You know that guy Mayhem, the die laughing character on those Allstate insurance commercials? In “real life” he plays himself (aka – Dean Winters). He also plays a bunch of other edgy characters on TV and in movies.
I was just thinking he’s got to be a hoot to hang out with.
Can you imagine what he was like in college?
Did you have any friends like him when you were in school? I had one or two who were close… but no Mayhem.
I discovered this other guy on LinkedIn a few months back. His name is Bruce Kasanoff, a social media ghostwriter. I’m sure he gets all kinds of judgmental comments over that career choice.
C’mon, the guy is fiftysomething… couldn’t he have made a more responsible career choice?
Bruce is also the LinkedIn Influencer you’ve never heard about; possibly the lack of notoriety is due to that ghostwriter thing. (Most of the designated Influencers are household names like Richard Branson and Brené Brown).
Hang tight, I’m going to tie this together…
I’m not saying Bruce is anything like Mayhem, but I’ll still bet he was loads of fun in college.
If you look at the thumbnail photo on his About page, you’ll see a cat-who-ate-the-hamster grin that says only one possible thing… “Who are you lookin’ at? I didn’t do anything.” *
What I like about Bruce is he has a way of telling it like it is without offending. As an example, in a recent post he explains that from his view…
You only have three choices:
1. Be boring, just like the person who is boring you right now. (Hey, wait just a minute!)
2. Hide for the rest of your career, and never give a public presentation. (Hint: this is not a great career move.)
3. Be different, provocative, attention-grabbing, and unpredictable.
Number 3 is the link back to Mayhem… who is clearly epitomizes all four. He outright owns them. Maybe not in a manner we should strive to emulate… however, all of those attributes would help us all stay clear of Numbers 1 and 2.
I’ll go out on a limb here and say most of us would be okay with that.
Here’s how it seems to work, though. Straight out of the chute in this life, we’re taught to be curious. Self-expression is encouraged. Creativity is encouraged. You can BE anything and you can DO anything. AND, you even get to pick! How cool is all that?
Then somewhere along the line, maybe when things start to “get a little out of hand,” or when it’s time for our introduction to “real life” it all starts to change.
Just when life is getting good, we’re introduced to a long-standing tradition that messes it all up.
Some of us, like Mayhem, choose to rebel.
The rest of us fall in line like the good soldiers we were carefully molded into being. We follow more reasonable pursuits… take the safer route at every fork in the road.
Okay, okay, possibly Mayhem isn’t the best role model. In the latest edition of the Allstate commercial series, he’s a car thief. So, let’s definitely not use that part of the metaphor. Not a good career choice.
Pondering it some more, Mayhem sure takes some punishment in those commercials. Maybe we don’t use those parts either.
Let’s try this instead… Resist the ordinary. Don’t skip the good parts. Allow yourself some due reward for your efforts.
So, let me try to real-life bottom-line it… (oh, we like that part up front do we?)
When you find yourself waist deep in spreadsheets and PowerPoints… ask yourself, “What would Mayhem do?”
Then dial-it back enough to avoid taking a serious beating or ending up in the slammer. You’ll be good right there.
Be untucked.
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*You can go to http://kasanoff(dot)com/bio (not a secure link)
Copyright © 2019 Jeff Meister
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