• ‘STRESS’ IS “UBIQUITOUS AND INEVITABLE, but we all react to difficult circumstances differently. And how we manage stressful situations plays a huge role in determining how resilient we are.” So stress management is a critical factor in both business and personal interactions, and identifying what triggers your pressure is the start-point for controlling reactions that can otherwise “lead to acute anxiety, depression, irritability  fatigue, and/or medical problems”… ‘Emotional Intelligence’ – the ability to understand your own mood & emotions, and to be aware of those attributes in others in order to guide your behavior – is what determines how you interact, maintain relationships, stay motivated, make decisions and influence others.” One core tool is to focus on the “most positive interpretation of a person or situation” (the half-full versus half-empty glass analogy), giving benefit-of-the-doubt long enough to see things differently, and recognize how the challenge is pressuring you physically/emotionally/ psychologically, in order to manage your emotional response more effectively. [HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW – June 21, 17]
  • AT WHAT POINT DOES POLITICAL DISAGREEMENT AND ‘CORRECTNESS’ GET CONSIDERED ANARCHY? P.C. has just crossed another line in (surprise) California, with UCLA – an institution publically funded – releasing (through its Institute on Inequality & Democracy) a “RESISTANCE HANDBOOK for America’s snowflakes which defines Trumpism as a movement that consolidates power through ‘White Supremacy, Misogyny, Nationalism, Xenophobia, Corporatism and Militarism’…by expanding and institutionalizing systematic oppressions… UCLA insists that the Trump Administration’s harmful and divisive rhetoric is fueling an open war of bigotry and hate towards nonwhite populations… and calls on urban planners to (1) Refuse to design, plan or build the proposed wall between U.S. and Mexico; (2) Declare their spaces as Sanctuaries to undocumented immigrants; and (3) Commit to abolishing mass incarceration & the prison-industrial complex.” Oh, and it gets better: the Institute describes Sanctuary City as one that also “provides a guarantee of federal employment, a living wage, unionization of day and domestic laborers, and protection against climate change… American tax dollars hard at work.”  [ZEROHEDGE.COM – June 25, 17]
  • ONLY 12% OF MILLENIALS SAY THEY PREFER TELEPHONES FOR BUSINESS USE. 45% say they now prefer chatting online or texting, and evidently are increasingly slow to answer their phone or respond to emails, which has prompted employers and recruiters to increasingly use “apps which allow them to screen candidates and conduct early-stage interviews with texts” with software that can analyze candidates response. [WALL STREET JRNL – June 20, 17]
  • THE GLOBAL CYBERCRIME EPIDEMIC IS BASICALLY OUT OF CONTROL, and global cost forecasts are now $6 trillion annually by 2021. The situation has also created an unprecedented shortage of cybersecurity workers – in the U.S. currently some 350,000 positions are open, including Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) level in two-thirds of large companies. Yet, according to Raytheon, “two of three high schoolers say the idea of a career in cybersecurity has never been mentioned to them by a teacher, guidance or career counselor.”  [CSO ONLINE.COM – June 22, 17]
  • THE MOST IMPORTANT ELEMENT OF EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP is about “helping lead the strategic trajectory of an organization for overall success and developing the required relationships.” A recent survey by exec recruiters Korn Ferry found over 55% of CFOs believing that “poor working relationship, personality issues, and inability to work well with or lead others are more important” factors in keeping their jobs, than meeting financial goals or underperforming operationally.  [CFO MAGAZINE – June 17]
  • “SCIENTISTS HAVE NOW CRACKED OUR BRAIN’S FACIAL RECOGNITION CODE… finding specialized ‘face patches’ that respond to specific combinations of facial features.” Software developed at Cal Tech can now “reconstruct faces by reading brainwaves, with each patch fine-tuned to a particular set of visual info, which then channel together in different combinations to form a holistic representation of every distinctive face.” Beyond benefits to policing, this breakthrough could eventually “give back sight to the blind,” and/or help engineer prosthetics to alleviate ‘face blindness’ which many suffer. [SINGULARITY HUB.COM – June 14, 17]

           “Americans learn only from catastrophe, and not from experience.” – Theodore Roosevelt   “I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S.  Congress.”  -Ronald Reagan 

           Cooled wet tea bags have some secondary uses: (1) As a pain reliever from sunburn, bug bites, or tooth infections; (2) As a cleaner for furniture or floors, before buffing with a dry cloth; (3) As an odor-absorber in a fridge or trashcan. Just fyi.