Diversity

Isn’t it odd how our truth might elude our primary language? Sometimes you have to go halfway across the world to find the perfect word. I loved the French expression “joie de vivre” so much that I named my boutique hotel company after that exquisite phrase.

“The very act of assembling is an exceptionally powerful stimulant. Once the individuals are assembled, their proximity generates a kind of electricity that quickly transports them to an extraordinary degree of exaltation.” - Sociologist Emile Durkheim

Thurgood Marshall once said, "None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody – a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns – bent down and helped us pick up our boots." This is just one quote that marks him as a Modern Elder.

Life expectancy. Such a profound concept, even melancholic if you let it be. But, here’s the thing: the word not only speaks to how long we live, but how much we expect from life. In other words, it can be an empowering concept and one worth investigating. To that end, I want to introduce four insightful articles/studies and one question.

Warning: this next sentence is bawdy. In an episode of The Simpsons, when Marge was about to board a ship, Smithers said, “'I think women and seamen don't mix." Of course, double entendres have been with us for centuries. Even Shakespeare used them in “Romeo and Juliet” (Google “bawdy hand”).

Diane Flynn and Patty White are co-conspirators of mine and they’re popular MEA guest faculty. Their book, “The Upside,” showcases the business case for gender diversity and specific actions each stakeholder can take to build more inclusive cultures.

The human brain has been called “the world’s most complex pattern recognition system.” Pattern recognition is considered a proxy for wisdom, the theory being that if you recognize a pattern based upon past experience, you can forecast the future.

Oh, do we ever miss travel right now, aye? Many of us have a different kind of fever, cabin fever. We’re spending our days dreaming of our past and future adventures and that unrivaled opportunity travel provides us to feel alive!

In a post not long ago (“Are You So Woke You Can’t Sleep”), I introduced you to author, speaker, and inspirational entertainer Justin Michael Williams, our youngest MEA grad who is one of the wisest and most soulful people I know.

I arrived in the U.S. yesterday. Well, let’s be honest. I arrived in San Francisco. As Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner suggested long ago in the hippie era, “San Francisco is 49 square miles surrounded by reality.” Geez, there’s a lot of REALITY these days, isn’t there?