Slice of Life

Slice of Life

Nashville’s Canadian connection

I was privileged to be invited along on yet another great ICR sales adventure, with the company treating us to a trip to Nashville this past month!

Nashville, Tennessee is known best by its nickname of Music City as the home of country music.

According to a study completed through Belmont University, the City is home to over 80 record labels, 130 music publishers, 180 recording studios, 27 entertainment publications and estimated 5,000 working union musicians.

Belmont estimated in 2006 that the music industry, through tourism as well as direct and indirect industry spending contributed $6.38 billion to the local economy.

Quite the economy indeed, when you consider the first citizen to inhabit Nashville had a wildly different background from music.

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Slice of Life

I want the advisors I engage to challenge me

I started writing my blog to increase my social media footprint. While it has helped, it’s no longer my purpose.

Rather, I now enjoy expressing my thoughts on issues that pop up in my week. It’s usually something that has happened that inspires me to write about a topic…here’s what’s on my mind.

I want to work with a professional, whether it may be financial, medical or technical, that’s prepared to, at times, tell me what I need to hear.

If I am working with an individual or firm that is always selling me and/or agreeing with my line of thinking, I’m inclined to move on.

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Slice of Life

Are government employees sicker than the rest of us?

Too sick for work can be a subjective term.

I must admit I’ve pushed the limits and found myself exiled from the office on more than one occasion for coming to work when I should legitimately be at home.

I would say my average yearly sick days would even out around 3 or 4 maybe.

Which puts me well below recent statistics that say government employees are averaging in at 12.2 days lost per year.

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Slice of Life

More than just a place to rest your head

The modern hotel concept sprung up in Europe around 1768.

Before hotels, travelers pitted in at coaching inns which tended to the needs of the traveller and their livestock.

Travel was considerably less common due to restriction of time and distance prior to the proliferation of the railway system.

But with advances in travel came the need for short term lodging.

To say we’ve advanced past seeking a place to lay our head, however, is understatement.

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Slice of Life

Now that’s how you throw a music festival

It isn’t a summer music festival unless you’re trudging around in mud. At least that’s what Craven organizers over the years have led us to understand.

But what if I told you that isn’t the case everywhere?

What if a festival site was thoughtfully designed with drainage, sound control and amenities that could serve up to 65,000 people?

Montreal’s redesign of Parc Jean Drapeau has achieved just that.

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Slice of Life

Maintaining a safe social place of community within a city core

The vibrancy of a city’s core creates the fabric of the community. A safe downtown gathering place provides an ambiance that reverberates throughout the city.

Who decides the definition of “safe”? 

It’s a subjective word that may have different meaning to different people. I have my own translation and believe that “safe” is achievable.

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Slice of Life

What does economically empowering women look like?

Specifically speaking, it depends on where you live on this earth.

Globally there are still approximately 2.7 billion women restricted from doing the same jobs as men.

But that’s not necessarily true in North America, right?

Okay, how about this more relatable fact: only 5 per cent of the Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs.

When we look at the general workforce, approximately 63 per cent of women (aged 25-54) participate in the labour market; that compares to 94 per cent of men in the same age category.

The statistic doesn’t tell us where those 37 per cent of women are or why they aren’t participating but it certainly highlights the imbalance between genders.

So it’s agreed, there is still some work to do.

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Slice of Life

If it’s not -30C to -40C for a week or more, things just aren’t right in my world!

I am often accused of twisted thinking when I voice this inner paradigm and am therefore going to use this space to convert you to this liberated view of our Saskatchewan winters.

Awakening early to an announcement on my radio alarm that the temperature is forecast to stay below 30C for the next week is for me, the equivalent of consuming my favorite comfort food.

As an aside comment, I seldom step away from posting business content. This however happens to be the fifth anniversary of the launch of our blog and therefore feel justified straying from the norm.

Looking back on those first posts, it seems like only a couple of years since they were written.

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