Feldman's Faves: Feb 6, 2023

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE

Tom Brady retired this week and this time he means it, I think…. I’m sure he struggled with the decision but after the year he had, on so many fronts, I it is fair to say that he made the right call.

If you haven’t had a chance to do so yet, I strongly recommend that you take some time to watch “Subjects of Desire” which has been provided to us a part of our celebration of Black History Month. It is truly fascinating and was eye opening to me.

This week’s theme focuses on the power of self-reflection.

Spare By Prince Harry – Now I get it….So Prince William is the Heir and Prince Harry is the Spare – how does one go through life with that label?? I have never been a Royal watcher or really had any interest in the details of their lives but when this book came out I figured I might as well see what all the hype is about. My two cents is that when you put all of the fanfare aside about his life, Harry is simply a person who unfairly lost his beloved mother at a way too early age and in way too public a manner and he has spent the rest of his life trying to process and deal with this terrible loss. His hatred for the press and his desire to leave Britain with his family can be understood through this lens. In Spare Harry shares interesting stories about his relationships with his family, his difficulty in dating, his debaucherous youth (and many dumb things he did, including dressing up as a Nazi at a costume party) and how he met Meghan. There are also many stories that are a little tone-deaf (i.e., his jet set life style and hanging out with A-listers like Courtney Cox) and some stories about his life that fall into the TMI realm (e.g., the details of his frostbitten “nether -regions” when he went to the North Pole and his knocks at his brother for being uptight). Throughout the book you do learn about a young man living a life that I would not wish on anyone (his attempts to go grocery shopping are both funny and sad). There is an effort to gain self-knowledge. For example, he clearly acknowledges that he is no scholar and chooses the army (flying apache helicopters) and then philanthropy as a career with a real focus on wounded soldiers and his creation of the Invictus Games, which is a remarkable achievement.

As one reviewer notes, “This must be the strangest book ever written by a royal. Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, is part confession, part rant and part love letter. In places it feels like the longest angry drunk text ever sent. It's the view from inside what he calls a "surreal fishbowl" and "unending Truman Show". It's disarmingly frank and intimate - showing the sheer weirdness of his often isolated life. And it's the small details, rather than the set-piece moments, that give a glimpse of how little we really knew. There are glimpses of him as a royal stoner, smoking a joint after dinner and worrying the smoke was going to blow over to his elderly neighbour the Duke of Kent…..He was also keenly conscious of girls with "throne syndrome", who would be "visibly fitting herself with a crown the moment she shook my hand". Or there's the story about when he's in Buckingham Palace during the Golden Jubilee concert and listening to Brian May playing on the roof - and notices his grandmother Queen Elizabeth is wearing earplugs. His pre-Meghan life in London was ostensibly full of luxury, but it also feels as though he was undercover in his own life.

Harry suffered from appalling panic attacks, awful for anyone, but debilitating for someone expected to speak and appear in public. He describes his lonely life at home, self-medicating with psychedelic drugs, drying his clothes on a radiator and planning shopping trips like military raids, to be carried out in disguise and at speed…. At the very centre of this story, permeating almost every page, is the huge trauma that seems to have distorted the rest of his life - the death of his mother Princess Diana. He adored her unreservedly and an overwhelming sense of unresolved grief is at the hub of all his other anxieties, like spokes on a wheel. He really, really hates the press, blaming them for chasing his mother so relentlessly, including in the events leading to her death in Paris, with Harry returning obsessively to the scene of the car accident. His anger at the news media is wide ranging, but Rupert Murdoch is singled out in particular and one of his executives is only described in anagram form, so much is his allergic reaction. The rows with his brother Prince William are often framed by references to the closeness they had previously had with their mother. His paralysing anxiety and self-destructiveness also seem to be consequences of the loss of his mother, taking away an emotional anchor that, until meeting Meghan, he had never replaced. There is also something of a death obsession. Going into Westminster Abbey for his brother's wedding he cheerfully thinks about the 3,000 people buried in the church over the centuries.

What's missing from the book is any sense of awareness of any wider context of the rest of the world outside. It's as if he has been blinded by the paparazzi flashlights. No one worries about paying gas bills in this book. He's back and forth to Africa like he was going a few stops on the Northern Line. Although, that would have been more exotic for him because he says the only time he got on a Tube train was on a school trip.

While copiously indiscreet about the interior of royal life - yes, that's his father doing physio exercises in his boxers - it remains strangely silent on any views about the outside world, even though he's no longer a working royal….But he is also unmistakably a creature of his own upbringing, describing shooting a deer in a way that doesn't feel like the new-age therapy version of Californian Harry.

So who will be most upset about all these revelations in his book? Netflix mostly. They paid a prince's ransom for six hours of TV waffle and the smug contents of an Instagram feed, whereas the book crackles like a burning log with something bizarre on almost every page. Plenty of the book will get people irritated too, particularly its self-absorption. He talks about a row over people parking near his palace accommodation with more detail than you'd expect from a small war. There are some off-the-wall claims too, such as comparing the Spice Girls' "crusade against sexism" with "Mandela's struggle against apartheid". The leaks of the book have focused on the family conflicts and Harry's resentment at a lack of support for him and Meghan. Camilla arrives in the story to become his stepmother, with the narrative exuding a mixture of suspicion and a determined effort to be polite. But mostly suspicion really. It feels a bit divorced dad telling everyone he's not bitter, he doesn't mind that he paid for everything, really, not bitter at all, just wishing them both well... But taken as a whole, beyond the excerpts, a much warmer picture emerges of his father, King Charles, even when it seems that the narrator is giving him a hard time. Charles is seen padding around in his slippers, listening to his audio-books, obsessed with Shakespeare, wearing Dior scent and falling asleep at his desk. He's seen as having faced terrible school bullying, still keeping a teddy bear as a totem of a lonely childhood.

His father tries to provide some emotional support for Harry after Diana's death, sitting up with him until he falls asleep at night, but it feels as though his good intentions had to navigate some tricky barriers.

Charles leaves notes for him trying to say nice things - but Harry questions why he couldn't say them in person. He goes to see Harry in a school play and laughs uproariously and is then criticised by his son for laughing in the wrong places. When the adult brothers are feuding, Charles begins to sound like something of a Shakespearean figure himself, King Lear in tweed, begging his sons not to make his old age a misery.

The King is presented as old fashioned and rather unworldly. But he might be learning a new bit of text speak. TMI. Too much information...”

One obvious criticism of Harry is that if he so bothered with all of the attention he gets, why bother writing book that will only garner him more attention. I got the sense that writing this book was cathartic for Harry and in taking a deep dive into his own life he is trying to move forward as a husband, father and “regular person” away from his Royal trap. He also made a lot of money and when you learn about the cost of his life (including $6 million/year for security, it does make sense). I know his story is very much an “eye roller” for many, but in reading it, I really came out of it hoping that Harry finds what he is looking for in his life. Here’s a good review from The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/10/spare-prince-harry-review-attempt-reclaim-narrative

TED Talks Daily - How a habit of self-reflection could help improve your career | Paul Catchlove – In this PODCAST Paul Catchlove, who has had a very interesting and diverse career stresses the importance of self-reflection and learning to develop as a person and as a leader, which requires “thoughtful courage”. This is why, for example, he notes that athletes watch tape from previous games to see how to do better next time. That said, there are many ways to examine events in your life to figure out what works and what doesn’t. If you read Spare you can decide how well you think Prince Harry is doing on this front. Learning these patterns helps everyone in every industry in every point in one’s life. He gives an example of learning how to run better meetings after a colleague described a disaster experience. Here’s an excerpt from the PODCAST itself, “Paul Catchlove believes strongly in the power of reflection. Through every career he's held -- from priest to opera singer to senior management consultant -- he's benefitted from a habit of considering and analyzing his goals, needs and performance. Learn more about how a regular practice of reflection can improve your decision-making, career and relationships”:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/ted-talks-daily/id160904630?i=1000592732475

Thank you for your ongoing engagement and participation.

And remember to stay safe, stay healthy and to docket daily.

Jon