When I lived in Louisiana, 'Django Unchained' was shot at my neighbor's house. They shot a Sly Stallone movie in my gym.
I have a pet goat.
Work hard, take it seriously, embrace your ambition. And when you're not doing that, do something - whatever it happens to be - that taps into the part of you that makes you forget about all the rest of it.
If the media is a farce, why should you be the only one stuck with rules and restrictions?
I wholeheartedly agree that many media 'standards' can feel disingenuous or, in fact, be a cover for less-than-honest behavior.
The news is notoriously inaccurate, and our memory of it is even worse.
The risks of speaking extemporaneously are apparent the first time you wing it and promptly put your foot in your mouth.
What people often forget is that for the parties involved, the media game is a vicious contest.
Anyone who faults Romney or Obama or any public figure for demanding quote approval is missing the point. The journalists were no abused weaklings here. They made a bargain for access to these newsworthy figures that they thought was in their favor - they're only complaining because they got caught.
As someone responsible for my own fair share of marketing stunts, I am suspicious and cynical - I'll disclose that right up front.
The idea that only the swaggering, all-knowing, and ruthlessly ambitious succeed is a lie. One that has discouraged so many people with so much potential - and worse, encouraged many more to crash and burn.
Pretty much everyone's career starts the same way: with grunt work. Not just the cliched fetching of coffee, but other lowly tasks: taking notes in meetings, preparing paperwork, scheduling, intensive research - even flat-out doing our bosses' work for them.
In every job and position, there are valuable lessons to be learned. Even in a nasty, abusive, toxic workplace, you're being taught precisely how not to run an organization.
We often learn the hard way that our world is ruled by external factors. We don't always get what is rightfully ours, even if we've earned it.
If it comes as a constant surprise each and every time something unexpected occurs, you're not only going to be miserable whenever you attempt something big, you're going to have a much harder time accepting it and moving on to attempts two, three, and four.
Like most reasonable people, it saddens me when I see Americans celebrating a heritage they don't understand.
It angers me to see armed defenders at the bottom of Lost Cause statues, adding a renewed threat of violence to icons that are themselves part of an ideology of violence and intimidation.
Times change. Context changes. Just because something is old and a 'part of our history' shouldn't mean we are forced to honor it forever.
We want things to go perfectly, so we naturally tell ourselves that we'll get started once the conditions are right or once we have our bearings, when, really, it would be better to focus on making do with how things actually are.
