While we were stunned and saddened, my strongest Kennedy-related memories of that moment were actually formed later, through TV — especially of his son, John John, saluting the coffin as the horses pulled the caisson in front of him. Actually, the strongest memory of that day, a trigger for me, is…

Chlorine.

See, November 22, 1963 was a Friday. And on Fridays that year, I always got on a bus after school to go to swim practice in Long Beach, Long Island. So my memory of JFK is ALWAYS triggered by the smell of chlorine. ANY TIME I go to a public pool since 1963, I instantly flash back to Miss Otis tearing up in front of us, the long silent bus ride to Long Beach, and the rush of emotions related to JFK’s assassination.

Such a weird trigger, huh?

I have another: Cigars.

Any time I smell a cigar, I CANNOT just smell it… I instantly ALSO smell beer and peanuts!

Trigger: Very top row, Yankee Stadium, (nicknamed the nosebleed section) during a Giants football game. My father, who was a cop, took me to games with his cops and firemen buddies. They always smoked cigars and drank beer and, of course, I had to have peanuts.

So, now…still…EVERY TIME I smell a cigar, I also smell beer and peanuts.

Weird what our brain and senses do to us and for us!

The Associate of Magazine Editors recently selected the Top 40 Magazine Covers of the past 40 years.

Number 7 was this classic for National Lampoon in 1973.

Nowadays, maybe not too shocking. But then…OMG, shooting a dog just to sell magazines? But the writers and creatives behind National Lampoon were happy to push boundaries to get their point across. A couple years later, some of them would be writers and creatives for a fledgling show that would push the boundaries of TV — Saturday Night Live.

How will you push the envelope for your career, your passions, your projects? What would you be willing to risk? How will your ideas stand out?

Maybe it’s time to take a lesson from the very funny people behind very serious risk-taking stunts like shooting a dog.

PS: I once worked with the Art Director behind this cover, Dave Kaestle. He showed me what almost no one ever sees: the dog should be dead already! Check the hammer of the gun. It’s in the already-been-shot position. Dave said they couldn’t get the dog to look to his left until he heard the CLICK of the hammer going down. So, Dave & Crew already (kinda) killed the dog to earn the #7 spot of great magazine covers!

Everyone knows who is on this magazine cover: “The Greatest”

Most would agree with that statement now. (Who can forget the chills-down-your-spine moment [5:30 into video] when Ali was the surprise athlete to light the Olympic flame in 1996?!)

But there was a time when Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali was vilified for his refusal to be inducted into the U.S. Army because of his religious beliefs. (Ali, convicted violating the Selective Service Act, was barred from the ring and stripped of his title.)

I was reminded of this moment when the American Society of Magazine Editors named this Esquire cover, art directed by George Lois, as the Number 3 Best Magazine cover during the past 40 years. (Go here to see all 40!)

The cover shows the boxer martyred as St. Sebastian, a patron saint of athletes and one who was shot with arrows for his steadfast religious beliefs.

Rightly or wrongly, Ali took a stand for his beliefs…risking his entire career and future… And yet, in the long run, we still all know him as The Greatest.

What matters most to you? Short-term wins? Bonuses? Looking good?

Or long-term values that could possibly put those other things at risk?

There’s also “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” and “Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean” and “Be the change you want to see.”

Humankind has figured out that personal responsibility is the foundation of all positive change. And yet why is it in business — (and government and sports and, and, and) — we blame everything on the leader? Why is it that most every problem is “their” fault or “his” fault or “her” responsibility? Why is there so much “they” and so little “me”?

I recently facilitated an offsite for 50 leaders/managers from a well-known global company. Minutes before the closing session, 30 of the attendees pulled me into their private breakout session and wanted help telling the leader what she was screwing up, and had better change. OMG: A Marie Antoinette moment! In hindsight: They had a few legitimate concerns — (which, as any great leader should, their leader asked them to share, and she addressed them fully) — but mostly they wanted to play victims. They wanted someone else to take care of their problems for them, including fixing the global economy and ensuring them that none of their jobs were going to go away. (Good luck on that one.)

I see this over and over…all around the world…at high-performing and best-place-to-work companies, as well as at places where no one should work.

Yes, great leaders and great managers are crucial to engagement, happiness, and great and fulfilling work. But they’re only 50% of that mix. You, me and everyone who works owns the other 50%.

What ever happened to personal accountability? Don’t ask leaders to sweep your porch if you’re not willing to. Don’t ask leaders to solve problems you should own.

Don’t whine: Start being the change you want to see!

(Now…if only “they” would fix my taxes, my dysfunctional family, my trips through airport security, my waistline and a few other things…Life would be perfect!)

My first “mid-life” crisis hit in my late 20s. I was a graphic designer who hit it big by the time I was 24 and then…my meteoric rise stopped. Eventually, I figured out I was not gonna be the next big Milton Glaser. (Pop star in graphics world.)

Note: Author has academic degree in this change management stuff. So, until he woke up, he was selling this “resistance to change” snake oil.

Monetary cost to the US so far: $3.3 trillion. That forced one of the most powerful nations in the world to invest about $7 million for every dollar Al Qaeda invested in planning and executing the attacks. That’s one hell of an ROI.

Of course, we’re talking evil here. We should never forget what has been done to us and the toll it had on our nation, our lives and our souls.

But we can also flop the lessons learned. Turn evil power into good power.

In the world of today’s business: The small and nimble can force the powerful and mighty to completely change how they approach planning, executing, treating their workforce, satisfying their customers. The small, fast and nimble can win the noble war of doing more good for more customers and more employees than those businesses currently in power.

Information Week recently claimed, “Millennials Aren’t The Little Devils IT Imagines: Research suggests 20-somethings think highly of IT organizations and don’t flout IT conventions as often as some of us might expect.”

They cite new research by GigaOM Pro and IT support vendor Bomgar — (Warning: Go back to our headline, then look at what Bomgar does) — that suggests the Millennials have more respect for the IT organization than most of us give them credit for.

They cited that while about 80% of IT managers think Millennials’ tech expectations are very different than what they provide (…We agree!…), and up to one-third disregard corporate policies (…We found it to between one-third to two-thirds, when including all workers of all ages, an including all types of workarounds…) — yet only 10 out of 400 Millennials described their actions this way.

Duh!!!!

Does a fish describe being in water as being “different” or swimming in his own way as “disregarding Neptune’s policies”????

The data collection and interpretation still assumes a Corporate’s Way/Good, Not Corporate’s Way/Bad way of thinking.

Corporate CIOs: Your Ass is Still Grass
How about asking Millennials something like “Since childhood, is it normal and acceptable and good for you, when using any tech device, to quickly work around it if the device/system didn’t give you what you wanted immediately?”

They’d respond: “Duh. Of course. Workarounds are not ‘different.’ That’s just what we do. Whatever Corporate supplies us with will always be just a starting point. Then we take it from there.”

Also: Doesn’t it defy both logic and common sense to find that 80% of a group of people have different expectations from you than what you’re supplying…And then conclude that all is A-OK…No problems? There’s a lot more benevolent hacking going on out there than is captured by any IT vendor’s surveys!

Think long and hard about which lens you use when interpreting Millennials views and behaviors. Which lens you use could be the difference between a very engaged workforce and a very disengaged workforce.

Are you texting or gaming or talking on the phone while you’re walking on the beach? Do you take time to truly hear the rhythm of life in the fwap-fwap-fwap of the waves and hear the call of life in the seagull’s caw-caws?

Is your family dinner conversation an amazing moment filled with deep connections and meaning, or are you taking texts at the dinner table?

These are the kinds of questions MIT professor Sherry Turkle asks us to explore in her book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. (Also see here for podcast interview w/ Turkle.)

Each of us must stop and think where technology fits in our lives. It is neither good nor bad. It is our choices that make it one or the other.

Our job is to make choices. Ones that help the world and us grow. Are you making the best choices for you and others right now? Are you sure?

Here’s the full quote: “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Here’s more. Treasure it all. Crucial ideas from one of the key leaders of the 20th/21st century.