From Where I Stand — For many of us,
we spend between one third and one quarter of our lives obsessed with being cool. We start out normal enough. We don’t care what we say, wear, or stick up our noses. Then, in about 5th or 6th grade cool people begin to emerge. These kids are just different. They talk cool, they dress cool, and they act cool. They also have a unique way of making us feel selfconscious and valued at the same time. If they like what we like, we feel validated. If they don’t like what we like, we grow to hate it too. Cool transcends jealousy. It is not about hating cool people for their flawless and blessed walk through life, it is about wanting to be them in every way. There are many superlatives to describe people. Someone can be “awesome” or “amazing” or “neat” or “rad,” yet those seem fleeting. There are few words better than “awesome,” but I’d rather be cool than awesome. These sound like trivial matters, but these are the thoughts that whip through most of our brains from adolescence to whenever we give up chasing what is cool. Cool people never go away. There are cool people at every age. There are cool senior citizens like Betty White or Jack Nicholson. There are cool actors, athletes, rock stars, rap stars, fictional characters, politicians, models, kids, and animals. There are even cool landscapers. Coolness transcends every aspect of our existence. There are just people who seem to do life better than others. Thankfully, I was never saddled with the burden of being cool. Lord knows I tried. I wore the same outfits the cool kids wore, but they never looked as good on me. I listened to the same music (if my Mom let me). I talked in class, but mainly to give the wrong answers. The closest I would get to being cool was making the cool kids laugh. Now, this laughter didn’t result in invites to parties or an endless parade of hot dates. It mostly just led to a laugh followed by someone saying, “Good one, Steve.” Explaining what is cool is a lot like explaining why a joke is funny. The second you have to do that, it’s neither cool nor funny anymore. In researching this article, I discovered hundreds of websites that answer the question of “How do I become a cool FILL IN THE BLANK?” Googling how to be cool is probably the most uncool thing you can do. My heart ached for the 7th grade boy sitting on his tablet Googling how to be cool in a desperate attempt to fit in. Even defining cool makes cool seem lame. The slang dictionary uses, “very good, excellent, interesting, and fun.” That sounds like how my Mom would have described me in 7th grade when I was definitely not cool. Cool just is. It is taking something that required extraordinary effort look effortless. It is like pulling the sword from the stone, no matter how hard you pull and tug, only a few people have what it takes to simply slip it out. Cool is also fleeting. There are many celebrities, people, and bands that were the picture of coolness during a certain era that are completely cringe-worthy now. The Fonz is probably the best example. Fonzie was clearly the coolest person in America
for eight years. He was Elvis. He was James Dean. He was the man. Flash forward 30 years and he hasn’t aged well. Don’t get me wrong, I love Henry Winkler, but now he’s a paunchy, 5’6” 72-year old man who when he says “Aaaay,” it’s usually followed by “AARP.” Even cool people can jump the shark. Eventually, most of us drop our fruitless pursuit of being cool. Becoming parents has a lot to do with it. Most of the parents I thought were “cool” parents when I was younger were actually just “bad” parents. My parents certainly weren’t cool. Yet, now I look back and realize they were cooler than I thought. They never tried to be cool which, ironically, is the central pillar of coolness. Sometime coolness is latent and takes decades to discover. The objects of my obsession in my teens seem absolutely ridiculous now. I used to care how I dressed and now shop for clothes at Target or Kohl’s like I’m shopping for milk. My store list will literally say “shirt” right between butter and eggs. I will walk over, find the first L-Tall shirt I can find and throw it in my cart. My Z Cavaricci wearing 7th grade self would have fainted. We all know there are cool landscape companies out there. Their websites look amazing. Their projects are stunning. Their business cards are unique and abstractly sized. Their trucks are shiny and in color schemes reserved for luxury brand hotels. Their people are well-dressed and chill with cool haircuts or hipster beards. Their logos are clever and inventive. They just have it. Again, they don’t make us jealous. We just marvel at how effortless they make the public representation of their companies look. Cool doesn’t bring contempt, it brings awe and adoration. It makes our own companies and businesses look like the kitchen junk drawer. Yes, we are full of useful items that make people’s lives better, but we are a disorganized mess of colors, shapes, and textures. So here is where we come to the part of the article where you can take the red or the blue pill. The red pill will be to listen to what corporate consultants say about how to turn an uncool brand into a cool brand. The blue pill is basically to own your uncoolness which could have the reverse effect of making a company cool. The choice is yours. First, the red pill. Peter Gloor, MIT research scientist and co-author of Coolhunting and Coolfarming, lays out a number of ways for a business to pursue coolness. With that said, “MIT research scientist” doesn’t necessarily scream “cool”. Cool kids never seemed to be the best students, so there are probably very few scientifically valid research studies being done by the back-ofthe-bus club. Gloor recommends careful observation of cool people and brands as the best way to identify the brand of cool either you or your preferred clients respond to. As with an anthropologist, lurking and following, which has become even easier in an age of social media, is the best way to identify the cool traits a company wishes to emulate. Gloor’s next step is to ask either a cool client or a cool service provider to review your image or services and offer feedback. By
Just Be Cool
The Landscape Contractor May 2018
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