Monthly Archives: October 2013

Busy Butt

Busy, busy, busy.

Ask someone how they’ve been. When their response is “Busy”, how does that make you feel? “Ugh” about sums it up.

Ask an old friend to get lunch. When their response is “Busy”, how does that make you feel? Zero empathy about sums it up.

Ask your food delivery guy why it took him two hours.  When his response is “Busy”, how do you feel? Still hungry and aggravated about sums it up.

Hearing someone has been busy or is busy or was busy might be the truth.  But, when do you ever want to hear it?

Adding a “but”, however, on the end of the “Busy” softens the blow. “I’m busy, but good.” “I’m busy this week, but what about next week?” “We were super busy, but went as fast as we could and are really sorry to make you wait.”

Everyone gets busy.  But if you must tell someone about it, make it “Busy, but.”

mcdonalds bulletin board above Chicago El train showing egg white delight and saying all yolks aside

McDonald’s Egg White Delight: Are They Yoking?

My Thoughts on Egg McMuffins Made with Egg Whites

I get asked all the time about McDonald’s Egg White Delight.  Most often, it sounds like, “Yo, Do you care that McDonald’s is using your phrase ‘All yolks aside’ to promote their egg white McMuffin?” My response is always the same.  I laugh.

McDonalds Egg White Delights are def NOT noyoke.  They’re not even worth eating on a rest day.  Here’s why McDonald’s Egg White Delights are not healthy and are no different from all other McDonalds products: Junk.

Yes, McDonald’s Egg White Delights are void of egg yolks.  Yes, eating eggs without yolks is fewer calories and nearly void of any saturated fat or cholesterol.  And yes, if you’re going to eat McDonald’s breakfast anyway, opting for egg whites is probably a better choice.  But the eggs themselves come from highly processed, caged hens.  Then, before they get to your sandwich, they’re microwaved and doused in non-stick spray made liquid margarine (a mix of several hydrogenated oils).  Alas, while the egg white on the Egg White Delight pretty bad for you, it’s probably the healthiest part of the entire sandwich.

The meat and cheese on the Egg White Delight make the seemingly healthy egg white guilty by association.  The cheese acts as the treated, colored and processed salty glue that holds everything together.  Cheese that’s pure and fresh isn’t hardly healthy, let alone this crap.  The meat, similarly, is a hardly meat.  Chemically enhanced with phosphates, nitrates and other preservatives, the Canadian bacon struggles to serve any nutritional purpose.  Put the “meat” and “cheese” together and you get a tref, colorful, salty middle layer.  And that’s just what’s in-between the English muffins!

The English muffins, seemingly the most innocent part, include a secret weapon.  No, not gluten or enriched bleached flour, even though they’re in there and are a formidable contributor to American obesity. McDonalds’ English muffins are loaded with high-fructose corn syrup.  Why?  McDonalds injects HFCS into its muffs to make them sweet and, more importantly, addicting.  Yes, HFCS is addicting and causes obesity and general laziness.  Most normal, store-bought muffins, however, have no HFCS.

Conclusion: McDonald’s is still McDonald’s, not NOYOKE

So to answer the question I get all the time, I don’t care that McDonald’s uses “All yolks aside” in their ads for the Egg White Delight.  It’s not a threat to me or my brand.  It cannot compete with the quick and easy scrambled egg whites with kaleapple cinnamon quinoa, or any other breakfast you can make in five minutes.  Healthy breakfasts never include chemical-laden egg whites, highly processed meats or cheese, or HFCS-enhanced English muffins.  That stuff is NOT good for you.  And that’s noyoke.

The Easy “A”

The class that is the easy A is well-known. Physical education electives. Foods 101. The online-only class about dinosaurs.

Those, however, never end up being an easy A. 

The truly easy A is never the class known as the easy A.  The easy A is found in the hard class. The one which requires you to test-in.  To overcome barriers.  To challenge yourself.

If you’re in the business of finding easy A’s, you might succeed.  But it’s gonna be a grind.

Take an AP class, why don’t ya?

Expectation Setting and Timing

Expectations setting is a necessary ingredient to any success relationship. It’s as simple as, “Here’s what I expect.”  But, mastering expectation setting timing might be more crucial than the expectations themselves.

Tell your cab driver you have a sensitive stomach and need him to drive smoothly is okay before the ride begins.  Set that expectation halfway through the ride and…

Tell your girlfriend that you value experiences over material things on your first date, and she’ll be cool with getting less [material] gifts than she has before.  Set those expectations after six months and…

Tell a potential employer that you need to earn X dollars and be home for dinner at Y o’clock during the interview process, and that’s what you’ll get if you’re hired.  Set those expectations during your first review and…

It’s true that you might not agree on what’s expected.  So what?  There’s another cab right behind.  There’s plenty of fish in the sea.  And there’s other good job opportunities out there.

More likely than not, you’ll find a match that can meet your expectations.  If not you can always adjust.  But adjusting expectations, especially from none at all, usually ends in disappointment.

And that feeling is always mutual.

Can we reschedule?

If someone offers to help you, you have two choices:

  1. Take the help now
  2. Decline, defer, or do nothing

This is obvious during interactions with strangers.  A stranger might offer to hold the elevator for you now.  That doesn’t mean you can expect them hold the elevator when you really need it.

It’s less obvious with acquaintances.  An acquaintance might want to do lunch to talk about ideas that could help you and your new business.  That doesn’t mean you can wait a few months to take her up on the offer.  By then, she’s not excited to help you anymore.

It’s even less obvious with close friends.  A close friend might offer to help.  Declining their offer might be insulting to them.  They’re just being a good friend.

So choice two seems pretty crappy, huh?

Take the time to accept offers for help.  Even if it’s not a good time for you, there’s more to lose when you say, “Can we reschedule?”

Joe Mauer and Gardy are Right

Often effort and personal satisfaction don’t correlate with mass reception and / or success.

A blogger’s post that took hours to write and is, to her, life-changing, doesn’t get many views. Yet, the one she whipped up in five minutes goes viral.

A retail clothing store owner’s winter line will have some winners and losers.  But there’s no telling which were studiously chosen and which were last-minute add-ons.

The salesman’s long-term, premier prospect is a high-maintenance bust.  Yet, from someone wanting a quote on a Friday afternoon immediately turns into her biggest account.

Fortunately, the effort and personal satisfaction sometimes pleases the masses and / or is successful.  Even better, though?  Getting up to the plate every single day.

Giving ourselves a chance.

Contagious Behavior Season

It’s flu season.  Watch out for people that are contagious.  That is, unless they just have contagious behavior.

Communicate with an English teacher or writer and you’ll catch their proper grammar.  That’s contagious behavior.

Hangout with me enough and you’ll catch my healthy and smart eating habits.  That’s contagious behavior.

Meet with highly punctual colleagues and you’ll start being on time, too.  That’s contagious behavior.

One could argue that catching something that’s contagious is not a choice.  But with contagious behavior (good or bad, unfortunately), choosing not to catch it eventually makes you feel like an idiot.  And as the group grows, the contagious behavior becomes an epidemic.

Go catch something good.

The Immediate Ask

In sales, take advantage of the “immediate ask.”  If the ask is not too big, it works quite well.

First date went well?  Immediately ask for a kiss and you’ll get it.

Close a new account?  Immediately ask for a recommendation on LinkedIn and you’ll get it.

Sign-up a new subscriber to your email list?  Immediately ask them to like you on Facebook and you’ll get it.

If the “immediate ask” is too big, however, you’ve made a grave mistake.

Go ahead.  Immediately ask her to come up. Immediately have a colleague your new account has never met call to solicit more sales for the company.  Immediately ask the new subscriber to take a survey.  You might get what you want.  But the relationship you worked so hard on creating is frayed forever.

So, the immediate ask works.  There’s just a fine line between one step forward and two steps back.

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The Problem with Gluten Free

Eating gluten-free will help you lose weight.  It will help you find more energy.  And it will help you wane crappy Western illnesses.

So avoiding food with gluten, like bread, is a good thing.  White or wheat.

But avoiding food with gluten does not mean seek out gluten-free products.

Gluten-free products are just that.  Products.

A giant bag of gluten-free pasta is technically gluten-free.  If you’re a marketer, why not put a gluten-free sticker on it?  It will sell better than one without.

But, will a giant bag of gluten-free pasta help you lose weight, find more energy or wane crappy Western illnesses?  Not so much.

Weird Peanut Butter

There are two kinds of peanut butter out there.  Take your pick.  No, not creamy vs chunky.  Not Skippy vs Jif.  It’s simply good vs bad.  Or as my dad likes to call it, weird peanut butter vs normal peanut butter.

Normal peanut butter, like Skippy or Jif, has a long shelf life.  It lasts because of oil hydrogenation, a process very simply illustrated here.  Hydrogenated oils cause:

  • Increase LDL (bad cholesterol)
  • Decrease HDL (good cholesterol)
  • Increase risk for heart disease, diabetes and cancer

Weird peanut butter, like Trader Joe’s brand, has a short shelf life.  It requires refrigeration.  It’s ingredients are singular: Peanuts.  And sometimes salt.  But never hydrogenated oils.

So that’s why I like weird peanut butter.

Is that so weird?