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THE FIRST ‘RENAISSANCE MAN’
Exploring Who Jesus Was in Light of the Easter Season
T his year, Easter Sunday falls on April 4. Now, there are a lot of different ways that people celebrate Easter. Maybe you go to a church service in the morning, or you have dinner with your family. Maybe the holiday is a day to hide Easter eggs for your kids and eat all the chocolate you can. Maybe your Easter looks a little like all of those things combined. For Christians all over the country and all over the world, like myself, Easter is a holiday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after he was crucified. You might not be super religious or very well versed in the Christian faith, but I would be willing to bet you’ve at least heard of Jesus. My impression is that most people, Christian or not, know at least a few things about who Jesus was. You probably know that he was an itinerant teacher who was born and lived in the area that’s now Israel and Palestine, that he had a short but powerful ministry, that he was crucified by the Romans, and that after his crucifixion, his followers claimed that he rose from the dead. In popular culture, Jesus is usually portrayed as a gentle bearded guy with long hair who patted little kids on the head and taught folks with stories using a lot of “thee’s” and “thou’s.” However, the truth is really a lot different than that. In fact, he sparked a revolution — just not the kind of revolution that his followers wanted. Certainly, Jesus was the personification of love, but he was also what I would describe as a “man’s man.” He was a carpenter by trade, a real craftsman, for much of his life before he started
teaching. And while much of what he taught may not seem very revolutionary today, for that day and age, it was radical. He taught in Roman-occupied and Roman-controlled Judea. The Romans valued pride, strength, victory, and conquest. Jesus taught humility, service, sacrifice, and selfless love. He obviously wasn’t teaching to become popular with the Romans. Jesus also exemplified courage. He treated women with respect and honor in a time when men believed they were little more than property. He treated prostitutes with the dignity they deserved as human beings. He approached and actually embraced lepers, the epitome of outcasts in that day. It was believed that leprosy was highly contagious through touch, but he healed them and welcomed them as followers. He didn’t care where the people he spent time with had been — only where they could go and what they could become. While Jesus was known for attracting followers and disciples from all walks of life, he was equally well-known for his divisive teaching. People didn’t always like what he had to say. Sometimes he would say something that would make many of the people listening to him get up and never follow him again. Jesus was a man who cared more about telling the truth than he did about getting his followers to like him. Eventually, it was his own people who turned him over to the Romans for crucifixion.
believe the Bible, there are extra Biblical accounts (documents not found in the Bible) from secular historians that document that a man named Jesus actually lived and taught in Judea and was crucified by Roman authorities. And since we are celebrating Easter in the year 2021, it can’t be denied that he sparked a movement that continues to this day. My goal in sharing all of this isn’t to preach to anyone or anything like that. These are just some things that I’ve read about, found interesting, and figured were worth sharing in light of the Easter season. While I am a follower of Jesus, I do not always reflect Jesus’ character and teachings, but he was nevertheless a remarkable historical figure, and I think anyone from any sort of background can benefit from learning a little more about him.
Of course, you can read all about Jesus and his teachings in the Bible. But even if you don’t
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S ocial inflation refers to the trend in which societal and legal trends continue to converge in the legal system and the courtroom, resulting in increased litigation, legal decisions tipping in favor of the plaintiffs, larger jury awards, and various other effects. In recent years, both the frequency and severity of liability claims have increased so much that no insurer, no matter how prominent, is unaffected. The cost of claims is going up, which, in turn, leads to rate increases across the board.
THE (NOT SO) SECRET RECIPE Craft the Perfect Follow- Up Email When it comes to securing leads, the follow-up email is hard to beat. One study found that a 12% response rate from two emails increases to 15%–16% with a third email. If you play your cards right, the success of your email marketing could, in large part, depend on your follow-up emails. So, how do you create ones that maximize positive responses from leads? Know your goals. You should have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish with your email campaign. Which metrics are most important to you? The number of times recipients open your follow-up email? That they click a link in the text? That they reply? Maybe tracking total conversions resulting from follow-up emails is important to you. Whatever the case, knowing your goals is a good first step. Find the ideal number of follow-ups. Obviously, not following up at all is a recipe for abandoning several potential leads. However, sending too many follow-ups can leave potential leads annoyed and unwilling to look into your business. According to several studies, the ideal number of follow-up emails is no less than three, but no more than seven. Time your follow-ups right. You don’t want to space your emails so far apart that leads forget about you, but you also don’t want to spam their email box so often that they get annoyed. A good rule of thumb is to wait at least 48 hours before sending a follow-up email after the initial email. After that, wait 2–4 days before sending another. Craft appealing content. This point is worth its own article, but briefly put, your follow-up email content is incredibly important. Create a subject line that will grab readers’ attention. Then, be polite, direct, friendly, and personable in each email. As you send out more follow-ups, become more specific about the deal you’re offering and make it more enticing. Above all, you should constantly tweak your follow-up content and overall strategy as you gain new information. As you continue to create follow-up emails, you’ll learn what works best.
There are four key factors that drive social inflation in this day and age.
1. Juror’s Perspective: Since the 2008 financial crisis, there has been a growing anti- corporate sentiment in America, meaning that most jurors are consequently biased in favor of the plaintiff in the courtroom. 2. Litigation Funding: Claimants increasingly receive outside help from investors who pay their legal fees in exchange for a piece of the settlement. 3. Plaintiff’s Bar: The sheer number and overall savvy of plaintiff attorneys is growing. 4. Normalization of Nuclear Verdicts: Caps on punitive damages and damages related to pain and suffering are shooting through the roof or going away altogether, so plaintiffs can receive more and more in settlements. In order to properly respond to social inflation and prevent litigation, you need to choose the right partner in an insurance carrier. Here are a few qualities to look out for. 1. They take a comprehensive approach to preparing for and preventing harmful litigation. A comprehensive approach might include the use of cutting-edge evaluation tools, intentional litigation strategies, and using data from previous litigation to inform future decisions. 2. They provide expert counsel. These legal representatives will have the expertise to efficiently handle high-profile claims. 3. They provide you with high-end operators. These operators will help you prepare for litigation with mock juries and by identifying unfavorable cases early on. As social inflation continues, it’s our hope that justice still prevails in the courtroom, no matter the circumstances of the case itself.
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COVID-19 VACCINES, A TRAFFIC JAM, AND A SNOWSTORM
A few months ago, public health workers from Josephine County, Oregon, decided that rather than letting valuable COVID-19 vaccines expire, they would get them to whoever they could — even if those people were just random strangers stuck alongside them in a traffic jam in a snowstorm. The vaccine doses that the Oregon health care workers had with them were made by Moderna, which means that they had a shelf life of just six hours — meaning they could be outside of the extremely cold temperatures required to preserve them for just six hours before they expired. While these storage conditions have contributed to some inefficiencies in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, Josephine County Public Health Director Michael Weber and his 20 colleagues would not let that happen to them. They had been out in the area administering vaccines all day, and rather than let the half dozen leftover doses they had with them expire as they waited in traffic, they decided to see if anyone else waiting in traffic wanted to receive one. Not everyone jumped at the opportunity. Some people in the region are still hesitant to get the vaccine, and many politely declined Weber and his team’s offer. However, after just 45 minutes of Weber and four of his teammembers walking between cars with hypodermics and medical supplies, six people had happily received the first dose of the vaccine. One of the lucky drivers who got vaccinated was so excited that he leaped from his car and stripped off his shirt in the middle of a blizzard. Another was a woman who was actually supposed to receive her dose of the vaccine that day but had missed her appointment. Weber and his crew were more than pleased with how they used their time in that snowstorm. When you have the power to save lives in your car while stuck in traffic, it behooves you to do more with your time than simply listen to podcasts or play I Spy.
THESE HEALTH CARE WORKERS DIDN’T WASTE A SINGLE VACCINE
Have a Laugh!
Easy way out on Pg. 4
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INSIDE This Issue The First ‘Renaissance Man’ page 1
How to Craft the Perfect Follow-Up Email
Protecting Your Business From Social Inflation page 2
Administering Vaccines in a Traffic Jam in a Snowstorm
Take a Break page 3
‘Zero to One’: A Book Review page 4
How to Get From ‘Zero to One’ Create and Nurture Original Business Ideas
subject. He co-founded Cofinity (which later became PayPal) and invested in startups like Facebook, SpaceX, Lyft, and Airbnb whose ideas were so novel at the start that they were perceived as risky by many. Throughout the book, Thiel shares his wealth of knowledge garnered from a long, successful career of recognizing and acting on original ideas. According to him, and anyone else who has ever tried creating something wholly unique, developing an original idea is no easy task. The difficulty of originality even led Mark Twain to once say “There is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.” But in “Zero to One,” Thiel proves that coming up with original ideas is possible, and he provides readers with helpful tips and lessons for how to get there. One such lesson:
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
That’s entrepreneur and author Peter Thiel’s favorite interview question. To Thiel, a person’s answer to that question provides insight into whether they’ll be able to find success as an entrepreneur. Ideally, if you can answer with something like “Most people believe in X, but the truth is the opposite of X,” then you’re well on your way from zero to one and creating an original business idea. That’s what Thiel explores in his book “Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future.” “Zero to One” is all about coming up with and nurturing unique ideas, which are the foundation of game-changing businesses. As a co-founder and investor in a number of companies that have changed the business landscape, Thiel has some authority on this
Stop trying to be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg because “if you’re copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.” Thiel uses his favorite interview question to try to identify original thinkers. These are the people who take their businesses from zero to one because they looked at past successes and thought, “I can do it differently, and I can do it better.” If you want to be in that group, then reading Thiel’s advice in “Zero to One” is a great place to start.
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