Hi,

I’ve been sharing time with family, friends, and complete strangers a lot lately, with all the emotions that go with them: we lost a young family member to cancer a few weeks ago and mourned together; my husband’s family celebrated with a multi-generational (4!) family reunion filled with sharing old memories and making new ones; and this past weekend, we went to a comedy show in Atlantic City: Jon, John, and Pete (Stewart, Mulaney, and Davis) for 2 straight hours of intense laughing with people I didn’t know but enjoyed laughing with.

I’m so grateful to be able to share experiences with groups of people again—I worked so hard to accept the socially distant times that I’ve been slow, I think, to reawaken to the pure joy of in-person togetherness.

How are you doing on this spectrum? Are you 100% into being around people? Do you take some precautions (we wore masks during the show)? Are you reluctant to be back in the mix in person? I’d love to hear perspectives on this. And in the meantime, here are stories that sparked me in some way; I hope they spark something in you, too:

• Do you yearn to change your life in dramatic ways? Did you know that people who share their goals and progress scored their accomplishment 25% higher than those who only wrote their goals down? If you want to make big things happen by this time next year, this article from Fast Company is for you.

• Do you remember studying western civilization as a requirement in school? This New York Times opinion piece suggests that its absence from required study is a reason people are struggling to talk with each other without getting upset when they disagree. The article makes some good points, so I’m sharing it with you to see if you see any answers for us all.

• How did “fastvertising” make Ryan Reynolds a billionaire? Here’s how.

• Just for fun: does your accent give away where you live in the US? Find out.

• The latest data and thinking on remote work, hybrid work, and RTO:

• What factors are bubbling up as the most influential for when people “RTO” (return to the office)? Good article and there’s a box in the middle with related articles. Enjoy the fuel.

• Here’s another one from Bloomberg, on RTO, but it’s focused on repercussions of working from home on real estate and where workers tend to be working from home vs. back in the office.

• CNBC produced a data-based report quantifying various factors for where to live and work in the US. There are a variety of ways to slice the report (links in the attached article), the view I’m sharing here is of the top 10 states.

• How SDK trackers work and why you should care.

Do Good Spotlight
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I hope this was helpful, let me know if there is a topic, or aspect of a topic, you’d like to see more of. And as always, I’m happy to support the not-for-profits that are meaningful to you, please let me know about them. Enjoy the rest of the week!

Niki