<div dir="auto">
<div dir="auto">I bebopped out Tuesday night to see Liam Neeson&rsquo;s latest vengeance thriller, <em>Memory.</em> Standard fare, not unlike the preceding couple dozen movies by Neeson, and that&rsquo;s totally fine by me. No point breaking the mold if the many flicks produced from that mold remain tried, true, fun, and profitable for everyone involved.</div>
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<div dir="auto">For a Tuesday night, the theater was packed. Raucous crowd, several groups of young men ages 18-24 chatting, chittering, challenging one another and talking the usual tough-guy / pre-flick trash. Chalk it up to being in a college town some 26 months after a pandemic hit. Everyone's restless, sowing his oats, and chest-bumping. I get it.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Eventually, folks are seated and hollerin&rsquo; at the screen for the show to start already.</div>
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<div dir="auto">But before Neeson could kick that ass and take those names, and before the trailers began, the theater ran a couple ad vids including one by Dove. You know Dove: It&rsquo;s that &lsquo;beauty bar&rsquo; for women that&rsquo;s marketed as pure, clean, gentle &mdash; photos on their pristine packaging boxes usually include a shadowed drop of white lotion, or rose petals, or lavender something or other. Branding that&rsquo;s as femme as femme can be.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto" style="padding-left: 40px;">- Preceding Neeson.</div>
<div dir="auto" style="padding-left: 40px;">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto" style="padding-left: 40px;">- Projecting advertising (originally designed for women and girls) that&rsquo;s instead being consumed here tonight by the AXE BODY WASH target demographic.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">However, I gotta say, several beats into this &lsquo;commercial,&rsquo; the room shifted. More &lsquo;message&rsquo; than obnoxious &lsquo;marketing,&rsquo; the four-minute story unfolding on screen surprised me because it really began to land. With everyone. Man by man, teen by teen, dude crew by dude crew, everyone slowly stopped talking and began staring at the screen.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Dove (a Unilever brand) has produced impactful videos for 15 years (as part of their &lsquo;Self-Esteem Education&rsquo; commitment) that have now reached more than 60 million young people.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">The particular ad vid that quieted and captivated our crowd was about &lsquo;toxic beauty advice,&rsquo; the sort that dominates many young girls' social media feeds these days, though toxicity &mdash; whatever the message, the means, or target market &mdash; knows no bounds.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">I personally have to limit the amount of time I roam social media because I sometimes find that afterward I feel worse about myself, not better. More discouraged and daunted than encouraged and buoyant.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">We each apparently need to be doing more, being more, making or taking more, buying more, wearing less or more or different, flaunting more, giving more away, losing more weight, traveling or winning or kicking ass and generally taking more names and then humble-bragging all the more. Yep, these sure seem to be the messages we ALL complain about whenever the topic of social media rolls around in person but, like with any bad habit, it's pretty dang hard to swim beyond the riptide and contribute much differently.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto" style="text-align: center;">#guilty</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Perhaps a wiser colleague said it best the other day when she remarked to me: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve yet to end a single day and think to myself, &lsquo;I only wish I&rsquo;d spent more time today on social media!&rsquo;&rdquo;</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Granted, there are examples from social media (like the Arab Spring that sprang in 2010) that make me feel quite good about these platforms and everyone having a voice, though there&rsquo;s also an overabundance of vitriol, bullying, unbridled hate and outright evil lurking, stalking, trolling, trashing, and trafficking. As has been said, &ldquo;Social media is Satan&rsquo;s newspaper,&rdquo; and while that&rsquo;s admittedly a broad mischaracterization of something little more than a coded container, what we put into it sometimes makes me wonder whether Twitter and the like will ever become anything more than a technological toilet.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">So kudos to Dove for trying.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Toxic beauty advice is but one grain of sand on a horizonless beach, but it&rsquo;s refreshing nevertheless to see meaningful marketing propelled by a social cause-like purpose.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Yes, yes, I know their &lsquo;message&rsquo; IS little more than &lsquo;cleverer marketing,&rsquo; but just like I have no problem with Neeson&rsquo;s predictability, I also have no problem with a beauty bar brand striving to be just a little bit more.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">Like beauty, whether Dove is succeeding at turning any tide is in the eye of the beholder.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">As for me, I, like you, shall continue to believe that less is more and that true, abiding, peace-bringing contentment is not having all that we want but, rather, wanting only what we have.</div>
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<div dir="auto">Here's to the struggle.</div>
<div dir="auto">&nbsp;</div>
<div dir="auto">p.s. If this <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DoveUKI/videos/312068364338959" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first Dove clip</a> resonates, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=309876230533476&amp;ref=sharing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here's another</a>.&nbsp;</div>
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<div dir="auto">Learn more about Dove&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.dove.com/us/en/dove-self-esteem-project.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Self-Esteem Project</a> (Mission; 'Confidence Kit' for Parents, Mentors &amp; Guardians; Research; Articles).</div>
</div>

Messaging > Marketing

<p>Are you easily annoyed by distractions in cinemas?</p>
<p><a href="https://youtu.be/lFAVp6i5dlU" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Check this out</a>; it's adorable!</p>

Movie Disruptors

The Case for Curiosity

<p>Employers, cultures, leaders better bring our A-games, &lsquo;cause after 'The Great Resignation' began The HIDDEN one:<br /><br />&ldquo;While top talent will always have better-paying offers to consider, employees are looking for more than a raise. A lack of career counseling and time spent helping workers chart a clear career-advancement path can prove particularly problematic when it comes to maintaining millennial employee engagement.<br /><br />With a new outlook on their work and a desire to reorient their lives, many workers have found a new boss who gives them autonomy and flexibility: themselves. During the pandemic, fear of redundancy due to shutdowns drove a lot of talented people to start side hustles. Census Bureau data shows that Americans filed paperwork to start 5.4 million businesses in 2021 &mdash; far exceeding the record of 4.4 million set in 2020. While some budding entrepreneurs ultimately quit their day jobs, far more do not. They simply shift time and creative energy away from their salaried positions &mdash; a more under-the-radar sort of brain drain on companies.<br /><br />In a Zapier survey of Americans conducted in December 2020, 34% said they had side hustles, while 24% indicated they were planning to start a side hustle in 2021. A survey from Dollar Sprout, a platform for people looking to start side hustles, asked people who indicated they had a side hustle how much time they spent on them; it found that the average time spent on those second gigs trended upward in 2021 and that the percentage of people surveyed who said they were spending over 15 hours a week on their side hustle had more than doubled from 2020, to 27% from 12%.&rdquo;</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hidden-resignation-workers-employees-checking-out-job-side-hustles-2022-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Read the full article here.</a></p>

The Hidden Resignation of Burned-Out Employees

<p style="text-align: justify;">Analytics-driven 'nudges' (short, science-backed suggestions) may be one of the more intriguing additions to the managerial canon in the past decade. Deceptively simple, instantaneous, and effective complements to offsites, 'training' classes, coaching, and traditional adult-learning approaches of old, we really saw nudges proliferate and excel in the past couple years because they work so dang well in hybrid workplaces with black holes and long yawns between employee get-togethers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Humu does a nice job analyzing, articulating, automating, app-ing, and altogether 'animating' the behavioral science upon which nudging is predicated, and I have particular respect for advisors Amy Wrzesniewski and Adam Grant, if only because I'm most familiar with their work&mdash;and much of their advice, predictions, and plans fall firmly in the camp of 'Works'!</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One personal hope I have for the coming couple years (as this pandemic shifts into endemic status) is that MUCH of what we've learned from the Great Resignation about disconnection, fatigue, full-on burnout, neuroscience-informed management, diversity-inclusion-equity, employee engagement, corporate culture, communicating-leading-influencing from afar, hybrid leadership, empathy, emotions and feelings, mental health, and all the rest will NOT fade away but, rather, be refined, carried forward, democratized, and consumed in sustainable, tailorable, 'best practice' sorts of ways easily woven into the DNA of organizations regardless their size, style, or stripe.<br /><br />Here's to hoping, right?<br /><br />Of this, I am certain: Drucker would be delighted, as he was&mdash;if nothing else&mdash;a ferociously unapologetic advocate for breaking and abandoning ANY status quo in favor of WHATEVER WORKS BETTER. He was a no-nonsense pragmatist above all, and because 'nudging' works with nary a sweat bead, he'd be fanatical about its base science, its analytics, and finding new and better ways of wedding nudges to every leader's and employee's work-world experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Work Rules!</em> by Humu CEO Laszlo Bock, Richard Thaler's <em>Nudge,</em> Lisa Kepinski's <em>Inclusion Nudges,</em> Daniel Kahneman's <em>Thinking, Fast and Slow</em> and <em>Noise,</em> Grant's <em>Think Again,</em> and James Clear's <em>Atomic Habits</em>&nbsp;are great nudgy primers, and this&nbsp;<a href="https://www.humu.com/blog/the-5-nudges-that-helped-managers-most-in-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accompanying article</a> provides a glimpse into what nudges worked well for managers in 2021. (Yale School of Management published anticipated/possible nudges for 2022 on Jan 11th, so hunt for that if curious enough.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Our collective, immediate future is likely to be as AMBIGUOUS &amp; UNCERTAIN as the past couple years were COMPLICATED, so maybe you'll find nudges an easy addition to your leader toolbelt&mdash;things you can do regularly and with minimal effort in the 'here and now,' as concepts like 'next week, month, or quarter' may feel psychological lifetimes away.</p>

The Science of Nudging in Leadership

The Disengaged

<p style="text-align: left;">I read a constructive post earlier today by Emotional Intelligence thought leader Daniel Goleman and thought perhaps you'd appreciate it as much as I did.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong style="font-size: 12pt;">Positive Outlook: Optimism is a Choice</strong></em></span></p>
<p>How many times has a &ldquo;setback&rdquo; led to a positive opportunity?</p>
<p>According to research, 86% of U.S. adults say the coronavirus will lead to important lessons for humanity. These range from practical lessons, such as handwashing; to personal lessons, such as grasping the importance of our family and loved ones; to societal lessons, like the value of social-emotional learning or universal health care.</p>
<p>This ability&mdash;to see the good in an inherently challenging situation&mdash;is the Emotional Intelligence competence called Positive Outlook. One of four self-management competencies in [Goleman&rsquo;s] framework of emotional intelligence, Positive Outlook refers to our ability to see the best in people, situations, and events. When people have Positive Outlook they:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>See the &ldquo;glass half full&rdquo;</li>
<li>Cultivate positive emotions in challenging moments</li>
<li>Pursue their goals no matter what life throws their way</li>
<li>Focus on what&rsquo;s working</li>
<li>See the best in themselves and others</li>
<li>Leverage strengths in order to solve problems and create productive outcomes</li>
</ul>
<p>Positive Outlook is a prerequisite for effective leadership.</p>
<p>On a team level, Positive Outlook leads to higher levels of engagement, lower levels of conflict, and greater overall effectiveness. Part of this has to do with &ldquo;emotional contagion&rdquo;&mdash;when people in power dictate the mood of everyone around them.</p>

Positive Outlook

Alyans

<p><em><strong>Permission to Feel:&nbsp;The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success</strong></em></p>
<p><em>I don&rsquo;t know how you&rsquo;re feeling right now, but I know that you are.</em>&nbsp;That&rsquo;s the gist of&nbsp;<em>Permission to Feel,</em>&nbsp;in which Marc Brackett estimates perhaps only 2/5ths of us have a working language capable of adequately describing our feelings.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;m fine,&rdquo; &ldquo;All good,&rdquo; &ldquo;A-Okay,&rdquo; &ldquo;Another day in paradise&rdquo; and &ldquo;If I were any better I&rsquo;d be twins&rdquo; are cop-outs and we know it, but they&rsquo;re chirpy and cheery, don&rsquo;t necessitate effortful dialogue, require no thinking on our part and, perhaps best of all, they&rsquo;re quick. Heaven forbid someone should actually endeavor to tell us how s/he REALLY feels. Eesh, that would require empathy, listening, and time&hellip;something many of us possess in only very limited quantities.</p>
<p>As family and friends die, our economy sputters, branded empires collapse, immigrants fear their future, frontline healthcare workers + police + firefighters wear down, teachers gird their loins for the viral new year, and parents whisper prayers over their kids before breathing deeply and pushing them out the door to school, the emotions we collectively feel right now are legit, powerful, and outright overwhelming. That much I&nbsp;<em>can</em>&nbsp;adequately describe.</p>
<p>Pessimism, apathy, anger, anxiety, sadness, stress, impatience, irritability, guilt, fatigue, boredom, pressure, worry, regret, distraction, embarrassment, shame, resentment, fear&hellip; They can simply be too much sometimes, and certainly 4-6 months (or years) into this New Abnormal.</p>
<p>Into this reality, however,&nbsp;<em>Permission to Feel</em>&nbsp;offers a lot of great, simple, actionable tips, tricks and skills. It&rsquo;s not a daunting, discouraging book. On the contrary, it&rsquo;s jam-packed with fun research and tools, and I bet you can buzz through it in two or three sittings.</p>
<p>Here are a few teasers for teachers, in particular, as school is upon us once again:</p>
<ol>
<li>&ldquo;High school students and teachers experience negative emotions up to 70% of the time they are in school.&rdquo;<br />&nbsp;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Research shows that having just one caring, capable adult can make the difference between whether a child thrives or not.&rdquo;<br />&nbsp;</li>
<li>&ldquo;Classroom research shows that where there is an emotionally skilled teacher present, students disrupt less, focus more, and perform better academically.&rdquo;<br /><br /></li>
<li>&ldquo;Emotions determine whether academic content will be processed deeply and remembered.&rdquo;&nbsp;</li>
</ol>
<p>Marc (Director of Yale&rsquo;s Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center in Yale&rsquo;s School of Medicine) offers this brief exercise that&rsquo;s helpful for each of us, no matter our role or profession:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>&ldquo;In seminars I conduct with teachers, I&rsquo;ll sometimes ask them to list their students and consider the feeling that each name automatically prompts. Is it love, dislike, trust, joy, fear, disgust? Next I&rsquo;ll say, Be honest and think about how that emotion causes you to act toward each of those children. They instantly recognize how differently they treat each child depending solely on their perception of how he or she makes them feel. It has little to do with how the child performs in class, or the child&rsquo;s needs, or anything they can name. It&rsquo;s just a strong, almost visceral reaction that usually has to do with something about the teacher, not the student. Outside the classroom, we all operate the same way: approach or avoid.&rdquo;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And so, as we struggle with death and destruction, face masks, physical distancing (which eerily equates to social isolation), the politics of fear, and perpetual ambiguity, let us focus on our locus of control: You may not change me. I may not change you. But if I so choose, I can embrace a vocabulary and skill set that empowers me to more successfully say how I feel, and that&rsquo;s the sort of thing that changes (and SAVES) lives.</p>
<p><em>Permission to Feel.</em>&nbsp;In paperback yesterday.</p>
<p align="center">#PermissionToFeel</p>
<p align="center"><a href="http://www.marcbrackett.com/">www.marcbrackett.com</a></p>
<p align="center">#ReadOn</p>

Book Recommendation: "Permission to Feel"

<p>Lauren&rsquo;s having turned 18 yesterday and set to become a college freshman in the fall gave me all the [nostalgic] feels this week, throwing me back to the first time<em> I </em>was a freshman.&nbsp;</p>
<p>I also happened to be spring cleaning my office and came across dozens of ancient photos, each of which further rocket-fueled more than three decades of memories and cast me deeper and deeper into a wormhole. <em>Or is it a spider hole? Or a rat hole? Or a rat&rsquo;s nest? Or ratted hair? Or maybe it&rsquo;s a rabbit trail?</em> Eesh. <em>Similes</em> I can remember, but I can never seem to keep my <em>metaphors</em>, <em>analogies</em>, or <em>allegories</em> straight. Hopefully you get the idea:<strong> I&rsquo;m down a hole or trail of some sort and you&rsquo;re comin&rsquo; with me!&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>As fate would have it, of the <em><strong>MANY</strong></em> common injuries, illnesses, or ailments likely to befall a high school senior (mononucleosis, anyone?), I had the distinct privilege of contracting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, dropping from 165 lbs to 117, missing graduation and summer, then driving southward to the sleepy metropolis of Waco, TX using one of my two crutches to mash on the accelerator because I&rsquo;d thrown my back out doing rehab in July to regain muscle mass.</p>
<p>How&rsquo;s all this for irony?&nbsp;</p>
<p>Senior Year &rsquo;88 is therefore a somewhat squishy memory for me, vaguely fugue-like from about March forward, and I remember it primarily as a blur and total bummer because it lacked closure on every front: few goodbyes, fewer explanations, then presto-blammo, wacky Waco here I be!</p>
<p>All this being the case, whenever I do think of high school, it&rsquo;s 1984 that tends to hit my memory bank the hardest.</p>
<p>For 2020 freshmen, what a year to be launching, yes? I mean, gee, if only the year coulda been more auspicious, more eventful, more pivotal, more memorable, more momentous somehow.</p>
<p>&ldquo;May you live in interesting times,&rdquo; right? And it&rsquo;s barely June!&nbsp;</p>
<p>But back to 1984, and a quick time-capsule for you&mdash;</p>
<p><strong>FASHION:</strong> Freshman year began awash in a sea of squeaky parachute pants, Vans, Air Jordans, Doc Martens, Ray-Ban wayfarers and mirrored aviators, Panama Jack and OP tees, ropy gold chains, countless rubber wristlets, preppies, new wavers, punks, skaters, metal-heads, skinheads, Benettonites, hip hoppers, rockabillies, and fanatical leotarded aerobicizers.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>TV was dominated by: </strong><em>Cagney &amp; Lacey, Cheers, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Family Ties, Highway to Heaven, Hill Street Blues, Knots Landing, Magnum, P.I., Miami Vice, Murder, She Wrote, Newhart, Night Court, Remington Steele, Riptide, Scarecrow &amp; Mrs. King, Simon &amp; Simon, The A-Team, The Cosby Show, The Fall Guy, Trapper John, M.D.,</em> and tiny guy <em>Webster</em>.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>The big MOVIES were: </strong><em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Against All Odds, Amadeus, Bachelor Party, Beverly Hills Cop, Blame it on Rio, Breakin' </em>(and Breakin&rsquo; II!)<em>, Cannonball Run II, Children of the Corn, Conan the Destroyer, Dune, Firestarter, Footloose, Friday the 13th Part IV: The Final Chapter, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Irreconcilable Differences, Johnny Dangerously, Missing in Action </em>(Norris!)<em>, Moscow on the Hudson, Police Academy, Purple Rain, Red Dawn, Revenge of the Nerds, Rhinestone, Romancing the Stone, Sixteen Candles, Splash, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Starman, Supergirl, Teachers, The Cotton Club, The Evil That Men Do, The Flamingo Kid, The Gods Must Be Crazy, The Ice Pirates, The Karate Kid, The Killing Fields, The Last Starfighter, The Muppets Take Manhattan, The Natural, The Terminator, The Woman in Red, Thief of Hearts, Tightrope, Top Secret!, Unfaithfully Yours, Up the Creek, Weekend Pass, </em>and <em>Where the Boys Are '84</em>.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>At the roller rink, top TUNEMEISTERS included: </strong>Adam Ant, Bananarama, Billy Joel, Billy Ocean, Billy Squier, Bruce Springsteen, Chicago, Christine McVie, Christopher Cross, Corey Hart, Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, David Bowie, DeBarge, Duran Duran, Elton John, Eurythmics, Genesis, Hall &amp; Oates, Huey Lewis and the News, Irene Cara, John Cougar Mellencamp, John Waite, Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson, KC &amp; the Sunshine Band, Kenny Loggins, Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, Kool &amp; The Gang, Laura Branigan, Lionel Richie, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Mike Reno and Ann Wilson, Nena, Night Ranger, Olivia Newton-John, Pat Benatar, Peabo Bryson, Peter Schilling, Phil Collins, Quiet Riot, Ratt, Ray Parker Jr., Rick Springfield, Rockwell, Rod Stewart, Run-DMC, Scandal, Shalamar, Sheila E., Steve Perry, Stevie Wonder, Stray Cats, The Cars, The Go-Go's, The Jacksons, The Pointer Sisters, The Police, The Rolling Stones, The Romantics, Thompson Twins, Tina Turner, Van Halen, Wang Chung, Wham!, Yes, and the long-beards themselves, ZZ Top.&nbsp;</p>
<p><strong>In the NEWS: </strong>AIDS, Ethiopian famine (and Band Aid to help solve it!), Apple&rsquo;s Macintosh (and Sony&rsquo;s first 3 &frac12;&rdquo; disk, plus the introduction of commercial CD players!), the Summer Olympics (and the Soviets&rsquo; boycott), the first untethered space walk (Space Shuttle Challenger, followed in August by Space Shuttle Discovery), and the overall feeling that George Orwell mighta been on to something in his dystopian <em>Nineteen Eighty-Four</em>, though, admittedly, by today&rsquo;s standards, 1984 feels rather quiet and quaint, if not altogether na&iuml;ve.&nbsp;</p>
<p>It occurs to me that today&rsquo;s freshmen might as well be launching amidst their own dystopian prophecy of sorts, perhaps Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s masterwork being the order of the day, as it is fast becoming a Brave New World indeed, though hopefully for the [much] better.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Coincidentally&mdash;<em>in case you have time for a couple final factoids and a dozen metaphors that endeavor to tie the whole room together!</em>&mdash;Huxley died within hours of C. S. Lewis (November 22, 1963), though, understandably, too few of the citizenry were able to fully commemorate their passing and reach closure when it happened, as a progressive young President on the other side of the sea also happened to lose his life that day, in his case when the motorcade crept past the Texas School Book Depository and changed the course of history forever. Again.</p>
<p>History often has a rather odd way of sensemaking and putting things into perspective for us, does it not? Three renowned, notable Men of Letters had lost their lives in a single day, and two more thought-leaders would die violently at the hands of small-minded bigots in April and June of 1968.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Of this I am certain, though: The struggle is real, and it continues until The Very Bittersweet End.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Transitions, changes, passages, epochal eras, and especially upheavals rarely come on time, are frequently messy, disorganized, and open-ended, and can also be jarring when not outright violent. The status quo rarely goes quietly into some good night, nor does it simply fade away. In my experience, new order comes kicking and screaming loudly into the world and tears lotsa social fabric along the way.</p>
<p>What is &ldquo;fashionable&rdquo; is, by definition, temporal. It comes and goes, becoming something frivolous and perhaps even small by comparison, especially in retrospect. We learn first-hand that time marches on&hellip;waits for no man&hellip;and we cannot step into the same river twice. To not learn this would be ignorance, denial of truth, and intellectual/social/spiritual death.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Granted, I cannot predict what firefly fashions, sights, or sounds may catch our eyes or ears in the future, but I do agree that though the arc of the moral universe is long, it does bend toward justice, and progress will eventually carry the day.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But perhaps more importantly than all this, I believe in the scriptural promise that a <em>child shall lead the way.</em></p>
<p>This being the case, I can think of no more auspicious, eventful, pivotal, memorable, momentous year than 2020 to launch our offspring out into the world to seize the day.</p>
<p>I pray they can blaze a better trail than we have, and eventually show us the way.</p>
<p>#LeadOn</p>

Metamorphosis

<h2 align="center"><em>P.S. Perspective &amp; Gratitude</em></h2>
<p>Now that we have been in self-isolation for more than a month, not surprisingly, we are missing things we typically enjoy and have come to expect. We feel cramped a bit because we cannot go where we like and do as we please. Our favorite stores and regular haunts are closed, access to friends and family curtailed, schools shut down, sporting events on hold, and our entire daily routine has been flipped on its head.</p>
<p>Reports from news sources pile on with even more serious losses. Phrases like &ldquo;Great Depression&rdquo; pop up and point out job losses and scary financial predictions. Add the continued physical danger and loss of lives caused by COVID-19, and many say that we have never seen hard times like these on such a global scale.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The frustration is becoming visible. While the press and the public are lobbing complaints at the government and corporations concerning their actions during the pandemic, protests are pushing against the requirements to stay home and proceed carefully about returning to our former normal.&nbsp;</p>
<p>But as I have had more and more time to reflect on this pandemic, I am also reminded of significantly harder times experienced by not-so-distant generations. I recently read six books, fiction and non-fiction, on World War II and started reading more about World War I. We think we are in isolation!</p>
<p>I am astounded by the emotional, practical, and physical suffering experienced by those in battle and families back home. What did anxiety feel like for those who had no idea where their fathers, brothers, sons, and uncles were serving or how they were doing from day to day? Who could measure the loss of all the homes, cities, military hardware and lives that were demolished or that sank to the bottom of the sea? And yet many of us personally know and can recall the names, faces and stories of people who survived and endured these traumatic times and times much like them in wars that would soon follow.</p>
<p>I especially think of my father. Raymundo Romero who was born in the last metal pitched-roof house at the northeast corner of Trampas, New Mexico in 1907. He was the seventh-born of 10 children. He was a man small in stature, but giant in character and example.</p>
<p>I remember how for eight summers between 1935 to 1942, he served as Fire Lookout atop Picuris Mountain near Penasco, New Mexico. Accepting this position meant that he was in self-isolation for four to five months at a time. He was re-supplied with canned goods and a few fresh foods three or four times during the summer by pack horse. I recall his stories about how he looked forward to those visits and have read his diary entries about those times.</p>
<p>One detail helps me realize how good I have it. My father created a small &ldquo;cooler&rdquo; to keep his food fresh for a few more days. It was a box wrapped in burlap that he would wet daily, suspending it outdoors for the night air to keep cool. He hiked one mile down and then back up each day carrying two-gallon sized canteens. This march at daybreak supplied him with his fresh water for the day.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; line-height: normal; background: white;">&nbsp;</p>
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<p>Thinking about those times helps put things in perspective for me. I can jump in my car and get fresh things from the grocery store whenever I need them. There may not always be a wide selection, but, amazingly, necessities are there and continue to be restocked. I don&rsquo;t hike for water and can quickly get to beautiful places by car. I can hop on my computer or either of two phones to communicate easily with family and friends. I can order good books from Amazon and have them delivered to my doorstep in a matter of hours or a few days. My dad only had a radio for news and music and a crank telephone to the Ranger Station to report any potential fires. I have lots of screens that give me news, movies, and too many programs to watch in a lifetime.</p>
<p>When I practice gratitude, my list grows even longer. I&rsquo;m grateful for how supply chains continue to operate, and how medical systems, while strained in some places, are functioning heroically. I&rsquo;m glad there have been no large-scale bankruptcies that sparked a panic.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Think about work. If COVID-19 had struck just a decade or so earlier, there would have been no Zoom for virtual meetings and client interactions. FaceTime didn&rsquo;t exist until 2010. Business would have ground to a halt except for those tasks and messages that could have been sent by email.</p>
<p>Think of schools and universities. While we sadly lost graduation events and experiences, teachers and students moved smoothly to online classes that would have been unthinkable in recent decades. Not everything in the classroom can be replicated online, but most schools and universities of yesteryear would have had no option except to shut down completely.</p>
<p>You can make your own list, but when I remember how much we do have, even in demanding times like this, I begin to feel differently. When I remind myself that I am not as isolated as I sometimes think, and my losses are not so unique, it changes how I see. People I know and love have suffered in more challenging ways and serve as a model and inspiration to draw strength from today.</p>
<p>I don't know about you, but it helps me to keep things in perspective by comparing this current experience with what others before us have suffered. Somehow, I feel more grateful and even in possession of something very precious&hellip;a little more inner fortitude.</p>

TIPS & TOOLS, Article 6.1: "P.S. Perspective & Gratitude"

<h2 style="text-align: center; font-size: 16pt;"><em><strong>Being With Uncertainty</strong></em></h2>
<p><em><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Editor&rsquo;s Note: We asked the inimitable Lou Romero if he&rsquo;d be willing to share a few words of wisdom during this odd era of COVID-19. Of late, we have been thinking, reading, and hearing more and more about the anxieties many people feel living in this uncertainty. We hope Lou's words bring you an extra measure of peace today and in coming weeks.&nbsp;</span> </em>&nbsp;</p>
<hr />
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>We are called &ldquo;human beings.&rdquo;&nbsp;</p>
<p>I want to align my daily <strong>DOING</strong> with my <strong>BEING</strong>; the person I say I want to <strong>BE</strong>. My behaviors are born from a thought or feeling which grows into an intention, behavior, and actions. At age 78, especially during this &lsquo;pandemic&rsquo; time, I need a daily reminder of my intentions:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">BE CALM</span>:</strong> Focus on positive, hopeful, grateful thoughts that guide my self-awareness, self-talk, behavior, and actions. Have faith and hope that &lsquo;this too shall pass&rsquo; and we will have gained greater awareness about our interdependence locally and in the world. Allow time to meditate, pray, read, write, listen to music, and nap.<br /><br /></li>
<li><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>BE CREATIVE:</strong></span> Find projects that give me purpose and fulfillment; work on different ways to serve others; learn how to do new tasks; do some things I used to enjoy but haven&rsquo;t done in a long time; pause to think differently and surface new ideas for dealing with my current reality, both short-term and long&hellip;.<br /><br /></li>
<li><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>BE COMPASSIONATE:</strong></span> Take care of myself first so I can care for others; be kind and patient with myself when I get frustrated with &lsquo;what is&rsquo;; reach out to family and friends with kindness, knowing that everyone is dealing with uncertainty in their own way; avoid trying to &lsquo;preach&rsquo; how to be&hellip;be a good listener&hellip;.<br /><br /></li>
<li><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>BE COURAGEOUS:</strong></span> Address what I can control to improve &lsquo;what is&rsquo;; prepare for unusual situations that may require choices I have never faced before; think about ways to mitigate &lsquo;worst case scenarios&rsquo; with courage and confidence.<br /><br /></li>
<li>And then there is <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">COMMITMENT</span></strong>. How do I know if I am ready to commit to an intention&hellip;or am I already committed? Do they remain only intentions? When I definitely commit to a behavior, task, action, or outcome&hellip;I feel and think differently. I can actually feel an inner change in my emotions and my sense of urgency. &nbsp;</li>
</ul>
<p><br />Years ago, a close friend gave me a plaque about <strong>COMMITMENT</strong> that reads:&nbsp;</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>&ldquo;Until one is committed, there is hesitancy,&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>the chance to draw back, always ineffective&hellip;</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>there is one elemental truth, the ignorance of which&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>kills countless ideas and splendid plans;</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>That the moment one definitively commits oneself,&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>then Providence moves too.<br /></strong></em><em><strong>All sorts of things occur to help one that&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>would never otherwise have occurred.</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>A whole stream of events issues from the decision,<br /></strong></em><em><strong>raising in one&rsquo;s favor all manner of unforeseen<br /></strong></em><em><strong>incidents and meetings and material assistance,<br /></strong></em><em><strong>which could not have been dreamt to have come one&rsquo;s way.</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>I have learned a deep respect for&nbsp;<br /></strong></em><em><strong>one of Goethe&rsquo;s couplets: </strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>&lsquo;Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.<br /></strong></em><em><strong>Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.&rsquo;&rdquo;</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">That quote has served as a positive reminder to me when hesitating to go &lsquo;all in.&rsquo;</p>
<p><br />Another meaningful, powerful quote that prompts me to be mindful about how I am BEING simply reads:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>&ldquo;There is no happiness that is secure and nothing that does not change.&rdquo;</strong></em></p>
<p>This quote (by St. Teresa de &Aacute;vila, a 16th century scholar) was presented to me by my wife to commemorate our having beaten prostate cancer in November 1995. We&rsquo;d vacationed in Spain to celebrate, and one of our favorite stops was &Aacute;vila. We found it to be a beautiful place with a charming town square, friendly people, a cathedral in the middle, and nuns&rsquo; convent.&nbsp;I have internalized that quote for a quarter-century now. I examine what happiness means to me. <strong>Happiness is an enduring sense of inner peace; contentment that I have Purpose, Meaning, Fulfillment, and Spiritual growth in my life.&nbsp;</strong></p>
<p>How do I feel and know when my happiness is fading? What do I do when that happens? I can usually detect when something is changing (or has already changed, now producing a feeling of anxiety). Anxiety disturbs my sense of happiness. When I finally accept that feeling, it prompts me to be introspective about the causes. I often find that I am neglecting one or more of my core values in some way. Once I identify the source, if it is something within my control&hellip;I can start making changes and commitments to return to a state of happiness. &nbsp;</p>
<p><br />Frequently, the Serenity Prayer also grounds me and reduces my anxiety:</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><strong>&ldquo;God, grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change,&nbsp;</strong></em><br /><em><strong>COURAGE to change the things I can,&nbsp;</strong></em><br /><em><strong>and the WISDOM to know the difference.&rdquo;</strong></em></p>
<p><br />I hope this prayer&mdash;or any of the other tools I&rsquo;ve shared here today&mdash;might do the same for you during these trying times.&nbsp;</p>
<p>May peace be with you always,</p>
<p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/leath-group/image/upload/v1587387174/zifaujbnsxeptxbrl3mv.png" alt="LOU REMERO SIGNATURE" width="142" height="72" /></p>