MONEY

During the past week stock traders embarked on a wild ride on Wall Street as millions of young Robinhood, Webull, and Stash (to name a few) commission-free platform traders used Reddit to manipulate stock prices to soar of otherwise worthless companies. Not only did the dying breed of pump n’ dump royalty who emerged on the stock trading floors in the 1980s suffer greatly from the historical market rally, so did the 1%.

For nearly a century, the 1% has owned 50% of stocks making it virtually impossible for common folk to accumulate massive wealth. The market has long been…

On a Sunday morning in late December, I drew a bath complete with candles, lavender oil, and the soft notes of Dustin O’Halloran’s music softly serenading me in the background. As I settled in, I thought of my dear friend, Marc. Of all the friends I have in the world, he was the best of them. As the thought of him entered into my mind, a sudden clinch surrounded my heart. The tug was followed by an angry emotion because he hadn’t answered my last text about Ennio Morricone’s passing in the summer. My thoughts of Marc came to the…

In today’s harsh world it isn’t enough to just read about kindness between two covers of a book. But rather, it is most important to put it into practice in our daily lives; doing as much as you can, for as long as you can, as often as you can, and to all you can.

I’m not talking about the type of kindness that you bestow upon others only to brag about it. The transactional acts of kindness you practice only to remind the recipients of the acts, is doing business, not practicing kindness. …

HEALTHCARE

AI has taken on a much bigger role in healthcare during the pandemic.

Recently pharmaceutical giants, AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Pfizer have boasted a 90% efficiency rate of their Covid-19 vaccines. But what does that really mean in terms of controlling the pandemic?

Vaccines to fight infectious diseases usually take years to develop, test, and deliver. Even then, their success is not guaranteed. Typically, vaccines can take up to 10 years to reach infected people. The mumps vaccine holds the record for fastest distribution time, as it was delivered in 4 years. Discovery and research alone usually take approximately 2 to 5 years.

The perfect vaccine has a lot to live up to. It…

Dealing with a pandemic, social isolation, and work-from-home and school disruptions over the past several months has caused professional burnout which has reached highs of more than 30%. Even though much is out of our control, employers and employees can use tried and true practices to reduce burnout like setting solid boundaries around work hours, communicating about stressors, and taking action on employee feedback. Companies that foster these practices will see better employee performance and be more likely to survive and even thrive during this pandemic-recession.

While unemployment has been a significant problem facing the workforce this year, the ‘new…

SCIENCE

Neuromyths

It’s been said that humans only use 10% capacity of the brain.

In fact, you’ve heard this at least once, right? Well…This belief is a myth. The fact is that at any given time, we can be using almost the entire capacity of the brain.

Another belief is that the functionality of the left and right brain operate separately and differently.

While it may be true that there are people that are more talented in certain disciplines than others, it has literally nothing to do with the hemisphere of your brain.

You may have also been taught that you have…

Recently news reports have been peppered with stories about a correlation between alcohol and COVID-19. Beer, Wine, and Spirit makers have reported a substantial gain in sales since the onset of the pandemic. However, buried in those stories are people who suffer from alcoholism. Some remain either in a state of denial, dismission, fright, or hopefully honesty. The latter realizing the truth about their condition.

Even though alcoholism has been in the spotlight since the pandemic, it has been an age-old problem ever-present among human behavior since its invention. …

On an unusually warm San Diego night on March 11th, 2020, I joined a conference call with my core team members of the Catalina Film Festival which usually runs in the early fall every year since 2010. The weeks prior to that second week in March, news articles and posts online about COVID-19 had been swirling about. Given that new information, the agenda of our team call which usually consisted of planning for the festival on the island changed. The new agenda was; do we postpone our event like SXSW, Cannes, and hundreds of other festivals did this year, or…