Who are you going to believe?

Original post:  Mar 9, 2015

Video can be quite unforgiving.

Over the weekend, I was transferring some home movies to DVD for the grandparents. My mother-in-law is quite skeptical of internet sites like YouTube. While it takes a lot more time, it is also nice to have some physical reminder as opposed to a virtual reference every now and again.

There was some video of the boys last year delivering their speeches for the Toastmasters group. I had also videotaped my older son giving a speech he delivered on Robert Goddard. I thought that it was a nice way to show how much he had progressed over the last year.

Little league tryouts are next Sunday. Since we have barely picked up a ball since fall, I thought it would be a good idea to get outside and toss a few. I also decided to videotape him pitching. It was actually quite interesting to watch on the playback. You start to notice small differences in the delivery that can be corrected. There is a reason why professionals often videotape their efforts and review them. The camera stares and records all of your best efforts. It also reveals correctable flaws.

The only unfortunate piece is that it can't correct them for you.

Too much of a good thing....

Original post:  Mar 28, 2013

Mid-year evaluations are coming up. It's always difficult to do these activities well. It isn't easy to accept criticism, no matter how well-intentioned.

We view a fair amount of reality television in my household. One perennial favorite is "Survivor." On this particular season, there is a gentleman who believes he is running the show but may in fact be fooling only himself. There is another player on his tribe who secretly despises him while the other members of his alliance tolerate him as much for his vote as anything else. They sum up one of his problems by saying that he sees all of his positives and none of his negatives.

I thought about that for quite some time. It rang true. He helped the tribe win a challenge through his dogged determination and strength. This led him to believe that he would always be the strongest member who would take the brunt of the focus. Unfortunately for him, it led directly to a major failure in the tribe's next challenge as his overconfidence led him to convince the tribe to follow a strategy doomed to failure. Despite this poor result, he still explained away his poor performance by blaming other factors and refused to move off of his original ideas!

One major problem with only hearing the positives about ourselves is the lack of growth. Without knowing what we need to improve, we may be blindsided by the propensity for those negative traits to pop up at the most inopportune moments. As long as the critiques are based in objective evidence, we ought to be able to give them a fair hearing in the hopes that it can help us improve.

I just hope that I take the same attitude when I get to see my own review....