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:

• On Monday in What Kind of Leader Do You See in the Mirror?, we talked about the choices we tend to make among competing traits and what it tells us about the way we lead.
• On Wednesday, I shared When Does Enough Become Too Much? to address Gluttony in terms of how it affects our demands of so much more from our teammates.

Are We Smarter with Two Brains?

I don't know about you, but I always thought we only had one brain — until Stanford Medicine discovered that the human brain is actually two separate organs.

Their research concluded that the brain was really two distinct organs that evolved independently over hundreds of millions of years — two ancient nervous systems cleverly packaged together.

Here is one of their findings:

The good news is I don't have to blame my brain for forgetting things — I just blame the stupid brain for not remembering while the good brain keeps on keeping on.

Nice.

When is the Storm Arriving?

I had never heard of this clever seat-of-the-pants method to determine how far away a storm is. It's rather simple:

• See a flash of lightning.
• Count the seconds until you hear thunder (saying “one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi” helps keep the pace).
• For miles: Divide your counted seconds by 5.
• For kilometers: Divide your counted seconds by 3.

Example: If you count 10 seconds between the flash and the sound, the lightning struck about 2 miles (or about 3.3 kilometers) away.

Ain't we clever?

Ads for political candidates

Am I the only one who sees the absurdity of political ads where the candidate is the only person speaking in the ad — and the ad ends with,

I'd understand if there are other people speaking or they're including images or video from other sources — but when the candidate is the only person in the ad, it sounds supremely ridiculous.

Maybe they think we're too stupid to know that?

Online Sports Gambling

Over time, I’ve become increasingly concerned when I see so many ads for sports betting on ESPN and other networks carrying live sports, knowing the potential harm it can cause to so many.

I don't know if I was surprised to learn of the enormity of online sports betting — or saw it as the inevitable confirmation of my concerns.

You can watch the CBS Sunday Morning story here, but take a look at some of the statistics in this report:

• Where online gaming has been made legal, bankruptcies and credit card delinquencies go up 25%.
• In a national survey cited in the report, “almost 20 million people…reported experiencing at least one indicator of problematic gambling behavior…”
• Nearly half of young men have an account with an online sports gambling site.

Nothing is a more powerful indicator of this disturbing trend than the graphic below describing the growth of this industry.

You Could Have Bought Stonehenge?

At some point in time, I’m sure you’ve heard the name Stonehenge, a prehistoric monument located in southern England. It was built in multiple phases starting in 3100 BC and is regarded as a British cultural icon.

Like me, you may be surprised to learn that it existed on private land and could be bought and sold like any other property. In 1915, it was purchased by a British lawyer, Cecil Chubb, who attended an auction intending only to buy furniture. He paid a little more than $1 million adjusted for inflation today.

In 1918, he donated it to the British people as a gift and was later honored by Prime Minister David Lloyd George by naming him Sir Cecil Chubb, First Baronet of Stonehenge. (Typical of English monarchy, many of these titles were created and sold to wealthy landowners to raise money for the crown. For the record, a baronet sits between peerage and knighthood, but they are commoners and not Lords.)

I will leave it to you to uncover the mystery of Stonehenge about which there are countless theories and stories, but it remains one of the most mysterious of prehistoric monuments in the world.

Want to read a fascinating exploration of the gritty, everyday human effort and engineering challenges involved in moving and raising massive monoliths during the era when Stonehenge was built?

I read Ken Follett’s recent book, Circle of Days, which takes place in the neolithic period around 2500 BC. It’s quite a story.

The World of Wine

These numbers sure surprised me — there are 4,303,693 vineyards and 104,330 wineries across 90 countries?

Living in the San Francisco Bay area, we're a bit prejudiced being so close to Napa Valley — and a bigger surprise that using the World Winery Map, Napa Valley has roughly 3,500 mapped vineyard plots which is less than 1/10th of 1% of the total mapped vineyards in the world.

California has close to 5,000 physical or bonded wineries — which is about 5% of the wineries throughout the world. California does dominate the American market, though, with more than 40% of all wineries in the country and about 80% of total U.S. wine production.

Who knew? You do now!

Feeling a little stressed lately. I think I have the cure!

Don't Stop Leading!

Lary