February 5, 2024
Good morning!
According to The New York Times, more people are now watching the Hallmark Channel than are watching CNN.
How many will watch the 58th version of the professional football championship game in just six more days? You? Taylor?
- The renovation and restoration of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris has a Minnesota connection.
- Can you imagine? It took a medieval century to build… and then a millennium of maintenance — and hunchback problems
- Peter Henrikson of Grand Marais is a world-renown timber framer who has been deeply involved on that island in the Seine just up river from the Louvre.
- You can learn from him — or better yet, there is a parallel connection right here in Central Minnesota.
- Danger ahead! Are you focused so much working IN your organization you’re failing to work ON your organization?
- That latter focus is the strategic-level (big picture) thinking, planning, communicating, deciding that’s impossible without pausing from the never-ending distractions INside.
- That’s where Without A Vision Consultancy can help — Clarity, Vision, Confidence, Courage, Consistency — and some Companionship as you tackle the future.
- We hear lots about super powers?
- What are they?
- Short answer: Strengths unique to you — reliable, significant, and impactful strengths you call upon day after day after day — perhaps without realizing it.
- You might not even know. For example: Discipline — Consistency — Integrity — Empathy — Vision — Creativity — Communication — Skill Sets
- If you are aware of your super power, use more of it more often… and, if you’re not aware, reflect and discover.
- What are you gonna do when you have a few nuts and bolts left over when you’re finished building that jet airplane?! (What SHOULD you do?)
- Do you suppose the progeny of horse thieves from back in the 1800s are the car thieves of today?
- Millions of cars are stolen annually; they go on the worldwide black market, especially on the continent of Africa.
- About one million cars are stolen each year in the United States alone; the experts say it’s a low risk/ high reward proposition as there are few consequences for the thief.
- When it comes to health care in the United States, only in Utah can you be assured of nearby labor and baby birthing services no matter where you live in that state.
- In a majority of the states, those health care services are in less than half of rural communities. (Rural = non-metro)
- No one accused Florida of being rural, but it wins the prize for having the least-available rural obstetric care; i.e., 86% unavailable. (Center for Healthcare quality, 2024)
- “Over the past two centuries, the rise in life expectancy — for both men and women — has been a tremendous success story. Global life expectancy increased from 30 years to 73 years between 1800 and 2018.
- But this is not the full picture.
- Women spend more of their lives in poor health and with degrees of disability (the health span rather than the life span).
- A woman will spend an average of nine years in poor health, which affects her ability to be present and/or productive at home, in the work place, and in the community — and reduces her financial strength.
- More than half of the health gap for women occurs during their working years, thereby also affecting the overall GDP.
- Investments addressing the women’s health gap could add years to life and life to years — and potentially boost the global economy by $1 trillion annually by 2040.
- (Ellingrud, Etc., et al., 2024)
- The cost of shipping a container of goods from Point A to Point B on the high seas has more than doubled the last few weeks.
- The experts say it’s because of troubles associated with two hugely significant human-made waterways under siege and, ironically, one without water. (Freightos)
- According to a variety of sources, the United States economy grew by more than three percent in 2023.
- Does it seem to you that the predictions for a recession might be running out of steam?
- This resiliency — against all odds — will be studied by scholars and head-scratchers for a long time to come.
- And, as they say, “we’re still not out of the woods!” It’s a big woods and monsters come when it’s peach dark.
- One more counterintuitive juxtaposition: Employment is strong, real strong (+353,000 new jobs last month), yet many corporations are conducting massive layoffs??
- Jobs in health care and government lead the way by a big margin.
- If you’re driving in Minnesota you’re three times more likely to see a Chevrolet on the road than a Hyundai (anecdotally it doesn’t seem that way).
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- Four times if you count GMC as synonymous with Chevrolet.
- And, you’re twice as likely to encounter a Ford than a Subaru. (MN Automobile Dealers Ass’n.)
- Fewer than 12% of all passenger vehicles on the road in Minnesota in 2023 were sedans; most were pickups and other non-car-cars — down from 42% just 12 years ago.
- Those data DO seem anecdotally true.
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- Would you settle for productivity and results fourteen times expectations?
- Build and deploy a helicopter to fly on Mars, as Ingenuity just did for 2 1/2 years — 14 times longer than expected.
- If you live in hipster Riverside, California and you’re 35-years-old, you’re about four times more likely to live with your parents than if you live in DesMoines, IA.
- As a matter of fact, you’re four times more likely to be living with your parents almost anywhere in California than if you live in Missouri.
- About 27% of so-called millennials live with their parents in California, compared to 6% in Missouri. (U.S. Census Bureau)
- According to Pew Research, more than 60% of parents in the United States provide financial support to their adult children. (Lots of wiggle room here with those data, we know.)
- Don’t miss it; awesome: The Greatest Night in Pop — the raw footage documentary of, We Are the World. Riveting.
