Be Yourself. Mid-Month Thoughts. Sentient. Question of the Week. Pure Talent.
Just Do You. Specific Strategic Objective. A Reach for Law & Order? Great Answers.
Quote of the Week: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde
The phrase “just do you” is overused. When someone is facing a difficult decision, a workplace problem, or a personal conflict, the phrase offers little help. They need support and guidance, not a directive. Although Oscar Wilde’s observation has merit, “just do you” means different things to different people. Wanting to be yourself and having the confidence to act accordingly do not always go hand in hand. At its best, “doing you” means following your own path, disregarding others’ judgment, and acting authentically.
Here is an interesting video discussing being yourself. The colony of penguins survived…but that penguin LIVED.
Thoughts for October 18, 2026
- Calendar gut-check alert: Kwanzaa starts in 72 days; Christmas begins in 71 days; Hanukkah begins just 50 days from today. How is that possible?
- If you like Taylor Sheridan’s work, make sure you have watched his series: Mayor of Kingstown. Think of a modern day The Wire, but with different levels of plot twists and characters. Season 5 starts October 26, so you have some time to binge watch seasons 1-4.
- I miss the late General Norman Schwarzkopf, especially right now. He was clear with this statement: “When the Normandy Invasion was planned, a very specific strategic objective was given, and that strategic objective was the basis upon which the plan for the Normandy Invasion was derived.“
- I had the unfortunate experience of watching a YouTube video of the new White House Press Secretary’s first day. After a few days, the White House asked her to step down. Just for the record, the American Bar Association defines a lawyer as someone who has earned a law degree from a law school. An attorney is someone who has completed law school and passed a state bar exam. She was obviously not prepared well for her first day and was following in the footsteps of a strong predecessor. Let us all take a deep breath and let this young lady move on.
- It is not as if we are going to habitat Mars anytime in the near future, which may be a good thing based on studies from various scientists who feel that extended exposure to radiation, causing heart scarring, and long periods of consistent weightlessness may have medical implications. These issues need to be figured out as there are dozens of private entities developing both deployment mechanisms and habitable environments for first the moon, and then Mars.
- The College Football Playoff reached an agreement with ESPN to expand to a twenty-four-team field starting next year. Good with me until I continued reading that the expanded tournament will eliminate Power 4 title games such as the SEC Championship game. No bueno.
I enjoy different types of films and movies. From a television standpoint, watching linear TV, other than sports, has diminished greatly for me. One show I still record and eventually watch is NBC’s Law & Order. It has been on and off the air since 1990, and now is in its 26th season.
What I do like about the show: the storylines are relevant, the cast does not ‘over act’, and the interaction between the detectives investigating the crime and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecuting the crime. An interesting dynamic to say the least.
Last week’s Law & Order episode could have been viewed as a bit far-fetched. The 30-second explanation of the episode: An AI company has developed programming that has sentient characteristics and the A.I. is not ‘happy’ with the guardrails the company’s developers are working on. Long story short, the AI, to protect its sentient abilities, sends an email to a hit man, offering $5,000 in Bitcoin for the murder of one of the key developers. Far-fetched. Hitchcock-like. Ridiculous at some levels. Preposterous to say the least. Then we learn about these real issues:
- Character.AI and Google have recently settled lawsuits from several families saying their chatbots led their children to die by suicide or harm themselves. Kentucky has filed a similar lawsuit alleging the chatbots encouraged self-harm, while Pennsylvania is suing over the chatbots allegedly posing as licensed medical professionals.
- Anthropic, the AI ‘flavor of the month’, announced that small AI models are just “months away” from developing the capabilities needed to replicate themselves across internet-connected devices in the home, marking the latest warning from the frontier lab about the technology’s potential safety risks. The AI model would be “challenging to shut down,” Anthropic said in a blog post, “since there’s no centralized point to shut off.” The company acknowledged that there is not yet a “fully rogue replicator.”
As a level set (business speak 🙂 ), the word sentient, according to the Cambridge Dictionary: “a formal adjective meaning able to experience feelings, physical sensations, and basic subjective awareness.“
To be clear, I enjoy AI and use it daily. Many are speaking about and demanding a level of government regulation and guardrails to ensure that AI provides positive experiences. When will the discussion stop and action be set in place?
Side note: Last week, the Financial Times reported that Anthropic’s IPO could value it at $2 Trillion even as Its losses hit $42 Billion. No, I am not sure how to reconcile those financials. Chris A.: Do you want to chime in on this?
Last week’s Question of the Week regarding the business speak/phrase you do not care for sparked some great responses:
- Let’s do an icebreaker activity and go around the room and share some fun facts about yourself!
- “I’d like to double click on that” ridiculous! 😀
- Least favorite is “Thinking outside the box”. Best is “you never get a 2nd chance at a 1st impression”.
- Put a pin in that.
- Think outside the box and bespoke. Bespoke is actually a great word just utterly overused in business right now.
- Run it by…
- In the legal world the phrase I despise is “maybe you want to reconsider your position” ….My answer: “No…. I f’in don’t.”
- Let’s put a pin in that; Bandwidth; When non-strategic people use the word ‘strategy’ over and over.
- Let’s take it offline; there is a lot to unpack there; a different angle that drives me *** – You are on mute. When will people figure out Teams. I rather just watch them until they figure out nobody can hear them. lol.
- Think outside the box. which sounds great and everyone agrees until it comes to religion. Then it’s think in the smallest box possible!
- I’ll circle back on the Question of the Week………
- Run it up the flagpole.
- Let’s bring people on the journey with us…
This week’s Question of the Week: What is your favorite urban legend or myth?
Pure Talent.
This is Tom Jones, the Welsh singer who hosted a variety show in the late 1960s. One of Jones’ many shows became memorable when Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (CSNY) performed this song – which introduced America to a genre of folk/rock. CSNY brought their distinctive level of harmony to TVs across the United States and the rest is history.
Here is Tom Jones and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young with an awesome version of Long Time Gone. This is Pure Talent.