October 5, 2023 • 25 mins
Did you know that although one of the wealthiest nations in the world, the United States still lags behind in health metrics?
Join me on today's episode to unpack the US health landscape, exploring how fundamental needs like clean air, job security, and transportation are not met in many communities, directly impacting health conditions.
We delve into the role of stress in these conditions and how clinical interventions contribute only 10-20% of health outcomes. More importantly, we highlight how businesses - big and small - can play a significant role in improving this situation.
Switching gears to focus on small businesses, we discuss their crucial role in fostering equitable and thriving societies. With a staggering 70% of Americans trusting small businesses more than their larger counterparts, we believe they hold the key to driving meaningful change.
Further, we will examine how businesses can harness their resources to benefit communities, employees, and managers alike.
Thanks for listening.
Resources:
Community Health and Economic Prosperity
If something you heard today brought a smile to your face or a spark to your heart, and you’d like to connect with me, here are a few ways you can do that.
One is my newsletter, it’s where I put most of my time and energy when I’m not working with clients or on this podcast. Sorry social media! It’s a mix of real life stories, tips and tricks and of course updates on what’s happening with the podcast. Whenever something is going on with me or in my business, it always comes out there first.
Another resource that I have for you is my Guide to Doing Work Differently. The guide takes you through four inquiries into how you can build a more sustainable and equitable work environment for yourself and your team. It's a great place to start.
Last, if you’ve got a burning question, a comment, or a situation you’d like my eyes on, you can email me at candice@fortressandflourish.com.
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to know when the next episodes come out, and if you’re feeling generous, leave a review. Reviews help other like-minded folks find their way to this resource.
Learn more about Candice and her work here.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Candice (00:04):
The hearth is for you if you're a business leader with
a team.
Here we have conversationsabout how to keep growing.
When you feel you've reachedyour capacity, when what you're
doing is working but you'restarting to see the cracks, when
there's a gap between whereyou're at now and where you want
(00:26):
to be, here we find ways totransition through the struggle
of survival toward creating athriving business that supports
you and your team as wholehumans.
Your host is me, candiceElliott.
I'm a business strategist andmentor who specializes in
(00:49):
working with business owners whoare going through periods of
growth.
Especially when you're addingmore people to your team, the
practices and systems thatworked when your team was
smaller just don't seem to fitanymore, and when you're caught
in stress and reaction, it'stough to reimagine the way that
(01:14):
you created your world of work,both your own personal one and
the one that you created forothers.
I help people align theirvalues and business practices to
build practical, sustainable,thriving work ecosystems and no,
(01:35):
this isn't just some workutopia talk.
To do this, I bring forward mydecade-long professional
background in human resourcesand organizational development,
working with growing businessesacross many sectors, and my
decades-long search for meaningand wholeness, which includes
(01:59):
researching the history of workand how it came to be what it is
today, practicing atrauma-informed approach to
business and integrating work,life and spirituality into a
meaningful whole.
Let's take this journeytogether.
Welcome back to the hearth.
(02:26):
Today we are going to be talkingabout the US health
disadvantage and what businessescan do to help, so I guess
where we'll start is what is theUS health disadvantage?
Yeah, I mean, when I talk to alot of people in the United
(02:49):
States, there's this idea thatperhaps because the US is one of
the wealthiest countries in theworld the wealthiest country in
the world that we should havethe best healthcare and be the
healthiest people in the world.
(03:11):
And maybe we should be, butwe're not.
And that is what the US healthdisadvantage is is that, on
average, the health of Americansis worse than the health of
people in other wealthycountries and even in other less
(03:31):
wealthy countries, and thisinformation is widely available.
You can find it in many places.
Where I first came in contactwith it was a study that the US
Surgeon General did, I believein 2021, and it was about
(03:55):
businesses and creating thrivingcommunities and the
intersection of health, businessand community.
So what is that disadvantageLike.
How does it show up?
(04:17):
So the US health disadvantagehas its roots in communities
where vital conditions thatshape health are not met, and
there are seven different vitalconditions, and those include
basic needs for health andsafety, like clean air and water
(04:40):
, nutritious food, a safeenvironment, meaningful work and
wealth, including employment,job training, financial savings
and security.
Humane housing, like safestructures and affordable costs,
and diverse neighborhoods.
(05:01):
Proximity to work, school andrecreation, so the ability to
live near work, school andrecreation.
Reliable transportation,including time and energy use
for transportation, so thatcould mean buses, or it could
(05:25):
mean cars, it could be bikes, itcould be anything.
And then a thriving naturalworld, like a healthy natural
environment and green spaces.
And then also included in thisis lifelong learning, including
literacy and number skills andquality, early child education,
(05:50):
elementary and high schooleducation and access to career
and adult education.
And then belonging and civicmuscles, so the ability to have
a sense of inclusion and thepower to influence the policies
and practices that shape theworld.
And this talks about itspecifically within government,
(06:11):
but I can also see anapplication in the workplace as
well, and so the way that thisdisadvantage shows up is in
mental health issues, in alcoholand substance use issues, in
(06:34):
high blood pressure,hypertension, insomnia, in the
number of fatal car accidentsthat we have.
There's a whole list ofdifferent ways that our health
is not as good as othercountries.
Quite a long list.
(06:55):
Autoimmune disease is anotherone, and so I've thought about
coming at this from a lot ofdifferent angles, and I just
don't I don't want it to seemlike it is solely the job of
businesses to fix this problem.
It is not.
This is a big.
It's bigger than justbusinesses.
(07:15):
It needs to be addressed frommany different angles, but
businesses have a part to play,I think, and I think it's a
really important part to play.
I mean, when we look at what'shappening in the research I mean
(07:38):
health care expenditures were2.6 times higher in the United
States than the average healthcare expenditures of other
wealthier countries.
The number of Americans thathave one chronic health
condition is 6 out of 10, and 4out of 10 have two or more
(08:04):
chronic conditions, and thisincludes a significant number of
younger folks, like in that 18to 44 year zone it is 18%, and
then when you get above 45 yearsold, it's 50% of people.
So one out of every two havetwo chronic health conditions.
(08:25):
This has an effect on people'sability to work right, because
if you have a chronic healthcondition, that gets in the way
of your ability to do your joband it puts a strain on the
company and the employer andalso the employee, to be able to
(08:46):
meet the conditions of the workenvironment that they need to
meet.
I talked in my previous episodeabout employee health and the
workplace and ways to decreasestress.
Stress is one of the mainfactors in chronic conditions
(09:06):
that happen for people, and sobeing able to decrease stress
helps people to have lesschronic health conditions, along
with a variety of other thingslike what I just listed
financial savings, human housing, reliable transportation, a
(09:29):
thriving natural world to access, belonging and civic muscle and
all these different pieces.
This is what creates a thrivingcommunity.
But something to know is that Ithink the other side of this
right I said businesses are notsolely responsible for this
(09:50):
right, obviously, but I thinkthe healthcare system is also
not solely responsible for thisright.
In the research, it shows thatonly 10 to 20% of health
outcomes are directly related towhat is happening in the
clinics and the hospitals, andso that's 80 to 90% of health
(10:12):
outcomes are really determinedby the ways that we are living
our lives, if we have enoughsleep, if we have nutritious
food, if moderating the amountof stress that we're continually
enduring, the amount of qualitytime we're able to spend
outside, the amount of socialinteraction that we have.
(10:34):
This is all related to health,and so, if we keep ignoring this
situation, there are sometrends that are currently
happening that could get worse.
I mean, one big one that Iactually didn't even know until
I started doing this research isthat US life expectancy is
(10:58):
ranked last among industrializednations and is declining.
So for years, decades, hundredsof years, us life expectancy
kept increasing over time.
Right, it was like we're makingall of these wonderful advances
(11:21):
and life expectancy is gettinglonger, but now we're starting
to see the reverse of that Lifeexpectancy is starting to go
down, so that our children willnot live longer than us.
There's one way to think aboutthat, and one of the
postulations about why this ishappening is because of the
(11:47):
pressure to succeed and thepressure to keep hustling and
doing all the time that theAmerican idea of the self-made
individual and a land ofopportunity, and pulling
yourself up by the bootstrapswhich had social support to back
(12:13):
it up in previous generations.
It's just not the same anymoreand that continuing to
prioritize that hard work andhustle in the form that we are
doing it right now, in the typesof workplaces that we're doing
(12:33):
it right now, is is harming ourhealth.
That's not to say that peopleshouldn't work hard, that people
who are driven shouldn't bedriven, or that people who love
something should not be doingwhat they love, or that it
doesn't sometimes takedifficulty to get to a place
(12:54):
where you want to go.
Those are all very true things,but the pressure to be always
on and to be always doing moreand better creates harm.
And having a more cyclical viewof things to understand that as
we go through life we have upsand downs.
(13:15):
We have times when we have moreand less capacity.
We have times when we have moreand less financial ability and
more and less ability to lead,and you know different
capacities to be able to beinvolved in our communities in
different ways.
The more we can embrace thatand to let go of the things that
(13:39):
are not fitting and to be okaywith letting them go, the more
that will help us to not only dothe work that is the most
important work for us to do inour businesses instead of all
the work that we could possiblydo, but also will help us to
address this issue of the UShealth disadvantage.
(14:00):
Something else to think aboutin this world is just the
disparities that we find inhealth in different kinds of
neighborhoods.
Primarily BIPOC neighborhoodshave much worse conditions for
the predeterminance of health,for example, things like access
(14:25):
to nature right or even justcreating the space and the time
to spend time in nature for onething to think about.
One of the organizations that Iwork with is Santa Cruz County
Park Friends and they have aprogram.
They did a program recentlywhere they were taking kids who
(14:50):
live in Watsonville, which isvery close to the ocean, a
10-minute drive to the ocean sokids who grew up in this town
that's, 10 minutes from theocean, who had never seen it
before.
So these are the kinds ofthings that they have an effect
on health and they have aneffect on our community and
(15:14):
where we're going and ourbusinesses can participate in
order to bring these things intoa reality.
Some like optimistic kinds ofthings within this, like things
that businesses can do.
I was like going through a bunchof Gallup polls and noticed
(15:39):
that 70% of Americans have agreat deal of confidence in
small businesses.
Within confidence, it's likethat they are being responsible,
that they're supporting theircommunities, that they're
creating good jobs and thatthey're participating well as
businesses.
(15:59):
This is compared with 21% ofAmericans that have confidence
in large businesses.
63% of US adults weredissatisfied with the size and
influence of major corporations.
Versus this, like the otherside of it, where 70% of
(16:22):
Americans are supportive ofsmall businesses.
Right, and small businesses, bynumber, are the biggest number
of businesses that there are inour country.
They don't employ the mostpeople, but they are the largest
number of businesses.
So just know that generally, ifyou're a small business, the
(16:46):
public is rooting for you.
They're wanting you to succeedand believing that you're doing
well, and so you know, if you goout on a limb a little bit to
work on these kinds of healthobjectives, it'll just even
support that even more.
Another thing to think about asa business owner or as a
(17:09):
business is that, like withinthe world of inequality and lack
of economic opportunity, thosewho have power and resources are
more likely to benefit, whileworkers, mid-level managers and
consumers are more likely toreceive less.
(17:32):
So if you are a person withpower and resources, it is more
likely that you will continue tohave power and resources than
power and resources going toother businesses, workers,
managers and the community as awhole.
(17:53):
And so, as a person with powerand resources, you can decide
how to channel those resourcesinto your community, your
employees, your managers, tocreate a thriving ecosystem,
(18:15):
cultural ecosystem, and so thereare a lot of ways to do this.
You can start small.
You can start or not small, butyou can start within your own
company of looking at okay, howare my workers doing, like,
(18:36):
financially?
That's one piece that you couldlook at.
How are my workers doingfinancially compared to other
workers in this area?
Are they able to afford thekind of housing that is stable?
Are they able to have reliabletransportation?
Are they able to go out and dothings that they enjoy, or are
(18:56):
they stuck in places where theycan't do that?
Are my managers seeingopportunity for growth or are
they stuck where they're at?
How do we create pathways forpeople to be able to have more
autonomy and agency over theirown lives and to be able to
(19:19):
participate in a way that bringsthem health, to be not stressed
, so that they're able to dothings that make them feel
healthy and actually are healthyfor their bodies.
Another way to think about itis what organizations are
already in my community doingthings that I really believe in
(19:43):
and then finding ways to supportthose organizations.
And then a third thing that Ireally find to be so important
to do is to be involved in yourlocal government so that, as
issues come up that affect youand your business and your
employees that affect yourcommunity, that you're a part of
(20:06):
the conversation that'shappening around what is
happening in your community andwhat it is becoming and the
direction of the decision makingthat's happening.
I happen to live in a communitythat has a very vibrant local
political scene and that thereis a lot of contention sometimes
(20:32):
in that, and what I haveenjoyed about the process of
local politics here is workingthrough those issues where we
don't all agree and seeing wherethere is space to move forward
and where things are aligned sothat we can create the kind of
(20:52):
community that we want to see,that we want to give to the next
generations.
And then, just from this report,I wanted to share that there
were three things that theyproposed businesses do in order
(21:12):
to create thriving communities.
One is to focus on thewell-being of people, so
employee and dependent benefits,workplace policies and
environment and customerwell-being fit into that
category.
The second thing is thewell-being of places, so the
(21:35):
vital conditions of communityaccess to opportunity, broader
community systems.
And then the third thing isequity, also ensuring that
resources are focused on thosemost in need and that everyone
has the opportunity to thriveand that, as these rules are
(21:57):
aligned, they get incorporatedinto the meaning of being in
business and why you're evendoing it in the first place.
So what are some ways to getstarted?
Just a couple ideas.
One is to just look at yourinternal practices through this
lens well-being of your people,well-being of place, and then
(22:22):
equity and to see where theremay be room for growth.
Another thing is to join analigned business organization.
I am currently a member of theSanta Cruz County Business
Council, which I find to be awonderful organization, not just
(22:43):
to meet peers, but also toreally have the tough
discussions around the issuesthat are coming up in our
community and that affect othercommunities all throughout the
country as well.
So there are all differentkinds of business organizations
and professional organizations,and just finding one that is the
(23:07):
right fit for you, or lookingat what's available around you
to start could be a good way togo.
And then a third thing is justlooking for a nonprofit partner,
one that is in your communitythat's already doing really good
work, and then reaching out tothem and finding out how you can
(23:27):
support All right.
Well, as always, please takefrom this what works for you.
I'm not saying that becauseI've found this research that
you have to accept or go withany of this, but I did wanna
share it with you because itseemed really important and was
(23:51):
fascinating to me.
If you have any questions oryou wanna dig into any of these
things further, let me know.
I would love to do that withyou and we'll have links for you
also in the show notes.
Thanks, see you next week.
Hit subscribe to know when thenext episodes come out and, if
(24:15):
you're feeling generous, pleaseleave a review.
Reviews help other like-mindedfolks find their way to this
resource.
If something you heard todaybrought a smile to your face or
a spark to your heart and you'dlike to connect with me, there
are a few ways to do that.
One is my newsletter, where Iput most of my time and energy
(24:40):
when I'm not working withclients or with my family, or
working on this podcast Sorry,social media.
The newsletter is a mix of reallife stories, tips and tricks
and, of course, updates onwhat's happening with the
podcast.
Whenever something's going onwith me or in my business, it
(25:00):
always comes out there first.
Another resource that I havefor you is my guide to doing
work differently.
This guide takes you throughfour inquiries into how you can
build a more sustainable andequitable work environment for
yourself and your team.
It's a great place if you'relooking for somewhere to get
(25:23):
started.
Last, if you've got a burningquestion, a comment or a
situation you'd like my eyes on,you can email me.
All those links are in the shownotes.
Take care, brave Soul.
Catch you next time.
The hearth is for you if you're a business leader with
a team.
Here we have conversationsabout how to keep growing.
When you feel you've reachedyour capacity, when what you're
doing is working but you'restarting to see the cracks, when
there's a gap between whereyou're at now and where you want
(00:26):
to be, here we find ways totransition through the struggle
of survival toward creating athriving business that supports
you and your team as wholehumans.
Your host is me, candiceElliott.
I'm a business strategist andmentor who specializes in
(00:49):
working with business owners whoare going through periods of
growth.
Especially when you're addingmore people to your team, the
practices and systems thatworked when your team was
smaller just don't seem to fitanymore, and when you're caught
in stress and reaction, it'stough to reimagine the way that
(01:14):
you created your world of work,both your own personal one and
the one that you created forothers.
I help people align theirvalues and business practices to
build practical, sustainable,thriving work ecosystems and no,
(01:35):
this isn't just some workutopia talk.
To do this, I bring forward mydecade-long professional
background in human resourcesand organizational development,
working with growing businessesacross many sectors, and my
decades-long search for meaningand wholeness, which includes
(01:59):
researching the history of workand how it came to be what it is
today, practicing atrauma-informed approach to
business and integrating work,life and spirituality into a
meaningful whole.
Let's take this journeytogether.
Welcome back to the hearth.
(02:26):
Today we are going to be talkingabout the US health
disadvantage and what businessescan do to help, so I guess
where we'll start is what is theUS health disadvantage?
Yeah, I mean, when I talk to alot of people in the United
(02:49):
States, there's this idea thatperhaps because the US is one of
the wealthiest countries in theworld the wealthiest country in
the world that we should havethe best healthcare and be the
healthiest people in the world.
(03:11):
And maybe we should be, butwe're not.
And that is what the US healthdisadvantage is is that, on
average, the health of Americansis worse than the health of
people in other wealthycountries and even in other less
(03:31):
wealthy countries, and thisinformation is widely available.
You can find it in many places.
Where I first came in contactwith it was a study that the US
Surgeon General did, I believein 2021, and it was about
(03:55):
businesses and creating thrivingcommunities and the
intersection of health, businessand community.
So what is that disadvantageLike.
How does it show up?
(04:17):
So the US health disadvantagehas its roots in communities
where vital conditions thatshape health are not met, and
there are seven different vitalconditions, and those include
basic needs for health andsafety, like clean air and water
(04:40):
, nutritious food, a safeenvironment, meaningful work and
wealth, including employment,job training, financial savings
and security.
Humane housing, like safestructures and affordable costs,
and diverse neighborhoods.
(05:01):
Proximity to work, school andrecreation, so the ability to
live near work, school andrecreation.
Reliable transportation,including time and energy use
for transportation, so thatcould mean buses, or it could
(05:25):
mean cars, it could be bikes, itcould be anything.
And then a thriving naturalworld, like a healthy natural
environment and green spaces.
And then also included in thisis lifelong learning, including
literacy and number skills andquality, early child education,
(05:50):
elementary and high schooleducation and access to career
and adult education.
And then belonging and civicmuscles, so the ability to have
a sense of inclusion and thepower to influence the policies
and practices that shape theworld.
And this talks about itspecifically within government,
(06:11):
but I can also see anapplication in the workplace as
well, and so the way that thisdisadvantage shows up is in
mental health issues, in alcoholand substance use issues, in
(06:34):
high blood pressure,hypertension, insomnia, in the
number of fatal car accidentsthat we have.
There's a whole list ofdifferent ways that our health
is not as good as othercountries.
Quite a long list.
(06:55):
Autoimmune disease is anotherone, and so I've thought about
coming at this from a lot ofdifferent angles, and I just
don't I don't want it to seemlike it is solely the job of
businesses to fix this problem.
It is not.
This is a big.
It's bigger than justbusinesses.
(07:15):
It needs to be addressed frommany different angles, but
businesses have a part to play,I think, and I think it's a
really important part to play.
I mean, when we look at what'shappening in the research I mean
(07:38):
health care expenditures were2.6 times higher in the United
States than the average healthcare expenditures of other
wealthier countries.
The number of Americans thathave one chronic health
condition is 6 out of 10, and 4out of 10 have two or more
(08:04):
chronic conditions, and thisincludes a significant number of
younger folks, like in that 18to 44 year zone it is 18%, and
then when you get above 45 yearsold, it's 50% of people.
So one out of every two havetwo chronic health conditions.
(08:25):
This has an effect on people'sability to work right, because
if you have a chronic healthcondition, that gets in the way
of your ability to do your joband it puts a strain on the
company and the employer andalso the employee, to be able to
(08:46):
meet the conditions of the workenvironment that they need to
meet.
I talked in my previous episodeabout employee health and the
workplace and ways to decreasestress.
Stress is one of the mainfactors in chronic conditions
(09:06):
that happen for people, and sobeing able to decrease stress
helps people to have lesschronic health conditions, along
with a variety of other thingslike what I just listed
financial savings, human housing, reliable transportation, a
(09:29):
thriving natural world to access, belonging and civic muscle and
all these different pieces.
This is what creates a thrivingcommunity.
But something to know is that Ithink the other side of this
right I said businesses are notsolely responsible for this
(09:50):
right, obviously, but I thinkthe healthcare system is also
not solely responsible for thisright.
In the research, it shows thatonly 10 to 20% of health
outcomes are directly related towhat is happening in the
clinics and the hospitals, andso that's 80 to 90% of health
(10:12):
outcomes are really determinedby the ways that we are living
our lives, if we have enoughsleep, if we have nutritious
food, if moderating the amountof stress that we're continually
enduring, the amount of qualitytime we're able to spend
outside, the amount of socialinteraction that we have.
(10:34):
This is all related to health,and so, if we keep ignoring this
situation, there are sometrends that are currently
happening that could get worse.
I mean, one big one that Iactually didn't even know until
I started doing this research isthat US life expectancy is
(10:58):
ranked last among industrializednations and is declining.
So for years, decades, hundredsof years, us life expectancy
kept increasing over time.
Right, it was like we're makingall of these wonderful advances
(11:21):
and life expectancy is gettinglonger, but now we're starting
to see the reverse of that Lifeexpectancy is starting to go
down, so that our children willnot live longer than us.
There's one way to think aboutthat, and one of the
postulations about why this ishappening is because of the
(11:47):
pressure to succeed and thepressure to keep hustling and
doing all the time that theAmerican idea of the self-made
individual and a land ofopportunity, and pulling
yourself up by the bootstrapswhich had social support to back
(12:13):
it up in previous generations.
It's just not the same anymoreand that continuing to
prioritize that hard work andhustle in the form that we are
doing it right now, in the typesof workplaces that we're doing
(12:33):
it right now, is is harming ourhealth.
That's not to say that peopleshouldn't work hard, that people
who are driven shouldn't bedriven, or that people who love
something should not be doingwhat they love, or that it
doesn't sometimes takedifficulty to get to a place
(12:54):
where you want to go.
Those are all very true things,but the pressure to be always
on and to be always doing moreand better creates harm.
And having a more cyclical viewof things to understand that as
we go through life we have upsand downs.
(13:15):
We have times when we have moreand less capacity.
We have times when we have moreand less financial ability and
more and less ability to lead,and you know different
capacities to be able to beinvolved in our communities in
different ways.
The more we can embrace thatand to let go of the things that
(13:39):
are not fitting and to be okaywith letting them go, the more
that will help us to not only dothe work that is the most
important work for us to do inour businesses instead of all
the work that we could possiblydo, but also will help us to
address this issue of the UShealth disadvantage.
(14:00):
Something else to think aboutin this world is just the
disparities that we find inhealth in different kinds of
neighborhoods.
Primarily BIPOC neighborhoodshave much worse conditions for
the predeterminance of health,for example, things like access
(14:25):
to nature right or even justcreating the space and the time
to spend time in nature for onething to think about.
One of the organizations that Iwork with is Santa Cruz County
Park Friends and they have aprogram.
They did a program recentlywhere they were taking kids who
(14:50):
live in Watsonville, which isvery close to the ocean, a
10-minute drive to the ocean sokids who grew up in this town
that's, 10 minutes from theocean, who had never seen it
before.
So these are the kinds ofthings that they have an effect
on health and they have aneffect on our community and
(15:14):
where we're going and ourbusinesses can participate in
order to bring these things intoa reality.
Some like optimistic kinds ofthings within this, like things
that businesses can do.
I was like going through a bunchof Gallup polls and noticed
(15:39):
that 70% of Americans have agreat deal of confidence in
small businesses.
Within confidence, it's likethat they are being responsible,
that they're supporting theircommunities, that they're
creating good jobs and thatthey're participating well as
businesses.
(15:59):
This is compared with 21% ofAmericans that have confidence
in large businesses.
63% of US adults weredissatisfied with the size and
influence of major corporations.
Versus this, like the otherside of it, where 70% of
(16:22):
Americans are supportive ofsmall businesses.
Right, and small businesses, bynumber, are the biggest number
of businesses that there are inour country.
They don't employ the mostpeople, but they are the largest
number of businesses.
So just know that generally, ifyou're a small business, the
(16:46):
public is rooting for you.
They're wanting you to succeedand believing that you're doing
well, and so you know, if you goout on a limb a little bit to
work on these kinds of healthobjectives, it'll just even
support that even more.
Another thing to think about asa business owner or as a
(17:09):
business is that, like withinthe world of inequality and lack
of economic opportunity, thosewho have power and resources are
more likely to benefit, whileworkers, mid-level managers and
consumers are more likely toreceive less.
(17:32):
So if you are a person withpower and resources, it is more
likely that you will continue tohave power and resources than
power and resources going toother businesses, workers,
managers and the community as awhole.
(17:53):
And so, as a person with powerand resources, you can decide
how to channel those resourcesinto your community, your
employees, your managers, tocreate a thriving ecosystem,
(18:15):
cultural ecosystem, and so thereare a lot of ways to do this.
You can start small.
You can start or not small, butyou can start within your own
company of looking at okay, howare my workers doing, like,
(18:36):
financially?
That's one piece that you couldlook at.
How are my workers doingfinancially compared to other
workers in this area?
Are they able to afford thekind of housing that is stable?
Are they able to have reliabletransportation?
Are they able to go out and dothings that they enjoy, or are
(18:56):
they stuck in places where theycan't do that?
Are my managers seeingopportunity for growth or are
they stuck where they're at?
How do we create pathways forpeople to be able to have more
autonomy and agency over theirown lives and to be able to
(19:19):
participate in a way that bringsthem health, to be not stressed
, so that they're able to dothings that make them feel
healthy and actually are healthyfor their bodies.
Another way to think about itis what organizations are
already in my community doingthings that I really believe in
(19:43):
and then finding ways to supportthose organizations.
And then a third thing that Ireally find to be so important
to do is to be involved in yourlocal government so that, as
issues come up that affect youand your business and your
employees that affect yourcommunity, that you're a part of
(20:06):
the conversation that'shappening around what is
happening in your community andwhat it is becoming and the
direction of the decision makingthat's happening.
I happen to live in a communitythat has a very vibrant local
political scene and that thereis a lot of contention sometimes
(20:32):
in that, and what I haveenjoyed about the process of
local politics here is workingthrough those issues where we
don't all agree and seeing wherethere is space to move forward
and where things are aligned sothat we can create the kind of
(20:52):
community that we want to see,that we want to give to the next
generations.
And then, just from this report,I wanted to share that there
were three things that theyproposed businesses do in order
(21:12):
to create thriving communities.
One is to focus on thewell-being of people, so
employee and dependent benefits,workplace policies and
environment and customerwell-being fit into that
category.
The second thing is thewell-being of places, so the
(21:35):
vital conditions of communityaccess to opportunity, broader
community systems.
And then the third thing isequity, also ensuring that
resources are focused on thosemost in need and that everyone
has the opportunity to thriveand that, as these rules are
(21:57):
aligned, they get incorporatedinto the meaning of being in
business and why you're evendoing it in the first place.
So what are some ways to getstarted?
Just a couple ideas.
One is to just look at yourinternal practices through this
lens well-being of your people,well-being of place, and then
(22:22):
equity and to see where theremay be room for growth.
Another thing is to join analigned business organization.
I am currently a member of theSanta Cruz County Business
Council, which I find to be awonderful organization, not just
(22:43):
to meet peers, but also toreally have the tough
discussions around the issuesthat are coming up in our
community and that affect othercommunities all throughout the
country as well.
So there are all differentkinds of business organizations
and professional organizations,and just finding one that is the
(23:07):
right fit for you, or lookingat what's available around you
to start could be a good way togo.
And then a third thing is justlooking for a nonprofit partner,
one that is in your communitythat's already doing really good
work, and then reaching out tothem and finding out how you can
(23:27):
support All right.
Well, as always, please takefrom this what works for you.
I'm not saying that becauseI've found this research that
you have to accept or go withany of this, but I did wanna
share it with you because itseemed really important and was
(23:51):
fascinating to me.
If you have any questions oryou wanna dig into any of these
things further, let me know.
I would love to do that withyou and we'll have links for you
also in the show notes.
Thanks, see you next week.
Hit subscribe to know when thenext episodes come out and, if
(24:15):
you're feeling generous, pleaseleave a review.
Reviews help other like-mindedfolks find their way to this
resource.
If something you heard todaybrought a smile to your face or
a spark to your heart and you'dlike to connect with me, there
are a few ways to do that.
One is my newsletter, where Iput most of my time and energy
(24:40):
when I'm not working withclients or with my family, or
working on this podcast Sorry,social media.
The newsletter is a mix of reallife stories, tips and tricks
and, of course, updates onwhat's happening with the
podcast.
Whenever something's going onwith me or in my business, it
(25:00):
always comes out there first.
Another resource that I havefor you is my guide to doing
work differently.
This guide takes you throughfour inquiries into how you can
build a more sustainable andequitable work environment for
yourself and your team.
It's a great place if you'relooking for somewhere to get
(25:23):
started.
Last, if you've got a burningquestion, a comment or a
situation you'd like my eyes on,you can email me.
All those links are in the shownotes.
Take care, brave Soul.
Catch you next time.
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