Liminal
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On Keepin It Real this week, Cam Marston makes some observations on this odd stretch of the calendar between Christmas and New Years. ----- This is a strange time of year every year. Kinda a liminal space between two big holidays. My instinct says I need to be working but the buzz of my email – a reflection of how busy my work world is – is so quiet. It’s hard to get anyone to make decisions right now. Beginning around December 18th, we enter the “let’s circle back on this next year” stretch of the calendar. We go from opening small talk with “So, are you ready for...
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Russians
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On Keepin' it Real this week, Cam takes us back to 1988 when he and his team lined up to upset the world order in an all out international rowing competition. It was one for the record books. ----- It was the spring of 1989 in Augusta, Georgia. I was a member of the Tulane University Rowing team and we were there to train for Spring Break. Crew teams from across the south and many of the elite crew teams from the northeast came to Augusta and this perfect stretch of the Savannah River to train during the week and race at the end of the week. A call went out that the organizers were throwing...
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Top Hat
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston has just returned from a few days in Fort Lauderdale. It's a different world down there, Cam says. One that he might have envied at one point in his life. ------ My wife and I returned from Ft Lauderdale Saturday. We were there for a corporate event where I was giving a speech. My client generously offered an extra couple of nights in the host hotel and our room was on the 26thfloor overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I watched the sun rise each morning as I sipped coffee and read. It began as a faint glow on the horizon to a disk coming out of the water....
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Regrets
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam hopes you have no regrets from Thanksgiving. And if you do, that you learn from them. ----- Well, how’d it go yesterday? Any family flare ups? Any thoughts you wish you’d kept to yourself? Thanksgiving gatherings are famous for finding people’s boiling points and the election having been just a few weeks ago, some are still gloating and others still licking their wounds. Any regrets from yesterday? I heard Dan Pink speak last week at a conference in San Francisco. He’s a New York Times best-selling author and his most recent book is called The Power...
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'Tis The Season
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston wants you to know he's NOT A CYNIC. But there are things this time of year that just kinda get to him... ----- ‘Tis the season for pensive and sappy messages. I’m so sorry but it’s true. They’re appearing in TV commercials, in client and vendor emails. Letters received in the mail about the joys of the season and now’s the time to be grateful and all that. I hate being a cynic, but it all appears to be virtue signaling to me. The people I know sending these messages are savage businesspeople and it’s like times running out and they’re...
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Cats
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On the way home from Oxford Saturday, Cam and his family stopped at a service station which led to him thinking about what NOT to put on his Christmas list. ----- For years I had my children convinced I was allergic to cats. I told them the reason we couldn’t have a cat as a pet was that my head would explode in a fiery ball. They wanted a cat. They asked regularly and finally accepted that I was allergic. I’m not allergic to cats. I’m not sure how they found out, but the cat-pet requests are back. Frankly, I want nothing more to do with anything that requires fuel or any sort of...
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Owls
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam tells us about some early morning attacks that are happening in his part of town. You'd be surprised at who is doing the attacking. ----- On the top of the Tangles Hair Salon on Bit and Spur Road in Mobile sits a hat and a headlamp with its light on. The headlamp is the type that an early morning jogger wears before the sun comes up. How it got up there is a heck of a story. Dennison Crocker jogs before daylight nearly every morning. His headlamp lights the way. One dark morning near Bit and Spur Road, a giant thunk, thud, and whoosh caught Dennison off...
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Can I Transfer?
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam recalls a time when he was very much out of his element and was slightly afraid for his life. ----- About midway through the fourth quarter of Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt, my son, who is a student at the University, sent me a text. It read, “Can I transfer?” I laughed. As a Tulane student we were fond of saying that on Saturdays in the fall, the New Orleans Superdome hosted a cocktail party for students to mix and mingle in the stands. Occasionally we would look up and notice that a football game was going on in front of us, but we never let it...
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FBI
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston tells us about a bomb maker he met who sends the bombs he makes to his friends. Oddly enough, you and I should be happy he's doing it. ----- There’s a man on the outskirts of Mobile who spends a good part of his days making bombs. He uses items he finds around town and buys from retail stores. He then sends his bombs to his buddies to see if they can disarm them. It’s a game and, believe me, it’s a game you and I should be grateful they’re playing. I’m participating in a seven-week course called the FBI Citizens Academy. For two hours each...
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Infantilized
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keeping It Real, Cam Marston reacts to a book review about society and how we're raising kids. It's not the kids fault, Cam says, it's definitely the parents. ----- The Economist magazine reviewed a book called Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood. The author, Keith Hayward, argues that western society is keeping kids less mature than previous generations. He tells of a young lady who insisted on spelling the word hamster with a P. When corrected repeatedly, she called her mom and put her on speakerphone to tell her boss not to be so mean. That’s laughable, but...
info_outlineUniversal Truths about Fear
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I hadn’t expected the reaction to last week’s commentary on fear and sloth. The podcast version was forwarded more than most and the social media got a lots of attention and forwards, too. Most of those commenting were like me – sloth is not such a problem. Fear is the problem.
A friend pointed me to a book that, he says, changed his life. It’s called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers and was first published in 1987. It’s sold millions and has been translated into 35 different languages. Fear is a big seller because it’s a common problem. I downloaded it to my Audible account and there it sat before I decided to finally listen. Frankly, I was skeptical. I find most of these types of books thin on content, and I should know because I’ve written a few. But if it changed my friend’s life then maybe some relic of this dated message will resonate with me.
So this morning, sitting with a coffee in my hotel room well before dawn with the curtain open to watch the sunrise, I hit play to listen to the book. I’m only on Chapter 3 and can honestly say I have taken a whole new and different approach to this persistent nemesis of mine called fear. So far, book is working.
There are many highlights already, but this stood out: Jeffers says there are five universal truths about fear, and we should repeat them ten times a day for a month or more. That’s a bit much, but I will print them and pin the to the wall near my desk.
- First, fear will never go away as long as we continue to grow. Fear’s a consequence of growth and growth does not happen without fear accompanying it.
- Second, the only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is simply go out and do it.
- Third, the only way to feel better about myself is to go out and do that which I fear.
- Fourth, not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else. You and I are not alone, but you’d never know because we all wear such a brave face, don’t we? However, we’re all feeling much the same.
- And fifth, my favorite one, pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.
Jeffers goes on to say she’s has never met someone who does not struggle with fear. Maybe they’re out there, she says, but probably not. Some call it nerves. Some call it anxiety. Some call it worry. But it’s all the same thing: it’s fear.
It’s helpful stuff to know, but results come from taking action. So, with these five universal truths about fear in mind, I’m going to tackle some things I’ve been avoiding, using thin excuses but, in truth, I’ve been afraid of. Join me, and let’s see what happens.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.