Under federal aviation rules, no pilot may act as pilot in command of an aircraft carrying other people “unless that person has made at least three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days.” Pilots in command also need a flight review, completed since “the beginning of the 24th calendar month” before the month of the flight.
A license alone is not enough.
What have you done for me lately? A demand to see recent results, not old ones.
You’re only as good as your last game. Also said of a film, a deal or a quarter.
Has-been. Someone whose success lies in the past.
One-hit wonder. A performer remembered for a single success.
Flash in the pan. A success that does not last.
Comeback kid. Someone who returns after a defeat.
On October 28, 1980, Ronald Reagan debated President Jimmy Carter. In his closing statement he gave voters a list of questions. “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago? Is there more or less unemployment in the country than there was four years ago?”
He also asked whether America was as respected and as strong as it had been. About 80.6 million people watched the debate. Candidates of both parties have asked the “better off” question in later campaigns.
In the National Football League, Black Monday is the first Monday after the regular season ends. It is the day many head coaches are fired. An Associated Press headline of December 29, 1998, read: “NFL coaches face ‘Black Monday’ with five fired.”
Long service does not protect a coach. In 2024 the New England Patriots parted with Bill Belichick after 24 seasons.
The culture page of Netflix says the company models itself “on a professional sports team, not a family.” It explains: “Families are about unconditional love.” Sports teams instead focus on “picking the right person for every position,” even when that means “swapping out someone they love for a better player.”
Leaders apply what Netflix calls the keeper test. They ask: “if X wanted to leave, would I fight to keep them?” If the answer is no, the company believes “it’s fairer to everyone to part ways quickly.” The page says the team is driven by performance, “not seniority, tenure or unconditional loyalty.”
At a retreat of the Macintosh team in Carmel, California, in January 1983, Steve Jobs told the team: “Real artists ship.” To ship is to deliver a finished product to customers. The account comes from team member Andy Hertzfeld, who wrote about it later. Quote Investigator concludes that Jobs popularized the expression.
Elizabeth Holmes founded Theranos at 19. She promised to revolutionize blood testing, detecting hundreds of diseases with blood from a simple finger prick. Her board included the former secretaries Henry Kissinger and James Mattis. She raised billions of dollars, and the company was at one point valued at more than $9 billion.
According to NBC News, the technology did not appear to work as claimed. In January 2022 a jury found Holmes guilty on four counts of fraud and conspiracy involving investors. She was sentenced to 11 years and 3 months.
Missouri is called the Show-Me State. The Missouri Secretary of State traces the slogan to Congressman Willard Vandiver at a naval banquet in Philadelphia. “…frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me.”
Vandiver did not invent the phrase. It was in print by 1893, when the Omaha Daily Bee printed a letter from a man who wrote, “I am from Missouri and they must show me something.” The state gives the banquet as 1899. One researcher, Barry Popik, dates it to 1900, and the slogan has never been made official.
When the federal government buys goods and services, the Federal Acquisition Regulation requires that past performance “shall be evaluated in all source selections” for negotiated competitive acquisitions above a set threshold, unless the contracting officer documents why it is not appropriate. A contractor’s record on earlier contracts becomes part of the score.
A newcomer is treated neutrally. In the case of an offeror without a record of relevant past performance, the offeror “may not be evaluated favorably or unfavorably on past performance.”
Results-oriented. A standard phrase on an American résumé. The claim is not that the person works hard or knows the field, but that they can be judged by what came out.
Deliverables. American project language names the output as the unit of work. Not tasks, not effort, not hours. The thing handed over.
Track record. Not qualifications, not references, not what someone believes about themselves. What has already been produced, and can be pointed at.
Best practice. Methods are adopted from a competitor, another industry, another country, on the grounds that they work. There is no loyalty in the concept — the practice earns its place by outcome and loses it the same way.
Return on investment. Every expenditure becomes a candidate for the calculation, including training, meetings, research and attention. The question is not whether the thing is good. It is what came back.