AnOuncePodcast

What happened? How did Brailsford turn things around for the British Cycling Team such that a very marginal group of blokes on bikes progressed to true and legitimate competitors. And then to the topping of the cycling throne? In a word – he didn’t do much. Also See: https://hbr.org/2015/10/how-1-performance-improvements-led-to-olympic-gold https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/oct/20/marginal-gains-tarnished-bradley-wiggins-dave-brailsford The Odd mechanics of 1 % gains https://www.limelight.consulting/hub/articles/principle-of-marginal-gains-coach-improves-everything-by-one-percent https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/23/how-to-be-mentally-tough-use-the-1percent-marginal-gains-rule-says-performance-expert.html

Have you ever experienced one of those tender moments that hit you right in the “feels” - as they say. A time when great love, compassion, care, or concern just grabs your heart. On occasion that feeling tickles your eyes, and tears escape. You might even notice a glow, or a sense of stepping out of time for a moment. There is an expression that describes it well – and there is a reality of the human anatomy that ties the emotional and the physical together. Stick around for a few minutes and I will let you in on it.

Have you ever been in one of those situations? You know… You are trying to get somewhere, or accomplish a task, or find an answer … and you just feel lost, or blind. So, you stop and look for help. You try to comprehend where you are, and how to get where you need to be. But all you learn is that you can not remain where you are. So, you just keep pressing forward (or pressing in the direction that seems like forward) with no idea if you’ll find what you are looking for. This analogous story explores that situation. It is set in the mid 1800’s. A simple farmer was trying to get home on a January evening. Dark seemed to come on earlier than normal. The sky was dim and hazy, and there was a cold bite in the air. Gratefully he was dressed for the cold, but he worried that his family might be getting low on wood for the old cook stove they used to heat their 2-room house.

Have you ever noticed someone who just looks very different? Maybe it’s a noticeable scar, or strange hair color, or that they are just really out of place, or odd. Worse yet, have you paid attention to the proclamation of some ‘authoritative expert’ that a particular physical attribute is a true sign of beauty? … Then looked in the mirror to see if you possess it? Or worse, done the mirror check to look for what someone else told you was unattractive. Our society has moved to a point where folks are constantly comparing themselves to the standard that they are convinced represents real beauty and attractiveness - and finding themselves unable to measure up to that ideal. So, needlessly, they opt for surgery, or spend huge amounts of time and money trying to get that look. Today, this unreasonable concern that we might be unattractive is causing serious issues for our mental wellbeing, by convincing people they are ugly – or that everyone thinks they are ugly, not worthy, or alone because of that. It is so bad that some see no other way out but to take their own lives. In the mid 1980s, Robert Kleck, along with several others, preformed a tightly controlled – and truly revealing - experiment. If you want to find documentation the results of the experiment were printed in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, in 1985, volume 3, issue 3, and titled: Gender and Responses to Disfigurement in Self and Others. What we can pull from this simple but ingenious experiment is truly illuminating.

At 3:15 PM on January 26th, 1972, fight 367, a DC-9, took off from Copenhagen. About 45 minutes later, everything changed for the 28 passengers and crew. Vesna Vulovik (Vez-nah Vah-low-vek) was in a place she wasn’t intended to be. But her employer got her mixed up with a different Vesna on the roster. She could have declined the assignment from JAT Airways, the Yugoslavian State airline, where she worked as a flight attendant. But, Vesna Vulovik decided to take the mistaken assignment, as she was excited to travel Denmark (a place she had not been before). And with a long layover before the return flight, there would be time to see the sights. Something the 23-year single girl could really enjoy. On January 26th, 1972, Vesna Vulovik boarded flight 367 with her associates and prepared to fly home - - and missed her last chance to be somewhere else.

There are a few songs that have lyrics that nobody seems to be able to decipher. Louie Louie, as released by the Kingsmen in 1963, is amongst them. And, you might be surprised to find out just how ridiculously far efforts to find their meanings have gone. Yes, there are those songs that have a word or two, here or there, that you can’t quite figure out. And, there are those where you can understand every word – but the message is an enigma. Even when super fans can tell you, they know what the words Truly mean. Perhaps the meaning is known only to the composer – or maybe, there is no logic to them– they are words, or sounds, that fit together. And then – there are those where the artist mushes up all the words and phrases so much, you can’t be sure they are speaking words.

There are times when people are faced with very difficult problems. And the way they choose to deal with their challenges provide lessons for us to learn from. In this true story, you’ll learn a laudable lesson from our history from a lesser-known moment during the War of 1812. The people of the Town of (lue-uhs), spelled Lewes, Delaware, found themselves in quite a pickle. It was April 6th, 1813. A sizeable British flotilla arrived off the coast. They dropped anchor and fired 2 shots over the town – Just to get everyone’s attention. Shortly after their demonstration of firepower, one of the ships launched a skiff. And, under a white flag, several British officers came ashore – to - talk. They had a message from Commodore James Beresford, the commanding officer of the flotilla. His pronouncement was pretty simple and succinct. “We will blast your town to pieces and kill everyone in it, unless you provide us with supplies”.

Though 461 officers and crew survived, 58 were lost. Only four of the dead were recovered and identified – 54 remain with the ship. But there lies within that grave that is the USS Utah, one more set of remains. On December 7th, 1941, at around 8 AM the USS Utah was moored at Ford Island in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese were able to get direct hits on the Utah with 2 torpedoes’. The ship immediately experienced heavy flooding, began to settle to the stern, and list. The crew was forced to abandon ship and swim for the shore. At 12 minutes after 8 the ship rolled over.

On occasion, you have to make a choice – and the options are all bad. Sometimes this is because you have gotten yourself into a mess – other times the mess finds you. And there are situations when it doesn’t really matter – all heck just breaks loose. What do you do when the only choices left... are bad ones? Learn the secret that a NASA test pilot used to survive, when all heck broke loose on a record-breaking flight.

Learn how this beautiful antique fire truck, manufactured in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1955 did something no other truck could do. It happened at the pentagon following the September 11th Attacks. This Mack model B-85 was a ladder truck and was of course the classic red. It was built with an extendable ladder that reached 85 feet into the air, mounted at the center of the body. Like any classy red vehicle from the 1950s – it was, of course, a convertible! And to offset it’s bright red color, the truck had silver chrome bumpers, shiny silver chrome sirens, an old-fashioned signal bell mounted at the left front, and red lights all around. It is the kind of rig you could easily imagine dashing to the rescue with a Dalmatian in the center seat, lights flashing, sirens blaring, with firefighters hanging off the back.

Every once in a while, a critical event occurs. Something happens, and the possible outcomes are thrown into the air to decide how history will be written. It was December 13, 1931. Having been invited for a late visit, a British gentleman was traveling by cab to an old friend’s New York apartment. It was about 10:30, the streets were wet, and the traffic light – at least for New York. He found himself halfway across the street and noticed a set of headlights approaching from the right. Thinking like a Brit, he instinctively believed he was in the clear, and expecting the car to pass behind him. Without a second thought, he continued across the street, stepping forward - directly into the path of the oncoming car. There was a sudden, violent jarring impact across his thighs and forehead. Then, after flying through the air for a moment, he found himself on the ground, in a heap, and unable to move.

5 Decades ago a man-made object was propelled through the atmosphere, to who knows where, faster than any other article – ever. This thing was traveling so rapidly, nobody even saw it go, and nobody knows wear it is now. Might be somewhere here on earth, might be in orbit, might even be on its merry way though the cosmos like the voyager space probes – But it’s not communicating to anyone where it’s going – or if it will ever come back. What is this thing? You might ask.