"The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master's whiplash. (Kafka, quoted by Byung-Chul Han in his _The Nation _piece.)

Gomer contemplated quitting because he's doing a hundred things and realized that so is Luke with his Notre Dame executive degree. It's a bit much, but we are doing this to ourselves. Over and over again. My dad worked a fulltime job, volunteered with the Knights of Columbus, and was a dad. He didn't write a blog or "create content" for his tribe. He was a dad when he wasn't a credit department supervisor for Texaco's refinery division.

Side hustle culture, burnout culture, FIRE aftermath, etc. are all telling Gomer one thing: "You're burning out and you're doing this to yourself."

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• The Tiredness Virus | The Nation — In one of his aphorisms he writes: “The animal wrests the whip from its master and whips itself in order to become master, not knowing that this is only a fantasy produced by a new knot in the master’s whiplash.” This permanent self-flagellation makes us tired and, ultimately, depressed. In a certain respect, neoliberalism is based on self-flagellation.
• The Burnout Society: Han, Byung-Chul: 9780804795098: Amazon.com: Books — Byung-Chul Han interprets the spreading malaise as an inability to manage negative experiences in an age characterized by excessive positivity and the universal availability of people and goods. Stress and exhaustion are not just personal experiences, but social and historical phenomena as well. Denouncing a world in which every against-the-grain response can lead to further disempowerment, he draws on literature, philosophy, and the social and natural sciences to explore the stakes of sacrificing intermittent intellectual reflection for constant neural connection.
• The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present - Kindle edition by Han, Byung-Chul, Steuer, Daniel. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. — Untrammelled neoliberalism and the inexorable force of production have produced a 21st century crisis of community: a narcissistic cult of authenticity and mass turning-inward are among the pathologies engendered by it. We are individuals afloat in an atomised society, where the loss of the symbolic structures inherent in ritual behaviour has led to overdependence on the contingent to steer identity. 
• Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals: Hollis, Rachel: 9781400209606: Amazon.com: Books — Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself.
• Kevin Barry Reads V. S. Pritchett | The New Yorker — Kevin Barry joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “A Family Man,” by V. S. Pritchett, which was published in The New Yorker in 1977. Barry is a winner of the International Dublin Literary Award and the author of six books of fiction, most recently the story collection “That Old Country Music,” which came out in 2020.
• Amazon.com: The Read-Aloud Handbook: Seventh Edition: 9780143121602: Trelease, Jim: Books — This updated edition of The Read-Aloud Handbook discusses the benefits, the rewards, and the importance of reading aloud to children of a new generation. Supported by delightful anecdotes as well as the latest research (including the good and bad news on digital learning), The Read-Aloud Handbook offers proven techniques and strategies for helping children discover the pleasures of reading and setting them on the road to becoming lifelong readers.
• Amazon.com: The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids: 9780310350323: Mackenzie, Sarah: Books — This is a book my wife recommends to relunctant homeschooling families.

IDEATION
Wonder
Invention
ACTIVATION
Discernment
Galvanizing
IMPLEMENTATION
Enablement
Tenacity

Notes

-Luke killed a mouse, Gomer’s wife killed a scorpion, while Gomer was naked
-Take Gomer to the Woodshed: Nonviolence and the violence in protests follow-up

Gomer D.I.S.C. profile for staff, majority of which were “Stability” but the YM were “Innovative.” The YM is where you find the creatives and the envelope-pushers, but the rest of staff had the Stable personality, and so they hate change as a part of their personality. So you have a real reason why no one paints the walls or puts up beautiful artwork or challenges the status quo. Luke's experience of the “Catholic Creatives” working group where the culture screamed: New things are respected (and expected)!

Remember, each of the six types of working genius are verbs, it’s who you are and what you do. This idea of the verb really opened Luke to the process of the Working Genius as a process. Looking at these different approaches, however, really helped Luke see where he was strongest and weakest, where my strengths were, and also how Catching Foxes came together. Also, we both suck at Tenacity! (thanks for keeping us alive, Kate.)

A few examples:
**Discernment: **Sometimes the hyper-spiritualizing of “all things” leads to false action. We think “God put this on my heart” but that doesn’t mean we don’t think through the problems, or MAYBE that's just our way of smuggling in our ideas in a religious context. I mean, who's going to question God's will for your ministry?!

Galvanizing: We forget that we aren’t just speaking to the people in the pews, but to the staff! We need to galvanize the staff, inspire them, and move them. We need to minister to their needs in a way that gets them involved in a mission.

Enablement: No more victims of unvoiced expectations, or worse, shifting unvoiced expectations! Enablement is not the same as letting someone do their job description, but training, working with, feedback, coaching, etc. Help them do the right thing- connect and cooperate.

-Luke and I both suck at Tenacity!

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• Redacted Coffee: Catching Foxes listeners get 25% off their purchases by choosing their loyalty: use either promo code TeamLuke or TeamGomer at checkout. No, there isn't a limit on the number of times you can use the promo code. Yes, this is a popularity contest. Promo Code: TeamLuke, Team Gomer

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• 6 Types of Working Genius. Is Patrick Lencioni correct with the… | by Louie Rahil, MBA | ILLUMINATION | Medium — All of these six types of working genius are required to get things done in any company. None of us are good at all of them, and everyone is good at least two. In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the Six Working Genius Tool.
• The 6 Types of Working Genius w/ Patrick Lencioni - EntreLeadership Interview — The 6 Types of Working Genius w/ Patrick Lencioni
• Patrick Lencioni - The 6 Types Of Working Genius | The Learning leader Show w/ Ryan Hawk - YouTube — What is a "Working Genius?” – There are 6 different types, and we all have two of them that are natural to us, that we're good at doing them, and we get energy, joy, and satisfaction from them. What about the other 4 areas? – 2 of them are Working Frustrations that drain us of our energy and passion, and in many cases, we’re not very good at them; and 2 other areas that are in between called Working Competencies, areas that we can do pretty well, maybe even really well, but that don’t necessarily give us energy or joy.
• Home | The 6 Types of Working Genius — Far too many people in the world suffer needlessly because they don't understand their personal areas of working genius. As a result, they don't do the kind of work that gives them joy and energy, and they end up in jobs and projects that are draining and demoralizing. This is a grave tragedy on two levels. First, it leads those people to lose confidence in themselves and enthusiasm for life, which is devastating for them, their families and friends, and society as a whole. That alone is heartbreaking. Second, organizations and teams–even families–that don't tap into the true genius of their members can't come close to realizing their potential. They are left puzzled by their inability to achieve their goals. This often leads them to make inaccurate and hurtful judgements about one another, and to feel unnecessarily guilty about their own shortcomings. What makes all of this particularly tragic is that it is avoidable. The solution is for everyone–employees, managers, students and spouses–to identify their areas of working genius, as well as their areas of life-draining weakness, and to put themselves in a position to tap into their genius more and engage in their weakness less. That is what this assessment is all about.
• ‎The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni on Apple Podcasts — What is your Working Genius? The Working Genius podcast is designed to help people identify their natural gifts and find joy and fulfillment in their work and life.
• Working Genius Assessment for $25

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• 22 signs it's time to quit your job — We've all had bad days at the office. Maybe even a bad week or two. But if you can't remember the last good day you've had at work, it might be time to seriously consider quitting.
• How Netflix Reinvented HR — Sheryl Sandberg has called it one of the most important documents ever to come out of Silicon Valley. It’s been viewed more than 5 million times on the web. But when Reed Hastings and I (along with some colleagues) wrote a PowerPoint deck explaining how we shaped the culture and motivated performance at Netflix, where Hastings is CEO and I was chief talent officer from 1998 to 2012, we had no idea it would go viral. We realized that some of the talent management ideas we’d pioneered, such as the concept that workers should be allowed to take whatever vacation time they feel is appropriate, had been seen as a little crazy (at least until other companies started adopting them). But we were surprised that an unadorned set of 127 slides—no music, no animation—would become so influential.
• What It Means to Work Here — It’s the HR equivalent of keeping up with the Joneses: In their quest to find and retain top talent, businesses often try to match competitors’ offers, ensuring that their compensation schemes, health care benefits, training programs, and other talent-management practices are in line with the rest of the industry’s. While this strategy may be useful for bringing job candidates to the door, it’s not necessarily the most effective way to usher the right people across the threshold—great employees who will be enthusiastic about their work and fiercely loyal to the organization and its mission.

Also, Gomer is now a boss and Luke wonders if I can make my employees virtuous.

Gomer doubts it.

END PART ONE.

Part Two is all about us screaming at each other for 1.5 hours over the concept of a just or living wage. It's hilarious at how stupid it is.

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• Fiona Apple Criminal Song Controversy — Apple was trying to say that perfect isn’t the only way to be beautiful, even in a music video which, on its surface, looked to be saying the exact opposite. She wanted to convey a message of body positivity and she wanted girls to see that message. It’s what she meant when she took the stage at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards to accept her Best New Artist statue and told everyone watching: “This world is bullshit.” Not a lot of people got it. She was labeled a bratty, ungrateful weirdo.
• Fiona Apple Pledges Two Years of ‘Criminal’ Royalties to Refugees – Rolling Stone — Fiona Apple is donating the 2019 and 2020 earnings from TV and movie placements of her song “Criminal” to the While They Wait fund, which assists refugees with basic necessities, immigration fees and legal services.
• Hot 100: Billboard Hits of the 1990s | Billboard — The '90s were full of world-conquering ballads, the stuff of future American Idol performances: Toni Braxton's "Unbreak My Heart," Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You," Sinead O'Connor's "Nothing Compares 2 U." Not surprisingly, in a world where ballads of epic proportion were king, Boyz II Men had a major presence on the Hot 100. They decade-end top 20 twice on their own, and once with assistance from Mariah Carey.
• Paul Williams | Muppet Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia — Some of his most famous compositions include "We've Only Just Begun," "An Old Fashioned Love Song," "I Won't Last a Day Without You," "Nice to Be Around," "You and Me Against the World," "Sad Song", "Evergreen" (which earned Williams an Academy Award), "Rainy Days and Mondays", and "Rainbow Connection" (which earned Williams an Academy Award nomination).
• Dolly Parton - Jolene (33rpm slowed down digital version) - YouTube — Dolly Parton - Jolene (33rpm slowed down digital version)
• Dolly Parton - I Will Always Love You - 1974 - YouTube — Whitney's version makes your knees weak and gives you goosebumps Dolly's version makes you break down and cry like a baby
• David Frizzell & Gene Watson Long Black Veil - YouTube — David Frizzell & Gene Watson Long Black Veil
• Con Calma - Daddy Yankee & Snow (Lyrics) 🎵 - YouTube — Con Calma - Daddy Yankee & Snow (Lyrics) 🎵
• Saturn Car Commercial 1991 - YouTube — Saturn Car Commercial 1991
• Saturn: One Car at a Time - YouTube — Saturn: One Car at a Time Just in Time manufacturing...
• Engine Fires Prompt G.M. to Issue Recall Of 80% of Saturns - The New York Times — The Saturn Corporation, General Motors' effort to compete against inexpensive Japanese imports in both quality and price, is voluntarily recalling 80 percent of all cars it has ever made to address an electrical problem that has caused engines in at least 34 Saturns to catch fire.

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• Liturgical Institute Summer Program — At The Liturgical Institute, you’ll find a positive, joyful and faithful approach to praying and studying the Church’s liturgy. Maybe it’s the friendly nature of our students, faculty, and staff, the pastoral setting of the campus and its beautiful architecture, or the ease with which the Tradition and magisterial teaching of the Church are integrated into a curriculum firmly rooted in the ideals of the Second Vatican Council. Perhaps it’s the sung Mass and Liturgy of the Hours, the field trips, the meals and impromptu discussions, and high quality of instructors and visiting speakers. There’s a remarkable experience to be found at The Liturgical Institute, one which will help refresh your soul and renew the Church.
• The Singularity is Near » Homepage — The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity.
• Amazon.com: Robopocalypse: A Novel (9780385533850): Daniel H. Wilson: Books — They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies…Now they’re coming for you. In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.
• Quitter: Closing the Gap Between Your Day Job & Your Dream Job: Jon Acuff: 9780982986271: Amazon.com: Books — From figuring out what your dream is to quitting in a way that exponentially increases your chance of success, Quitter is full of inspiring stories and actionable advice. This book is based on 12 years of cubicle living and my true story of cultivating a dream job that changed my life and the world in the process. It’s time to close the gap between your day job and your dream job. It’s time to be a quitter.

Luke tells me grace builds upon nature, again, but then he says that's why parishes need to study how to run successful non-profits. Wait a second. Hold on a minute. Didn't Luke pour haterade on everything I said in the past that involved similar suggestions? We yell.

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• VIA Catholic — VIA is a way of life that is joy -- a boundless horizon. Our initiatives extend a personal invitation for youth, youth ministers, campus ministers, coaches and athletes to seek the face of Christ in the life of the Catholic Church. They are opportunities to enter into a journey marked by companionship that shapes the way we live our lives and carry out ministry. VIA is movement.
• Youth Evangelization and Discipleship | Archdiocese of Cincinnati — We seek  the face of Christ in the life of the Catholic Church and bear witness – inviting youth to join on the Way.
• VIA Missionaries — VIA Catholic — THE VIA MISSIONARY INITIATIVE  As VIA is a movement of the Holy Spirit at work in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, we are looking for a unique gift of self from our missionaries. These individuals answer the call to serve the youth of the Archdiocese by radically living out the mission of VIA as part of a community seeking the face of Christ in the life of the Catholic Church and bearing witness -- inviting youth to join on the Way.
• Catholic Young Adult Liturgy Conference — During this weekend you will participate in five fun and challenging classroom lectures with Liturgical Institute faculty members, plus a special evening presentation called “Drinking With the Saints,” which includes a "liturgical" cocktail tasting. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry will join us for Sunday Mass with the beautiful music of the Liturgical Institute schola, after which he will speak on the value of liturgical tradition. Each day will be enriched by sung Mass and chanted Liturgy of the Hours, and your room and all your meals are included in the registration fee.

We discuss the myth of overwork, thinking that working hard and working a lot are the same thing. Read the links for some amazing content on everything we discussed today, including to the lyrics of some sweet songs.

Gomer shares the disgust he has with himself for overbooking his October/November schedule, every weekend for 7 weekends in a row.

Luke then talks about one of his heroes, Louis CK, and what it means for him in the wake of the accusations against him. What about the victims? What about the problem of empathy? What does these sexual assaults teach us about the cross of Christ?

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• How to Beat the Burnout Culture - Michael Hyatt — In today’s job world, burnout is a constant threat. Email and smartphones keep us constantly connected. Worse still, we lionize leaders who never rest. Famous CEOs tout 80-hour workweeks and we wear busyness like a badge of honor. Join us to discover the causes of our overwork obsession—and its cure.
• Elon Musk and the 100 Hour Error - Michael Hyatt — In an 2010 interview, Musk ...explained, “If other people are putting in 40-hour workweeks and you’re putting in 100-hour workweeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing … you will achieve in four months what it takes them a year to achieve.” That’s perfectly good advice. For a robot.
• Why do we work so hard? | 1843 — What is less clear to me, and to so many of my peers, is whether we should do so much of it.
• "The Employee Burnout Crisis: Study Reveals Big Workplace Challenge in 2017" — The biggest threat to building an engaged workforce in 2017 is employee burnout. The newest study in the Employee Engagement Series conducted by Kronos Incorporated and Future Workplace® found 95 percent of human resource leaders admit employee burnout is sabotaging workforce retention, yet there is no obvious solution on the horizon.
• 9 Millennials Share What Work-Life Balance Means To Them — "For me, it’s not so much about work-life balance as it is work-life integration. I’m not driven by the prospect of working hard for the next 30 years to retire one day. I’m building a lifestyle and a career that I’d be happy to maintain for the rest of my life. So earlier this month that meant working from my laptop in the mountains of Colombia.  
• Disarming Beauty: Essays on Faith, Truth, and Freedom — In 2005, Father Julián Carrón became the leader of the global ecclesial movement Communion and Liberation. Disarming Beauty is a collection of essays by one of the principal Catholic leaders and intellectuals in the world today...They present the content of his elaboration of the gospel message in light of the tradition of Fr. Giussani, the teachings of the popes, and the urgent needs of contemporary people.
• ‘If you don’t think Francis is the cure, you don’t grasp the disease,’ CL head says - Articles — Although some Catholics, especially the more conservative sort, often find Pope Francis a bit of a shock to the system, the leader of the Church's influential Communion and Liberation movement says that if you don't think this pontiff is the cure, then you don't understand the nature of the disease we're facing in a post-modern, secular world.
• Blindside - "About A Burning Fire" — It hurts, That drops of fire would fall so precise, And how everything else would lose its meaning. What a beautiful, What a painful surprise. There is no peace outside if there is nothing within. It hurts, But like coming home, Once dried up. I guess this is what you get When a heart expands.
• Blindside - "Silence" — "They won't see the fire You have lit inside of me. They look up to the stars and wonder where You might be. They look up, without realizing they're standing in the palm of Your hand. I cannot explain or understand. I just love You."
• Professor gives TEDx Talk about why TED Talks don't work. — TED talks are plagued by oversimplification and hobbled by their reliance on factors like a presenter's likability. He says that TED talks are "making our best and brightest waste their time—and the audience's time—dancing like infomercial hosts."
• Louis CK in the New York Times: "These Stories Are True" :: Comedy :: News :: Louis CK :: Paste — I want to address the stories told to The New York Times by five women named Abby, Rebecca, Dana, Julia who felt able to name themselves and one who did not. These stories are true. At the time, I said to myself that what I did was O.K. because I never showed a woman my dick without asking first, which is also true. But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your dick isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women is that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them. And run from them.
• Sarah Silverman Speaks on Louis C.K.: ‘Can You Love Someone Who Did Bad Things?’ - The New York Times — “I love Louie,” she said, “but Louie did these things. Both of those statements are true. So, I just keep asking myself, can you love someone who did bad things? Can you still love them? I can mull that over later, certainly, because the only people that matter right now are the victims. They are victims, and they’re victims because of something he did.”
• On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein (3rd Volume): Edith Stein, Waltraut Stein: 9780935216110: Amazon.com: Books — Early in Edith Stein's philosophical output stands her doctoral dissertation defended in 1916 at Freiburg-im-Breisgau. On the Problem of Empathy is the fruit of several years' work with the founder of phenomenology and the director of the dissertation itself, Edmund Husserl.
• "Magical, Mystical Negro Stereotype" Yale Bulletin and Calendar — But this new image is just a reincarnation of "the same old" stereotype or caricature of African Americans as the "noble savage" or the "happy slave" that has been presented in film and on television for decades, contended Lee...Noting that "The Legend of Bagger Vance" takes place in Depression-era Georgia, a time when lynching of blacks in the South was commonplace, Lee stated, incredulously, "Blacks are getting lynched left and right, and [Bagger Vance is] more concerned about improving Matt Damon's golf swing!
• Magical Negro Fight - Key and Peele | Comedy Central — KEY AND PEELE MAGICAL NEGRO FIGHT ClipSeason 1 Ep 52/28/2012 Two wise black men butt heads when it becomes apparent that they're both offering advice to the same white guy.