Welcome back to The Real Brian Show! We'd like to invite you back to our room in this episode to see the view, if you know what we mean. Don't know what we mean? Well, then it's good we brought Martin (aka The Flash) back.
I'll let Brian and Martin share the full story of where this line became a comedic staple of our friendship, but it falls into the category of not realizing what you've said until after you've said it! Witty banter and friendly jabbing requires a healthy dose of euphemisms and double entendres. If I'm not mistaken, we stumbled into this particular double entendre at DragonCon with the second guest of this episode, Martin (aka The Flash). It was a memorable weekend and lives on through the inside jokes we carefully cultivated.
Over the last several years, many of the best friendship I've developed have been as a result of podcasting. We've had Martin guest host on The Real Brian Show before, but the first time we ever got to chat with him was way back on The Flash podcast Brian and I hosted for a half-season at Golden Spiral Media. Martin, being a pretty big Flash fan himself, was an expert witness in our ramp-up episodes. Prior to that, Martin became a huge part of the TV Talk community by providing regular contributions to the shows he watched and listened to and it's been amazing to see how one thing has led to another.
And before we knew it, Brian was inviting him back to his room to see the view. Or was he inviting me? I can never remember. Ha. Haha.
Martin and Brian touch on an increasingly popular topic in this episode, that of millennials in the workplace. The discussion was spawned by this Simon Sinek interview on Inside Quest with Tom Bilyeu, in which he highlights the perceived problem of millennial's performance in the workplace and their social media-driven dopamine addiction.
I was born in the late 80s and am technically considered a Millennial, so as much as I often agree with the observations put out there by folks like Simon, I also know that there are exceptions. Interestingly, I was reading an article this past weekend about how I am on the cusp of the Millennial generation. Even though I fall into that era, I still remember what a household without a personal computer was like. I still remember the novelty of using an old Mac to play an 8-bit version of Oregon Trail in the school computer lab. I went through junior high and high school without social media (heck, I didn't even have a cell phone).
My parents raised me in a frugal household, not an entitled one. And for that I am tremendously thankful. I watched my dad's incredible work ethic and strive every day to emulate his example. That said, I really was on the cusp of the Millennial generation and I don't think I am either the exception or the rule; I think it was about my graduation class that began to go either way, until social media helped spur on the de-evolution of our society. My opinion, obviously.
Simon draws attention to some of the inadvertent behaviors Millennials exhibit in the workplace; behaviors that aren't entirely their fault, and yet are invalid excuses in the real world. Parents treating their children with an entitled hand, for example (i.e. participation trophies), are setting kids up for disappointments later in life. It's not entirely the child's fault, other than the fact that they aren't being taught to simultaneously stand up to hand-outs. We've talked about adversity on this show and how even when we're faced with a bad lot in life, it's entirely possible to use adversity to fuel our rise to success. But how do you tell a generation of children who were given participation trophies that the real enemy isn't their employers who expect them to show up to work on time...but an entire childhood worth of "you're special!" commentary? Of course they're special; but they're not so special that they can show up to work 2 hours late every day and expect to keep their job.
One of my favorite aspects to this interview Simon gave is the emphasis he puts on imbalance as the ultimate culprit, not the behavior. The behavior is a result of imbalance; there is nothing inherently wrong with Facebook, but too much time spent on Facebook is wrong. The behavior can be corrected by fixing the imbalance and will never be corrected by criticizing or attacking the behavior itself.
What is your take on the Simon interview? Let us know!