EDITION 856
15 FEBRUARY 2021

As another week slips by, here are 10 things which caught my attention and may have escaped yours. This newsletter is sent to 50,000+ subscribers each Monday at 10am. Please share on social media and forward to your colleagues and friends so they can subscribe, learn and engage. I would be very grateful if you did.

1. How the best leaders keep an open mind. We often think of great leaders as having the conviction of their beliefs - they’re not pushovers. But the most successful leaders actually show a willingness to be persuaded. How can you do this, particularly on issues where you’re not objective? READ MORE

2. Vaccine given to 15 million people in the UK. More than 15 million people in the UK have now had their first coronavirus vaccine, in what Boris Johnson described as a "significant milestone". The PM hailed the "extraordinary feat", reached just over two months after the first jab was given on 8 December. It comes as the government is expected to announce that it met its pledge to offer a jab to everyone in the top four priority groups in the UK. Britain’s vaccination programme maybe speeding ahead, but we are no closer to knowing when life will return to normal. Editor

3. What next for the UK economy? The UK economy contracted 9.9% last year, its worst performance for more than 300 years, but official data shows green shoots of growth. The slump means the UK economy fared worst out of the G7 nations. But the Office for National Statistics revealed the economy grew 1% in the final three months of the year as companies and households learnt to live with Covid-19 lockdowns. Experts say that while the vaccine rollout offers “light at the end of the tunnel,” businesses will still need to weather the hurdles of the latest lockdown. City AM

4. Pollution caused 8m deaths. Air pollution from burning fossil fuels was responsible for 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018, more than previously thought, according to new research. The study, from several major universities, said around one in 10 deaths in the U.S. and Europe were caused by air pollution, rising to nearly a third of deaths in eastern Asia. The study looked only at the health impact of fossil fuels, not the further impacts of climate change. According to the World Economic Forum, global leaders see failure to act on climate change as one of the biggest risks in 2021. The Times

5. Bumble buzzes in $2.15 billion IPO. Bumble has jumped 64% in its trading debut after raising $2.15 billion in its initial public offering. The dating app that only allows women to initiate conversations is valued at $14 billion. Its founder and chief executive officer, Whitney Wolfe Herd, is now the youngest woman to take a large company public in the U.S and Bumble is one of 20 companies currently trading that had women founders who led them to an IPO. Bloomberg

6. Creatives like to move it, move it. Is physical exercise the key to unlocking our creativity? A recent study found that active people came up with more ideas - and better ones - during inventiveness tests when compared to their sedentary counterparts. It follows previous studies linking physical activity to brain changes, in particular an improvement in mood. The most recent study, however, noted that while exercise can improve mood, people could walk around not feeling happy but still be successfully creative - thus concluding that a better mood doesn’t influence creativity, moving does. Scientific Reports

7. Live to work, or work to live? The idea that we should love what we do is a common one, especially in creative industries. But is the idea a con? Such beliefs could be responsible for stress and anxiety, particularly in jobs often linked with the idea of self-sacrifice, such as caring roles. It can also mean people accept lower monetary reward as they believe their job should provide satisfaction. With the pandemic changing the daily reality of many people's jobs, it could lead to a re-evaluation of work. Editor

8. How to read more. Are you reading more books during the pandemic? While some surveys around the world have shown that people read more during lockdowns, others also found it harder to focus on the printed word in the midst of a crisis. If you're hoping to read more this year, here are some tips: [1] Read just 10% of a non-fiction book - sometimes, having just one powerful takeaway is good enough. [2] Don't hesitate to ditch a book you're not finding interesting. [3] Skim if you find the topic boring, but you need to extract insights. But if you're finding the book interesting, take your time to enjoy it. Editor

9. Freshly bound. Fall: The Mystery of Robert Maxwell by John Preston. A Very English Scandal author turns his attention to disgraced media tycoon Robert Maxwell in new biography. This is a must-read account of the second most notorious Maxwell. It hits bookshops at a time of Maxwell mania; when two podcasts dedicated to the subject are knocking around the top of the iTunes charts (John Sweeney’s Hunting for Ghislaine and Tara Palmeri’s Power: The Maxwells) and his youngest daughter, the famous Ghislaine Maxwell, is incarcerated in a Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and ricocheting in and out of the papers every time new information materialises. Editor

10. The bottom line. A single coke can would be big enough to contain all of the COVID-19-causing virus currently circulating in the world. Bath University maths expert Kit Yates worked out there are around two quintillion - or two billion billion - SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in the world at any one time. His work exposes just how much devastation is caused by miniscule viral particles. BBC