Let's Ease Into It - Without A Vision Consultancy

March 11, 2024

Good morning!

Have I told you lately how much I enjoy and appreciate you? Well, I do and I’ll say it again.

If you routinely look for this column at 7:00 AM CDT/ CST you’ve probably been worried sick I died of my afflictions.

It’s the first time in many years to not have published on time. But, do not despair, it is with good reason.

Thought we should ease into this crazy new time — 20 minutes today, another 20 minutes next week — and then we’ll true-it-up on the 25th.

This might be good news — depending upon your views of marriage.
- In Minnesota over the last 15 years there have been nearly three times as many marriages as divorces.
- 15.9 marriages per 1,000 adults aged 16+ — compared to 5.6 divorces. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2024)
- Moreover, the divorce rate has declined steadily from about 9.5 down to the current 5.6 over that same period of time while marriage has remained somewhat steady on average.
- Plot those graphs up through 2050, just for fun. (Homework).
Six of the larger public school districts in the Twin Cities (MN) are forecasting a combined, cumulative budget deficit of ~$260,000,000 (1/4 billion). (Stokes/ Axios)
- Begs the question: What is the right amount, the perfect amount of money needed for learning optimization? (More on this, maybe, next week)
There was a particularly poignant piece published in last Tuesday’s Minneapolis Tribune.
- It’s too long for these Musings, but I’ve included it down below as an appendix if you have a couple extra minutes.
It’s front page news almost daily — and you experience it when you go out to eat.
- Restaurants are struggling big-time — sometimes adding three or four annoying surcharges to the price you saw on the menu.
- In a perfect world, supply and demand would seem to be enough to right the ship, but apparently the ship has taken on too much water.
- The waves have been too high for too long, the winds too strong, the sailors have abandoned ship, and many passengers have chosen to swim.
- The industry has always worked on tight margins and now is battling, in some cases, food prices doubling, wages doubling, and customer expectations cemented in pre-plague status quo.
- From national data, eggs are among the worst culprits having tripled in cost at the wholesale level.
- So, the old diner breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast, jelly, butter, and coffee approaches black ink at $19.99 rather than the not-so-long-ago $7.99
I might have shared this with you years ago, but a working draft of my book, How Do You Know?, is still sitting in dry dock.
- Motivated by a question from a client, I dusted off the manuscript and was reminded of five chapters thus far waiting for readers:
  - Healthy Relationships — Establish, Nurture, and Sustain at Least One
  - Be Ready — for any/ all Opportunities Directionally Correct
  - Have Mentors — People Smarter than You
  - Pay Attention — Look up, Look around, Listen
  - Power Through — Onward, Ever Onward!
Yes, there are toxic leaders… too many, though perhaps trending downward? (The following is informed by Eades, 2024)
- Not sure if this is a new term or one that has been used for a long time?
- Seems like we used to say, “mean”, or “overbearing”, or “insensitive”, or “demanding”, or “narcissistic”, or “stupid”,… or, maybe those words describe a different malady?
- One thing we know: Working for a toxic person is emotionally, psychologically, socially, creatively, and intellectually draining — and there aren’t often remedies except to move on.
- The important thing — and mostly under your control — is don’t become one — or change if you are one.
- Leadership is temporary; its impact is lasting.
- Most leaders don’t think about the big picture, the lasting impact, legacy, but are focused on the short-term… one day you will no longer be the leader. What then?
- Be patient when something impacts one person — be impatient when it impacts several people.
- “Giving ineffective leaders long periods of time to improve seems like the nice thing to do… but then I considered the effects on the people they’re leading…
  - …the nice — and correct — strategic thing to do is to address the failing leader right away.” (Hoffman)
  - What you tolerate, you encourage.
  - Tough love: If you keep tolerating less-than-ideal behaviour, it is your fault. (Ouch!)
  - Stop enabling.
  - Start leading.
Few in the field of finance have been quoted more often than Warren Buffet.
- “Be like Warren!” Yes, that’s good advice, but is any of it applicable to the future and not just the past?
- Here we have three possibilities from Warren’s 2023 Annual Letter to Shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. (Farrell)