The nice thing about Restless Leg Syndrome...
Friday, March 10, 2006 at 7:25PM ...is that it provides you with that much needed boost of energy you're always looking for at midnight, regardless of whatever time you planned on getting up the next day.
I used to chalk it up to weird nerves or something, until I read--about a year ago-- about RLS and I was like... man, does that ever capture me!
It comes and goes with no rhyme or reason, as far as I can tell. Now, the big difference are drugs like Ambien.
Still, it's fun to blame it on "nerves" (whatever those are) and use the excuse to blog something fast at my mother-in-law's.
Last month has felt like a tipping point for me. It is clear that Blueprint won't be making the same first-year dash that New Map did. PR is the big driver in book sales, I find, and I'm just not the fresh new thing I was in 2004. Plus, where most reviewers could be blown away by the system-level diagnostics of PNM, as many readers have pointed out the same cannot be true of BFA because there I go supremely prescriptive, and prescriptions scare people a whole lot more than diagnoses.
But, truth be told, I knew all along I was writing BFA too fast for the market, given the scope of both. If was just that, at the time, that pathway was perfect for me in so many ways: I had all the material in hand, I had the time, it triggered the inevitable forced departure from the Naval War College and thus the government, it made Putnam happy, and I was convinced I needed the income right then (which I did) in my career. The same logic pushed me in the direction of exclusive agency relationship with Leigh Bureau (about to run out in around 60 days): I saw the writing and the speeching as essential pathways to achieving the stature and reach and income flow I needed to effect the departure from the East Coast.
And it all worked wonderfully. And I don't regret any of it whatsoever--especially writing BFA so fast on the heels of PNM. I had to write BFA so fast because I needed to get all those logic pathways down in print, lest PNM's diagnosis leave me open to too much interpretation of what such policies and strategies might logically ensue. And yes, the Vol. III option sits there, ready to roll on both the sides of my usual ledger: the profound and the mundane, or the descriptions of great visions interspersed with the details of the visioneer.
But I feel myself now tipping down such a different pathway, and I am surprised to be feeling this way so quickly.
The main change agent here is Steve DeAngelis, of course, who's shown me two things: the real reach of my work and the real capacity that exists in productizing it in high-level consulting with a host of both national security related companies (the obvious ones) and associated public sector entities (both here and among logical allies), as well as with a secondary circle of global corporations that naturally seek such content and advice (this is the bigger surprise to me).
The other serious change agent has been my speaking agent, Jennifer Posda, who, along with Steve, has shown me how my thought leadership can be translated into more than just one-off speeches.
So I find myself, right on the eve of buying this house in Indiana, now considering that my planned income streams and all the places such work will take me are potentially quite radically different than I was expecting just six months ago. Back then I imagined the public policy writer route as supreme, buttressed by speeching gigs. But now, as I go into more and more rooms arranged by Steve and Jenn, I come to see a far more exclusive yet more far reaching path that puts me less on camera and in print and more in boardrooms and in senior official settings.
Either way earns the comfortable living. I'm good at what I do and I work very hard at it. I'm just surprised to find myself riding this decent writing wave and discovering that, while I still need it, I don't really NEED IT in the way that I until very recently thought. It becomes less the driver of career choices and more just the conduit of expression.
Soon, very soon I think, I will find myself writing less to be "out there" building that persona and more just to signal what I want signaled, and the real influence I wield will be more behind closed doors than on bully pulpits.
Of course, this path dovetails nicely with the notion that you move away from the obvious path to power to take your sojourn in the real world, make your money, and then return more ready for the struggle. And perhaps that notion still works for me somewhere in my head, but I do wonder.
More and more I discover that what I say makes a whole helluva lot more sense to the private sector than to the public one--much less the silly academic crowd. I just don't have to fight for either recognition or serious consideration there, as the business world seems to get my logic from the get go, unlike all the goofy "realists" who crowd the usual bastion of public sector policy authority (My definition of a realist? A poli sci type too stupid to get international economics, the proudest "A" I ever earned.)
And that's been the big surprise for me over the past months as BFA received less approval from the cognoscenti types and suffered lower sales: meanwhile my status with practitioners in both public and private sector settings has skyrocketed. So my assumption, long held, that acceptance among those I want acceptance from most must necessarily be accompanied by a celebrity/sales status is suddenly put at risk. I find myself fearing a peaking on the public persona trajectory just as the private persona takes off.
In other words, I assumed a never-ending treadmill of chasing public approval and fame as the price for the real influence I sought, and I seemed to have already passed over into that desired influence realm with the result being little clear impetus for continuing to devote so much of my career to maintaining the public persona.
Doesn't mean I suddenly go away. It just means a new balance, one that I have been hinting at (to both myself and you) for the past few months, I guess, as it began to dawn on me what Steve and Jenn were saying was true about where I am in my career.
Vision-wise, the good news is that I feel better positioned now than ever to accomplish the global work I truly, madly, deeply believe in. I just don't know if I'll be using books, Esquire, the blog, the column in ways I had previously assumed. I don't know how to say it any better than that right now, though I wish I could.
I guess I just feel like I've been working on this cocoon thing for so damn long and so damn hard that I'm amazed to feel myself waking up as something other than the caterpillar I once was.
The past few weeks working with Steve and plotting with Jenn have really been eye-openers. I can basically make all the money I want from here on out, which immediately makes the issue of making money irrelevant (As Mr. Bernstein said in "Citizen Kane": "It's not hard to make a lot of money, when all you want to do is make a lot of money."). Other than the time and experiences it buys me and mine, I just don't find it interesting except that it makes problems that typically intrude upon my creative space simply go away.
So the real challenge comes in spotting the worthy challenges and goals presented to me by this perceived new phase in my life. I'm coming up on 44, so if I decide certain things are events or goals or achievements worth pursuing, then they better be about the best years of my adult productive life. I mean, if I want to change the world for the better, now is not the time to get shy or hesitant on the subject--just focused on the pathways.
What Steve and I are working toward right now is a very powerful package of thought leadership with attendant methodologies and technologies about which I grow ever more certain can shape some serious history on many levels. I don't think Steve shows up by accident: in the end, we both self-select each other (and ditto for wise Jenn).
I dunno. I just feel this "A Team," as Steve likes to call Enterra, simply coming together in my life. Today it is called Enterra, tomorrow it may be called something else, but I think the machinery of the core team is starting to mesh together in ever more powerful ways. I see that power, and I recognize my role in it, and it feels like I just walked into the Green Bay Packer locker room in 1960, and I can see the possibilities lying ahead.
And so one achieves that rare clarity I always associate with momentous change in my life: I see all possibilities while holding nothing sacred. I feel empowered but unencumbered. Other than the consistency of my family, all seems negotiable in a 360-degree circle around this growing A Team. We're ready to work in all directions, for all clients, for all achievements--so long as they remain true to our guiding philosophies on war, peace, prosperity, markets, individual freedom, etc.
And with that package now surrounding me, I feel myself on the verge of more creativity in coming years than in the previous half-century. The only uncertainty for me is: how much and to whom will I logically share it?
So I sit here feeling odd. I'm pretty close too abandoning the idea of trying to write Vol. III this year (and maybe ever, in the original form I imagined it), and I could definitely see curtailing the effort on articles, the blog and even speeches, becoming all more selective in those venues. All this to push ahead hard on a pathway of influence I once imagined could only happen within government and now I grow ever more convinced can only happen in the private sector.
I wonder if this is purely me and if I'm not sensing some larger shift going on for people like me? Or it is just where I am in my age range/career/family situation? Or am I going through that normal wilderness phase? Or am I catching onto something truly profound that says "yes" not only to me but to history as a whole?
Then again, maybe it's just the natural creative phasing going on: I've written my two great volumes, I've spoken just about everywhere great speakers end up speaking, and I've gotten to work my writing gears now at all levels (books, articles, columns, blogs). Maybe I built this Indiana cocoon on purpose? Maybe the next transformation comes faster than I realize.
Well, that's about as good as it will get tonight, as the Ambien creeps in. Still, this sense of tipping point feels very profound to me, and I'm betting, thanks to Steve and Jenn, that I will be valuing a whole lot of things very differently within a year.
So what does that make me in the meantime? Not so sure. Just hope it ain't cranky. Certainly it will alienate some while attracting others. It always works that way, so I learned to stop caring about that dynamic a long time ago.
But my sense is that I will be walking into many fantastic rooms in coming months and years, rooms pregnant with the potential to tilt human history.
And I know this: my posse will be one magnificent crew and we'll give it our best shots.
Reader Comments (15)
Tom is once again showing his great skill at storytelling -- this is a deeply personal post, and I appreciate his willingness to share. In the song "100 Years" by "Five for Fighting", one stanza is:
I'm 45 for a moment
The sea is high
And I'm heading into a crisis
Chasing the years of my life
Certainly no crisis is imminent for Tom, but the questions of personal worth and our contribution to the world begin to creep back into our psyche in our late 30s/40s (after sacrificing them in our early 30s to "fit in"). I'm 38 and feel like I'm becoming re-acquainted with my once-naïve "youthful idealism" -- but in a more mature manner, with a better sense of value and potential accomplishment.
What a great journey to share! Even if the tempo of dialogue may decrease in the coming months, we should all be emboldened to remember those dreams of our youth that got us started -- as Tom has shown for us here.
'prescriptions scare people a whole lot more than diagnoses'
furthermore, prescriptions are A LOT easier to disagree with. they're so much more specific. 'we're not the People's Front of Judea. we're the Judean People's Front.' 'you say potato, i say potato. let's call the whole thing off.'
Dr. Barnett,
I really believe you are on the cusp of something big .. follow your instincts and remember God gave you a simply FAB gift and you are out there using it. Keep talking in those boardrooms and to those defense people because that is how things will get changed. Glad other are listening --
Hope you do continue to blog/write somewhat -- because I wnat to keep informed of all the COOL stuff you and Enterra are doing! Us everyday Joes don't get to hear it like we should. Go ahead -- change the world!!
Thanks for all you do.
Don't give up so easily on the gov't, Tom. It's true that it's slow to change, but it is changing. Faster now than at any time since I've been in the Army. At USACAPOC where I work big changes are in the works. Are we moving fast enough? No, but it is a large ship to turn around and much of what you advocate will come to pass.
Tom,
Before you crawl into the cocoon, have at look at this:
Amy Chua sees the Gap countries have minority of population (6%) doing business (70%): masses of poor then listen to a warlord. You can see for yourself at:
http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people4/Chua/chua-con0.html
On the mundane side - a local doctor's column in our newspaper said you could deal with cramps and restless leg in bed by placing a small (hotel size) bar of soap - NOT Dial for some reason - under the bottom sheet. That seems to aleviate the midnight restless leg or muscle cramp problem while asleep.
Give it a try.
Dr. Barnett;
Please don't abandon Volume III. Maybe it doesn't fit into your path right now, but I believe that, in the next few years, you will find a very good reason to write in after all. In the meantime, how about "A compilation of the Articles of Thomas P.M. Barnett" in hardcover?
No matter how well you wow the elite, the demagogues will be there and they will twist any connectivity strategy into a pretzel if the general population hasn't absorbed the lessons you're teaching and can thus spot the con. Think about the DPW scandal writ so large and so often that the Core fractures and we go through another period of sickness and retrenchment.
General population and government education pays off in different ways than corporate influence but the private sector elite can't carry the ball in the face of the demagogues and the problem looks to be getting worse.
As you said Tom -- "Know your role in life and stick to it. Do history the favor it needs from you and remain true to your beliefs."... I have these beautiful words on my desktop... Thank you.., for your work...
I would like to post a poem in here that I love so much. It's related to the situation... Thank you..
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and bllaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowances for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look to good, nor talk to wise
If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumhp and Disaster
And treat thoes two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to,
broken
and stoop and build'em up with worn out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk them on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose,
And start again with your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart,
And nerve
And sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them:
"Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings
nor lose your common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none to much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and all that's in it,
After all that you have lived a life
worth living
Rudyard Kipling
No plans to abandon the government whatsoever. In fact, what I feel like I'm really doing is working the military-market nexus in just a super-focused fashion. You either change the mil to change the market, or you work the market to change the mil--know what I mean?
Vol. III will happen, cause it will be so fun and so easy to write. Probably all I really say on that score is that I'm not writing it this year. Gotta let I and II work themselves out in market more. Will write III in 07 and publish in 08. The more intimate prequel to the trilogy will come in 2009. The compilation of writings . .. in 2010. Somewhere in there, I probably write with Steve too. Bottom line: got plenty of books in me.
Great critical thinking. You seem to be the next Peter Drucker, and in the management of the world. And the private sector drives change/complexity far more than government. As a concerned American for the future, it would be edifying to know which politicians have read both your books, and their respective views, concurrences and comments. As we all know, it's so difficult to obtain complex answers to the complex actions/issues that you propose, it would be helpful if some serious journalist could compile important position of important politicians, even beyond Democrat/Republican, to your theses, and why. Just some thoughts
While reading BFA (which I am still in the middle of), as a manager in the private sector, I would like to see Vol. III be more of a BFA for the private/non-profit/non-gov sector in how to effectively manage the military-market nexus.
For example, after I finish BFA, I have a set of books on military logistics I am planning to study to better see the areas where private/non-profit/non-gove logistics can be better integrated with military logistics planning for a post-conflict, SysAdmin type scenario as we are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan, amongst other locations. My personal interest is in North Korea. But a more comprehensive approach like this would be great for us private sector types in identifying the inroads for working synergistically with government operations in the Gap.
I am sure all the work you are doing now will lead into this naturally, if not in Vol III.
Yo, Tom:
You seem to have a good sense of timing, of your skills, and also of what is going on around you. So not much to worry about, really.
I waited for 19 years before an opportunity arose to work an interstate banking bill through the U.S. Congress in 1994. All kinds of people had been laying the groundwork for this legislation, going all the way back to Alexander Hamilton.
My point is, given your alertness and sense of timing, there may crop up for you at any moment an opportunity to do something really big, decisive, definitive--and unexpected. A quantum leap. Maybe now, maybe 19 years from now. Stay alert. The window of opportunity opens, but it also closes mighty fast.
Good luck!
The not-so-nice thing about RLS/Ambien - watch out, Tom!
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/14/health/14sleep.html
You've helped, even for a moment, this person.