I won the lottery today. (No, not the big money. You think I’d be bothering with this if I’d hit a couple million dollars? Okay, maybe I might, but that’s a problem for another day.) I checked my Powerball numbers this morning and had hit three of the five numbers (with no power ball). WOW! What are the odds of that?! (Actually, they are about one chance out of 300. I looked it up.) So, with visions of money (not great amounts of money, but money nonetheless) dancing in my head, I went to the web site to learn just what kind of fantastic profit I’d made on my $20 investment. 

Reading John Dos Passos’ novel Three Soldiers, I came across two quotes that, at first, seem unrelated (in both concept and the context of the book). However, given the right twist, they speak to different aspects of the profession of internal audit and of pursuing the role of professional internal auditor. (Actually, they have relevance to anyone who is trying to achieve something, but let’s stick with the internal audit spin, shall we?) Here are the quotes: 

During a recent flight from Las Vegas, I chanced across the epitome of what, over time, I’ve started calling “the Entitled Traveler”. You know who I mean – that guy (and, I am sad to say, they are almost always guys) who has spent his entire business career on a plane. Mind you, not enough miles to get the big perks – the automatic upgrades, the free flights to anywhere he wants to go - but, enough that he gets a little something extra every once in a while and so has begun to feel that everything should go his way – or there will be hell to pay.

Gene Wolfe, science fiction writer, once said, “Genius lies not in doing something better than anyone else but in doing something no one else can do at all.” I read that as part of a book review by James Sallis on the new collection of short stories by Carol Emshwiller. There is ample evidence in the review that this collection is worth reading (not surprising if you are aware at all of Emshwiller’s work). However, what really stuck with me out of a six-page review was that single quote. 

It has come to my attention that, in spite of the written word being one of the most powerful tools within an internal auditor’s arsenal, it is not always wielded with the greatest skill. In particular, auditors consistently exhibit the ability to stretch a one or two word sentiment into ten, twelve, even a dozen words, all in an attempt to better express a sentiment that does not warrant even a modicum of such prodigious efforts (as proven by this paragraph.) 

Here’s one I just have to share. A while ago I co-presented at a conference. Seemed to go well enough. People paid attention; applauded at the end; generally laughed at the appropriate spots. A few people came up at the end looking for more information. There were compliments to my co-presenter and me on how well it went. All in all, it added up to be the kind of feedback which would allow you to infer that, even if you weren’t lights out, at least you didn’t stink up the podium. 

I saw this piece titled "And You Ordinarily Fit Where..." posted on Tom Peters’ web site today and couldn’t help but think it was a perfect follow up/companion/symbiosis with my post from yesterday. 

When I was but a young lad (I’m guessing about high school) I was listening to a pastor who was trying to explain to the males in the audience why they were idiots and constantly getting in trouble with their spouses.