August 9, 2019

1.What I’m Reading: Why We Sleep Unlocking The Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker. It’s a fascinating look at sleep. Before reading this book, I had not given much thought at all to sleep. Walker argues and meticulously documents that lack of sleep is a public health crisis. If doctors could prescribe a pill that lengthened life, caused weight loss, decreased the chance of cancer, ward off dementia, and improve mental health – people would pay lots of money for such a pill. And yet sleep does all of those things and is often an after thought.

2. How We Can Make Things Better: To build on point 1 we could as a matter of public policy decide to open schools later to allow children to sleep more. Teens in particular need sleep. We could provide more support to parents of newborns allowing them to get sleep. We pay either way. May as well do it right.

3.Quote I’m Pondering: A well-designed life is a life that is generative—it is constantly creative, productive, changing, evolving, and there is always the possibility of surprise. – Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and David Evans

4. What I’m Listening To: “Woman on Top” Podcast by Hailey Rice. Check it out. Hailey has a strong interview skills and enlightening guests. I think you’ll enjoy. I do.

5. Sunset Time: The sun now sets here (Hartford,CT) at 7:59 PM. The next time the sun will set past 8pm in Hartford is May 11, 2020 – 285 days from now.

@ryanmckeen

August 2, 2019

1. What Kids Need – Currently reading “The Good Neighbor – The Fred Rogers Biography“. Rogers believed that every child needed and deserved to know that he mattered. Imagine what the world would be if all children were raised knowing this?

2.Sharks and Irrational Markets – Cape Cod rentals are down this summer. Several news outlets attribute this to shark attacks. Yes, sharks are plentiful on the Cape these days but your odds of being eaten if you exercise even the most basic caution are about the same as the Jets and Mets winning titles in the same year. At the end of the day, we are better off understanding data than giving into fear.

3.Quote I’m Pondering – “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” – Albert Einstein

4.Emojis – Using Emojis in a post can mean the difference between your message being seen and your message not being seen. Emojis in a tweet can increase engagement by 25.4 percent, and emojis in a Facebook post can increase the number of likes by 57 percent and the number of comments and shares by 33 percent (Hubspot) .

5. What I’m Listening To – Running a small business is hard. My friends, Tyson and Jim talk honestly about the struggles of running a small business. It’s worth a listen. No matter what you are going through you are not alone.

—- @ryanmckeen