Friday Chat w/ Vlad
Hey, it’s Vlad. Many people ask me when they see us ambassadors playing together so nicely, how this can be on account of all the conflict they have heard about in my chats. Well the truth is I have stellar conflict resolution skills. I get my inspiration in this area from three places. The first is Gandhi who said “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind”. I take this to mean you never want to respond to a slight with a proportionate response but rather always a greater one. Kind of like the line “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun”. Of course none of us have knives or guns so it’s more like you pee in my food bowl, I crap in yours.
My 2nd source of inspiration comes from The Rolling Stones. They said “You can't always get what you want But if you try sometimes, well, you might find You get what you need”. This lyrical golden nugget can apply in the following situation. Say I have a nice juicy piece of chicken and Panda comes over and wants it. If she avoids conflict and walks away she will have my respect and admiration, which is really what she needs. I mean what could be more valuable then my respect and admiration? So you see allowing Panda to come to this conclusion resolves the conflict. Mick Jagger would be so proud.
My third source of inspiration comes from a wise man I knew in Russia. He lived in a small village outside of Novosibirsk called Kochki and worked at the only business in the town which was a borscht and underwear factory. Now I know what you’re thinking, that is a odd combination. It makes more sense knowing their slogan, which is, “Enjoy your Borscht, we’ve got your naughty bits covered”..admittedly it does sound more poetic in the native tongue. Anyway, during our interactions I would often hear him say, “when opinions differ, the one with the biggest mouth wins”. Now since foxes have mouths lined with 42 razor sharp teeth, this could be understood as the one more able to rip the other a new one is always the winner. Of course there is another way to interpret this, being the one more able to deliver a bombastic bloviating blitzkrieg will win..which is me.
Vlad out.