Issue 390
A notebook about how we work, and learn, and love and live.
"How can everyone be powerful? Power is not a zero-sum game, where the power I have is necessarily power taken away from you. Instead, if we acknowledge that we are all interconnected, the more powerful you are, the more powerful I can become. The more powerfully you advance the organization’s purpose, the more opportunities will open up for me to make contributions of my own.”
― Frederic Laloux
I've long felt that as humans one of our biggest opportunities is to discover our own unique strengths, share them generously, and to encourage and support others to do the same. We have so much untapped power.
Happy Friday.
Economy
How money can help to disrupt some of the deep, systemic inequities in this country, instead of continuing to feed them.
"In my own Native American belief system, we are all relatives. We are also all infected with what I call the 'colonizer virus' — which urges us to divide, control, and exploit. Nowhere is the virus more symptomatic than in how we deal with wealth.
"For some, reading this book may feel like I’m yanking off the Band-Aid. There may be moments of discomfort. I invite you to sit with it, in the understanding that I am motivated by love and that things have been just as uncomfortable — if not really painful — for many of us, for a very long time. In order to heal what hurts, to come back together as one human race, and to restore balance to the land, we need to decolonize wealth. This book will explain how we can begin to heal ourselves, using money as our medicine."
Book Excerpt: Decolonizing Wealth. What If Money Could Heal Us?
Learning
Study: Stories can play a role in shifting the importance of particular moral values in children
Credit: Mikhail Nilov/Pexels
"Parents, caregivers, and teachers are often wondering how media can be used for good," says Lindsay Hahn. "How can it be used for good things? How can it discourage bad habits? How can it educate?"
Article: Stories Can Shape Moral Values in Kids
Learning
Sometimes the brain ignores what the eyes tell it.
"We are the prisoners of our brains. We see only what they decide to let us see. Researchers now illustrate this with an illusion in which the brain erases some aspects of the visual field."
Article: A Brain in Doubt Leaves it Out.
Marketing
"These fundamentals of marketing communication will always be true because they’re based on how our brains work, not on how technology works."
Attention is one of the 7 Principles
"American creative director Bill Bernbach made an observation more than half a century ago. 'It took millions of years for man’s instincts to develop…It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with the unchanging man. With his obsessive drive to survive, to be admired, to succeed, to love, to take care of his own.'
"So what are the unchanging fundamentals of marketing communication that will always be true regardless of the technologies we use to exploit them?"
Article: Seven Principles of Effective Marketing Communication
Branding, Social Messaging, Visual Identity
A footwear marketer is working to be more sensitive in language and branding.
"After 75 years of cultural appropriation of the Native American community, shoe brand Minnetonka is apologizing and promising to do better. (On Monday), in honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, the Minneapolis-based company said it is committed to supporting Native Americans through a series of initiatives that include the recent hire of Adrienne Benjamin, an activist and member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, as reconciliation advisor.
"David Miller, Minnetonka’s CEO, noted the company’s commitment tto listening to and acting on the guidance of our Native American advisors' in a statement, adding that such advisors are helping the brand 'do the right thing. Our journey to honor and invest in the Native American community will forever be a part of our company actions going forward.'"
Article: Minnetonka Apologizes for Cultural Appropriation, Redesigns Logo
Typography, Social Messaging
At its core, type is a storyteller. Letterforms deliver a message. And such messages are perhaps at their purest in the form of community-led designs for protest.
“A woman’s place is in the resistance,” by Hayley Gilmore.
"While many of those who create signs and banners for marches and demonstrations might not call themselves graphic designers, that’s exactly what they become when putting letters on placards. Each sign is a snapshot of a broader story, a message that’s both highly personal and that articulates the thoughts of a wider movement. They’re created in anger and in sadness, and distill exactly what the best design is all about: igniting change."
Article: Strongly Worded Letters: Typography and Modern Protest.
Playlist
By the time - December, 2014 - the brilliant sound engineers at Daptone recorded this Apollo Theatre concert to celebrate and honor the 20th anniversary of the amazing Brooklyn-based record label, The Daptone Super Soul Revue, had been on tour in Europe for the whole summer. They were well-rehearsed and ready to bring the show home.
The label just released a 2-CD set of the concert. It is magnificent. Daptone, thank you for reminding us that soul music soothes the soul.
Album: The Daptone Super Soul Revue - Live at the Apollo
Image of the Week
"In the forested canopies of Northern India, the Khasi people live in one of the rainiest places on Earth. During the annual monsoon season, the floodwaters get so high that villages become isolated, and travel becomes extremely difficult. To solve this problem, the Khasi began to build “living” bridges around 1,500 years ago. This process — which can take up to 50 years — involves weaving together the roots of the ficus elastica, or rubber fig tree, and slowly guiding them across the river as they continue to grow. Not only are these bridges strong enough to withstand the monsoon torrents, but they get stronger over time and can last for centuries."
Photo Gallery: How Indigenous Natural Technologies Can Help Us Adapt to Climate Change
What’s Love & Work?
If you’re new to Love & Work, it’s the weekly newsletter by me, Mitch Anthony. I help people use their brand – their purpose, values, and stories – as a pedagogy and toolbox for transformation. Learn more.
If you get value from Love & Work, please pass it on.
Not a subscriber? Sign up here. You can also read Love & Work on the web.