The more I grow in stature, the more time I spend getting called a complete dumbass by strangers. I say, if you want to grow up to become a celebrated grand strategist, get used to people telling you how stupid you are all the time. Of course, it would get dull only being told how smart you are all the time, but still! I had no idea how dumb I was until I got famous for being smart. Clearly, I encourage this through my accessibility, but I find it quite amusing. I mean, for a guy who gets accused of having a big ego, I leave myself awfully open to a constant stream of derision from strangers commenting from the sidelines. It reminds me of those Peyton Manning commercials where he's a "fan" cheering people on at their day jobs. I mean, how many people openly encourage such criticism from non-professionals in their field? Think about your own career. How cool would it be to get dozens of emails each day critiquing your performance at work by people who've never done what you do? Would you dig that? Or would it get kind of tiresome after a while? I'm not complaining, just observing. I understand the reality of the tasks I set for myself. I get the unusual circumstances. I just find the charge of "ego" (in most instances, a confusion with a persona people imagine they see on stage) rather odd, given my circumstances and my accessibility. Just like I find the "ivory tower" descriptions so amusing, given my non-stop travel and interaction with operators in numerous fields in a rather in-depth advising role. Blowing off steam, I guess. Enterra's just gone from a yea-big company to a many-multiples-yea-bigger-company, thanks to our landing a slew of new business in the past few days. We are now executing like mad instead of being primarily in sales mode and the shift is exciting but jarring. Be careful what you work for, I guess. I suppose it's just the reality of seeing my senior managing director role skyrocket that has me bitching about the public persona. Only so many hours in the day ...