LEAP UPDATES
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes. 
--Peter Drucker
Each month, we publish a Leap of Reason Update to share insights, tools, and learning opportunities for those who are working to raise their performance.
Half Empty is OK, But Full Disdain is Not
If we were to assemble America’s red and blue bubbles into a national Venn diagram, we wouldn’t see a lot of intersection on issues like pandemic response, but we would see big overlap in the realm of emotions. Disbelief. Suspicion. Anger. Fear. Exhaustion. Following this bitter election season, we all have some or all of…
What We Can Do for Our Country
Given how close we are to November 3, we must start with this pitch: Please vote, and please get others in your life to do the same. And now we must acknowledge that it’s easy for the two of us to get caught up in legitimate fears about post-election chaos and violence. But we have…
A Tribute to a Giant
Last week, the world lost two intellectual and moral giants, one who was 6’ 7” (Bill Gates Sr.) and one who was only 5’ 1” (Ruth Bader Ginsburg). Both deaths hit us hard. While we never had the honor of meeting RBG, Bill Sr. was a mentor to Lowell. In the essay below, Lowell shares a few personal reflections on Bill Sr. and his towering legacy.
The Big Reset
America has never needed more from civil society. That’s because our country is being rocked by a health pandemic, an age-old racism pandemic, economic upheaval, sweeping cuts in safety-net programs, and the increasing political vitriol that’s killing efforts to address these daunting challenges. We feel like we’re in the midst of the 1918 flu pandemic, the Civil Rights/Vietnam era, and the Great Recession all at the same time! If the virus continues to surge and the restart of the economy sputters…
It’s M*A*S*H Time
I grew up in an immigrant family of blue-collar workers in Ohio and coal miners in Pennsylvania. My family experienced plenty of anti-immigrant bigotry—and, of course, we saw Black families getting far worse treatment. Even so, I grew up in a household with deep faith in America. If you were from our part of town and of our ethnicity, the ladder of upward mobility wasn’t quite as safe or sturdy as the ladder for “better” families from the communities where my mom cleaned houses. But at least we had a chance to…