Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

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December 30, 2019 – A New Decade

Good morning!

It’s the sixth day of Christmas — if you still celebrate the twelve days in the traditional way — and it’s the fifth day of Kwanzaa… and the eighth/ final day of Hanukkah. Enjoy these final two (2) days of 2019 and may 2020 bring you wellness, happiness, and good fortune! By next Monday morning we will be well into the New Year — and we will have seen whether it has been possible for Minnesota to have defeated dreaded Auburn of Alabama. Not to mention the abysmal performance of that other Minnesota team; disgusting and embarrassing — and maybe time to abandon all hope before it reaches Cajun territory.

• Do you advocate for the new decade starting now or a year from now?
  • When you count do you start with zero or with one?  And, if counting one-to-ten, do you end with ten; i.e., zero, or with nine?
• For Christmas the kids got their Mom and Dad tickets to the upcoming Elton John concert in St. Paul; hooray!
  • Can you feel the love tonight?
• Can you feel the trend — yet?
  • “Compared with people at low-trust companies, people at high-trust companies report 74% less stress, 106% more energy at work (how can that be accurate, more than double?), 13% fewer sick days, 76% more engagement, 29% more satisfaction with their lives, and 40% less burnout.” (Harvard Business Review, 2019)
• Regardless of your religious beliefs — from skeptic to devout — you will enjoy The Two Popes, an outstanding historical fiction film featuring outstanding acting, intriguing hypothetical drama, and cinematic settings that will give you goosebumps.  It labours unnecessarily for a bit at times but since you know where it’s headed each moment keeps you on the edge of your seat waiting for the inevitable.
• (Continued from last week…) — … In short order we were exhausted, really exhausted, falling down on our backs (think turtle on its back) exhausted.  We were sweaty, a big no-no for winter survival.  Looking back, we could have died of hypothermia.  Because of the snow depth each step required a rest.  My friend came up with the mantra first, “Onward, ever onward!” he encouraged.  We said it to each other dozens of times for probably an hour as we crossed that seemingly endless field, which included traversing a couple barbed wire fences, and eventually made it safely to the car and some warmth.  “Onward, ever onward!” became something that would seal our friendship for a lifetime.  The point is simple and doesn’t have to be applied to life-or-death situations.  You’ve got to power-through, you’ve got to keep moving, you’ve got to get up out of bed (or off your back in the freezing snow!) and do something.  Onward, ever onward!
• “It’s no secret that big data and artificial intelligence are starting to roil a bunch of professions.  Yet, there’s another job that is also being altered with extraordinary speed — only this one is getting reshaped not so much by high tech, but rather by high ideals:  Chief Executive Officer.”  (Wall Street Journal, 2019)
  • A statement released in August 2019 by 181 of the nation’s top CEOs pledged, “… a fundamental commitment to deliver value to all stakeholders…”
    • This was a fundamental departure from the time-honored preference for shareholders and the maximization of profit.  How will it play out?  Do you spot a trend?

Schedule a no-obligation, no-cost initial exploratory visit with Without a Vision Consultancy today.

Everyone loves taking little quizzes; here’s one for you right now:  could you benefit from leadership coaching?

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