Showing posts with label commitment. Show all posts

Why I'd Hire A Penn State Football Player

by Matthew Stollak on Thursday, July 26, 2012

If you watch any college sports, I'm sure you've seen a variant of this video:


The message resonates: There are more than 380,000 student-athletes and most of them go pro in something other than sports.  They put in time, energy, sweat, tears, body and soul into serving the sport, their coach and peers, and fans.  Yet, for most, the end result is not a lucrative sports contract.

Imagine, then, you are a football player at Penn State University.  Sanctions have just been announced that effectively cut off many of the benefits of the "job" you currently have undertaken.  No bowl game at the end of the season to reward good performance...having to do more with less as scholarships have been taken away...reputation of your organization dragged through the mud.  You've been "punished" for a very serious crime for which you had no knowledge of or involvement.

A lifeline has been offered...you have the opportunity to transfer to another academic institution and get immediately playing time (instead of having to sit out a year).  Do you take it?

Soon after the sanctions were announced, approximately 25 players at Penn State made a statement that they are sticking with their commitment.  Senior Michael Mauti stated, "“This program was not built by one man and this program is sure as hell not going to get torn down by one man."

If they are willing to stick to their organization, despite the sullied brand and lack of tangible rewards (outside of their scholarship and education) for the next few years, wouldn't that be an asset to be cherished down the road as you look to fill a position for which that former football player is qualified?

True Commitment - Marina Abramović

by Matthew Stollak on Thursday, July 5, 2012





Been Galluped to death on engagement?  Think you are committed to your work and organization?

Meet Marina Abramović, the first performance artist to have her work featured at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York.

On July 2, HBO premiered "Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present," a documentary about her 2010 show at MoMA along with a retrospective, and "re-creation" of some of her performance art.

As a proponent of "ordealism,"much of her earlier work focused on pain and self-abuse:

  • In Rhythm 10, using twenty knives and a tape recorder, she played the Russian knife game (featured in Aliens) where rhythmic jabs are made between splayed fingers.  When she cuts herself, she picks up a new knife and begins again.  When she has gone through all 20 knives, she listens to the tape recorder and tries to recreate the experience again.
  • In Rhythm 0,  she placed 72 objects (such as a rose, scissors, or a whip) that the audience was allowed to apply on her body.  The show lasted 6 hours, and the audience soon fell into two categories - aggressors and protectors
  • In Imponderabilia, she, and her collaborator Ulay, stood nude face-to-face in a doorway, and audience members must squeeze between them deciding which way to face.
The documentary closes on her major performance piece at MoMA, The Artist is Present, where, "all day, every day, from early March until the end of May, 2010, she will sit at a table in the museum's atrium, in what she describes as a "square of light." Members of the audience will be invited to join her, one at a time, at the opposite end of the table. There will be no talking, no touching, no overt communication of any kind. Her objective is to achieve a luminous state of being and then transmit it­­––to engage in what she calls "an energy dialogue" with the audience."

For 77 days, 8+ hours a day, she sat impassively on a hard wooden chair, wearing a red, white, or blue gown, and stared at each person for as long as the person was willing to sit there, whether for a few seconds, or all day.  At first there was a table between Marina and the audience member; later, the table was removed.   Reactions ranged from bemusement to sadness to laughter (as well as a great Tumblr account - Marina Abramović Made Me Cry).  MoMA put together an album on Flicker that has portraits of each person who sat across from her (though the documentary is much more moving).

So, you might think you are committed to your work, but, you are likely no Marina Abramović