Well-being

The adult report card you never knew you needed

One therapist has six signs you're further along than you think.

There's so much about growing up that's strange. Things you dreaded as a kid turn out to be bog-standard adulting. And things you hated in school sound amazing to you as a proper grown-up. My son is currently furious about having to spend a month on Edgar Allan Poe. I would give anything to deep dive into the symbolism of The Tell-Tale Heart for a few weeks right now. And his report card? He dreads it. I'd love one. Wouldn't you? A formal, official accounting of how you're actually doing?

As Mark Wales reports for GOOD, you might have one. Licensed therapist Jeffrey Meltzer lays out six signs that you're doing a lot better than you think. The criteria are not what you'd expect. "Knowing what you don't want" counts. Having even one relationship that doesn't require a performance counts. The fact that you're asking these questions at all? That counts too.

The reason most of us miss this stuff is neurological. Your brain is wired to clear your wins the moment they're banked and immediately move the goalposts. Meltzer's list is essentially a cheat code to outsmart it.

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And what did we learn?

10 drummers drumming! Why didn’t I think of that yesterday when I covered our story about the teacher with the infectious energy and his ten-and-under drum corps?!? That’s kind of funny. Anyway, that story is worth a read and comes with a free big smile.

The story got me thinking back to my elementary school days, and I asked you, GOOD readers, what type of kids were you during the school performances? About a third of you were that kid in the front just crushing it. Respect!

• Front row, memorized everything, thriving (35.1%)

• Somewhere in the middle, doing the minimum (27.0%)

• I was just trying to survive (27.0%)

• I had a "scheduling conflict" every single year (10.8%)

Society

Researchers spent 17 years determining whether women on corporate boards are risk-averse or major innovators

New research complicates a tired debate.

There's a persistent narrative in corporate America that women in the boardroom are the cautious ones. Steady hands, sure, but maybe not the bet-the-farm visionaries you'd want when a company needs to take a swing. Turns out, that story is half right. But the half that’s not right? That’s the fascinating bit.

Stephen J. Smulowitz and his colleagues spent 17 years tracking 524 S&P 1500 companies, measuring innovation by patent activity. What they found scrambles the conventional wisdom: companies that were underperforming their goals filed fewer patents as more women joined their boards. So far, so "risk averse." But companies that were exceeding their targets? More women directors meant more patents. Same people, opposite effect; it all depended on how the company was doing.

The most counterintuitive finding is the one you'll want to read the full study for. When companies were staring down bankruptcy, the expected playbook was to retrench and stop swinging for the fences. Instead, boards with more women actually ramped up patent output. The researchers suggest these directors may fight harder for survival through innovation precisely when the stakes are existential.

So are women on corporate boards cautious or creative? Yes.

Health

The world's saltiest problem finds a surprisingly thirsty solution

We make 25 billion gallons of undrinkable toxic water every day, and one scientist wants it back.

Ah, brine. Unless you're an old-fashioned sailor or, like yours truly, you’re the person in your friend group who makes those legendary pork chops*, you probably don't spend much time thinking about it. But while you've been sleeping on brine, the rest of the world has been drowning in it.

Every time we desalinate ocean water, treat sewage, or run a mining operation, we produce an enormous amount of hypersalty, metal-laced byproduct that nobody wants. We dump it in the ocean (it kills fish), evaporate it in ponds (the dust pollutes the air), and inject it underground (it caused a 40-fold spike in Oklahoma earthquakes). To call our current brine strategy "not ideal" would be generous.

As researcher Mervin XuYang Lim explains, that waste isn't just a problem. It's also 25.2 billion gallons of potential drinking water produced every single day. Lim and his team at the University of Arizona have developed a six-step reclamation system that can pull back up to 90% of the water from municipal brine, clean enough to drink after standard disinfection. A larger pilot is already being built in Tucson.

The pork chop people have known it all along: brine is worth more than you think.

* - 2 cups apple cider vinegar, brought to a simmer, drop in some black peppercorns, some mustard powder, ½ cup brown sugar, ½ cup salt. Put the chops in for at least an hour. Grill ‘em up… so good!

Got a better chops recipe? Reply to this newsletter with yours and I’ll give it a try!

On April 17, 1907, the doors of the Ellis Island immigration station opened on what would become the most remarkable day in its history. Before nightfall, 11,747 men, women, and children had filed through the Registry Room, a hall roughly the size of two basketball courts. The average daily throughput was about 5,000. Nobody was quite ready for what that morning brought.

It was the peak day of Ellis Island's peak year. All of April 1907, some 197 ships carrying more than a quarter-million passengers arrived in New York Harbor. By year's end, the station had processed over a million people, an annual volume record that would hold until 1990. They came mostly from southern and eastern Europe, from Italy, Russia, Greece, and Poland, carrying bags, prayers, and a bet on a country that had never quite seen this many takers at once.

Today, roughly 40 percent of Americans can trace at least one branch of their family tree through those doors. The record-setting day of April 17, 1907, came with no ceremony or fanfare. It was just Tuesday, and everyone needed to get through.

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