My wife and I just came back from an inspiring Goldman Prize Award ceremony, where seven grassroots environmental changemakers were recognized for their work and resiliency, and shared their passion and purpose with everyone attending the event. We did hear too from Al Gore, Tracy Chapman, Robert Redford, and the founder of the awards 20 years ago, Richard Goldman. 

The BBC recently published an Op-Ed by Mr. Goldman on the story behind the Awards themselves: article Here. He explains how…

• - “One morning in 1989, as I sat with my daily breakfast and newspaper, I read about the most recent Nobel laureates and wondered if there was a comparable award for environmental work.”
• - “We asked a staff member at our foundation to do some research and he found that nothing yet existed to recognise environmental work on an international stage, thus the Goldman Prize was born.”
• - “Our choice to focus specifically on grassroots environmental leaders was unique at the time.”

Mr. Goldman, and the seven winners, are clearly helping improve the state of the world.

Now, the “state of the world” does include their very own brains – you may have seen this recent paper on how Volunteer Program Provides Health Benefits To Older Women

• - “She and her colleagues found that EC volunteers showed greater improvements in memory and executive function than those who did not participate in the program. In fact, the older adults with the lowest baseline performance in these areas – those most at risk for health disparities – demonstrated the most significant gains.”
• - “Both studies highlighted above show that everyday activity interventions (e.g., EC) can appeal to older adults’ desires to remain socially engaged and productive in their post-retirement years. Simultaneously, these activities provide measurable physical and cognitive health benefits.”

Of course, those benefits do not accrue only for older adults (or just for women), but may help all of us gradually build Cognitive Reserves through the added novelty, variety and challenge.

Talk about win/ win!

Related articles on social entrepreneurship:

“Everyone a Changemaker”, Ashoka and Google

Richard Dawkins and Alfred Nobel: beyond nature and nurture

Given the recent James Watson “race and IQ” controversy, I took on to read Stephan Jay Gould’s classic book The Mismeasure of Man, in which he debunks IQ (and the underlying “g”) as measure of defined, innate, “intelligence”. Fascinating reading overall, very technical in some areas.

The key take-away? In the last chapter, A Positive Conclusion, he writes that

- “Flexibility is the hallmark of human evolution…In other mammals, exploration, play and flexibility of behavior are qualities of juveniles, only rarely of adults. We retain not only the anatomical stamp stamp of childhood, but its mental flexibility as well…Humans are learning animals”

He then relates this story from T.H. White’s novel The Once and Future King

- God, he recounts, created all animals as embryos and called each before his throne, offering them whatever additions to their anatomy they desired. All opted for specialized adult features-the lion for claws and sharp teeth, the deer for antlers and hoofs. The human embryo stepped forth last and said: Please God, I think that you made me in the shape which I now have for reasons best known to Yourselves and that it would be rude to change. If I am to have my choice, I will stay as I am. I will not alter any of the parts which you gave me…I will stay a defenceless embryo all my life, doing my best to make myself a few feeble implements out of the wood, iron, and the other materials which You have seen fit to put before me..” “Well done”, exclaimed the Creator in delighted tone. “Here all you embryos, come here with Read the rest of this entry »

See this interview today.

Quote: “By 76, most directors have put their heavy lifting behind them, their pace slowing, the quality of their films waning. Not Clint Eastwood.”

Clint Eastwood: “My father always said you’ve got to keep learning, keep expanding or you will decline the other way. I’ve always adhered to that.” Read the rest of this entry »