1 hour and 18-minute listen
Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Costa Rica
My guest today on the Positive Enterprise Value podcast is Dr. George Shapiro. George is the Chief Medical Innovation Officer of Fountain Life. Fountain was formed about three years ago, with the mission to revolutionize the current healthcare system (actually I would call it the sick care system), by switching the primary focus from a sick care reactive system to a pro-active and preventative healthcare system. All the advancements that have been made in technology and AI, now allow us to detect illnesses earlier than ever before, so that we could have the possibility of living much longer, healthier lives—really interesting, but it takes a long time to find its way to your general practitioner.
George Shapiro, M.D. had a traditional education and background in medicine. He went to New York Medical College where he received his M.D. He had his undergraduate degree from the Albert Einstein College at Yeshiva University, and he then became a fellow at Columbia University in the cardiology center. George, in my view, has seen it all. He's seen people practice by focusing on the symptoms, which it seems like is what our mass popular culture and the sick care system especially is focused on. I mean, I'm sure you have the same stories that I do when you go to see a practitioner and really all they address is what symptoms you're having and I think George would say, "Wow, the technology we have allows you to look at your health care pre-symptom. Why would you wait until the engine in your car seizes up until you go get it fixed? Why wouldn't you have a low oil indicator go off before, and actually go get that fixed before it seized up?"
George is very, very skilled in this area and has a lot of scar tissue from the traditional medical system. I hope you'll have fun listening to him. So, without further delay please join me in listening to George Shapiro, M.D. from Fountain Life.
Listen below or on Soundcloud here
What I am Reading / Listening to
Where The Crawdads Sing (2022)
Directed by Olivia Newman
Where The Crawdads Sing (2018) is a book by Delia Owens that is so thoroughly engrossing, when I finished it, I wanted to start it again.
When I began to watch the new movie by the same name, I was compelled to stop it and check the release date because I was certain I had seen it before. As I flipped back and began to continue to watch it, I realized that’s because the director Olivia Newman had cast and created the background aura so convincingly—that the cabin I saw in the movie matched the one in my head when I read the book. Whoa.
The movie tells the story of Kya, an abandoned child left by herself in a cabin who literally raised herself into young adult in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. For years, gossip of her existence—they called her "Marsh Girl"—ran through the town of Barkley Cove, sequestering the brilliant and resilient Kya from the traditional community. Befriended by two young men from town, Kya opens herself to a new world. When one of them is found dead, she is immediately fingered by the community as the main suspect. As the story unfolds, what actually took place becomes increasingly murky, moving our emotions, and threatening to peel back the many marsh riddles.
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022) is a fully captivating thought-provoking film, which could have easily just been another glossy movie without substance, but instead it is an engaging tale with its intentional kindness. I am guessing that some who read the book like me may mock the movie for taking a “lite” version of the serious issues raised by the book. I don’t, and I highly recommend it.
Entrepreneur Owner-Manager Quote
“As advisors go, I suspect that these guys are unusual. Their passion for their clients is impressive. Bigelow always had my best interests at heart, and they will be friends of mine forever.”
Energy Creation
The Accidental Queen
Contributed by Stephen R. McGee
My Mom was a young girl during World War II. She remembers King George VI. She remembers then Princess Elizabeth’s first public address “to the children of the Commonwealth” in 1940. Mum was 6. The death of Queen Elizabeth II has been hard for Brits of my Mum’s generation. A constant that has now gone. I’ve been surprised how much it has affected me.
The Queen had already served 19 years as monarch by the time I was born in 1971. I don’t think anyone thought she would serve another 51 years. On the Bigelow website under my bio, I reference the Queen as someone I admire. Maybe that is why I got e-mails and text messages the day she died asking if I was OK. It’s a little surreal. But then you stop to think about it.
I wasn’t able to watch the various processions and events that took place around the UK during the ten days of official mourning. With the time difference and work commitments, I didn’t even get to watch the funeral live. I did however watch it all over the course of a few evenings through various recordings and replays. Wow. It was so impressive (to me at least). The pageantry, the pomp. The pipers, the bearer party, the 142 Royal Naval Ratings pulling the same State Gun Carriage that carried her father’s coffin in 1952. It was incredibly moving. I’m not going to lie, I shed some tears.
The death of the Queen will no doubt have people questioning why we (the Brits) have a monarchy and what purpose they really serve. And of course, there will be folks who don’t like the new King, largely because of Princess Diana (I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised how the country seems to have embraced him). It’s hard to explain to my US friends what the monarchy means to me. It means something though, maybe just a sense of history? History means something different to Brits compared to Americans, I think. The high school I went to in Liverpool recently celebrated its 400th anniversary (you read that right), the US is only 245 years old!
It will be a long time before there is another Queen. Charles, William, and George will rule for a while barring any unforeseen events. But then again, that is how Princess Elizabeth became queen. And one thing is for sure, there will never be another Queen like Elizabeth II. RIP Elizabeth R.
