My dad was a successful executive.  In contrast, I’ve been content to work with students in high school and college classrooms.  I don’t think I have any fatal flaws that would spell administrative disaster; I just haven’t felt the call of administration.  Recently though, I’ve agreed to coordinate our Masters Program with Teacher Certification for the next three years.

L, far from objective of course, says she’s certain I will be successful.  I appreciate her confidence.

I’ve worked with a gaggle of administrators, some who were effective that I respected, others that made you wonder how on earth they rose to their positions of leadership.  I’ve reflected on all of their strengths and weaknesses; as a result, I have leadership intuitions that that I’m sure I’ll refine over the next three years.  Maybe my goal should be for no one to mutter, “How on earth did Byrnes become Program Coordinator?”

Given my new responsibilities, I read a recent Wall Street Journal bio about a technology CEO a bit more closely than normal.  One year older than me at 47, his leadership philosophy consisted of three things: work hard, treat people well, and listen.  Love it.  Substantive and simple.

Before heading out for last Sunday’s training ride, I downloaded a few podcasts including a recent CarTalk episode, a favorite Saturday morning National Public Radio program of mine. 

While listening to the hosts, brothers Tom and Ray, it dawned on me that their success is also a template not just for administrative success, but workplace success more generally.  The three keys to their success: know your stuff, connect with people before getting down to work, and don’t take yourself too seriously.  

What do you think of these frameworks?  How would you boil down the keys to successful leadership?

I was teaching in Yakima, WA last week.  On the way into Yakima there’s a sign that proclaims, “Yakima, The Palm Springs of Washington.”  While it’s often sunny and hot in Yakima, its self-perception is a bit skewed.  I like Yakima, but it’s working class, has few golf courses and swimming pools, and according to newspaper reports, is a huge international drug hub. 

Imagine if only saying it made it true.  Maybe I should make some signs for my yard.  “Ron Byrnes, Ironman World Champion.”  “Ron Byrnes, British Open Champion.” “Ron Byrnes, Husband and Father of the Year—Again.”  “Obama-Byrnes 08.” 

Clearly I’ve underestimated the power of positive signage for far too long.  For the Mall in D.C., “Energy Independence.”  For the White House lawn, “Inspired, Enlightened Leadership.”  For Wall Street, “We’re Rallying Now.”  For the Seattle Mariners’ Safeco Field, “The Team to Beat.”  For the Chevron station down the street, “Gas is Cheap.”  For the side of McCain’s Straight Talk Express, “More Inspired, Enlightened Leadership.”

I digress.  When I’m in Yakima, I run on a bike trail by a river.  It’s a pretty nice vibe.  Last Monday night I felt good, so I picked it up, passed the normal turnaround, a junk yard/chop shop, and kept going.  The physical toll of the previous day’s drive and the psychic toll of that day’s teaching fell away as I entered into half marathon-zone, a mod-hard sustainable pace.  Mid-run, drenched in sweat, I started to wonder what it would be like to be sedentary and never have the sensation of extending myself physically.  Never cut wood, never do yoga, never lift weights, never run, never walk a long ways.  I assume you lose touch with your physical self.  I think that disconnect or “physical deadness” would be worse than the all of the negative health effects of a sedentary life combined. 

Over the last fifteen years, as I’ve developed an active lifestyle, I’ve grown increasingly in-tune with my body.  In the water, on my bike, running, I have a good feel for the effects of distance and geography on how hard I can push it and how long it will take my body to bounce back. 

After the run, I filled my water bottle and collapsed into a chair in my hotel room.  The air-conditioner revived me in short order.  If pressed, I couldn’t really explain the science of the “runners high” although I know endorphins play an important part.  My explanation is simpler.  My runners’ high is the result of the sudden contrast between extending myself physically to an uncomfortable point and then completely stopping.  Subconsciously (at least it was subconscious before I wrote this sentence), I make a deal with my body, extend yourself for x number of miles or minutes or hours and then I’ll stop, promise.  That night, post run, no sedentary person on the planet could appreciate as much as I did the joy of sitting perfectly still, drinking water, watching the NewsHour.  Similarly, neither could they relate to how amazing it feels to collapse in the grass in front of Enumclaw High School after cycling up, down, and around Mount Rainer. 

When it comes to fitness, as I’ve written previously, people focus too narrowly on weight loss.  For me, there’s a spiritual component to it. I feel more alive as a result of knowing my body.  As in Yakima, I regularly push my body to the point of uncomfortableness; as a result, I’m a happier, more complete person. 

How many things do you own?  Think you could live with 100?  Some people are trying in what’s termed the 100 Thing Challenge.

Not sure of the catalyst really, but I’ve been growing increasingly minimalist in orientation for some time and I’m intrigued by the challenge.  Establishing a baseline could be tough and time consuming.  I’m pretty confident I own fewer things than most adults in my socio-economic strata and far more than one hundred things. 

If I do take up the challenge, how should I count?  If I have to count each book, each compact disc, each golf ball, and each golf tee; game over, no point of continuing.  With your approval, I’m going to employ the “collective noun” provision meaning books, compact discs, and golf accessories count as three possessions.  Yes men, of course I’ve considered eating with my fingers exclusively, but then it may be tough to get a good grip on the golf clubs.

Also, with your approval, I’m going to ignore consumable items like food and drink.  Of course that still leaves a boatload of Tupperware, kitchen appliances, Ziploc bags, silverware, etc.  No one said it was going to be easy.

Those last possessions bring to mind the issue of shared possessions.  For example, the double X’s and I watch two televisions, so I’m going to divide four by two and count television as one-half a possession.

I stand no chance of getting anywhere close to 100 without sharing more things with more people.  Would I be violating some unspoken American law of individualism if I suggested to my three neighbors that we sell three of our lawn mowers and share the remaining one so that it will only count as a .25 possession or will they drag me before the Homeowners Association for the insidious crime of Norwegian-like socialist sensibilities?

The trick, it seems to me, is not just getting down to 100 possessions, but staying there for longer than a year.  I’ve seen friends trim their possessions only to replace them, thus spending more money in the end.  Seems to me the question isn’t how much weight can you lose, but can you fundamentally change your lifestyle and keep it off in the medium and long-term?

Also, I wonder what percentage of the 100 possessions should contribute to some semblance of personal and family history?  I’m probably guilty of parting too easily with sentimental stuff. For example, please don’t ask me where my Father’s Day card is.  For a lot of people I suppose, sentimentality is the biggest obstacle to genuine simplifying.

I don’t know if I’ll take up the “100 Thing Challenge” or not because my focus has been on reducing the absolute volume of my material footprint more than reducing the absolute number of possessions owned.  My personal motto might be, “smaller, lighter, better.”  If I do decide to take up the challenge, I’ll create three piles. . . “definitely in,” “definitely out,” and the largest no doubt, “undecided.”

Here are a few “definitely ins” that immediately jump to mind.

1) Mountain Hardware down jacket fondly known as “Puff Daddy.”  Any possession with a name of course makes the cut.  I may look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy in Puff Daddy, but I couldn’t care less.  It’s revolutionized my winter life.  I don’t have a lot of body fat, but with PD, that doesn’t matter.  No more standing at butt-cracking cold soccer games in a light drizzle freezing my ass off.  Enuf said.  Welcome in Puff. 

2) Bose radio, old school, no CD.  When I was five years old, chillin’ in Louisville, Kentucky waiting for the first grade to start, I’d fall asleep listening on the radio to the Kentucky Coronels in the American Basketball Association.  Louie Dampier, Dan Issel, Goose Givens, good times.  Ever since, I’ve loved radio.  I listen to everything, Rush Limbaugh (in small doses granted), Dave Ramsey, sports talk, NPR, the BBC, and even music sometimes.  One day, about fourteen years ago, I was driving down Friendly Boulevard in Greensboro, NC, with my precocious daughter snuggly tucked into her car seat.  In the smallest, squeakiest voice imaginable she asked, “Hey Dad, Is that Car Talk, Money Talk, or Sports Talk?”  I darn near drove off the road.

3) 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid.  Nameless thus far.  Regrettably, I live too far from work to cycle, so this is a practical decision.  Also, I’m so close to my first 50 mile per gallon tank that I’m not going to stop until I achieve it.  I average about 42-45 miles/gallon during the cooler months, but in the summer the mileage improves.  A few times lately I’ve registered 49+ miles per gallon, but I can’t break the coveted 5-0.  Right now, I’m two-thirds empty and sitting at 50.6, the highest I’ve ever been this far into a tank.  So next week I will be the guy sweating profusely, doing 55 in the far right lane on Interstate 5, using cruise control until I’m midway up my driveway, and finally doing a celebratory jig at the Costco pump next to you.

4) Macbook laptop.  Without it I couldn’t blog as conveniently and my legion of faithful readers would suffer in ways I couldn’t stand to bear.  Hey wait a minute, it’s the university’s laptop.  Sweet, still at three.

4) Douglas Matrix road bike.  This enables me to maintain my fitness and some nice friendships since I ride with others.  Of course, for fitness, a pair of running shoes would probably be a better choice since I can run year-round.  And with the bike comes a longer list of accessories . . . helmet, gps computer, pump, spare tubes/tires, etc.  Once again, I’m going to lay claim to the collective noun provision and label those 5) bike accessories. 

6) A pair of running shoes.  These will have to do double, triple, or quadruple duty no doubt, meaning I’ll have to sprinkle baking soda in them to manage the odor (you’re welcome for the tip) and I’m making the unilateral decision that baking soda falls under the heading of “consumable item.”

7) Contact lenses.  The value of clear vision goes without mentioning and achieving it without glasses distracting from my natural good looks is an added bonus.

8-9) Two pairs of pants.  One pair will have to be jeans since they don’t have to be washed as often as most others.  The other I will have to think about very carefully.  I wonder if any of those zipper pants that turn into shorts come in versions where the zipper isn’t that visible so that they might work in professional settings.  

10) A swimsuit, polyester jammers specficially, which will have to do double duty as underwear.  I hereby promise to wash them nightly and they can dry as I sleep.

Related to 10, can I please add a pair of swim goggles to 7?  Be forewarned, if you don’t approve that request, I may have to wear prescription swim goggles both in and out of the water. 

I know, I know, I know, I’m still shirtless, sunscreenless, and sockless, but maybe I can work at home more, and if not, I still have another 90 to go.  Admittedly, the list is a bit fitness-heavy, but I think I’m off to a solid start.

I’m looking at the 4th tallest structure in Europe, the Berlin TV tower, which is 364m high.  The fam and I are at a Fulbright seminar and I spent our first morning trying to get online.  Of course I could have paid the exorbitant fee our hotel wanted, but that would run counter to stipend stretching.  I could post entirely about the last hour, but I think I’ll just hit yesterday’s highlights before retyping the planned post from laptop to internet cafe computer.  And as a sidenote, who gave the German’s permission to move the z and y on the keyboard?

Great Third Reich tour yesterday lead by two youngish American Fulbrighters based in Berlin.  We probably walked five miles in part because a huge half marathon had shut down the bus system.  Damn runners.  The tour was informative and memorable.  The 15 year old was particularly tuned in.  The 12 year old drifted in and out.  The 12 year was enthralled with a sidenote, the hotel where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from a window.  Several pictures were snapped.  Our room is on the 34th floor of a nice hotel with an amazing view in what used to be East Berlin.  Loved the bus rides in from the airport, very gritty sections of former East Berlin.

On to the planned post.  47 minutes of time left, so forgive the rough trans.

Isn’t passion in some form, or to some degree, integral to wellness?

At Lexington Junior High in Cypress, CA, I dreaded my 7th grade Spanish class.  I struggle with languages and the teacher was going through the motions.  The class started at something like 10:20 and ended at 11:10.  I explained to my hombres who were equally bored that our problem was the minute hand (pre digital) had to fight gravity to make its way from the bottom of the hour to the top.  Knowing that didn’t prevent us from endlessly staring at the classroom clock in the hope that someday it might miraculously skip forward.

One of the best barometers of passion is the opposite of my Spanish experience.  When passionately engaged with something, time loses relevance and seemingly stands still.  A few springs ago, A, J, and I stood standing in our family room watching in complete disbelief as L gardened right through dusk and into complete darkness.  Eventually, we gave up on her cooking dinner and turned on the outdoor lights for her.  When she came in dirty, exhausted, and completely contented, she said she hadn’t noticed the sun had set.

What activities give you the most joy?  When does time at least slow, if not stop?  How can we develop passions or maintain existing ones in our work-a-day world?  Do you enjoy camarderie with others who share your passions or are they solitary pursuits?  Are we doing everything we can to help young people develop socially redeeming passions?

These questions bubbled up a couple mornings ago after listening to the head coach of England’s national football team on BBC Radio.

In a tone so serious it’s impossible to exaggerate, he intoned: “Where have our great goal scorers gone?!!!  What are we doing to develop the next generation of great goal scorers?!!!  I had just come to and was semi-conscience so I searched for the transcript online to see if I was imagining things.  While looking for the transcript, I stumbled upon Nick Webster’s blog, which convinced me I had heard correctly.  Here’s an excerpt from one of his recent posts:

“So where are the English strikers and will they ever come back?

With a sick feeling in my stomach, I’m afraid to say that until a major shift in attitudes and social conditions occurs, we’ll not see an Englishman top the scoring charts for at least another decade.  I have three reasons for my pessimism.  Firstly, a lack of street football.  Secondly, a lack of poverty.  Lastly, too much time in front of the TV and video games.  All three reasons are related.

When, I was a kid, we’d play in the streets for hours on end.  In fact, in summer it wasn’t uncommon to have matches that lasted eight hours or more as children came and went.

The score wasn’t that important but scoring always was.  I can still recall great goals from my childhood-from swerving thirty-yarders that Petr Cech would’ve struggled to stop to mazy dribbles that would have Diego Maradona (circa 1986) drooling.

It was in the street that you would try the outrageous finish because it didn’t matter if you missed-you had another seven hours to make amends.

Although I wasn’t from a poor family, there still wasn’t a great deal of money for extra stuff.  The movies were a luxury, malls were non-existent and ice/roller skating was for rich kids.  Football was all I had-and rest assured I’ve played my fair share of games with balls that wouldn’t must FIFA inspection.  The hunger of poverty has often been cited as a major factor in producing the two greatest players in the world, Pele & Maradona-scorers of ridiculous goals.”

Even though I didn’t grow up playing the “beautiful game” and haven’t fully embraced it despite being a soccer dad for the last decade, I want to meet the Nickster because I love his passion.  Forget economic malaise, global warming, the threat of terrorism, poverty, education reform; dammit we need some goal scorers.

Given the Nickster’s logic, maybe Gordon Brown should do everything in his powers to accelerate England’s economic downturn in the hope that a world-class English striker or two might rise from the ashes.  Were that to happen, I’m guessing the Nickster and his football-mad friends might just accept the trade-offs and re-elect Brown. 

L’s life is enriched by gardening, the Nickster’s by football, and yours?

(apologies for the typos, it’s the Germans fault)

As Ian McEwan’s last few novels and Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking attest, writers engage readers by using descriptive details in place of vague generalities and by revealing their true, unvarnished selves.

Recently, I’ve been wondering, how do writers, including bloggers, reveal their true, unvarnished selves while maintaining some semblance of privacy?  And this question is complicated when, in being transparent, a writer also reveals details about close family and friends.  For example, right as I was launching this blog, I published a commentary in the Tacoma News Tribune originally titled “The Social Cost of Wealth.”  I forget what the editor changed the title to.  In the essay, I argued there is a psychic disconnect between affluent people and those struggling to make ends meet, a disconnect that impairs social relations.  The only way I could help readers grasp that idea was to provide concrete examples. 

The problem was my wife was uncomfortable with a few of the details provided in some of the examples.  In essence she was saying, “It’s one thing for you to sacrifice some of your privacy for the sake of your craft, but I’d prefer to manage my privacy myself.”  Makes perfect sense. 

So now I’m trying to reveal as little as possible about close family and friends while revealing just enough about me to engage readers and maintain some semblance of privacy.  Tough balancing act. 

Currently I’m reading a special section from a recent Wall Street Journal about anticipated technological changes over the next 10 years.  One conclusion I’m drawing is that whether we’re writers or not, our privacy will continue to ebb unless more of us begin tapping our inner Howard Beale and begin yelling at those who couldn’t care less about our privacy, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” 

Nothing short of “Seattle World Trade Organization in the streets” type of resistance will probably make any difference.

Recently I was walking into the Tampa Bay Aquarium when a guy reached out for my elbow and tried to pull my family and me over to his makeshift camera studio.  He had a digital camera on a tri-pod, stools, and some dorky, ocean-themed backdrop.  He was pouncing, staging, and snapping before acquiescing families even knew what hit them.  Jerking my elbow away I said, “No, I don’t want our picture taken.”  Incredulous, he looked at me as if I was the first person to ever say no to him. 

I didn’t want him to have digital images of my wife, children, and me on his computer.  And I don’t want to have to give Big 5 my address and phone number every time I want to buy a pair of frickin’ swim goggles.  And I don’t want video cameras on every street pole like in London.  And I don’t want GPS devices alerting others exactly where I am.  And I don’t want marketers tracking my purchases in order to individualize their advertising. 

Even if I stick my head out of my window and yell, “I’m mad as hell” I don’t think I can stop the further denigration of my privacy without tens of millions of other people getting equally as pissed off.  I don’t see that happening so I’m resigned to a certain erosion of my privacy. 

Few adults are helping young people think privacy issues through as they dive headfirst into Facebook, MySpace, and related social networks.  Admittedly, there are security concerns in London and elsewhere, GPS devices are wonderfully helpful at times, and many people look forward to customized advertising, but too few people are thinking through the negative consequences of these technological advances.  Instead, they’re mindlessly acquiescing to predatory photographers and high tech marketers.  Once they get concerned about the loss of privacy, it will be too late.  You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Twenty-three years ago I was chasing my now wife around southernmost Mexico.  One day we hiked from one small village to another just outside of San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas.  It was a beautiful walk that culminated with a sharp descent onto a small zocalo where the most unexpected event imaginable was taking place.  Indigenous Indians were hoopin’ it up in a ragged basketball tournament.  The tallest player might have been 5’5”.  They were very physical, but not very good. 

I was hoping some team would be a man short and I could channel Kareem Abdul Jabbar but that wasn’t to be.  I didn’t think people would believe my descriptions of the scene so I took out my camera, focused the zoom lens, and began snapping away.  An Indian sitting behind me made a “tsskk” sound, which I took to mean “Hi” in his language.  I kept snapping away, but couldn’t help notice the “tsskk” change to “TSSKK!”  Culturally oblivious, I continued to focus in when “SMACK” he hit my zoom lens with a stick.  That I understood.  Soon after I learned Chiapas Indians believe that when their picture is taken, a part of their soul is entrapped inside the camera. 

I wonder am I sacrificing a part of my soul every time I provide personal information to a business, make a purchase on-line, or add to my blog?  Like my Indian friend and my wife, I want to manage my soul, but Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley are formidable foes especially when they team up.  Anything short of a mass movement of tens of millions of people refusing to be grabbed by the elbow and the continuing erosion of our privacy is all but certain.