Hi Reader,

Friday is when I share a few leadership ideas, interesting discoveries and questions that caught my attention during the week.

In case you missed the earlier Newsletters this week, you can find them here:

• This week we talked about Leverage and I kicked it off by sharing how several college kids got out of jail in The Night I Went to Jail.
• On Wednesday, I shared 7 Ways to Leverage the Resources You Already Have, a primer that you can put to work today.

What's New?

Google’s Pinpoint App

You may not be aware of Google’s Pinpoint app. Until recently, it was primarily available to journalists, researchers and writers.

It was designed to help organize and search large collections of PDFs, audio, video, handwritten notes and emails — and it can do some pretty impressive stuff.

Among them:

• transcribe audio and video,
• recognize scanned and handwritten text,
• identify people and organizations across large collections,
• turn unstructured information into spreadsheets, and
• use AI to summarize and organize files.

If you deal with a lot of research material, it’s worth a look.​

So You Want to Be a Bootlegger?

Even in 1922, someone was publishing a “How to Become an Entrepreneur” guide. The choice of industry was just a little different. 😆

In the May 13, 1922 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, an anonymous bootlegger offered insider information to help ambitious entrepreneurs on their way to becoming the next Al Capone.

He discussed three promising business models:

• brokering legal “medicinal” liquor,
• driving liquor over the border from Canada, or
• bringing it by boat from overseas.

If you remember your history, Prohibition began in 1920 following ratification of the 18th Amendment.

It lasted until 1933 — more than enough time for Al Capone and others to build enormous criminal enterprises around the illegal liquor trade.

And when Prohibition disappeared, organized crime didn’t. Much of the infrastructure, money and political influence it created simply migrated into gambling, prostitution and other businesses.

We talk about out-of-sight salaries these days – mostly for CEOs, celebrities and sports stars ...

... but I bet you didn't know that the first $1 Million Salary for a star went to Fatty Arbuckle who was the first one to receive that guarantee.

When?

More than 100 years ago in 1919!

What has ...

• a head like a horse
• a pouch like a kangaroo,
• a tail like a monkey, and
• the ability to use camouflage like a chameleon?

Seahorses and Seadragons are some of Nature’s most curious creatures, as CBS Sunday Morning demonstrated recently.

Pretty amazing creatures, don't you think?

Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

I’ll bet you can’t define — and probably have never heard of — that tongue-twister.

I hadn’t.

It’s the term for the fear of the number 666, which in the Bible’s Book of Revelation is identified as the “Number of the Beast.”

You can find a lot of interesting symbolism if you do some additional research, but these connections are intriguing:

• The Bible mentions 666 talents of gold delivered to King Solomon in a single year.
• The Earth’s Tilt: The Earth tilts at an angle of about 23.4 degrees. Subtract that from a 90-degree angle and you get about 66.6 degrees.
• The Tropics and Circles: Because of that same tilt, the Tropic of Cancer is about 66.6 degrees from the North Pole,
• The Tropic of Capricorn is about 66.6 degrees from the South Pole, and
• The Equator is about 66.6 degrees from both the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.
• Earth’s Speed: The Earth travels around the sun at an average speed of about 66,629 miles per hour.

Hmmm. Go figure!

Speaking of things we have in common ...

We humans apparently share a surprising amount of our DNA with dogs — roughly 84%. This happens because both humans and dogs are mammals with the same genetic code for building cells, organs and immune systems.

Maybe that explains more than we thought. 😆

Seinfeld fans may remember the episode, The Andrea Doria (start at about minute 7:35), when Kramer borrowed a dog named Smuckers who shared his nagging cough and throat pain. Refusing to see a regular medical doctor, Kramer decided to take both himself and the dog to a veterinarian.

Speaking of DNA, maybe you already knew that about 99% of the DNA in all human beings is identical.

In fact, the National Human Genome Research Institute puts the figure closer to 99.9%.

That tiny difference accounts for much of what makes each of us individually distinctive — including things like eye color and height.

But here’s the part you may not want to know:

We also share roughly 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees, 85% with rabbits — and even about 50% with certain trees.

So the next time somebody says you’re “sitting there like a lump on a log,” they may be half right! 😆