Skip to main content

Le Tour De France


In one of the single, greatest, individual efforts in all of sports, Floyd Landis overcame what should have been an insurmountable deficit to pull himself into third place in this year's Tour de France. He failed miserably the day before and then made up for it through willpower and determination. He will probably win. But that is not the story.

The story is that Americans had no idea. While it made front page headlines across Europe, Australia, and Africa, it was on page thirteen of the sports section in the local, metropolitan newspaper.

While bicycle racing is one of the less popular sports here in the States, the Tour de France is consistently one of the top two sporting events in the world each year. This year, its attendance and viewership were eclipsed only by the dramatic World Cup.

Take a chance to recognize greatness, even if it is outside the boundaries of daily life. Floyd Landis' legendary effort has already been forgotten by the mainstream, even though it will be remembered for decades by the spectators, commentators, and pundits.

There is someone out there, right now, inventing the next big thing, something that will change everything without an obvious connection to the big thing it will completely revolutionize. Remember that Henry Ford fellow?

Keep an eye on interests outside your industry, your world view, and your comfort zone. Perspective is always a good investment.


Popular posts from this blog

Small Enough To Be Hugely Successful

For centuries, putting something on paper (disk, etc.) and distributing it has been exclusive to huge media companies. Anyone can create a website or a start a dry cleaner, but publishing has been traditionally dominated by gigantic media houses. No more. Along comes Lulu and enables anybody to publish a book. A real book - with hearty paper, professional covers, and a listing in the Library Of Congress ! One at a time, they turn them out. For less than the price of a DVD player you can even have your book distributed through the same mainstream channels from which companies such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon buy their inventory. The book certainly will not market itself, but it is definitely there in front of decision makers where it would never have been otherwise. Lulu has turned an entire industry on its ear by giving power back to creators and customers, alike. For industries like pharmaceuticals, where huge companies took the power of independent pharmacies , the pend
Read more

What You See (Part 1)

When a camera takes in an image, it is objective and records what comes through its lens, without bias, not giving preference to one piece of information over another. The brown book sitting on the shelf is as important to the camera as the red fingernail raised toward the sky. When the brain takes in an image, it receives 400,000,000,000 bits of information each second, but only processes 2,000 of those bits because the brain has a network of neurons that has been trained to use associations, both of objections and of familiarity, to sort information into quickly usable portions of fuel for decision making. When watching a movie, is the focus on the streetlight in the background or the exploding truck in the foreground? The camera makes no separation between one bit of light and another, but the brain does.
Read more