Imagine my surprise as I stumbled across this sign near a spectators’ area at my son’s cross-country invitational meet outside Montpelier, Vermont this weekend:
Anyway, I poked around a little more and, for the life of me, couldn’t find any “Keep Out Italian-Americans!!!!” signs, so, eh…no skin off my back, right?
Steve Rizzo is an author (Becoming a Humor Being) and motivational speaker whose early career was as a nationally-known stand-up comedian, touring with Jerry Seinfeld, Drew Carey and others; over the years, he’s appeared on Showtime, The Comedy Channel, and Fox Television’s Comedy Strip Live. He’s also served as a consultant to MSNBC and the Oprah and Friends radio network.
Steve’s next book, due out in 2009, is Rizzo’s Heroes: Leadership Secrets from Around the World.
For some baffling, godforsaken reason, he decided he wanted to interview me for the book and an accompanying audio/CD project. Yeah, I know, go figure.
Anyhow, the audio interview is now available on Steve’s website. We chat about the role fun and passion play in success and happiness at work and life, and I attempt a lame joke or two. You may find my thoughts mildly interesting. Or incredibly annoying.
To listen, simply follow this link:
Steve Rizzo Interview with Joe Fusco (link broken; see update, below)
Coincidentally, Steve was profiled and interviewed on CNBC last week (The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch) with Erin Brockovich and Paul Stanley of KISS fame; all three were voted “Least Likely to Succeed” in high school, but are now obviously enjoying successful careers.
Involving moi in your book project, however…c’mon, just how bright can he really be?
I subscribe to Dictionary.com’s “Word of the Day” because, as the folks at the Reader’s Digest used to say, it pays to enrich your word power.
Each daily email features a word, ranging from those we use every day to, more often than not, those that only the biggest boobs among us work hard to slip into normal conversation — say, like deipnosophist. Along with a definition, or definitions, and some examples of usage, you can learn the origin of the word.
It is this latter feature that interests me the most. First, it is fascinating to see that no language is an island, and English in particular has been pollinated with ideas, concepts and words from Greek to Old Norse.
Second, every language has its own DNA visible through its origins, and is itself a form of DNA woven through our culture and history — in many ways, forming the building blocks of who we are and how we think. Sometimes the origin of a word, which often exposes the thought processes of the ancients who developed it, is more enlightening and meaningful than the word we are left with today.
Pusillanimous, which flitted into my inbox a few days ago, is one of those words.
It means “cowardly” or “lacking in courage or conviction.” But, as you can see, it is not a word most of us trot out on a daily basis.
Instead, the origin of the word is a more beautiful, elegantly simple definition of the concept of cowardice. It comes from two Latin words — pusillus, meaning “very small, or tiny;” and animus, meaning “soul.”
“Tiny soul.” Doesn’t that perfectly illuminate what a lack of courage truly is?
I had to take Her Majesty the Hotness to the dealer for service last week. She had developed this annoying little habit of pulling sharply to the right at high RPMs when the accelerator was punched, and then lurching back to the left when stepping off the accelerator. Pretty disconcerting at, ahem, 100 miles per hour.
I braced for the worst.
The verdict? Turns out the right rear tire was just a few pounds of pressure less than the left rear tire. Apparently, in high-torque, high-revving (and, apparently high-strung and temperamental) rear-wheel drive autos, this minor pressure difference affects performance significantly. In Formula One and NASCAR vehicles, it often sends them into the wall.
Well, at least I was out only thirty bucks. Good girl…
We did get a little bit of a surprise, however.
When shipped from the factory, temporary spacers are installed in the springs of the car’s suspension to avoid wear-and-tear during transit. Babycakes never had her’s removed by the original dealer!
The car was always exceptionally stiff, which I always ascribed to the intentional design and engineering of her species as a torsionally rigid street racer built to hold fast turns and curves tight. But she was always particularly teeth-rattling on rough roads and railroad crossings, and just a few hours in the cockpit left you exhausted with the beginnings of a headache.
Now we know why.
Anyway, she rides like a different car — softer, sweeter and more liquid — yet still aggressively edgy and stiff where it counts, which is in the frame, not the suspension.
In return, last night she gave me one of those happy-to-be-alive-aren’t-I-lucky-to-live-in-Vermont evenings. Clear and crisp, where every color seems more vivid, the air more nourishing, and your fellow humans less annoying than usual. We made a loop around Lake Dunmore and then straight home.
Tonight, she gets a bath.
I’ve been sitting on some personal news, but I think I’d like to share it now.
About three months ago, I was asked to serve as a fellow of the Bell Leadership Institute in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. For me this is the equivalent, if I were ten years old, of being asked to join the New York Yankees. I am the first person to be asked to serve the Institute in this capacity.
I was given this honor directly by Dr. Gerald Bell, a world-class thinker, writer and teacher on the subject of individual and organizational leadership mastery. He has helped hundreds of thousands of business and organizational leaders around the world become not only better, more effective human beings, but to make the lives of those around them better and more productive as well. Meeting and learning from him has been one of the greatest blessings of my personal and professional life.
For me, the great thrill is the opportunity to work simultaneously in two capacities — first, in my current position as an executive engaged in the daily lives and challenges of working managers. And second, being able to work and learn from Dr. Bell, developing both a deeper understanding of great leadership, and the ability to teach, coach, encourage and build great leaders.
