In this issue:
-Article: Phones or Friends...It's just your life!
-2023 Course Schedule
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IN PERSON
2023
Advanced WMF®
April 20-21, 2023
Westlake Village CA
$3,250
Women Moving Forward®,
May 9-11, 2023
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
Women Moving Forward®,
Sept 12-14, 2023
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
Advanced WMF®
Oct. 11-12, 2023
Westlake Village, CA
$3,250
Women Moving Forward®,
Dec. 5-7, 2023
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
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Managing Corporate Change©
Virtual via Zoom
2023
January 9, 11, 13, 2023
Virtually Via Zoom
8:30 AM- 1:30 PM Pacific Time
$4,250 USD
One slot left
June 6-8, 2023
In-Person
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
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Advanced Men's Course©
October 2-4, 2023
Catch up day Via Zoom
$4950 In-Person
Ojai, California
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Leading Projects through Relationship, Commitment Purpose© Added for 2023
LP Broadens its audience to all leaders.
As I updated the course description for LP two months ago I realized the course content I designed for Project Managers 10 years ago is now what everyone needs today. The ability at a very high level to influence all the people around you especially when you have no direct reporting relationship! This course has the most advanced psychological principals I have ever taught in them. We taught the first session with both PMs and other leaders with great results last month.
July 25-28, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village CA
$4,950
Here's a short video from john explaining the changes...
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Women's Leadership Retreat©
November 14-16, 2023
2 Slots Available
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2023 Courses Public
Workshop Schedule
Managing Corporate Change©
Virtual Via Zoom
January 9, 11, 13, 2023
$4,250
1 Slot Available
Advanced WMF®
April 11-12, 2023
Westlake Village, CA
In-Person
$3,250
Productive Relationships©
In-Person
April 25-27, 2023
Westlake Village, CA
$4,250
Women Moving Forward®
May 9-11, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
Managing Corporate Change©
June 6-8, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village CA
$4,250
Leading Projects through Relationship, Commitment and Purpose©
July 25-28, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village, CA
$4,950
Women Moving Forward©
Sept 12-14, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village, CA
$4,250
Advanced Men's Course©
October 2-4, 2023
Ojai, CA
$4,950
Women's Leadership Retreat® (WMF®
Nov 14-16, 2023
Ojai CA
$4,950
2 Slots Available
Women Moving Forward©
Dec 5-7 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village, CA
$4,250
Productive Realtionships©
Dec. 12-14, 2023 In-Person
Westlake Village, CA
$4,250
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Phones vs. Friends…It’s just your life!
Your biggest threat to longevity and good mental health is not kale vs. cake its time with friends vs. time on social media. A mountain of research says the single most important factor to living a long-life is relationships with friends. Strong personal relationships. Friends are more important than smoking, diet, exercise or any of 106 items studied. The rub is since 2013 the time the average American spends with friends has dropped by HALF!! (6.5 hours per week in 2012 face to face with friends to 2.45 hours in 2021.) According to the American Use Study.
The single most important factor in preventing depression is having a friend you can confide in. Keep in mind this precipitous drop, in friend time, started years before the pandemic. But coincides nicely with the explosion of time spent on smart phones with social media. We have swapped friend time for Doom Scrolling. I guess that why it’s called doom scrolling, it is literally killing us! Likes and comments on a Facebook post are like a junk food snack versus a nutrition dense face to face conversation.
Even “weak relationships,” as the social scientists call it, are important. The guy who sprays for bugs at our house was a real character who I loved chatting with about best fishing spots in California. He retired and I miss him! During the pandemic we have traded convenience for connection. I rarely go to the grocery store since Instacart is so convenient. The person you regularly see at the post office, dry cleaners, your favorite restaurant all count as connections.
What connections have your given up in the name of convenience in the last 3 years?
LOSING THE SOURCE OF FRIENDS: Places where we find friends are disappearing. Historically in-person organizations, like the PTA have declining participation or have completely disappeared. According to one of our graduates who is an insurance agent, all fraternal organization are in decline or flat out disappearing. Elks, Moose (my dad was a Moose) the Masons, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Kiwanis and the like are fading into oblivion.
Men are worse than women at building friendships. The notion that younger men are more emotionally open and therefore better at making same sex friendships than us old geezers only proves the dangers of social media. Younger men are in fact much more bereft of friends than my generation. You know its serious when Saturday Night Live is poking fun at young men’s struggles with making friends. Watch “Man Park” from SNL Click here for SNL Dog Park
Currently 50-60% of Gen Z individuals qualify for a Mental health diagnosis.
Loneliness is more prevalent in Gen Z than all previous generations. We are beyond individual action culturally as Dr. Marisa Franco states in her book Platonic. We will need policy level action to fight this problem as the Brits have with a cabinet level appointment of the Minister of Loneliness.
For me personally, having left Colorado 8 years ago I have built the casual acquaintance relationships. And Susan and I have “couple friends”. Because of the brilliant On Point broadcast that spurred this article I have decided to up my game! Link to the Broadcast click here:NPR On Point; Americans Lost Connections
I reached out to the men that I bled with on the Rugby pitch decades ago to go past reminiscing to deeper conversations. I have made a couple of play dates with men I respect and whose company I enjoy, because all the data made these choices obvious.
What decisions do you need to make?
As always, we invite your comments.
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Susan Van Vleet Consultants, Inc.®
An International Consulting Company
692 Camino Verde
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360, USA
PHONE (303) 660-5206
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