leftovers – i read encyclopedia blazertannica so you don't have to (barry hearn’s rules to life)

In my review of this book, I cited the popularity of Barry Hearn’s appearances on the Men In Blazers podcast. Hearn is mainly known in England for being a sports promoter. His ownership of Leyton Orient, a London-based club that played in England’s third-tier of professional football, and his willingness to discuss his experiences led to a series of guest appearances on the show. His appearances were so popular that Hearn was eventually the guest of honor for his own ‘pod special’, a ridiculous event where he shared his ten rules for life with the Men In Blazers audience.

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel that all of his rules were very useful for me. Rule #8, for example, says - your life does not change by sitting on the sofa. That's an excellent insight, but not one I learned from Barry Hearn. And then there's Rule #1 - it is better to be born lucky than good looking. I might entertain the notion, but my brain works too logically to ignore that being born good looking is in itself an example of good luck.

I do want to highlight those rules that I did like, however, so... without further ado…

Barry Hearn, Rule #2 – tell the truth, because eventually it becomes too difficult to keep track of all your lies.

I like this rule because it disposes of all the higher moral or ethical standards we resort to when trying to explain the importance of honesty. Instead, Hearn reframes it in the most basic, selfish terms that any idiot can understand – lying is stupid because YOU are going to get caught.

The explanation fits Hearn’s personality perfectly. Hearn presents himself as the sort of businessman who has no time for complex philosophies, principles, or analysis. He strikes me as the sort who says – if it’s making money, let’s do MORE of it – and any additional analysis only introduces unwanted complexity. To put it another way, Barry Hearn is about results first and everything else second and nothing exemplifies this position better than being against lying merely because he believes lying isn’t going to work.

Barry Hearn, Rule #3 – work ethic can overcome anything, because we all have the same amount of time during a day but not everyone is willing to make the same sacrifices.

One aspect of Hearn’s appeal was his contrast to all the over-slicked business types that seem to have infiltrated the ownership ranks among the sport’s clubs. With rule #3, Hearn solidifies this difference by emphasizing that success is attainable for those who want to put in an honest day’s work, over and over again. Say what you must about the tenuous link between hard work and massive success, of course, but at least Hearn endorses a better path to club ownership than overseeing a leveraged buyout.

Barry Hearn, Rule #9 – avoid being a secret, because if you wait for someone else to identify your greatness it might never happen.

Sheryl Sandberg referred to this as ‘Tiara Syndrome’ in her hugely influential Lean In and I suppose this is Hearn’s way of making the same point. I think a lot of people feel they have more to offer to their communities, organizations, or even themselves than they are willing to admit, and this reluctance probably leaves a lot of great work unrecognized and a lot of potential unrealized.

Barry Hearn, Rule #6 – unusual things happen everyday but it’s how you deal with them that makes you unusual.

If this rule looks familiar, it is because I mentioned it back in the November newsletter. This thought hit me so hard when I first heard it that I’ve thought about and alluded to it over and over in the weeks after I read The Encyclopedia Blazertannica. We are so easily tempted by familiar patterns that we fail to notice all the ways we decline the new opportunities that come across our path every single day. More importantly, we fail to consider how our lives might change if we reconsidered the automatic responses we give to the situations we regularly encounter in our lives.

i read encyclopedia blazertannica so you don't have to

Encyclopedia Blazertannica by Roger Bennett and Michael Davies (September 2018)

Encyclopedia Blazertannica is a massive reference guide to everything authors Roger Bennett and Michael Davies have discussed on their Men In Blazers podcast. Longtime readers may recall that this is one of my favorite podcasts and that I attended a live recording of one of their shows on the day of the England-Croatia World Cup semifinal – it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed this book a great deal.

The book is, like the podcast, mostly full of insights and commentary into the world of football and the unique way an American must interact with it. No thought summarizes the challenge better than the observation that someone drinking at 7:30 in the morning is an alcoholic… unless that person is watching a soccer game. Surely, in the areas of the world where games are played and televised at reasonable local hours, the joys of a breakfast Guinness remain unknown and, most likely, vilified.

I also want to highlight how much I agreed with the notion that willful delusion is a part of fandom. The authors highlight how this is best illustrated in England through reaction of fans to diving (pretending to have been fouled in an attempt to deceive the referee). In general, fans always berate divers and demand that the deceit must be immediately removed from the game… assuming the diver is foreign, of course. If the diver is English, then the response is always along the lines of – well, he must have felt something, because he’s English and would never do that!

There is more to the book, however, than football and alcohol. I liked the life advice that although knowing your strengths is vital, it is more important to know your weaknesses and determine which ones you cannot improve on. As highly popular guest Barry Hearn once said during an appearance on the show, life is about making the most out of the same twenty-four hours we all get and wasting any of those hours on what is destined to remain fixed is no way to meet that challenge. A good way to apply this understanding is to how we treat an acquaintance – unlike a friend (for whom we should do anything) an acquaintance is someone to make the most of.

Of course, no mention of Men In Blazers – and Roger Bennett in particular – is complete without some reference to poetry (and often to verse about the first World War) (1). As they point out, the poet must be truthful for all a poet can do is warn. It is vital to heed these warnings because a warning ignored isn’t much different from a warning never issued at all – and in life, it is usually what does not get said that causes the most damage.

Footnotes / pretty much everything else they regularly quote is nonsense

1. Ladies and gentlemen, Phillip Larkin…

The most frequently quoted poetry are the following lines from Phillip Larkin’s 'The Mower':

We should be careful
Of each other
We should be kind 
While there is still time