Blaine Got The Call
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, lots of people celebrated last week. Cam was one of them. It was a case of determination unwavering belief that was finally rewarded. ----- So, after six years, Blaine finally got the call. I remember during the pandemic my wife and I rode our children’s bikes down the center of the street late one evening to our friend’s house for a cocktail. It was strange to have no traffic at that hour. At their house we sat outside and chatted for a while. Blaine was home and he and his sister stood in the back yard playing an improvised game hitting ping pong balls with...
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Practitioner
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam wonders if we have what it takes any more. If the thumbs up button is as far as we'll go or as much as we'll do. ----- David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times last week calling for a, quote “comprehensive national civic uprising.” There are well over four thousand comments with most being something along the lines of “Yes. It’s about time. Someone should do something.” Brooks’ says the Trump administration has gone too far, that we are indeed in a constitutional crisis, and it’s time to act. But, I wonder, do we have what it takes to...
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Prom
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam tells us that based on a series of recent events, he has two people he'd like offer up as potentially superb spies. ----- My twins are high school juniors, and prom was last Saturday night. The event went something like this: For my son: He brought his Joseph Banks suit downstairs about noon. It looked like it had been in a pile on the floor since he last wore it in March. There was a button-down shirt with it. My wife took the clothes and began steaming the wrinkles out. She asked “What flowers did you get your date.” A blank look. “Go to Publix and...
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To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question.
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin' it Real, Cam reports on a writer's conference he attended last weekend where a good part of the conversation was about using AI. All the writers, Cam reports, choose to not use it, preferring to remain "pure." ----- I attended a writers' conference last Saturday. Writers are a curious breed, convinced their unique perspective on describing something as mundane as a sunset is groundbreaking and essential. I love them. But they’re weird. This year, though, a frequent topic was artificial intelligence – how do writers use it, if at all. Speaker after speaker claimed they...
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Get The Joke
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam and his wife were at a wedding reception last week. It was beautiful. One conversation, though, has stuck with him. ----- My wife and I stood with a young man at a wedding Saturday night as he lamented the lack of turkeys to hunt at his camp. There were no gobblers, he said, and he was a bit down in the mouth about it. “Why,” my wife asked. “In the spring,” he said, “the hens move to a different place where they like the environment for nesting. The gobblers follow. And wherever those hens go, it’s not on our property. I wish there were something about our place that the hens...
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Judges Of The Truth
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
It's been a long week for Cam. He's going to get paid one hundred dollars for two days of work that he is required by law to perform. He didn't enjoy it but it wasn't because of the low pay. ------ In grade school I never wanted to be the one to pick teams. I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. It’s ridiculous, I know. I like to get along. I like to see people succeed. I’ve never wanted to be the arbiter of someone’s else’s happiness. That responsibility scares me. Monday morning, I was selected as a jury member for a federal trial. It was my first time doing this. I was one of...
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Meaningless Conversations
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston shares what exhausts him and how a good conversation is hard to find. ----- It was 1,000 one-minute conversations. A collection of people who all were within a degree, maybe a half a degree, of separation. Hardly a meaningful chat and as the event wore on, the meaningfulness of the chats dwindled further. For so little conversation, it was exhausting. I think maybe that conversations that skim along the veneer of content are more taxing than digging into content. I don’t know. But when I left, I was completely spent. I’m like so many other people...
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Happiness
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keeping It Real, Cam recounts his birthday week which has some unexpected surges of happiness. ----- Happiness is fleeting. It never lasts and I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s different than joy and contentment and pleasantness. Happiness bubbles up from an unexpected place and last such a short time. And when it arrives, it sometimes brings tears. Living in constant happiness would render us nearly helpless. It immobilizes you. Living in joy and contentment is great with, hopefully, unexpected surges of happiness from time to time that render us speechless. For my...
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The Ft. Lauderdale Accord
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam explains the Ft Lauderdale accord and how it's telling him that it's time to move on. ----- My wife and I will be empty nesters in eighteen months. If all goes according to plan, in that time our youngest two will graduate and head to college and if looking back is anything like looking ahead, these next eighteen months will fly by. If you’re a regular listener, you know that my wife and I have four kids. We purchased this house with a family of six in mind. With only two kids left at home, it’s already a lot of space and in eighteen months it will be...
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Paraty
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin It Real, Cam reports back about his most memorable event on his recent trip to Brazil. He traveled a long way to come back with this... ------ Cachaca is a Brazilian alcohol that was first made by the slaves the Portuguese brought to Brazil. It’s sugar cane based. Very sweet. And like gumbo, red beans and rice, jazz music, and the Mississippi delta blues among other things, it was what the poor people created due to a lack of resources and that the wealthy people eventually wanted. Crazy how that works so predictably. It’s like clockwork. Anyway, my wife and I were...
info_outlineA young man asked "My customers keep telling me I remind them of their children. What should I do?"
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A young man approached Tuesday after my seminar in Orlando. “I’m twenty-four years old,” he said “and when I’m making sales calls, people say I remind them of their son. How am I supposed to take that?” he asked.
He felt he wasn’t being taken seriously. He worried that he wasn’t doing a good job. And, he felt it was kind of an insulting to say.
I remember being in his shoes. I launched into my career intending to kick tail and take names. I wanted promotions, bonuses, raises, awards, recognition, and celebrity. My job was selling food to restaurants in eastern North Carolina. I went door to door in each town’s restaurant row with Thermoses full of heated samples, a bag of small souffle cups and plastic spoons to offer tastes. I sold cheese sauces, and gravies, corned beef hash, chillies, coffee, and tea. The list goes on.
Today I see the interactions that young man told me about differently. I told him to smile then say, “Tell me about your son.” Listen and smile and ask one follow-up question. “They’re giving you a compliment,” I told him, “It’s not an insult. And people love talking about their children so let ‘em. And then gently guide your conversation back on track.”
Like most people his age, I was in what psychiatrist Carl Jung and Franciscan priest Richard Rohr call the ego-building stages of my life. I was trying to shape how people saw me and how I saw and felt about myself. I was working to build an impressive image and, wow, how I’ve changed.
Sometime after about age thirty-five for most people, image building begins to matter less. You don’t stop doing it, it just matters less. A new search then begins for something to replace that image-building feeling that had been so important. The new search signals a shift in identity, it can arrive as a mid-life crisis, and has been known to reveal, for some, a God-shaped hole in their life.
According to Jung and Rohr, a satisfying replacement to image building can only be found by reversing course. Becoming less noticeable instead of more noticeable. Less image conscious instead of more image conscious. According to Rohr, the first half of life is about building your container of who you are and what you stand for and then filling that container. The second half of a life well lived is about draining that container and then destroying it. A full complete reversal from ego building to ego abandonment.
It’s been this way for eons. The young warriors seek fame and glory. They whoop and holler and conquer. The elders shower them with praise and rewards for their work and their bravery. Conquering is the job of the warriors. Praising is the job of the elders.
“I can tell you take your work seriously,” I said to the young man. “I bet you’re an asset here. Your boss is lucky to have you.” “Well,” he said, “maybe, yeah, I guess.” We shook hands. He walked away smiling from the compliment. I walked away smiling from giving it to him.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.