Brian Lawrence

“Around the time that Homo sapiens was elevated to divine status by humanist religions, farm animals stopped being viewed as living creatures that could feel pain and distress, and instead came to be treated as machines. Today these animals are often mass-produced in factory-like facilities, their bodies shaped in accordance with industrial needs. They pass their entire lives as cogs in a giant production line, and the length and quality of their existence is determined by the profits and losses of business corporations. Even when the industry takes care to keep them alive, reasonably healthy and well fed, it has no intrinsic interest in the animals’ social and psychological needs (except when these have a direct impact on production).”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

“But even in its secular incarnation, Thanksgiving is built on lore that does not jibe with the historical facts. The idea of a peaceful breaking of bread where the Pilgrims had nothing but good intentions toward their Native American hosts is a national mythology, not a religious one. Whatever took place between the Wampanoag and the European settlers in Plymouth, it was not the inclusive dinner party we’re told about in school. There’s no evidence a single Native American was present. The only certainty is that it was a prelude to massacres of entire villages and the obliteration of whole societies. So what do we do with this kind of ritual? How do”
― Sasha Sagan, For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals and reflections for finding wonder

“The Great Resignation was big. Millions of people around the world quit their jobs rather than returning to the status quo of their working lives before the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting global lockdown. The pandemic only accelerated trends that had been building for most of the century. Over the last four decades, the half-life of learned skills has dropped from 30 years to fewer than four, in large part because of the accelerating pace of change driven by the tech revolution. According to noted business visionary John Seely, this trend will continue to accelerate in the years ahead. While employees were forced to work at home, the reason they could work at home was thanks to technological breakthroughs like Zoom, smartphones, ultra-high-speed broadband, and more.”
― Salim Ismail, Exponential Organizations 2.0: The New Playbook for 10x Growth and Impact

“One of the things that a Mastermind promises to do is to allow every participant to make rapid progress, whether it relates to her/ his professional activity or to her/ his personal development. And we don’t believe that can be accomplished by avoiding the mention of the weak points that we perceive in others, or in their work, since we want to help everyone quickly. As partners in responsibility, the participants should, therefore, offer one another honest, sincere feedback that will help unleash some quantum leaps. A Mastermind group is a space where lightning fast experimentation and learning takes place. Participants’ feedback should also be lightning fast.”
― Jean-François Thiriet, Mastermind Groups: Accelerators of Success