What a Long Strange Trips It's Been - Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead   Historical Perspectives   The legal history of cannabis in the U.S. dates back to 1906 with the passage of laws listing cannabis as poison in many states. Total prohibitions began in the 1920s, with cannabis being regulated as a drug in every state by the mid-1930s by the adoption of the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act. The first national regulation was the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937.     Cannabis cultivation played a central role in the establishment of the United States. Supporters of cannabis legalization love to point out that our founding...

“Success is when I add value to myself, but significance is when I add value to others.” John Maxwell   All of us are in business to be successful. There is even a magazine titled “Success”. We are all striving for success, but how many of us have actually defined what we mean by it? Are we seeking wealth, power and prestige or are we striving for peace of mind, security, and comfort?   To make matters worse, many of us allow others to define success for us. Social media is awash with supposedly successful people telling us what success should look like. If...

The RI Unemployment Trust Fund is in Trouble     The Rhode Island Unemployment Trust Fund is in trouble, and the General Assembly is looking to the State’s employers to fix it. In any normal year, this would be routine. It is required that when a State’s IU trust fund drops, the employers have the burden of replenishing it.   However, these are not normal times. The global COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the job market over the last two years, resulting in an unprecedentedly rapid rise in unemployment, which in turn caused the State’s trust fund to drop from $500 million to approximately...

Strategic Partnerships In Uncertain Times     Just when we thought things were getting back on track with the waning of the COVID pandemic (fingers crossed), Vladmir Putin decided it was time to attempt to bring Ukraine back into the Russian sphere. As we know, that didn’t go according to plan. In fact, the failure of the Russian army to make quick work of the Ukrainian military is threatening the global order and sending shockwaves throughout the world, impacting pretty much everyone in one way or another.   The Russian invasion of Ukraine served to aggravate already shaky supply chains, which had a corresponding impact...

Your Business Is Seen As Lenticular     A little change in perspective can change everything. This is expressed very well in a Youtube video by Gaelen Abt, aka The Style Sherpa. In her recent Youtube video, “Making Quantum Leaps”, she spoke about how a shift in perspective need not be a giant quantum leap, but instead can simply be a small shift away from normal which yields a totally different perspective.   She gave the example of lenticulars. Although you may not be familiar with the word, you have definitely seen examples. It is a technology used in printing where lenticular lenses are used...