Over-50

No Fool Like an Old Fool?

Steve Jobs wannabe Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is still in black.

Only at the pre-trial court hearing it wasn't the signature black turtleneck.

It was a basic black dress and black blazer. And, at age 35, she's still attractive.

Some conjecture that it had been her youthful blonde good looks which lured big establishment names such as Henry Kissinger to the Theranos board of directors. At one point superlawyer David Boies had represented her.

Her trial on 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud will begin on July 28, 2020, in San Jose, California. Here is a summary of those counts by the Department of Justice. And, here is a copy of the actual indictment. 

The contention is that she and the startup's number-two Sunny Balwani deliberately misled investors, regulators, and the public about a technology which didn't exist. Balwani, who had also been her lover, was in court but arrived separately. In a television interview he argued that Theranos represented a business failure, not a fraud. If convicted, both face decades in prison.

But meanwhile, she did win one in court. She requested that the Food and Drug Administration speed up the process of turning over documents to her legal team. It claims that would require 6 months. No way, ruled federal judge Edward Davila. He gave the regulatory agency 75 days. Here are more details from the media.

By the time of the trial, most of the tech world could be in the reputational toilet. Regulators, media, the stock market, consumers, and the public globally could have turned on it. An indication of how bad it could it get is playing out in Europe. New York University marketing professor and internet expert Scott Galloway has been predicting just that. 

My hunch is that it will be difficult for both sides - prosecution and defense - to find objective jury members in the San Jose area. The defense might request a change of venue, which could delay the trial. Delays help defendants. 

In the tabloid media this saga could go down as "The Blonde and The Old White Men." On "SNL," there can be a film noir rendition of a board meeting. 

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The Voodoo of Voice

As an aging professional you program your Alexa to say It's age bias, it's not you. And you go on to continue to search for work. 

That kind of voice messaging is exactly why Alexa is growing so rapidly. “Voice establishes a powerful emotional connection, even more than facial gestures,” explains Shari Nelson, founder of memvio. “And, it stays imprinted forever. Voice resonates in our unconscious.”

Research, such by the Greater Good Science Center, confirms that therapeutic voodoo. How it happens is beginning to be scientifically sorted out. For example, we already know that the region of the brain where the ability to recognize voices is housed is the superior temporal gyrus (STG).

By 2021, there will be more voice-activated assistants throughout the world than human beings, forecasts Ovum. It took three decades for mobile phones to reach that level.

Call this a movement? Maybe. Alexa does represent the return to an oral culture.

Marketers, as usual, pounced on this trend. They noticed the popularity of podcasting among all generations. Because the voice medium is so engaging podcasting advertising often generates the most response for the lowest cost.

More employers, such as Unilever, are tossing traditional vetting procedures such as requesting the resume and cover letter. Instead, essentially, they are telling applicants: Talk to us. That happens at the front end through digital technology. At the point closer to hiring, there will be the in-person talk-to-us encounter.

Then, there is Nelson's story. It was after her mother died that Nelson got it: She missed hearing her mother’s voice. That’s an understatement. The reality was and is that she needed her mother’s voice.

She asked herself why she hadn’t recorded all those unique moments as a kind of family oral history.

For instance, what about their conversation on her wedding day and when her mother let the family know she was leaving the earth full of peace? There were days when Nelson and her eight siblings needed that voice, with all its idiosyncratic nuances and Irish American intonations. Also, there have been so many times when she wished her own five children could hear the wisdom from a very different time. Those regrets were the seeds for memvio.

The mission for memvio became this: preserving memories. One of the mediums for that has been audio. Call it “storing voices.” Others are video, photographic, and text. Usually a project brings together all of them. A designer parachutes in. Some folks think of the process as “scrapbooking.” Here are samples.

Whatever or whoever has a voice can create emotional spells.

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When Was the Last Time Someone, Anyone Listened to You?

Former BigLaw attorney Jeremy Fischbach has come up for a solution for the 21st-century plague: extreme isolation.

Even in supposed functional families the members, stuck behind their screens, are separate from each other. In a two-hour television special on the negative impacts of screen time, Diane Sawyer presented how even toddlers and dogs get shut out of the kind of interaction needed to emotionally survive. One toddler demands of his mother who is doing screen time, "Listen to me with your whole face."

In the law firm the isolation frequently results in clinical depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even suicide. That setting is a hyper-competitive environment where the clock is always running on how much revenue is being made. It's a risk to allow any neediness to peek out. That could be blood in the water attracting sharks.

After he left BigLaw for a less isolated way to make a living practicing law, Fischbach developed an app called "Happy." It combines digital technology with that very old-fashioned ability to listen. Some refer to that lost art as "compassionate listening."

As Dylan Jackson reports in Law.com:

"'Happy' connects users with more than 2,000 peers who are trained to be 'compassionate listeners' ... It prompts users to specify why they're calling - financial troubles, interpersonal issues, work ... Calls are confidential and not recorded ...The app is available to everybody, not just attorneys ..."

Results range from users noting an almost 50% decrease in stress and anxiety to a more than 90% boost in happiness. Already, there have been business partnerships with organizations such as the American Heart Association and Aetna.

Some critics put the knock on the app because the listeners receive only rudimentary training. But others push back and declare the restorative power of emotional connection.

Suicide prevention hotline Samaritans is based on that: one human being listening attentively to another. The service is available free, 24/7 at 212-673-3000.

From interviewing those who have contacted Samaritans at dark times in their lives, what I have found out is that hope comes from knowing someone, anyone cares. Plans of action seem to follow naturally.

For instance, one suicidal newbie to Boston got it on his own during the phone call that if he took trips back to the Pittsburgh he would be less lonely. He made it his business to invest in those journeys until he could set up a social network in New England.

The model of 12-step meetings, derived from the original Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), is fellowship. Human beings are joined by their weaknesses, be they booze or gambling.  The meeting format is that members say what they need to say. There is no feedback, that is, crosstalk, at least during the meeting. The resolve to stay away from a drink or a casino one more day comes from being heard. There is emotional connection.

The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DPSA) is also a self-help group which facilitates listening by peers. Members are in the same pickle of mood disorders. When they "share" at meetings in-person or online they assume those who are listening have a deep understanding of their challenges. They feel heard.

But listening doesn't have to happen in a formal context.

There was a retired Teamster big rig driver who had just moved into my residential complex. He looked at my face. He stopped his walk with his dog. That was the signal he was listening.

I babbled about turning down this assignment and that assignment. He didn't say a word. Then I burst out laughing. I said, "I am asking your permission not to work so hard 'at my age' as I had in my 50s." He did the wrap on that by sharing that he too had a difficult time figuring out how to not chase money as he aged. "They asked me to do this or that haul. Finally, one day I said 'no.'"

This Father's Day the best present society can give its distressed males is 10 minutes listening time. During that, there will be no comments, no advice-giving. The answers human beings need are inside them. Talking gives them access to all that.

Coaching, lecturing, and writing/ghostwriting thought leadership content on ageism.

For individual coaching – sliding scale fees. Complimentary initial consultation. The displaced over-50 get back to work. Please contact Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com.

Stay Healthy

In Ohio, a medical doctor looking like the earnest boy next door - William Husel - is arrested. He is charged with 25 counts of murder for allegedly administering fatal doses of fentanyl. 

Much further east, in New England, Boston Magazine publishes a scathing expose. The subhead reads:

"Sexual misconduct, sloppy - sometimes catastrophic - mistakes, and a medical board that's been known to look the other way. Local physicians keep getting away with bad medicine, but you may never know who they are until it's too late."

The author of the article Michael Damiano depicts a profession in which there is little accountability. What is typical is that medical doctors who are disciplined at one hospital simply hop to another. Or, if the situation is that serious they leave the state and get set up in medical practice in another.

This in not unique to Massachusetts. Nationwide as few as 10% of medical mistakes are reported. In Massachusetts, the state medical board received in one year 211 complaints. Only 11 medical doctors were disciplined. 

According to data from the National Practitioner Data Bank, 200 medical doctors in Massachusetts had been in the loop for at least 5 malpractice incidents. None of them had lost their license to practice medicine.

Reflection: Now, when neighbors say they have great trust in their medical doctor, we will consider them downright naive. Yes, do that signature smirk of teenagers.

Trust may never be restored.

One solution is to pull out all stops to remain healthy. 

If that fails, consult with a local shaman.

In southwestern Arizona, a faith healer eliminated the crippling pain in my left hand and wrist.

A group of faith healers prayed over me for 3 sessions. That was for the clinical depression the insurance companies and I had paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat. That group of shamans didn't promise total relief. For the rest they trained me in deep meditation.

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Remembering How Professors Cast Spells

Princeton and University of Oxford graduate Cameron Platt had more than a meeting a minds with Lee Clark Mitchell.

As so often happens in higher education, this young person - 25 - has become romantically involved with that former professor. He is 71.

As is required now in academia, the specified amount of time has gone by since they were student and teacher in order for them to move on to matters of the heart. 

The New York Post reports Platt and Mitchell are engaged to be married.

In the old days there was no open recognition of the power professors had which could influence the hearts of students. So, there was no necessary time lag between the brilliant lectures in the classroom and the march down the church aisle.

However, sometimes, as with Sally Conroy, student president at Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, it did take time for the hearts to align.

Eventually, though, she did join in wedded bliss with that institution of higher learning's religion instructor and Catholic chaplain Christopher Fullman. He had left the priesthood. Sally became Mrs. Fullman. Because of the large age difference, she became a widow 24 years ago.

Unlike the Fullmans, Richard Mennen, former theatre professor at Seton Hill, and Sally Spahn, didn't allow time to block bliss. There was no rule existing which put romance on hold.

Spahn finished her college studies early and became Sally Spahn Mennen at the end of the first semester of that academic year. The marriage endured. 

Higher education remains a special institution in society. It's not our parent's house. It's not work. Therefore it can become a magical setting. All things, especially love, become possible and probable. 

Not only the professor-student relationships blossom. So do love affairs among students. It used to be that moms told their offspring to find their soulmate in school and lock that rite of passage in right then. Currently, of course, marriage is no longer a rite of passage.

But romantic bonding will always provide a unique experience in life.

If they hang in there and wait for the required time to pass, professors and students can continue to find love together.

Let the universe cast its spell. 

The world needs more love. 

Exactly the right tone and content for all your communications. Complimentary consultation janegenova374@gmail.com.

Planning to Move for Semi-Retirement/Retirement? - Better Get Your Story Straight Months Before

Does this sound like a credible reason for moving to southern Arizona?

That's the question I am using in my A/B testing of the story - that is, the personal narrative - I will put out there when I relocate from the midwest in August. 

This is a nervous era.

If we don't deliver to folks the narrative that will make them feel safe and comfortable with us, we will be not be allowed into their social circles. And, mankind is a social species.

This isn't new, of course.

Before divorce was acceptable, my aunt who had ended her marriage created a detailed story before she relocated 2,200 miles away.

Intuitively she recognized she had to do that.

She was on the money and easily landed a good job and new husband.

What is new is that having a carefully scripted narrative that doesn't sound carefully scripted is 100% necessary. No, we can't leave home, even to buy a pint of Halo ice cream, w/o it.

A wary society, on edge, demands the narrative ping points to track who we are, what we are up to, and if we are worth getting to know or to continue hanging out with. Like FBI agents interrogating a suspected serial killer, the "they" out there currently are programmed to vet us - continuously.

I still have 4.5 months to develop and A/B test the narrative I will roll out in AZ.

When it's completed it will likely have little to do with any reality. There is a declining market for reality. I no longer expect it in interacting with people. I accept that all is positioning and packaging.

It didn't take long for spin in media relations to become standard in our personal lives. Those who unaware of the need for identifying narratives have become isolated. They scare us.

 Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Not What We Were Told

Perhaps it was the subliminal advertising by institutions of higher education.

Maybe it was simply magical thinking by those who have invested so much time, money, test-taking, and hope in degree-getting.

Or, it could be the passing down of the Puritans' blind faith in education when they established Harvard in 1636.

Whatever. There has evolved over centuries in America a conviction of a correlation between education and unique insulation from catastrophic mistakes, deep personal pain, and even the usual bumps in the road that the uneducated endure.

Mary McCarthy's "The Group" hammered that myopia in the 1960s. The female graduates of an Ivy found no buffer between themselves and raw reality.

More recently, in The New York Times Magazine, Harvard Business School alumnus Charles Duhigg outs how miserable many of his classmates are, both in their careers and personal lives. 

Over and over again, editor in chief at Abovethelaw.com - Elie Mystal - describes his regret about hanging around Harvard, after receiving his BA, to pick up a law degree from its law school. 

So, it seems the right thing to do in these volatile times for commencement speakers to shift from maxing points of light in the scripting to bring on the darkness. 

That's not new. Many recall how David McCullough Jr. told graduates they were not special. 

Also, I helped with a commencement talk to an Ivy in which it was documented how an elite education could be a career liability. The graduates could feel entitled, pissing everyone at work off. The result could be a career in park. 

There are myriad bits and pieces of darkness to include.

At the top of the list is that those who got the highest grades might have already ruined their careers. As Eric Barker explains in "Barking Up The Wrong Tree," high scorers chase the grades, not the mindset and skills that are platforms for making it big professionally. Long it has been known that "C" students become the bosses of the "A" students.

Next is that debt from student loans can limit their professional and personal risk-taking. Unless they pay off that nut fast they could wind up living lives of quiet desperation.

What they have learned has a shorter and shorter shelf life. Also, it's probable no one will care. 

The social networks they nurtured during their "educational experience" could mutate into liabilities. Here is my sad story about that.

Let the negatives rip. Then, there will be a wrap with extreme hope: Human beings have managed to survive themselves since the fall of Adam and Eve due to intellectual arrogance. 

Leaders needing dark inspiration for their commencement addresses are welcome to a complimentary consultation. Please contact janegenova374@gmail.com.

They Told Us They Had the Facts

Facts.

In her book "Merchants of Truth," former big wig at The New York Times Jill Abramson decries the death of facts. In their place in what is supposed to be journalism is commentary. 

Yet, facts are a mutable entity. 

Take the long-promoted fact that a bout of clinical depression makes someone vulnerable to future depressions. Therefore, it is necessary to maintain a regiment of taking antidepressants. That fact was proved wrong.

Then there was the fact that an aspirin prevents heart attacks. That fact has been tossed. 

In many ways Abramson is behind the times, no pun intended. It was so mid 20th century to believe that facts exist and that decisions must be made aligned with them.

Today, that triggers smirks among us who were victims of the facts-based ideology. 

For instance, there were all those facts about how to get ahead in a corporate career. Those facts made their promoters Brandnames and likely financially comfortable.

We who fell in line found ourselves unable to think for ourselves about how to navigate the tricky spots along a career path. In a sense we were struck stupid.

In a volatile world driven by the intersection of radical forces, it's a safe bet to flee those who claim to have the facts. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Good Riddance - Soon Enough, That Might Not Be Verboten

America is still a nation which cannot embrace the reality that all human beings die. In fact, our beloved dogs do, too. 

So, when there is a death, the normal rules of the heart get suspended. At the top of the list is that we must mourn that passing.

No, we can't celebrate with a Good Riddance.

But that could change. Probably should change.

Some liberals felt forced into putting on a long face when war hero and government servant John McCain passed from the earth. But they might not cave like that when those they perceive as alt-right monsters die.

Those deaths could be the beginning of scathing obituaries, The Wicked Witch Is Dead celebratory parties, and degrading theatrics (with a permit, of course) outside official mourning sites.  

Let us go to denigrate Caesar, not praise him or her. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com. 

Want to Move Up Retirement Date?

"Stocks and commodities are on the verge of rallying to highs that have eluded them during recent upswings, a breakthrough … likely [to] fuel further gains." Amrith Ramkumar, "Market Rebound Reaches Crossroads After Latest Rally," The Wall Street Journal, March 17, 2019. Here is the article. 

It's been up up up for the numbers in our portfolios. The cynics about the Trump Economy never anticipated that.

And, what can happen - en masse - is FIRE (financial independence, retire early).

The "early" part of FIRE is relative. For some it could be 37 years old. For others, age 58. And for those who managed to hold onto work, no matter what, it could be mid or even late 70s. After all, novelist Philip Roth didn't hang it up until he was 80. 

That movement out of the labor force would open up plenty of slots for ambitious millennials and iGens. Essentially those over-50 have been clogging the pipes of upward mobility. As millennials and iGens move on up and earn more they will be purchasing those big-ticket items such as houses and lux cars. What a nice tailwind for the economy.

Instead of nosediving into a recession here in the U.S. there could be the making of the next phase of the recovery. 

Need affordable help strategically planning and putting together content? That ranges from blog posts and e-books to planning/scripting podcasts and creating traditional speeches. Complimentary consultation on how to generate influence and sell without paying high rates, janegenova374@gmail.com.