[TT 031] email time capsules, mental health tech, regenerative economics, gracious giving, flash mobpera
Hello again Thrivers,
It's the end of the first quarter at Stanford and, finals aside, it's a wonderful invitation to reflect on my personal and professional progress. The growth multiplier of care, support, and inspiration that I feel here is unimaginable (at least I could not conceive such nurturing soil).
I am humbled and grateful for the gift of this year and the reverberations I feel cascading into the future. When I started my program, I made a commitment to witness the unfolding without judgment or attachment. 2 months in, what I've witnessed has prompted me to recalibrate my scales for beauty and possibility. Just ... wow.
With that, let's revel in this week's Thriving Thursday.
On the 10th anniversary of asking 10 questions
Monday and Tuesday next week mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish holiday of the lunar new year. My favorite part is the culinary tradition of welcoming in a sweet year with honey and apples (and, if you're extra lucky, my maternal lineage of honey tea cake!).
Then, 10 days later, there is Yom Kippur, a Jewish high holiday focused on atonement and judgment. My favorite part is ... that Jews could take the art of judging others to the form of high ceremony. This holiday doesn't resonate with me in the slightest.
But honestly, I am most moved by the space in between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 10 years ago I stumbled on 10Q, a completely free (no cost, no ads, no data scrape) website that sends out the same 10 questions, one a day, every day between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Most importantly, after the 10th day they lock the answers away in a vault not to be accessed until a few days before the following year's Rosh Hashanah.
The website has no Jewish branding and the questions are pure introspect with no religious connotation. For example, the first question is "Describe a significant experience that has happened in the past year. How did it affect you? Are you grateful? Relieved? Resentful? Inspired?". The other 9 are all in that flavor of thoughtful reflection.
I just read my answers from last year and I was pretty spot on with my thoughts and predictions. Plus, it's really fun to receive a time capsule in my inbox! And I have all of my answers in one place for the last 9 (soon 10) years. So cool.
If this practice of annual reflection resonates with you, go ahead and sign up! It's open to everyone, totally free, and a lot of fun.
On Ginger(ly) getting in the right Headspace
This past week I started my study of the mental health technology industry.
The first critical delineation is between licensed and non-licensed (typically referred to as meditation, mindfulness, sleep, or stress relief) providers.
In the licensed corner are direct-to-consumer marketplace makers like Better Help and Quartet Health that connect providers directly to consumers. Then there are Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) like Spring Health and Ginger that offer services through an employer. And I was surprised to find that there is even a venture capital-backed chain of therapy offices called Two Chairs.
In the non-licensed / mindfulness corner are services like Calm (raised >$200M and valued >$1B) and the famous app Headspace (also raised >$200M and valued ~.$5B).
They all reference "scientific studies" and the EAPs quote stats like how many productive days saved (by caring for employee's mental health). But I'm most impressed by the science team at Headspace that does randomized controlled trials with their mindfulness training and explores curious concepts like mind wandering. Check out the science pages for Headspace and Calm and let me know what studies most resonate with you.
Incidentally, Headspace and Ginger announced a merger this week to bridge the consumer and employer divide and offer complementary services. Will be very curious to see where they take their new mental health tech behemoth over the coming months and years. I'm guessing an IPO is on the horizon within 12-24 months.
Perhaps the most interesting new approach I saw was SpringHealth's performance-based approach to mental health. They actually track and rank their therapists based on the efficacy and outcomes for their clients.
I have no doubt that data-driven methodologies will radically change the face of mental health in the next 5-10 years, just as they are currently doing in diagnostics and point of care for physical health providers. I'm curious to learn more and continue exploring on that front.
On principles and measures of regenerative economics
This week I met briefly with Bennet, the economics professor with the Pollination approach from TT 030, and he pointed me to this seminal paper defining regenerative economics by Fath et. al.
The overarching concept is a systems and flow-based approach to ecosystem vitality including, but not limited to, the dollars. The image below summarizes the 10 principles and their categorization.
I like how they are framing the thought process:
economic vitality rests first and foremost on the health of the underlying human networks that do all the work and underlying environmental networks that feed and sustain all the work. In other words, systemic health depends largely on the care and feeding of the entire network of interconnected socio-economic systems, including individuals, businesses, communities, cities, value-chains, societies, governments, and the biosphere, all of which play critical roles in production, distribution, and learning.
This framework provides a comprehensive container for some concerns and intuitions regarding building GIFT into a 300-year institution.
I'll continue to learn more and formulate thoughts for applying these concepts to organizational design for a specific community and interwoven system of businesses.
On the quantitative case for being a giver
I started listening to Adam Grant's book: Givers and Takers. He also has a TED talk covering the high-level concepts from the book.
Grant is as close as professors get to being rock stars. He's a well-regarded researcher, teacher, author, consultant, and all-around modern-day philosopher. Also, from my opening inquiry into his body of research, he quantitatively validates a vision of reality with kindness, generosity, and thoughtful presence that I fundamentally agree with.
In the book I'm listening to, Grant weaves human stories with organizational psychology and economics research to make the case that careful giving improves outcomes for individuals and organizations. Surprisingly, givers disproportionately have the worst and the best outcomes at organizations.
The book is light and fun, and I'll be making my way through Grant's other works in the months to come. It's cool to see this interconnected awareness start permeating academic and corporate circles.
On a flash mob with 1000 musicians
What do you get when 950 amateur musicians, 50 professional musicians, and 1 famous conductor descend on a Berlin shopping mall? A flash mobpera.
The Ode to Joy piece in that link is also fun and beautiful.
Fun fact: I once organized a flash mob of circus performers in San Diego. It's surprisingly hard to coordinate even a handful of folks, let alone a thousand!
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I am so fortunate to be in this ecosystem of excellence. And more rooted than business, I'm studying the nutrients that sustain this botany of blooming brilliance.
I am constantly in awe that this is, in fact, my daily life.
Until next week,
~Henry