Weaving Together My Life Story In A Series Of Blogs

The blog has always been a great platform for storytelling. Over time, I have shared many things about my history, my present, and goals for the future - they are:

My Life Story - Have you ever thought about the impact of big decisions that you made in your life? How about the small ones or the ones made for you? How would have your life turned out if things went the other way?

My Love Story - Michelle and met on October 15, 2010 in a serendipitous way. We were both part of a charity in Raleigh, NC and one night at a dinner struck up a conversation about many things - including our love of travel.

My Housing Story - After 13 moves and stops in three Canadian Provinces and three U.S. States, here is my journey in pictures from the Northwest to the Southeast of North America.

My Car Story - I have the dubious honor of getting speeding tickets on all 6 driveable continents - lucky that there are no cars in Antarctica! Did I ever tell you the time I passed the Polizia in Italy with my mom?

My Travel Story - The story started with a "Rollerblades and Red Bull" journey to 100 countries. It is now expanding in every direction after hitting 7 continents and the 7 wonders of the world (most with kids in tow).

My Nautical Story - I am pretty sure the love of water started in 1972 when I was six weeks old and my grandparents Bob and Dona McBain retired to Shuswap, British Columbia, Canada, and built a log cabin.

My Crazy MBA Story - In the summer of 2017, while climbing Machu Picchu, Peru as part of my wife Michelle’s International MBA from Manhattan College, I thought – why not me?

My Hockey Story - As long as I can remember, I have been playing hockey. Over four and a half decades and thousands of games later, I still lace them up a couple times a week, year-round.

My Cycling Story - When the Covid-19 pandemic first took hold in March 2020 we responded quickly as a family - including strict stay at home orders and no outside contact until we could get a handle on the risks. My attention now turned to exercise - and biking across North America (virtually).

My Retirement Story - I have no interest in disconnecting fully from the work that makes me so fulfilled. I could never see myself  in bingo-playing retired life. I want to stay curious, engaged, and adding value past the (very specific) date in 2034 that I am aiming for.

My Christmas Story - Whether traveling to see family, or going to Disney or Hawaii, or simply staying home - the season is packed with memories of family and friends.

My Music Story - My favorite music can be best defined as sad / emotional / multi-level slow music. Oddly, it is opposite of my worldview - which is normally overly-positive and optimistic.

My Movie Story - Oddly enough, I think Pretty Woman made me very interested in business. I named my cat Austin Powers - oh, and yes, "Danger" is his middle name. Our current dog is named August Rush (Auggie Doggy). Movies such as Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Forrest Gump, & National Lampoon's Vacation have become soundtracks to my life.

These are all my personal stories. My business stories wrap around channels, partnerships, alliances, and ecosystems and can be found here. 

Also business related, on this platform I named the top 100 most visible channel influencers and top 100 global women in technology groups that continue to get thousands of visitors per month.

Thanks for taking a walk with me through memory lane!

Civil War

There are two ways the United States could fail and both are internal.

The grand experiment - America's unique attempt to establish and sustain a republic and democracy based on principles of liberty and popular sovereignty - is at critical risk of a civil war triggered by either poor vs. rich or left vs. right.

The external threat isn't military-driven but sowing division through malign influence campaigns. According to the U.S. Intelligence Community and Department of Homeland Security, major threats include Russia, China, and Iran. Their tactics exploit existing societal frictions to undermine trust in institutions, amplify discord, and interfere in democratic processes.

First, growing income inequality has played a significant role in the decline and collapse of great empires throughout history by fueling political instability, fostering resentment among the poor, and creating a decadent and less resilient elite. Research comparing the Roman and Han Chinese empires, for example, found that high inequality increased the potential for political instability that ultimately contributed to their downfalls.

Almost on every measure, we are marching towards this.

Second, happening quicker than the first, is the increasing division between the left and the right on the political spectrum. By nature, humans are tribal and are wired for survival with the need for packs or teams. The "us vs. them" is evolutionary and deeply rooted in our psychology.

Overriding these divisions over the first 200 years in the U.S. has been bipartisan leadership driving a deep sense of patriotism for the country over anything else. Whether it was the World Wars or yesterday's 24th anniversary of 9/11, a large and diverse collection of different states, races, and religions stayed true to this overriding pride and protection of the whole.

I created the visual below to help me think about this moment in history.

America has always had that "80% in the middle" of the bell curve - the neighbors, family, friends, and industry colleagues that wanted a better country but had different (but civil) opinions on how to achieve. It was ok to be a socially-minded conservative or a fiscally-minded liberal. It was ok to independently choose a side on over 100 of the most pressing issues of the day and not have those defined for us based on the team we chose.

Interestingly enough, large institutions such as government, courts, religion, and traditional media reinforced (and protected) the bell curve.

Sowing division and lowering trust in these institutions combined with the rise of the internet (1995) and social media (2006) has set us on a course to civil war. The world has never had millions of communication channels amplifying voices from every part of society.

The emergency issue is that to cut through this noise and clutter, algorithms have amplified the most extreme voices (on both sides) and commercialized them. American society is pretty numb to the barrage of information hitting us everyday and only engages when something is extreme enough to warrant a response. Reasonable discord in the middle (the 80%) is invisible.

We all recognize and can rank people around us (and ourselves) into each slice of this bell curve.

What do we do?

First, we need to protect each other and report anyone that falls (or is at risk of falling) off either edge of the curve.

Second, we need to recognize that we are ALL being manipulated. The media around us is driven off of clicks and engagement - it is sending them towards the edges to get noticed and compensated.

Tribal nature is pulling us with them.

Third, understand that we are making the job of people trying to end this empire easy. Sowing division is easy when something extreme gets painted as "them".

This week is a perfect example with the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Millions of communication channels quickly became a cesspool of division and hate. Hundreds of my connections (on both sides and in different slices) have used the word "they or them" in their outrage.

These aren't woke pronouns - it is the seed of civil war.

Fourth, we need to obviously find common ground. This is where the 80% of the bell curve can disagree, knowing that the source of that friction is for a better country. Where we can identify and act (together) on the growing fringes and protect each other at the outer edge.

This is the tragic irony of what happened this week. Charlie is someone who successfully triggered some of these "extreme" algorithms (regardless of whether that was in or out of context, the result was the same) but believed in civil public discourse and wasn't afraid to engage and debate.

Many were quick to assign motive and blame before the shooter was even in custody because it had to be "them". Others were quick to support the horrific narrative that somehow he deserved to be killed.

We never got to see what the middle of America thought as we were invisible.