The Underdog Wins Again
The Mission Newsletter, 6/26/18
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” -Eleanor Roosevelt
Ask Me Anything!
Episode 42 of The Mission Daily
This is our first AMA.
We’ve picked out and answered some of the most interesting questions we’ve received in person, via email, on the socials, and through our speak pipe link where you can leave a question via voice.
If you have more questions, comments, or anything that you want to see us cover in the next AMA let us know. You can reach out via socials, where we’re @TheMissionHQ, or @ChadGrills, or you can leave a voicemail through our speak pipe link.
Listen to Episode 42 on iTunes or Google Play.
The Mission Daily is a podcast dedicated to accelerated learning and helping you become healthier, wealthier, and wiser. It is designed to help you learn — as fast as you possibly can.
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David And Goliath
This is The Story about a man who tried to get the largest business in his industry to buy half his business. Lucky for him, they laughed him out of the room…
Listen to Episode 8 on iTunes or Google Play.
Season 3 of The Story features twelve technology trailblazers who started a business that changed the world. The Story is brought to you exclusively by Salesforce, the world’s #1 CRM platform that helps businesses blaze their own trails to success.
News That Matters
Health
Research suggests that mothers today spend more time with their children than mothers of the 1960s; however, the time today’s moms are spending with their kids is often lower quality.
So much is said about screen time for children, but hardly anyone is talking about how adults’ screen time is affecting those they care for. Doctors call it “partial attention” when a parent is distracted by their screens, and sadly, the amount of time parents are paying partial attention is increasing with greater frequency. This can affect child development, especially when children are learning how to speak because the best way to build a child’s understanding of language is to have fluid back-and-forth conversation. Checking that text or scrolling through Facebook breaks up those essential conversations and hinders development at critical stages.
Learn more about the dangers of distracted parenting here.
Wealth
A recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court states that online shoppers are now going to be subject to paying sales tax.
The case overturned a previous decision that stated that sales tax could only be charged if the retailer had a physical presence in the state of purchase.
“Until now, many sellers that have a physical presence in only a single state or a few states have been able to avoid charging sales taxes when they ship to addresses outside those states. Online sellers that haven’t been charging sales tax on goods shipped to every state range from jewelry website Blue Nile to pet products site Chewy.com to clothing retailer L.L. Bean.”
Previously, customers who were not charged sales tax were supposed to pay the tax to the state after the fact, but most did not, which cost states billions in lost revenue.
More about the new tax here.
Wisdom
Teaching children how to care about others is one of the biggest challenges that parents face. To do that, research indicates that praising the behavior you want to enforce is better than rewarding your child for good behavior.
But do you praise the action or do you praise your child? IE, which would you say: “That was such a helpful thing to do,” or, “You’re a helpful person.”
A research study looked at just that and found that:
“Children were much more generous after their character had been praised than after their actions had been. Praising their character helped them internalize it as part of their identities. The children learned who they were from observing their own actions: I am a helpful person.”
Additional research suggests that guilt is better than shame for a child, because guilt makes a child want to right a wrong, whereas shame makes a child feel devastated in a more inward way.
Read more about the research here.
Tech Trends
Recently, fire rainbows have been spotted in New England, which has drummed up renewed interest in the phenomenon.
“It looks like a rainbow, but it’s actually a halo,” WBZ-TV’s Chief Meteorologist Eric Fisher explains. “Essentially you have ice crystals in these high clouds that create these large halos. This particular variety only happens when the sun is very high in the sky, so around mid-day and mostly in the warm season here in New England.”
Check out more on fire rainbows here.
Marketing Trends
After the disappointing box office showing of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Disney is putting future Star Wars spin-offs on hold. Instead of continuing to expand the cannon beyond the main films, Lucasfilm — the original creators — plan to focus more on the next installment to the franchise, Episode IX, and then figure out where the next trilogy of films will go.
Solo performed well by most industry standards, but the measure by which Star Wars films are rated are quite different:
“The film scored $84.4 million on opening weekend and has grossed $192.8 million domestically (and $339.5 million worldwide) in four weeks, which is nothing to scoff at but is far, far lower than the performance of other Star Wars movies at this benchmark. For comparison’s sake, Rogue One opened to $155 million and had grossed $424 million domestic by Week 4. To put it simply, while Solo did fine by blockbuster standards, it wasn’t the ‘event’ that Lucasfilm expected out of a brand new Star Wars movie.”
More here.
Education Trends
SpaceX isn’t just trying to disrupt the spaceflight industry… it’s also attempting to redefine education. 🤓
The company’s Ad Astra program is an experimental non-profit school that counts among enrollees the children of Elon Musk and those various SpaceX employees, as well as a select few kids from the nearby area. The school was founded to “exceed traditional school metrics on all relevant subject matter through unique project-based learning experiences.”
“In an atmosphere closer to a venture capital incubator than a traditional school, today’s Ad Astra students undertake challenging technical projects, trade using their own currency, and can opt out of subjects they don’t enjoy. Children from 7 to 14 years old work together in teams, with few formal assessments and no grades handed out.”
Very little is known about the school or its future, but forward-thinking parents are certainly interested in finding out more.
Get the scoop here.
The Best of What We Are Listening To
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
Philosophy podcasts are an invaluable way to increase your health, wealth, and wisdom. The study of knowledge and existence can only broaden your horizons and improve your quality of life. That’s why our team at The Mission has compiled a list of our favorite philosophy podcasts! 🎧 🧠
Our Media
The Mission is a new kind of media company. We publish stories, videos, and podcasts to help smart people get smarter. You can find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram or learn more about us here. We’d love to connect!
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We create custom podcast sponsorships for enterprise companies. To learn more about why companies like Salesforce trust us to produce results, connect with our team here.
