Gates on making it a smooth transition between Secretaries of Defense

Gates showed up on day one as Secretary of Defense with none of "his" team members (walked in alone). He kept all of Rumsfeld's people for the sake of morale and continuity. He knew he could change out personnel later on as necessary.

Gates on meetings

Bob Gates said they wasted a huge amount of times on meetings (between the Pentagon and the White House). And they left no time for him to think. To relax, he insisted on having lunch alone to do the Times crossword puzzle.

Gates on future wars

By 2009, I had come to believe that the paradigms of both conventional and unconventional war weren’t adequate anymore, as the most likely future conflicts would fall somewhere in between, with a wide range of scale and lethality. Militias and insurgents could get access to sophisticated weapons. Rapidly modernizing militaries, including China’s, would employ “asymmetric” methods to thwart American’s traditional advantages in the air and at sea. Rogue nations like Iran or North Korea would likely use a combination of tactics.

Gates, Robert M (2014-01-14). Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (p. 303). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Bob Gates on when to speak up in meetings

I found the president quite pragmatic on national security and open to compromise on most issues— or, to put it more crassly, to cutting a deal. So on some major contentious issues, as I will describe, I would hold my cards close and then try to pick the right moment to weigh in with an alternative to proposals on the table that would provide him with a solution we both could support. Usually, as I had done with Bush, I would preview my thinking with the president in private; most of the time I had confidence that he would ultimately agree to my proposal. I would later read that some on the National Security Staff were annoyed with my hanging back from stating my views in meetings, but I knew that my recommendations would carry more weight at the table if I was selective about when I expressed them, though there were occasions when I remained silent because I was undecided on an issue and simply wanted to listen to help me make up my mind. I usually went into meetings having spoken to Clinton, Jones, and others, so I had a pretty good idea what they were going to say. A meeting in the Situation Room was never just another gathering for me: outcomes were important, and I always had a strategy going in. More often than I liked, there were two or three such meetings a day, and all that strategizing required a lot of energy.

Gates, Robert M (2014-01-14). Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War (p. 298). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Bob Gates on Hillary Clinton in his book "Duty"

My experience working with Hillary illustrated, once again, that you are never too old to learn a lesson in life. Before she joined the Obama administration, I had not known her personally, and what views I had were shaped almost entirely by what I had read in the newspapers and seen on television. I quickly learned I had been badly misinformed. I found her smart, idealistic, but pragmatic, tough-minded, indefatigable, funny, a very valuable colleage, and a superb representative of the United States all over the world. I promised myself I would try to never again form a strong opinion about someone I did not know.

Discernment curve

In 2005, I christened this phenomenon the “discernment curve,” suggesting that growing sophistication rather than raw wealth would become the main driver of how people spend and on what. This has largely come to pass, even in faster-growing markets, driven by access to information and opinion online.

The well informed and travelled consumer is feeling a creeping ennui, seeing the same famous names in similar smart shopping streets and has a growing interest in the local, independent and non-branded.

...

Consumers need to experience “craft” not just as static objects or as brand-led “fashion,” “luxury design” or “art,” but must also understand the full context in which they were made, why they are special, and meet the creators and see their remarkable skills up close.

It is the customer who matters and they are, as I always hoped they would, now voting with their wallets. Indeed, with homes bursting with stuff, increasingly, we don’t spend on things, but special moments with our loved ones. If I had to pick one word to capture this zeitgeist, it’s neither “luxury” or “craft,” but “patronage.” At its best, this more discerning spending is not only enriching our lives, but also supporting a much wider ecosystem of talent and ensuring endangered skills survive.

Guy Salter is the chairman of London Craft Week.

http://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/opinion/op-ed-from-luxury-to-craft-climbing-the-discernment-curve?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=459152b30f-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-459152b30f-419120333?utm_source=Subscribers&utm_campaign=459152b30f-&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d2191372b3-459152b30f-419120333

Luxury brands customer base

 For every luxury brand, about 70 percent of the clients are new every year, because we are in an aspirational business.
-CEO of Yves Saint Laurent, Francesca Bellettini

Systems vs goals

If you do something every day, it’s a system. If you’re waiting to achieve it someday in the future, it’s a goal.
…
[O]ne should have a system instead of a goal. The system-versus-goals model can be applied to most human endeavours. In the world of dieting, losing twenty pounds is a goal, but eating right is a system. In the exercise realm, running a marathon in under four hours is a goal, but exercising daily is a system. In business, making a million dollars is a goal, but being a serial entrepreneur is a system.
…
Goal-oriented people exist in a state of continuous pre-success failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out. Systems people succeed every time they apply their systems, in the sense that they did what they intended to do. The goals people are fighting the feeling of discouragement at each turn. The systems people are feeling good every time they apply their system. That’s a big difference in terms of maintaining your personal energy in the right direction. …

-Scott Adams (Dilbert comic)

Work hard enough to have an opinion

But how you read matters too.

You need to be critical and always thinking. You need to do the mental work required to hold an opinion.

Charlie Munger used to say something along the lines of “You’re not entitled to take a view, unless and until you can argue better against that view than the smartest guy who holds that opposite view. If you can argue better than the smartest person who holds the opposite view, that is when you are entitled to hold a certain view.”

That makes perfect sense.

While we all hold an opinion on almost everything, how many of us do the work required to have an opinion?

Compiled wisdom of Dear Sugar (the author Cheryl Stayed)

One of my favorite letters, the one for which the book is titled, comes in response to this question.

Dear Sugar,
I read your column religiously. I’m twenty-two. From what I can tell by your writing, you’re in your early forties. My question is short and sweet: What would you tell your twentysomething self if you could talk to her now? Love, Seeking Wisdom

Think, dear reader, for a moment on what you would respond before continuing. Here is what Sugar, or should I say, Cheryl, had to say.
These words will touch your soul.

Dear Seeking Wisdom,
Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact that her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this, sweet pea. 

In the middle of the night in the middle of your twenties when your best woman friend crawls naked into your bed, straddles you, and says, You should run away from me before I devour you, believe her. 

You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart. 

When that really sweet but fucked-up gay couple invites you over to their cool apartment to do Ecstasy with them, say no. 

There are some things you can’t understand yet. Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding. It’s good you’ve worked hard to resolve childhood issues while in your twenties, but understand that what you resolve will need to be resolved again. And again. You will come to know things that can only be known with the wisdom of age and the grace of years. Most of those things will have to do with forgiveness. 

One evening you will be rolling around on the wooden floor of your apartment with a man who will tell you he doesn’t have a condom. You will smile in this spunky way that you think is hot and tell him to fuck you anyway. This will be a mistake for which you alone will pay. 

Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet. 

You cannot convince people to love you. This is an absolute rule. No one will ever give you love because you want him or her to give it. Real love moves freely in both directions. Don’t waste your time on anything else. 

Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room. 

One hot afternoon during the era in which you’ve gotten yourself ridiculously tangled up with heroin, you will be riding the bus and thinking what a worthless piece of crap you are when a little girl will get on the bus holding the strings of two purple balloons. She’ll offer you one of the balloons, but you won’t take it because you believe you no longer have a right to such tiny beautiful things. You’re wrong. You do. 

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you. 

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes. 

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming. 

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don’t look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don’t hold it up and say it’s longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn’t say for the rest of your life. 

Say thank you.
Yours,
Sugar

The hollowness of failure culture

A Princeton professor has posted his “CV of failures”—a résumé of jobs not won, awards not awarded, papers rejected. As it went viral, he added a “meta-failure”: “This darn CV of Failures has received way more attention than my entire body of academic work.”

Failure is in fashion. “Fail fast” is Silicon Valley’s motto, and failed startup founders readily share their lessons. Famous stars write of their early failures. A whole slew of TED talks celebrate the power of failure to get you to success. CEOs test prospective hires by askinghow they failed. We’re told that secretly feeling like a failure, a.k.a. “imposter syndrome,” is a sign of greatness. Masters of the universe are out; vulnerability is in.

But these discussions of failure tend to come with a shallow moral: that after all the disappointment and heartache comes hard-earned success. The implication from CEOs and celebrities who boast of having been knocked down is that they eventually triumphed—and so can you! They use failure to burnish their success, to craft the story, to build the brand, to suggest empathy. Even that Princeton professor’s attempt at humility feels a little hollow when you look at his real résumé, a seven-page litany of publications, positions, and prestige.

We read about the failures that lead to victory. We don’t hear of the ones that end in defeat. They don’t fit our myths, our hero’s journeys. But that is how most of us mere mortals fail; without fanfare and without vindication. We try, fail, try again, fail again, grit our teeth, and move on. True vulnerability is admitting that you’ve failed, you’re still failing, and it hurts like hell. Being honest about this while you’re still in the thick of it is the real triumph.

 —Gideon Lichfield for the Quartz Weekly newsletter 5/1/2016