Last week on my way to the Super Bowl in Atlanta I was cruising along at the speed limit listening to CNBC on Sirius XM radio. Nothing unusual about that. I listen to CNBC when driving, never when watching it on TV in my office. In the office I only turn the sound on when a few people I greatly respect are on. It seems I listen to fewer and fewer these days, some guests having been banished from the station for simply telling it like it is. Honesty seems to be able to derail the media faster than Bill Clinton headed after an intern, Elizabeth Warren headed to a Harvard pow-wow or our President hitting the send button to his twitter feed!
So, on comes a corporate executive from Facebook.
I listened. I listened some more. Earnings calls, of which I've probably listened to thousands of calls over the years, can be tedious, boring and funny. Sorting truth from bullshit comes naturally for me, probably something I picked up in law school. For sure I am always listening to voice inflection and for words being couched. It's fairly easy to tell when an exec isn't reading from the script that was prepared and practiced with the PR firm.
I heard enough. I heard enough lies. I heard an exec being a great liar. I have heard a million lies by corporate executives over the years. On conference calls, in their offices, face-to-face in restaurants, on private telephone calls. Many of the names escape me but the lies haunt me. We invested hard earned money that belonged to our clients in the shares of their companies. I could name 100 companies off the top of my head where the story I was told was so wrong, so blatant, so bullshit that those clowns, male and female, should be taken to the woodshed. Or worse. Don't worry though, the SEC won't do a thing about any of it. They have bigger fish to fry than EBITDA lies. Well maybe, maybe not, Elon Musk does come to mind.
So after listening to the Facebook earnings call I decided to put my money exactly where my feelings where. To jettison the beast. To starve it. So, like many I know, I simply hit the delete button. No goodbyes, no second thought. Just doing what my heart told me to do. Remove myself from having my key strokes sold, my "eye's monetized, to get away from the privacy invasion, the mind games and muck of doing whatever it takes for a company on a global basis to market to the masses by their online behaviour.
Yes, the lies, distortion, propaganda and mind games will continue until our nation doesn't it. I made the call to drop it. No more inane political chicanery, no more "news" custom tailored to what I last looked up on my cell phone. No more solicitation for hotels at the last destination I looked up. None.
Done.
Finished.
The beast will carry on without me.
I have everything I ever prayed for. I am a lucky man, husband and father. My health is good. Having traveled to 6 continents the 7th is on my bucket list. Maybe I'll get there, maybe not. My wide circle of friends often call me lucky; it's nice having more friends than I could ever imagine and funny enough they all seem to be made prior to Facebook!
For now, I know where I stand, all I need to do is stand there.
Imagine life without Facebook.
If you try it I promise you will call and thank me!
