Wow! Hard to believe it's finally over because it was so much fun and so rewarding as an author to spend that much time discussing your books in depth.
But tonight Hugh and I taped the final two "hours" (roughly 38 mins each) of his series on Great Powers, giving us a total of eight hours total on GP to go along with the 9 hours total on PNM.
Performed well in the first hour. Got a bit tired in the second, losing my place once (question on growing the US: I started on Europe and completely lost track of question, wandered around a bit, and never got back to U.S.), which isn't too bad (but always embarrassingly--as in, how can you forget the question!?).
Isn't that an amazing volume? 17 hours to discuss two books. And I mean, it's not just having an author on to comment on current events. We really did not talk current events across these 17 hours, but really focused on PNM and GP.
Hugh runs the last two hours tomorrow in sequence on his show.
I will miss the interaction, but we may link up in the future. It was a great interaction, and I really thank Hugh for the effort and the time AND the exposure.
I plan on keeping the Hewitt button up for the long haul, and Sean will make that button link to all 17 hours (from early 2007 and this past two months--to include all the transcripts). It is an incredibly legacy and worth promoting, because if you want to know what I'm about and what I'm pushing in terms of vision, the easiest route is simply to listen to the 17 episodes.
Only downside to this event? I really do feel like, now, almost nine weeks later, I'm basically done on promoting GP.
And you feel a little lost with that sensation. Of course, I will keep promoting it in the brief for months and years (as the brief evolves), but this is like the end of a long-term relationship: this book has dominated my agenda now for about a year and a half.
So now what?
That question is more complex than it seems. I have long forged the dual businessman/thought leadership tracks, and now, with the speaking market so down (very sensitive to the downturn), I wonder if I'm not on the cusp of significant change. Enterra keeps booming; I could easily get swallowed into that and feel very positive about it, in large part because it's very exciting working with Steve DeAngelis and because I really do find the grand strategy nexus located there more than I do with the military or government at this point in history. Plus, with Steve, I get to be the quieter one, as I play the more taciturn Penn to his voluble Gillette. I get to think more and be less the constant broadcast source. After the long drain of a book, that's very appealing.
But then there's the larger question of evolution: do I want to keep blogging so much, writing so much in general, doing Esquire and the column and all the speaking. It is exhausting a lot of the time; you wonder how many years you will do it before you just say, enough, and transition to the next thing. There are so many careers out there worth having, that I don't fear such transitions. I look at life as a sequence of opportunities, and frankly, I sometimes wonder if I've run this one to ground: played all the venues I've wanted to play, delivered all the talks I want to deliver, done the media experiences as much as they interest me, and so on.
At times like this, I get Joaquin Phoenix: you did the thing for a while, and you did well. Who says you have to do it forever on that basis? Because the longer you do that thing, the more you feel like it's all you can do.
And so I start thinking about what consumes me next. The dual track has served Enterra well, but I do sense some sort of evolution coming on. In that role as senior managing director, I have to figure out the best package going forward--the best combination I bring to the table.
To be less ambitious in this unprecedented global churn would feel like wasting the opportunity for reinvention. Steve is in high gear right now. The question is, How best to capitalize on all this?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 12:16PM 
