Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

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June 29, 2020

Good morning!

We are an impatient, anticipatory society and so for many, the July #4 weekend started three days ago. The grass is a crunchy shade of brown normally reserved for August. What are your five (5) favourite words to describe the first 110 days of the COVIDs? I will tell you mine next week if you send me yours.

• How is your mental health?  Not a question one might have asked just a few years ago, but isn’t it exciting to explore new territories?
  • For real, how is it?  Are you being honest?  Do you have two or three people you trust checking-up on you?  And, do you listen to them?
  • Diet, exercise, healthy relationships = all good… and add to that list:  Mental Health  (Try it, it won’t bite — and if it does, do something about it.)

• I was scolded by a reader for referring to June 20th as the first day of summer.
  • Are you an astronomical believer or a meteorological advocate?
  • Why not both?  It would result in three or more additional weeks of summer.
  • I’m forever fascinated by the pendulum effect of the earth relative to the sun… for almost twenty days we experienced the stoppage of movement… I want a learned physicist to explain all of this to me in a way I can understand — please.
  • Why, for example, does sunset continue to get later while sunrise also gets later, extending light at the end of the day and decreasing it during the morning while the total amount of daylight remains constant for ~20 days?
  • All of this is Northern Hemisphere-centric, of course; apologies to my Southern Hemisphere readers and to those near the equator.

• Here is an alliterative slogan for the opportunity now within our reach:  Feel the Pulse = Plan now to turn protests into policy.
• Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. (Emerson)
• Fortune sides with her (she?) who dares (Virgil)  [Grammarians, please?]
• Don’t lose sight of what you want to achieve.  Every action is a step toward or away – rarely inconsequential – from your goal.
• The Aspen Ideas Festival is usually an invitation-only crème de la crème event, but given the COVIDs, you can now go for free!!
  • Punch here:  2020 Aspen Ideas Festival for FREE!
  • (This space left blank on purpose.)
• Here you go, reprinted by popular demand — with zero edits — from the Monday Morning Musings, March 16, 2020 (pre-George):

• Disasters and tragedies tend to have winners and losers.
  • Somewhere down the road history will be written by the survivors; who will be the winner(s) of this Covid-#19?
• Peggy Noonan is a respected and somewhat middle-of-the road journalist; her column in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal is required reading if you haven’t settled on something better.
• “We’re not ready for the next epidemic.”  (Bill Gates, T.E.D. Talk in 2014)  “…not missiles, but microbes…”
• So, here they are, a few of my untested — and hopefully wrong — thoughts, as of right now… they could change in the next hour:
  • This is not a drill.
  • It’s likely to get (much) worse before it gets better.
  • We need clarity, confidence and a bunch more stuff.
  • Do you remember that old elementary school challenge?  Would you like $1 right now, or wait for thirty days and I’ll give you $1 doubled each day from now ’til then?
    • That’s the exponential power of this disease — we’re told by the experts (Fauci, Etc., et al.) — and we haven’t even begun to experience its compounding effects.
    • By the way, the answer is, “Wait 30 days…”.  (Do the math again, just for fun, it only takes two minutes with paper and a pencil, it will viscerally impact you.)
    • Spoiler alert:  By the 30th day the amount is more than $536,870,912 per day — $1/2 Billion… by the tenth day it still hasn’t reached $1,000.
  • Are we overreacting?  Let’s hope so.
  • We will need to summon the better angels of our nature (A. Lincoln) and be very careful not to judge; we’re not good at not judging.
  • Millions of people in the U.S. are in poverty — or nearly so — Covid-#19, exacerbated by the challenges of poverty, is ominously on the horizon.
  • I don’t know if there are analogies, they’re so helpful but elusive at this point.
    • A Category #6 hurricane?  Probably not because even the most massive hurricane still only affects a small area of the world — and it has a beginning and an end.
  • Raise your hand if you weren’t yet believing in the interconnectedness of our world; how about now?
  • We weren’t — and aren’t — ready.  Can we do it?  Yes we can, but it will take all of us.
  • Dr. Fauci says from what we know the Covid – #19 is at least ten times more lethal than the regular influenza.
  • The U.S. (most of my readers) is not a totalitarian society; we are not accustomed to doing what we’re told — and each of us always knows better than the next person.
  • “In uncertain times, look for the helpers.”  (Mr. Fred Rogers)
  • Go outside, the sunshine helps lots… go to your own yard or to a sparsely populated common area.. we need exercise and fresh air to get through this.
  • Eat as well as you can afford — and get at least eight (8) hours of sleep, more if you require it.
  • Ask for help; be kind to each other.
• “When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this:  You haven’t.”  (Tom Edison)

So, what do you think?  Are we at a pivot point?  An unprecedented pivot point?  Or, can you already start to feel the air going out of the balloon?How many more chances will we get like this?I’m certainly painfully aware most of my readers look, think, act, aspire, listen, taste (eat), and live similar to me… so, what do we do to get off the dime? Marty King wrote about this from his cell as a response to detractors who were practical modern-day moderates; i.e., “be patient, don’t rock the boat.” It has now been 401 years since patience has been counseled.

King’s letter is long — read all of it if you can find time:  Letter from a Birmingham City Jail – full text (King, 1963)

Here is just a short snippet:

“…I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. In your statement you asserted that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But can this assertion be logically made? Isn’t this like condemning the robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical delvings precipitated the misguided popular mind to make him drink the hemlock? Isn’t this like condemning Jesus because His unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing devotion to His will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see, as federal courts have consistently affirmed, that it is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth of time. I received a letter this morning from a white brother in Texas which said, “All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but is it possible that you are in too great of a religious hurry? It has taken Christianity almost 2000 years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth.” All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. We must come to see that human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be coworkers of God, and without this hard work time itself becomes an ally of the forces of stagnation…” (King, April 16, 1963)

• What do you get when you work with Without a Vision Consultancy LLC?
  • We listen, we learn, we listen some more — and then we customize our response to deliver:
  1. Confidence
  2. Clarity
  3. Coaching
  4. Companionship on your journey… sometimes it gets lonely and it’s good to have a friend.

When you tell others about us — and I hope you will — please emphasize the ways in which we are unique. 

I work with individuals, governance structures (Boards), non-profits, and businesses wanting to be bigger, better, stronger, healthier, happier… yes, all five are possible and best done in concert, but it typically requires a coach (consultant) or a companion to help illuminate the path. At Without a Vision Consultancy LLC — www.withoutavision.org — we LISTEN, we LEARN, we LISTEN some more, and only then do we suggest strategic directions unique to your situation.  We do not bring a one-size-fits-all template, nor the latest flash-in-the-pan solutions, to working with you.As we work with you we deliver and provide an increase in your CONFIDENCE, and CLARITY while providing coaching and companionship for your journey. We bring more than fifty years of experience from all sides of the Board table in thirteen different leadership roles — 26 of those years as a CEO.

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