Thrive Global

Alzheimer’s disease affects millions of people around the world, but its impact on women is particularly significant. Women are not only more likely to receive an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, but they are also more likely to take on caregiving responsibilities for a loved one with the disease. Nearly two-thirds of Americans living with Alzheimer’s disease are women, and more than 12 million women either have the disease or are caring for someone who does.

** TRIGGER WARNING: Sensitive topics discussed. If any of this resonates and you are struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text at any time. ** For forty years, Colleen Clifford did not think she had a problem. She did not drink every day. She did not drink all the time. Even when she did drink, she did not always drink too much, and even when she drank too much, most mornings the worst of it was a headache and a lost afternoon.

In this Thrive Global series, we hear directly from people sharing stories of transformation after using GLP-1 medications, a new class of drugs for diabetes and weight management. Niki Jackson’s weight journey Growing up with her single mother in Los Angeles, Niki Jackson ate nutritious meals and was fit and active — she loved dance and gymnastics. As an adult, she ran half marathons.

When I look back at the woman I was at fifty-four, I want to reach through time and hold her hand for a moment. Not to fix anything. Not to warn her. Just to let her know that it all works out — not perfectly, not without cost, but in ways that matter deeply. At fifty-four, I was still carrying so much. Wounds I had faced and wounds I had not yet fully faced. Some of them I had named and forgiven. Others were still circling quietly in the background of my life — present but not yet free.

“I’m so OCD about my kitchen.” Almost everyone has said some version of it, usually while lining up coffee mugs or straightening a stack of papers. It is a harmless figure of speech, and it has quietly done a lot of damage. Because when the public picture of a disorder is a person who likes their books arranged by height, the people who actually have that disorder look nothing like the picture. They are not visibly arranging anything.

This year marks America’s 250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. With such a significant milestone and with Birthright Citizenship being continually challenged, I think of so many like my ancestors who gave up so much of their lives so we could live better ones. We owe much to them. It’s on their shoulders that we stand. Today, I honor those ancestors, especially my grandparents. My grandparents taught me RESILIENCE & the lessons of ACCEPTANCE, SURRENDER and FORGIVENESS.

There is a sentence Fernando Vescio has heard more than once while walking the floor of a company he had just joined, and it stayed with him: “I’ve never seen HR walk through here before.” Not hostility. Not a complaint. Just the plain observation of someone who had worked at a company for years without ever seeing a human resources leader at their workstation asking what they were building.

He was sitting in his car in a parking lot, having just been told he had six months to live, and he looked at himself in the rearview mirror and started talking to the virus. “If you want to come to my party, you’re welcome to come play,” he said. “If you think you’re going to take me out, you’re in the fight of your life.” Then he drove back to work.

TL/DR: Getting something one step closer to where it needs to go beats waiting until you have time to do the whole thing (which may never happen anyway) It works for physical objects and for stalled projects that feel too big to start. Harvard researchers tracked 12,000 workday diary entries and found visible progress on meaningful work was the biggest driver of a “good day”. Not promotions. Not breakthroughs.

“Comparison is the thief of joy.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt The second time I met Esther Perel I told her that she was a tremendous poet. The musicality of her ingenious ditties such as “How can you desire what you already have?” render them immediately iconoclastic and deliciously memorable.