Death in our culture is hidden away. While logically we understand that we will all die someday, it is generally a topic that is uncomfortable, and swept under the rug. Is it appropriate to bring a younger child to a funeral? How different is it to let a teenager have a cellphone and no real relationships supported by the family? How does your lack of real relationships in your childhood affect your adult relationships? Do we only have professionalized way of living? With superficial connections? Early family experience affects later romantic and other relationships. How do we learn to be more patient in our interactions and relationships?

"We find that by engaging with people and listening to them, they are willing to work with you. Localism is about engaging and having a debate. It’s a partnership with the community. It’s about working together."

1. Engagement: Community engagement is an extremely rewarding experience. It helps businesses connect with people in their local area and get the word out about their work. One of the best ways to grow your business is by leveraging your local community first. You can do this effectively by volunteering at charity events with not-for-profits based in the same region. Doing good always comes back to help your organization.

2. Communication: Social distancing and other safety measures have severely impacted day-to-day operations for local businesses. Use your site/social media to inform customers. It should be front and center, because everybody wants to know. Are you at the very least keeping your own employees protected? As a local business make COVID-19-related announcements and information easily accessible. Google recommends displaying a banner or popup informing visitors of your business’ status, delays, pick-up or delivery options, etc., so that your customers can proceed with appropriate expectations.

3. Commitment: Seek and develop relationships with other small businesses. Give fair consideration and opportunity to local communities. Publicize your interest in establishing relationships with local communities and small businesses. Provide information and training on how to do business with you/your business.

https://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/media/pdf/k/m/berkeley-reports-and-opinions-case-studies-lessons-for-localism-community-engagement.pdf

"Invest the time to learn! There is no easy answer. Don't stop improving your skills!" 

Firing

"Firing is something that you can't avoid. Keeping people that you can't afford is worse. Don't listen to people who don’t live with the consequences of your action. Especially when it is a family business."

Hiring & Training

"Train your people in finance, negotiation and selling. Training is as important as hiring. This is not an option for small companies. Build your own training internally. Stop waiting for emails, calls and phone to ring. Especially if you are building your company. A new company is in constant building all the time. When you are building an organization, there is no organization to design, you need an organization first."

Peacetime CEO vs. wartime CEO

"It is possible to be both. Most management books study companies during their time of peace. As a result very few books will help CEOs during wartime. It takes years to develop the skill sets. If you want someone to succeed, make sure that person feel that way! Help her/him, prepare her/him to succeed! Feedback is not one size fits all! Not all employees will take it the right way! You will never have all the information needed to make a decision. Just make a decision! You are going to make hundreds of decisions. You can’t gather data all the time! Communicate and make sure your employees are executing well and can help you! Talent and skills."

The expressions of gratitude are based on social reciprocity in everyday life and understandings of rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. There is cross-cultural variation to this. Universal tendencies of social reciprocity does not equate to practices of expressing gratitude.

Social reciprocity is a basic element of human organization that involves the mutual exchange of goods, services and support among individuals, allowing individuals to achieve more together. People can expect others to assist them in the achievement of individual goals as well as to collaborate in the achievement of common goals. They can anticipate that others will assist and collaborate in return. This reflects principles of cooperation that have been argued to be at the center of human evolution, including the development of human communication.

If gratitude’s role in the maintenance of social reciprocity in different societies is evidenced by its verbalization (e.g. ‘thank you’), we would expect this to occur frequently in episodes of informal everyday interaction where someone seeks and obtains a good, service or support from another. What has been found instead is that expressions of gratitude in these episodes are remarkably rare, suggesting that social reciprocity relies to a large extent on tacit understandings of people’s rights and duties surrounding mutual assistance and collaboration. At the same time, it has also been found that minor cross-cultural variation, with slightly higher rates in Western European languages, including English, showing that the potentially universal experience of gratitude should not be conflated with culturally variable practices of expressing gratitude. The idea that gratitude’s role in social reciprocity is tied to saying ‘thank you’ appears to be largely based not on systematic empirical observation but on attitudes about politeness in English-speaking society.

Universals and cultural diversity in the expression of gratitude (royalsocietypublishing.org)

The majority of managers struggle with managing others. In a 2011 Berrett-Koehler survey of 150 leaders, 68% of managers confessed they really don’t like being managers.

Being a manager adds a facet to your job that, more likely than not, you were never trained to do.

1. Working with, rather than fighting against

One way to be a successful manager is by capitalizing on your strengths and others. You cannot control other people, yet you are accountable for their output. Getting to know them and focus on working with them instead of fighting against everything they do, will definitely help.

2. Personality assessment

Managing people is not a convenient situation. Understand yourself first. Managing others requires flexing your style. That means meeting others where they’re at. What works for one person may not for another. Learn how to adapt your style to customize how you manage and motivate your team.

3. Sorting out personality conflicts is inevitable

The heightened, personalized attention you pay to your staff will more than pay off. You will be able to manage employees more efficiently and with greater success, all with less effort. You’ll form stronger rapport while increasing your team’s dedication and output.

The Pandemic has changed buying behaviors. In most countries, consumers continue shifting their spending to essentials, while cutting back on most discretionary categories. On our episode today, we are going to talk about what contributes to keeping your customers’ loyalty.

1. Focus on improving customer service

Adopt a proactive approach where you are always available. Especially if this is a new behavior for you! Reach out for feedback, offer helpful tutorials, or just check in. This will improve satisfaction and decrease the fear of not getting heard. Outsourcing this service can be a tempting way to cut costs, but you’ll ultimately pay the difference by devaluing your customer experience. It is better to train your staff rather than outsource.

2. Improve your mobile and web applications

If you don't have a mobile app nor a website, consider investing in one. Leveraging social media to start with is good but eventually you want to have your own platform. You will pay less fees and will be in control of your own products and services.

Having a site or an app will also improve credibility with a broad audience of potential customers.

The precautionary principle refers to the idea that public policies should limit innovations until their creators can prove they will not cause any potential harms or disruptions.

The problem with the precautionary principle is that uncertainty about the future and risks always exists.

Living in constant fear of worst-case scenarios means that best-case scenarios will never come about.

But can the precautionary principle really lead to deaths? Yes, it can. Literally and figuratively!

Advocates of the precautionary principle might believe that doing nothing in the face of uncertainty seems like the safer choice.

However without risk, there can be no reward.

Generally speaking, it is almost never wise to completely prevent experiences that might offer important benefits that are difficult to foresee!

How Many Lives Are Lost Due to the Precautionary Principle? - HumanProgress

https://www.nber.org/papers/w26395

https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Rice-Imperiled-Birth-Superfood/dp/1421433036

How to learn from MC Donald’s real estate purchases:

McDonald's is best known for its hamburgers.

Real Estate

Small business owners can really learn from the McDonald's business model to invest in commercial real estate as a way to make an extra income from those who pay rent.

Part of McDonald's long-term success comes the fact that it owns the land and buildings at most of its locations. Today's entrepreneurs can follow the same business model and build wealth by owning their commercial property and becoming landlords themselves.

1. You'll stop paying rent (to other people).

One immediate benefit from buying your commercial property is that you no longer pay rent! Once you own the property, you will be responsible for a monthly mortgage payment, but this money will go toward building your wealth, not a landlord's. Also, your monthly mortgage payments could be less than what they were paying in rent and have a larger and better space.

2. You'll grow an asset.

Commercial buildings can grow in value significantly, particularly if you hold the property for 10-20 years. Commercial real estate ownership is a sound and proven wealth creation strategy.

3. You have the potential for an annuity.

If you sell your business but retain ownership of the building you become a landlord yourself. Whoever buys your business ends up paying you for the value of the business and also pays rent to you. Buying a property now can create an income stream that lasts into and beyond your retirement.

4. You'll have flexibility when the time comes to sell.

When it comes to selling a small business, sometimes it's not that clean and easy, particularly if you want to pass your business down to the next generation of your family. If you own your building and receive regular rent payments as part of the purchase agreement, it will make this financial transition easier and give flexibility to the seller. 

https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/home.html

Investors - Financial information

Annual report - 2019 - 79 page document - PDF

Page 50 - Property and equipment - $39B.

"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Archilochus of Paros

Hedgehogs have a single grand idea that they apply to everything, while foxes come up with a new idea for every situation.

As per the book “Good to Great” by Jim Collins, here are the 3 key principles of The Hedgehog Concept:

Foxes are known to be clever, sly animals but they have way too many different strategies to get what they want. They pursue a range of goals in one go. Hedgehog on the other hand, have one goal in mind and they strive to do it well!

Most people initially favor the Fox, cunning and skillful, but this can have a negative effect on what you are trying to achieve in the long run. You are more likely to be scattered and inconsistent in your work. Hedgehogs are more likely to be winners. They focus on what they are good at and do it well!

Transformations from “good to great” come by a series of good decisions made consistently with a Hedgehog Concept, supremely well executed, accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time.

Think about your company, career, or even life in general, are you a fox or a hedgehog? Do you jump from one idea to the next to achieve a goal? Are you consistent with what you want and work hard on that alone?

What if all of us were farmers that were given seeds?

God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt,  and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say, 'Maybe next year.”

A Farmer is/builds:

Paul Harvey So God Made A Farmer - YouTube