By Fred Schott I was born in 1950. That means I spent my 20s in the 70s, and now I get to spend my 70s in the 20s. I remember when rock was young. Susie and I had so much fun holding hands and skimming stones. I had an old gold Chevy and a place…
Christi Doe, M.Ed., CPDM, Senior Consultant, Member Relations, Council for Disability Income Awareness With decades of experience in the insurance industry and as someone who has experienced a difficult period of isolation, I’m increasingly interested in the relationship between loneliness and health-related disabilities. Today, America is in the middle of a loneliness epidemic that…
Margaret O’Neill Underwriting & Thought Leadership GC Smith Group Storytelling is an intrinsic part of our humanity. We share stories to reveal aspects of our lives, beliefs, and emotions. Storytelling helps us teach, explain, and connect with others in professional settings. The narratives we create shape our self-perception and worldview. So, how does storytelling…
Can Your Smartwatch Make You Sick? Lately, I’ve started wondering if I should get a smartwatch. Friends of mine routinely take calls or texts on their Apple® or Google® watches. Others track their steps or monitor their hearts. Paying for a coffee with a smartwatch looks so easy. And yes, some designs look terrific.…
Do you swim for exercise? Walk? Take a group fitness class? Play pickleball? Run long distances? Bicycle? Hike? Good for you. The benefits of exercise are undeniable. And yes, there are risks, too. A few million adults annually visit the emergency room for a sports injury. Cyclists top the list, but pickleball players get…
It’s almost that season—time for school buses and alarm clocks. And if you’re like most families, you’ve probably been letting your sleep schedule slide in favor of late evenings spent enjoying the extra hours of daylight with a bike ride or the glow of a backyard fire pit in the warm night air. We don’t…
Little kids. They’re freaky fast. Running, wildly darting back and forth. Wow! Talk about fun. The faster you chase them, the more they laugh. For many parents, the image of bats escaping out of hell says it all. But, fast forward 40-plus years, and running like a kid is a distant memory. That kind…
You want your home to work with you, not against you. The home should be a safe, comfortable environment that provides the support you need; and if you’re physically disabled, you may have found that your home’s default settings don’t necessarily do that for you. Let’s talk about changes you can make to help make…
The Future of Work through Three Lenses: Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence & Disease by Margaret O’Neill, SmithGroup Part III: Another Pandemic? This paper, focused on the threat of another global pandemic, is the third in a 3-part series that considers the potential headwinds and tailwinds affecting work as we know it in America. This paper will…
Several months ago, I wrote a post about loneliness and why it’s an issue nowadays. I concluded by referring to a prescription for combatting loneliness developed by neuroscientist Stephanie Cacioppo, a/k/a “Doctor Love.” It goes the acronym GRACE—gratitude, reciprocity, altruism, choice, and enjoyment. I said I’d share some personal insights about putting GRACE into practice…
