicitly mention them, I’ll get nasty comments and email.

Action Cures Fear

Saying “yes” is the first step to fighting fear and living a life without regret. But saying “yes” isn’t enough by itself. To cure fear, you must also take action.

Cody is a personal trainer in Portland, Oregon. He coaches athletes to lift more and run farther than they believe they’re able. Cody says one key to achieving peak performance is acting in spite of fear.

When lifting weights, for instance, many athletes — especially novices — become intimidated. They may be physically capable of living a given weight (and may have even lifted that very weight in the past), but they’re afraid to do so; they think about what might happen if they drop the bar. Others might imagine the pain and suffering that comes from running a marathon, the long hours of work ahead, and allow those thoughts to stop them from attempting the race.

Cody says that successful athletes overcome their fear by turning off their brains and taking action. Instead of waiting for the moment when fear subsides — a moment that might never come if she keeps thinking about it — the veteran forces herself not to think about what she’s doing. She simply does it. She lifts the weight or scales the wall or dives into the pool. She keeps running and doesn’t think about the distance that remains.

    At the start of the classic science-fiction novel Dune, our young hero is put to a painful test. To calm himself and focus his mind, he recites this litany against fear:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

If fear is the mind-killer, then action is the fear-killer. To overcome fear, you must reach a point where you’re no longer thinking — only acting. Thought creates fear; action cures it.

Cody’s insight isn’t new. Motivational speaker Brian Tracy has said, “If you want to develop courage, then simply act courageously when it’s called for. If you do something over and over again, you develop a habit. Some people develop the habit of courage. Some people develop the habit of non-courage.” (Tracy’s famous advice for doing what you fear? Eat that frog!)

In The Magic of Thinking Big, David J. Schwartz writes, “Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear…When we face tough problems, we stay mired in the mud until we take action. Hope is a start. But hope needs action to win victories.”

Schwartz advocates a two-step plan to build confidence and destroy fear:

Isolate your fear. Determine exactly what it is that scares you.

Take action. Figure out what action will counter your fear, and then do it.

“Hesitation only enlarges, magnifies the fear,” Shwartz writes. “Take action promptly. Be decisive.”

Often what we’re actually afraid of is the unknown. We like certainty, and choosing to do something with an uncertain outcome makes us nervous. That initial step into the unknown can be scary. But after the first, each subsequent step becomes easier and easier. When you act, you remove the mystery.

For years, I was frightened to speak in front of crowds. I avoided it. And when I agreed to speak, I put off preparation until the last possible moment. But when I began to say “yes” to offers and opportunities, I had to learn to speak in front of crowds. At first, I didn’t like it. But over time a funny thing happened. The more talks I gave, the better I got — and the more I enjoyed it. I’m still not great at it, but my fear fades a little more each time I step on stage. Action is curing my fear.

Action Creates Motivation

At home, Kim wakes at five o’clock to get ready for work. Most days, I just lie there. “I don’t need to get up,” I think. “I’ve nowhere to go.”

But I’ve learned that if I don’t get up, I regret it. If I stay in bed, I don’t make it to the gym. I miss work deadlines. I have less time to do the fun stuff, like hiking, and reading, and riding my motorcycle.

So, I get out of bed. I get dressed. As unappealing as it sounds, I go outside for a walk or a run — even when it’s raining (as is frequently the case back in Portland). The first few minutes suck. I’m tempted to turn around and return to my cozy bedroom. Before long, however, I find I’m actually enjoying myself. I return home invigorated, eager to get things done.

photo by Antony Mayfield

If I were to wait for motivation, I’d sleep all day. By forcing myself to take action, I find the motivation that was missing before.

Feeling Good is a popular self-help manual by David Burns. The book helped a younger me through an extended bout of depression. Part of the solution was to overcome my chronic procrastination, procrastination brought about by fear. In Feeling Good, Burns describes the problem.

Individuals who procrastinate frequently confuse motivation and action. You foolishly wait until you feel in the mood to do something. Since you don’t feel like doing it, you automatically put it off. Your error is your belief that motivation comes first, and then leads to action and success. But it is usually the other way around; action must come first, and the motivation comes later.

You see, action primes the pump. It creates momentum. It instills confidence.

Another way to boost confidence is careful preparation. Anxiety is largely self-doubt and insecurity — an underlying belief that you cannot handle whatever is before you. Anxiety often causes fear and procrastination. Because of this, preparation plays a key role in mitigating fear.

When you prepare — to speak to a crowd, to hike through a bear-infested forest — you decrease your doubt. You can’t eliminate the possibility of failure, but you can drastically reduce the odds. You rehearse possible situations. You practice the required actions. You allow your imagination to explore (and cope with) worst-case scenarios. Preparation helps you to do your best.

And that’s the important thing: If you always do your best and you do what’s right, then you needn’t fear the results. Sure, bad things will happen sometimes. But if you’ve done well and done what’s right, the negative outcome isn’t your fault — it’s just how things are. If you’re unprepared, however, you must own the negative results.

When we’re prepared, we feel competent. When we feel competent, we feel confident. When we’re confident, our fear fades into the background.

Action Is Character

A decade ago, I was full of hot air. And I was lazy. And depressed. This wasn’t a good combination for getting things done. I talked a lot about the things I wanted to do, but I never did them. I found reasons not to. I even had trouble keeping up my end of the household chores, which frustrated my wife.

I was a Talker.

Maybe you know somebody who’s like this. A Talker seems to know the solution to everything, has great plans for how she’s going to make money or get a new job. She can tell you what others are doing wrong and how she could do it better. But the funny thing is, a Talker never acts on her solutions and her great plans. She never gets that new job. She’s out of work or stuck in a job she hates.

To everyone else, it’s clear that the Talker is full of hot air, but he believes he’s bluffing everyone along — or worse (as was my case) isn’t even aware that he never follows through on his boasts and promises. Sometimes a Talker conflates talking with doing. When confronted, a Talker has excuses for not getting things done: He doesn’t have time, he doesn’t have the skills, the odds are stacked against him. When a Talker does do something, he often takes a shortcut.

That, my friends, is the man I used to be.

Something changed in the autumn of 2005. I began to read a lot of books. Not just personal finance books, but self-help books and success manuals of all sorts. As I read the books, I discussed them with my cousin, Nick. During our conversations, I’d sometimes lament that X was a priority in my life — where X might be exercise or getting out of debt or reading more books — but that I never had time for it. Instead, I “had to do” a bunch of other stuff instead.

“Well, then X isn’t actually a priority,” Nick would say, which made me angry. I’d argue, but Nick would point out that the things we actually do are the priorities in our life. What we say doesn’t matter; it’s what we do that counts.

It took me a long time to learn this lesson, but eventually I began to align my life with my stated priorities. Instead of just talking about doing things, I did them. I stopped looking for shortcuts and started doing the work required to get things done. Unsurprisingly, this worked. When I did things instead of talking about them, I got better results.

Today, I am a Doer.

In his notes on The Last Tycoon, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, “Action is character.” Fitzgerald meant that what a fictional character defines who that character is. Superman is a superhero because he does heroic things, not because he talks about doing them.

The same is true in real life: You are defined by the things you do — not by the things you think or say. If you never did anything, you wouldn’t be anybody.

We Are What We Repeatedly Do

We are what we repeatedly do — not what we once did, and not what we did only once.

One mistake does not define you, nor does a single act of kindness. These events may provide glimpses of a potential you, but who you really are is revealed by what you do on a daily basis.

You can say that health is important to you, but if you don’t eat and act healthfully, it’s just not so.

Thinking about writing doesn’t make you a writer; writing makes you a writer. If you’re not writing, you’re not a writer.

You can say your life’s too busy and you want to slow down, but so long as you keep scheduling things, you’re showing that you value your busy-ness more than the downtime.

I’ve self-identified as fit for almost seven years. For most of that time, I have been fit. I’ve eaten well and exercised often. But during the past couple of years, my attention has been focused elsewhere. My priorities have shifted. During my RV trip across the U.S., I allowed my diet and exercise regimen to slip until today they’re average at best. I can see it in my body and feel it in my mind.

Talking about fitness and having been fit in the past won’t make me fit today. To be fit, I have to do the work to become (and remain) fit. Fitness will return when I choose to eat right and exercise once again. Not just once, but every day.

If you don’t like who you are, choose to be somebody new.

We are what we repeatedly do.

Note: This quote — “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit” — is frequently attributed to the philosopher Aristotle. However, Aristotle never wrote this. Instead, the quote is Will Durant’s summary of Aristotle’s philosophy.

Summing Up

Whew! That’s a lot of information. Let’s summarize what we’ve learned today.

On their deathbeds, people generally regret the things they did not do rather than the things they did. They also regret having spent so much time seeking outside approval instead of focusing on their own feelings, values, and relationships. In short, dying people regret having been afraid.

Some fears are physical. Others are psychological. Some fears are rational. Many are not. Healthy, rational fears keep you alert and alive. Irrational fears and anxieties prevent you from enjoying everything life has to offer. In part, our irrational fears are fueled by the mass media. We’re bombarded by news of the exceptional and the unusual, so that we come to believe life is more dangerous than it actually is.

A mighty weapon in the war against fear is the power of yes. By teaching yourself to accept opportunities in life, you can gradually overcome your irrational fears. You can teach yourself to become bold, to try new things, to meet new people, and to enjoy a more rewarding existence.

This is one of the secrets of lucky people. What we think of as “luck” has almost nothing to do with randomness and everything to do with attitude. Everyone chooses more or less what kind of events happen to them. You make your own luck.

It can help to imagine that life is like a lottery. Any time you do something — especially something new — there’s a chance that your life will be vastly improved in the long run. When you say yes, you’re given a lottery ticket. Often that ticket won’t pay off. But sometimes you’ll hit the jackpot.

Saying yes isn’t enough by itself. To cure fear, you must take action. Action boosts confidence. So does preparation. When we’re prepared, we feel competent. When we feel competent, we feel confident. When we’re confident, fear fades into the background.

If you always do your best and you do what’s right, then you needn’t fear the results. Sure, bad things will sometimes happen. But if you’ve done well and done what’s right, the negative outcome isn’t your fault — it’s just how things are. If you’re unprepared, however, you must own the negative consequences.

The bottom line? Action is character. You are defined by the things you do — not by the things you think or say. You are what you repeatedly do. If you don’t like who you are, you must choose to be somebody new.

What have action and fear to do with personal and financial independence? Everything!

The first step toward freedom of any sort is facing and fighting your fears. “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face,” Eleanor Roosevelt once said. “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

From these humble beginnings, you can progress to greater things.

Next, we’ll explore personal well-being. We’ll talk about what happiness is, how it’s achieved, and what you can do to maximize happiness in your life. Because happiness too is an important part of achieving personal and financial freedom.

The post How to build confidence and destroy fear appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

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[junker-town]

NASCAR mailbag: Why is Joey Logano involved in so many altercations with other drivers?

Readers react to Sunday’s post-race fight between Kyle Busch and Joey Logano.

Each week SB Nation's NASCAR reporter Jordan Bianchi answers your questions about the latest news and happenings within the sport. If you have a future mailbag question email jordanmbianchi@gmail.com.

I’m not a Joey Logano hater like almost everyone, but there’s no denying he seems to have a knack for pissing off fellow drivers. Counting Kyle Busch, how many drivers has he made upset now? And also, isn’t it time for him to start changing his ways, it doesn’t seem like he can keep acting like this over the long haul?

--Jack

Undoubtedly Logano has been at the center of several notable confrontations since moving to the Cup Series fulltime in 2009. That list includes run-ins with Kevin Harvick (2010), Ryan Newman (2010), Tony Stewart (2013), Denny Hamlin (2013), Matt Kenseth (2015) and now Busch (2017). And not surprisingly in most instances Logano’s aggressiveness has been the catalyst for why his competitors have taken exception with his driving, including Joe Gibbs Racing teammates of Hamlin, Kenseth and Busch.

However, while Logano may be a lightning rod, this doesn’t mean he should modify his behavior for the simple fact that it works for him. Only Jimmie Johnson (20) and Harvick (16) have more wins than Logano since 2013 and that go hard style has propelled him into a perennial championship contender. Sure, it may result in the occasional post-race fracas, but if that’s the tradeoff then so be it.

What’s interesting about Logano is that despite possessing qualities fans like to see -- a winner who’s aggressive and unapologetic -- he is among the most derided drivers by fans. Each week he’s greeted to a chorus of boos during driver intros and anytime he’s involved in an incident, he receives a bulk of the condemnation even if he’s not at fault -- such as on Sunday where Busch should’ve shouldered as much of the blame if not the majority.

But if you think Logano is at all bothered by the scorn he receives from fans, think again. When asked by SB Nation in January what he thought about the vitriol expressed toward him, he said he actually relishes it.

“I secretly love it,” Logano said. “Don’t tell anybody. In all honesty, yeah I would rather be loved than hated but I would rather them say something than nothing.”

I agree with you that drivers fighting isn’t a bad thing and is part of NASCAR’s culture. But what I wonder is what about a driver’s sponsors, I can’t image M&M’s being too happy to see their driver walk up to someone and punch them in the face? Do you think there will be any repercussions?

--Jim

The sponsor side of the equation cannot be ignored. It’s not a coincidence that as NASCAR expanded and become a national sport that attracted an array of Fortune 500 companies, many drivers began showing a reluctance to say or do anything controversial.

Looking at from the perspective of Mars Inc. (M&M’s parent company) it’s easy to comprehend why they don’t want one of its most prominent spokespeople engaging in antics that may reflect poorly. A segment of fans may be drawn to the rougher edges of big-time stock car racing, but having a pristine public persona matters to many businesses who are marketing products toward families and kids. Image matters.

Kyle Busch’s sponsor, M&M’s/Mars, issued a statement on Sunday’s incident. From #RaceHub >> https://t.co/adZbNfTEnk

— Alan Cavanna (@CopaCavanna) March 13, 2017

As for whether there will be any fallout, it’s unlikely. The company released a statement condoning Busch’s actions, but this cannot be viewed as anything more than a public slap on the wrist. After some noted missteps earlier in his career including a one-race suspension in 2011, Busch has been a good representative who’s avoided any major controversy and evolved into a driver any company would be happy to support. Don’t expect that to change because of one transgression that came in the heat of the moment.

Everyone always talks about rivalries in NASCAR, so is the Logano vs. Joe Gibbs Racing the best rivalry going right now?

--Jeff

When you take into account Logano was involved (though not to blame) in accident that broke Hamlin’s back, caused the normally mild-mannered Kenseth to become so consumed with vengeance he was willing to employ underhanded tactics to extract revenge, and enraged Busch to the point he stalked down pit road with the sole purpose of smacking Logano in the face, yeah, it’s fair to say the Logano-JGR feud is certainly deserving of the top spot.

But let’s also be honest: there isn’t much long-lasting contentiousness among drivers nowadays. Any budding rivalry is usually stymied before things escalate, either by NASCAR, which doesn’t want the sport to delve into WWE, or by the drivers themselves who understand it’s in their best interests to squelch any lingering hard feelings. Thus why it’s not surprising that Logano said on FS1’s “RaceHub” on Tuesday that he already reached out to Busch to discuss what occurred at Las Vegas.

[jessicakehoe]

Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?

The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.

PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.

Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.

As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.

So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?

FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019

GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.

Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.

So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)

Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.

I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.

But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.

My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.

My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.

PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)

I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.

Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.

I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)

Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(

— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019

Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.

What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”

They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?

GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!

Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.

I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.

But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!

Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.

So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.

And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.

But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?

PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.

But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.

Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.

The post Does Bryan Singer’s Film <em> Bohemian Rhapsody</em> Deserve to Get Awards Love? appeared first on FASHION Magazine.

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[jessicakehoe]

Does Bryan Singer’s Film Bohemian Rhapsody Deserve to Get Awards Love?

The ranks here at FASHION are not filled with men. Shocking, right? But there are one or two (there are actually, literally, two). Naturally, when a question about male/female dynamics arises it’s only fair that one of them stand in for the members of his gender and provide some insight. Our last topic of conversation was about controversial Christmas song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” and today we’re discussing whether Bryan Singer-directed Bohemian Rhapsody should be snapping up any prizes this awards season. Two of our staffers—from the men’s corner, Greg Hudson, and from the women’s, Pahull Bains—talk it out.

PB: When Bohemian Rhapsody won the Best Picture (Drama) award at the Golden Globes last weekend, in addition to perplexity from critics who had largely panned the film, there was a fair bit of outrage on the internet. Evan Rachel Wood tweeted, “So we just..we are all still supposed to be pretending we don’t know about Bryan Singer? Cause it worked out really well with #Spacey and #Weinstein.” Now, I’m all for men finally getting their comeuppance but I also think it’s unfair that the entire cast and crew of a film be punished for the misdeeds of one person, whose shadiness wasn’t known until the #MeToo Flood of 2017. Or so I thought.

Yes, in 2017 Singer was fired as director of the film partway through shooting for causing “on-set chaos”: showing up late, being unavailable for days at a time, disappearing without the studio’s permission. Just a few days later, it emerged that Singer had been accused of rape by Cesar Sanchez-Guzman, who had been 17 at the time of the assault in 2003. So, I thought to myself, production on this film began before this news came out, so we can’t blame the team for working with him. I’m no fan of the movie, but let them have their moment of glory, thought I, wee innocent one.

As it turns out, allegations against Singer—who has directed films like The Usual Suspects and X-Men: First Class—go way, way back. In December 2017, IndieWire published “The Bryan Singer Timeline: a History of Allegations and Defenses, from Troubled Films to Sexual Assault Claims,” and lets just say it’s not a short list, going as far back as 1994 and ranging from allegations of sexual assault and rape to accusations of filming minor boys naked without their permission.

So, now that we’re caught up on Singer’s problematic history, what does it mean for Bohemian Rhapsody as an awards contender? No one was expecting it to win two big awards at the Globes, which has led understandably to increased scrutiny as we make our way through awards season, with the Critics’ Choice Awards, the SAGs, the BAFTAs, and of course the Oscars ahead of us. Do you think the film’s shot at these shiny statuettes should be diminished because of Singer’s involvement?

FIRST REFORMED, but about Ethan Hawke struggling to find hope in a world where Bohemian Rhapsody is probably gonna be nominated for Best Picture. pic.twitter.com/dI4D7kxfJ7

— david ehrlich (@davidehrlich) January 4, 2019

GH: Before I single-handedly bring down Bryan Singer with my rhetoric and rage, I just want to point a couple of things out that are probably not all that relevant. Why do this? Because I’m a man, and we enjoy talking like experts on subjects we just did some half-assed internet research about.

Point 1: The Golden Globes matter to the Oscar race about as much as the Iowa Caucuses do to the Presidential election. You’ll recall, being the astute political observer that you are, that the Iowa Caucuses happen early in the American election cycle. That’s really the only reason they are covered so closely every four years. Sometimes they are a predictor of who the eventual nominee (and president) will be, but often not. Just ask Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. And, similarly, the only reason the Golden Globes seem important is that they happen early in award season. But they are judged by such a niche group that their picks can seem downright baffling at times. Remember the 2010 flop The Tourist starring Johnny Depp? That was nominated for best picture at the Golden Globes. Have you ever seen Mozart in the Jungle? No! No one has! And yet, it’s a Golden Globe-winning television show.

So, do I think Bryan Singer’s creepiness will effect Bohemian Rhapsody’s Oscar chances? No. I think the fact that it’s a paint-by-numbers musical biopic will hurt its chances. (Seriously, the movie could have been called Walk Hard 2: This Time the Rockstar is Gay). I mean, Rami Malek and his mouthguard might still get a nod, but if you want a good Oscar predictor, the TIFF People’s Choice selection has a better track record. (So, get ready for a lot of Green Book hot takes!)

Point 2: Though she has already addressed and expressed regret about it—and she did so even before #MeToo made it a thing—Evan Rachel Wood starred in a Woody Allen movie in 2009. As with Singer, the allegations against Allen were pretty well-known even back then, but she still worked with him.

I’m not saying Wood is a hypocrite, or that her outrage is disingenuous. Not at all. I bring it up only to say that Wood clearly understands that sometimes actors work with gross directors, even if they should—or at least realistically could—know better. So maybe cut the cast a break when they celebrate what was clearly a huge surprise.

But 2009 was a very different time. And that’s good! If Bryan Singer never works again, that’s awesome. (Even if he happens to be innocent of all the many, many, many allegations–no one should be able to make the garbage Superman Returns and escape with their career). The real problem that’s complicating how we view Bohemian Rhapsody is that Singer is trying to get attention from it. If he didn’t rear his Botoxed head to claim credit for the Golden Globe, we might all be cool with forgetting he was a part of the film at all. Even if he kept the directing credit.

My question that rises from all of this is: why haven’t there been the public apologies and disavowals from actors who have worked with him in the past, the way there were for Woody Allen? So many of Allen’s former collaborators spoke out about how much they regret working with him, and how they’d never do it again. Actors who didn’t, or who expressed ambivalence toward Allen earned their own blowback. But no one is reaching out to Oscar Isaac or Jennifer Lawrence or, I don’t know, Stephen Baldwin, and asking them how they feel about having worked with an accused sex offender.

My theory: it’s because he, and his alleged victims, are gay. After all, it’s easier to ignore crimes in marginalized communities. Maybe there’s some discomfort because straight folks think they don’t understand gay sexuality in the first place—isn’t that normal for the gays—which, yes, is totally a homophobic holdover from when homosexuality was unfairly associated with pedophilia. And while I tend to think the retroactive shaming of actors is mostly performative, it’s still fucked up that we let Singer be Singer for so long.

PB: Hmm, I don’t know. Kevin Spacey’s accused of similar crimes and he’s been getting plenty of heat. I mean, he’s basically radioactive to anyone in the industry now. (Just for the record, though, Singer is married to a woman with whom he has a child, and has said publicly in interviews that he’s bisexual.)

I think maybe the reason Hollywood was slow to cool on Singer is because some of the allegations against him were dropped. As TIME notes, “he has faced two civil suits alleging sexual assault, one of which was dropped and one of which was dismissed.” In the wake of those lawsuits though, a bunch of stories began coming out about sordid “sex parties” Singer either threw or was present at but nothing was ever conclusively substantiated. A Buzzfeed story from 2014 details how Singer was brought “into regular orbit with 18- to 20-year-olds at parties sustained by large amounts of alcohol and drugs — edging precariously close to the line between legality and illegality,” but most of the sources quoted in the piece are unnamed and Singer wasn’t directly accused of misconduct. I think that sort of gave people the license to pull the whole “but nothing was ever proven” card.

Thanks to this latest lawsuit from 2017, though, which is ongoing, people are being denied an easy out. There is now a young man on the record claiming that he was raped by Singer, so there isn’t really any room for equivocating. Also, like you said, the climate has changed a lot in the past couple of years and stories that have been circulating on the whisper network for decades aren’t quite as easy to ignore anymore.

I know you brought up how Globe results aren’t a good indication of what’s coming down the pike—mainly because there’s no overlap between HFPA voters and Academy voters—but the film is still getting a lot of recognition from prestigious awards bodies. BAFTA noms came out yesterday and Bohemian Rhapsody features prominently on the list. So I’m just wondering—what’s an organization to do? I don’t think the film’s going to snag any more big prizes going forward; the backlash from the Globes has been substantial and other awards bodies probably don’t want to be tainted by a similar response on their big night. (By the way, did you see how poor 15-year-old Elsie Fisher, star of Eighth Grade, was dragged on Twitter for congratulating the team on their win?)

Why is everyone being so mean about this? I’m genuinely sorry if I did something wrong :(

— Elsie Fisher (@ElsieKFisher) January 7, 2019

Anyhow, I think what’s going to end up happening is: Malek’s going to continue getting recognition and maybe even some awards for his work, and the rest of the film is going to be shut out from any major wins. It’s the easiest way for them to award the film without really awarding the film, you know? And I don’t think anyone’s going to begrudge Malek a win. He’s got a ton of goodwill in the industry as well as critical praise for his portrayal of Freddie Mercury.

What I do hope for though—especially because we still have many, many awards shows and appearances ahead of us—is for everyone involved to get together and figure out how they want to address the elephant in the room. At the press conference after their Globes wins, the team flat-out refused to answer journalists’ questions about Singer. “That’s not something we should talk about tonight,” said producer Graham King, while Queen member Brian May quipped, “Good question though.” Malek then stepped up, saying, “I will take this one. There’s only one thing we needed to do, and that was to celebrate Freddie Mercury. Nothing was going to compromise us and giving him the love and celebration he deserves.”

They’re going to have to do a bit better than that. Don’t you think?

GH: It always baffles me when public figures don’t have thoughtful, satisfying answers to obvious questions. What are their publicists doing? Actors might not be the best at answering thorny ethical question on the spot (who is?), but they are pretty great at memorizing a script. Someone write that cast some talking points!

Having said that, I don’t really know what the satisfying answer would be. Because I realized, too, after you challenged my interpretation of the case, another reason why there hasn’t been the same retroactive hand-wringing from actors about having worked with Bryan Singer as there was about Woody Allen: It’s because it’s Bryan Singer. Woody Allen is an auteur—being in one of his films was an honour, a sign that you had arrived, or were at least arriving. Bryan Singer made some crowd-pleasing pictures, but no one is calling him an auteur.

I can’t decide whether that makes crafting an appropriate response easier or more difficult. On the one hand, because “working with Woody Allen” was such a cliche Hollywood status symbol, it was easy to understand when actors worked with him, despite credible allegations. Singer doesn’t have the same reputation. No actress has gushed about being granted the opportunity to be in an X-Men reboot. In that light, working with Singer seems less understandable.

But, that also could make it easier. And this seems to be where the cast is headed: you lean in on the Freddie Mercury Tribute and imply that, in the shadow of such an amazing performer, the director is practically immaterial. Bryan Singer? Who’s Bryan Singer? This was basically directed by the spirit of Freddie Mercury!

Also, lingering in the back of my mind, there’s that nagging concern that being fired or denied work because of an unproven allegation is a little dangerous as a precedent. After all, some of the rumours around Singer aren’t about illegal activity so much as being gross in a decadent, predatory, Hollywood way. Of course, the “nothing has been proven in court” defence is the least satisfying argument.

So maybe honesty would be best. Something that says they understand why people might feel ambivalent about the film, because of the director. That that is something, as a cast, they are dealing with, too. But, while we don’t want to shut down the conversation about how we should feel about problematic artists, the opportunity to celebrate Freddie Mercury is an unalloyed good. Then go on to talk about all the things Mercury did for human rights and the LGBTQ community.

And then just ignore the fact that the movie changes so much of Mercury’s story that it’s questionable whether it celebrates the real Freddie Mercury, or some postmodern, nostalgic construct we call Freddie Mercury.

But hating on Elsie Fisher? Let’s get some perspective people. The Oscars have a way of bringing out the darkness in people. That can be good (holding Casey Affleck to account for bad behaviour) and some can be not so good (rage-tweeting a teenager you don’t know). What should award bodies do to mitigate this? Should they vet nominees? And if so, what behaviour is disqualifying? What’s the statute of limitations? Or do problematic award winners just need to give better answers?

PB: Award bodies haven’t had to deal with a lot of scrutiny until fairly recently, so they’ve been able to skirt some of these issues without really shouldering any blame. Now though, their feet are being held to the fire and it’s not going to be as easy to just sit by and say nothing. It’s tricky; there’s certainly no one-size-fits-all solution but in my opinion, nor should there be. We’re dealing with complex issues here and I think everything needs to be addressed on a case by case basis. I really appreciate the diversity requirements the BAFTAs put in place last year: for the two awards categories specifically for British films (Outstanding British Film and Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer), they’re only accepting films that meet two of the British Film Institute’s quartet of core diversity standards.

But of course, different award bodies have different nomination processes. The Academy, for instance, has over 8000 people who submit their nominees for various categories, which then cycle through some complicated process before the final nominees are selected. Because there are so many people involved, it’s easy to play the avoidance game. Who do you hold accountable? But if the final list of five or ten nominees includes some problematic faves that have been in the news for x or y reason, I think it’s the award body’s duty to call for a meeting of their board to figure out the steps forward. Interestingly, I just Googled “Who is BAFTA president” and it turns out it’s Prince William, since 2010! Obviously he can’t weigh in on this stuff but there are other people who can, namely the VPs for film, television and games (?). The Academy, meanwhile, has a Board of Governors that includes Whoopi Goldberg, Laura Dern and Steven Spielberg.

Whatever these governing bodies decide, it’s something they should be able to defend when asked about it. Because they will be asked about it. Sorry guys, changing the subject isn’t an option anymore.

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