Valentine’s Day Potpourri

Living and Health

Here’s a variety of health and living news items that point to the need for you to stay current, read everyday and don’t be manipulated by popular press or ideas:

1) Healthy Living is Too Expensive: It’s much cheaper for governments to continue to ignore the health risks of smoking and obesity according to a study from the Public Library of Science Medicine. According to the research, lifetime health costs for healthy living is $417,000; for smokers, $326,000; and for the obese, $371,000. The conclusion appears to be let people choose to be as healthy as they want to be and to allow self-destructive behaviors continue.

Like all things in life, a healthy lifestyle coupled with preventive health care is a personal choice. People don’t need expensive and non-productive health programs telling them to not smoke, to take 30 minutes for a walk or to get regular health exams (even the uninsured can afford one checkup a year). Healthy people have already figured this out – government is “preaching to the choir” and hence, wasting tax dollars.

Plus the one biological element that will determine how long a person lives and how healthy that person will be in his or her lifetime is genetics. So pick your parents carefully.

2) Women Have High Serum Cholesterol: High serum cholesterol is defined as a number greater than 240 mg/dlt as determined by a blood test. According to the CDC and the NCHS National Health and Nutritional exam surveys from 2005-06, women, on average, have high serum cholesterol levels twice more often than men (22% to 10%). In the “heart attack” years between 40 and 59, women have a slightly higher incidence than men (19.2% to 18.8%). The only period of life when men exceed women (13% to 11%) is between 20 and 39.

Since more men die of heart attacks than women, maybe the idea of high serum cholesterol is not much of a risk factor (by itself). Perhaps the hype around prescription drugs to lower cholesterol as a preventive measure is just another well-marketed fear tactic advanced by pharmaceuticals for no other reason than profit? If a pharmaceutical company can get a “patient” in their 50’s started with a statin (cholesterol-lowering drug) regimen, that person will be “hooked” for at least 30 years on a very expensive monthly drug habit.

3) Time to Ask for a Raise: Since 1981, the cost of living when adjusted for inflation, has risen by 140%. If you were employed full-time in 1981, and was earning $26,000 per year, today your salary would need to be around $65,000 a year to have kept pace. If you are not earning at least $60,000 a year, your buying power has dropped significantly. That explains the need for households to have multiple low-paying jobs.

Inflation will reduce the buying power of a dollar by 95% every 40 years. A dollar saved in any kind of savings program in 1968 would have the buying power of 5 cents today. The only way you stay ahead (or at least even) is by reinvesting dividends and capital gains from your investments. It is really true when financial advisors say that the only way to make “real” money is to put your money to work by investing.

With the US Government and the banking industry pushing credit debt and “spend for today” mentalities, the middle-class economic structure will soon disappear and the poor will get poorer.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2008 3 Minute Learning LLC

LISTEN TO ME

Leaders Listen to Others First

Leadership is an attitude. Leadership is a lifestyle. Leadership is a moral compass. Leadership represents the “will” of an organization. Leadership is a powerful presence, yet the leader is humble.

Leadership is not something that a person “turns on” in front of co-workers. A leader leads by his or her actions. As Aristotle said, excellence is a habit and you can apply that to leadership.

The 3 words that will kill leadership are: Listen to me. The lack of leadership is characterized by a person using his or her influence to coerce or manipulate people into action (fear is a common tactic). You know the type who stands in front of people and pronounces, “It’s my way or the highway.”

This lack of leadership from a person is connected to his/her narcissistic attitude. From Greek mythology, narcissism refers to a person who is in love with his/her own reflection. Freud felt narcissism was a failure to suppress childlike behavior in adulthood. Leadership and narcissism are direct opposites; a leader cannot be a narcissist.

The cornerstones of leadership are sacrifice and a genuine interest in the well-being of others. Mother Theresa is one of the truly great examples of leadership. She could have done her humanitarian work from the comfort of Vatican City. Instead, she refused the Church’s offer and continued to live among the people she served until her death. Her lesson: never distance yourself from those who need you.

Narcissistic behaviors are the opposite: self-centered and greedy. Narcissistic people are abundantly represented by those spiritual and political leaders so enamored with him/herself that a scandal is inevitable. They only pretend to serve people, instead advancing their own agenda.

So when a person says, Listen to me instead of I want to hear you, you know what kind of person who employs you. You may have no choice but to stay under those conditions; just keep you expectations and opinions in check. There is no freedom of speech in a workplace without quality leadership. (In the classroom, the quickest way to alienate students is to say listen to me. By the time the words are spoken, those students’ minds have already left the building. An essential part of learning is the presence of student challenges.)

If you are working on sharpening your leadership skills, the most productive actions are your physical presence and active listening. People want to be heard, they want to be involved and they want to feel that what they are doing is meaningful. It’s not difficult to walk around, greet people with a smile and ask how they are doing today. Like Mother Theresa, spend your energy among your people.

In Lee Iacocca’s new book, Where Have All The Leaders Gone?, the title leaves no doubt as to his purpose. Iacocca’s framework is his 9 C’s of Leadership: Curiosity, Creativity, Communication, Character, Courage, Conviction, Charisma, Competency and Common Sense. According to Iacoccca, no one has mastered all of these attributes, but everyone has a foundation that includes pieces of each trait.

Here’s a suggestion: start with your strengths and then build. Take those 9 traits and begin a list of how you see yourself in each category (the strongest are the easiest to identify). Find a confidant to help you sharpen your list and give you objective feedback. Look for mentors, read books, establish a list of admired people and why you admire them and finally, be genuine to those around you so they will feel comfortable offering advice that will help you grow.

(Ironically, I think his leadership advice misses the mark: pick good people, have a good team around you and set priorities. That is a recipe for success reserved for a few, for example, assembling a potent baseball team like the New York Yankees. Leadership in everyday settings is about taking a diverse set of people, creating a vision, help them attain success and as a result they freely choose to follow their leader.)

Here’s one final tip: when asked, “Are you a leader?” respond with a “No.” Tell them you are a learner and the people around you are the teachers.

Unbelievable Healthcare Spending

Medicare became law in 1965, as part of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. In 1970, Medicare costs were $7.5 billion.

In 2006, Medicare’s budget had ballooned to $408 billion and in 10 years, it is projected to be $863 billion! Given the monthly premiums paid by seniors, medical co-payments, deductibles and the shameful prescription coverage plan, where is all that money going?

Access to affordable and quality medical care is a basic right in modern society. It is not an opportunity for healthcare-related companies to make record profits from the pain and misery of citizens.

America has enough resources to provide the best healthcare in the world. Unfortunately, America cannot overcome, or hope to survive, greed.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2007 3 Minute Learning LLC

OCTOBER MUSINGS

Perceptions

It is rare for subordinates to get a chance to formerly review their managers. Even though 92 percent of managers rate themselves as good or excellent, only 67 percent of their subordinates agree with the assessment. No manager ranked themselves as “poor”, 10 percent of their subordinates provided that assessment. (source: Hudson National Opinion survey of workers, 2006)

Many companies have tried 360 degree assessments to improve communication and productivity in the workplace. Evaluations tend to become popularity contests and do not always represent feedback that may improve employer-employee relations. Management at any level needs top improve its level of communication with employees. People in the workplace just want an opportunity to be heard.

Regular and informal conversations with employees will vastly improve relations and productivity without any of the expensive gadgets or fads that populate the workplace. The term used to be “work around management” or WAM and it is unfortunate that companies don’t use that simple technique on a daily basis.

Any company that wants to improve its productivity and ultimately its profitability needs to increase its “paying attention to people quotient.” Making the workplace meaningful will yield the kind of results management is seeking.

Wage Info Good News to Colleges

College administrators and recruiters love the kind of earning income reports that came out recently. Adults 18 and older with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $51,154 in 2004. A high school diploma only earns the person $28,645 and non-high school grads only earn $19,169.

The greatest myth in education is that a college education leads to high paying jobs for all graduates. Using average income data, a college degree easily outpaces a high school graduate and a high school dropout. Yet the trend, measured since 1999, seems to show that the gap is closing.

In 1999, a bachelor’s degree earned over twice the amount of a high school graduate. Looking at the 2004 data, the gap is less than two times greater. Given the recent data that shows the average annual wage in the US is around $40,000, it seems that the gap between degrees has shrunk again.

Add to the supposed college wage advantage the average debt acquired by earning a bachelor’s degree, it could take up to 10 years for many college graduates to actually earn more than the high school graduate. For example, today’s newly hired teacher will most likely earn less than $35,000 in many school districts. After taxes and making loan payments, the difference will be much less than the customer service rep with a high school diploma.

There are some high paying jobs in the marketplace for college graduates, but not enough to justify the extreme emphasis on going to college. While nearly 70 percent of high school graduates try at least two years of college, only 45 percent of adults over 25 actually have a degree. And of those with a college degree, the average yearly income is influenced by the less than 1 percent that is earning millions of dollars per year as a CEO, entertaining or professional athlete.

Healthcare Crisis

There is a tremendous emphasis on healthcare with respect to those persons who do not have insurance. Universal healthcare is often discussed but will not become reality until the current crisis becomes critical.

The irony will be once universal healthcare is available is who will take of us? Retiring healthcare professionals will leave a tremendous void in communities. Just as “baby boomers” will be retiring in record numbers over the next 10 years, so too are people in the medical professions. Over 33 percent of today’s physicians are older than 55.

According to Arthur Garson, Jr, MD, Dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine, healthcare providers are rapidly moving from providers to consumers. So while everyone may eventually get a ticket to the dance, very few of us will get a chance to hear the music.

Visit www.3MinuteLearning.com

GROWTH <> LEADERSHIP <> EXCELLENCE

© 2006 3 Minute Learning LLC