July 5, 2021
Good morning! Who decides the compensatory day for a holy day when the real day lands on a Saturday or a Sunday? The government? Default? Logic? The Federal Reserve? Willie Nelson? We are an anticipatory society and so it is a bit unusual to have a holy day on the day AFTER the holy day. Enjoy today, if you are blessed with a day of no work, or perhaps a day of less work.
- I’ve coaxed myself away from a favourite morning ritual of watching the birds, rabbits, and black squirrels battle each other for foods around the massive trunk of our aging maple tree…
- …and now, coffee in hand, I’m writing to you.
- Yesterday we suffered through 99-degree heat (don’t think it officially reached 100 F) but still sat in the yard for most of the day, a tradition not to be abandoned.
- The grandchildren didn’t seem to notice as they made fun of the sprinkler and those little popping noise makers you throw on the sidewalk.
- Our daughter from Duluth made good on her promise of planting us a perennial pollinating garden, just a small one, in the front yard.
- The project took a year, but all good things happen in time.
- She procured about 70 different native species plants from someone who was going to throw them away…
- …and now we will try to help them grow for generations — and bees/ butterflies — to come.
Managing with Empathy
- “Ninety-two percent (92%) of employees said they would be more likely to stay with their jobs if their bosses showed more empathy.” (Business Solver)
- “When people are financially invested they want a return. When people are emotionally invested they want to contribute.” (Sinek)
- Here is an excellent article — a quick study on the subject — written by our friend, Clare: Empathy on the manufacturing floor? You’ve gotta be kidding!
- If you haven’t started to think about — and to explore — objective #4 (healthier) and objective #5 (happier) from among the five Without A Vision imperatives, it might be time.
- I was recently blessed to spend several hours in Fargo, North Dakotah, three or four of them with a learned guide.
- We criss-crossed the city frontwards and backwards, from top to bottom.
- Let me tell ya, the rest of the world has lots to learn from Fargo’s vision and the economic explosion happening there.
- Vision, that’s what it is, vision… if we can imagine it we can then do it… and a combination of private and government capital invested for the common good.
Endless
Fargo stretches endlessly and forever west.
You start downtown at the river and you walk wondrously alone;
everyone else drives.
You have the level sidewalks all to yourself.
It feels like Scottsdale or the wide, wide streets of Bonita Springs.
Effervescent energy.
Designer trees and lamp posts line the boulevards
where homes and businesses gobble land once a paradise
for bison and wild turkeys.
Five miles, six, then seven — no end to Fargo in sight.
If you walk too far you’ll encounter a wood chipper;
stay away from it.
©2017 Michael A. Mullin
