ICYMI

• College football is back, fall is upon us and Kamala Harris is stretching her lead in the polls, despite RFK’s endorsement of Trump.

A Recommended Resource

• Collin Hansen, a Lakelight speaker, hosts the Gospelbound podcast highlighting the books & authors shaping Christianity and the broader culture.

Articles

• How the Church can help this generation’s mental health crisis

• 10 Tips for Time Management that actually work.

  • Apparently, Jeff Bezos begins his day by “puttering around.”

• McKinsey identified the most important technology trends in 2024.

• Derek Rishmawy explains why a Christ-centered identity is a firm foundation, a rock on which we can stand.

• What an All-Star MLB Pitcher taught his son about godly competition.

• “As religion loses its political influence, it has gained in intellectual and cultural salience. If you are alarmed that Christianity is “taking over,” you should look everywhere except the ballot box.” from Dan Hitchens recent article published in First Things.

Paywalled

• “Nessa Coyle calls it the “existential slap”—that moment when a dying person first comprehends, on a gut level, that death is close.” Jennie Dear explores what happens when we discover our own mortality. (The Atlantic)

  • If you want an existential slap, you should listen to Mike Woodruff’s recent sermon.

• He’s the New York Times Columnist who said Biden should drop out before anyone else did. His name is Ezra Klein. (The New Yorker)

• According to the Stock Market, Starbucks new CEO Brian Nichol is worth 27 billion dollars. Is he, though? (WSJ)

• Your Office Therapist is that way. Synchrony Financial, at the request of its youngest workers, added a psychologist at its headquarters. (WSJ)

Data

• Young Adults Are Not Doing Well

  • In a recent Harvard study, 36 percent of 18 to 25 year olds reported experiencing anxiety and 29 percent reported experiencing depression—about double the proportion of 14-to-17-year-olds on each measure. More than half of young adults were worried about money, felt that the pressure to achieve hurt their mental health, and believed that their lives lacked meaning or purpose. (source)

  • According to the CDC, in 2020, depression was most prevalent among 18-to-24-year-olds. Further, a 2023 Gallup poll found that loneliness peaked at ages 18 to 29.

  • In that same study listed above, 45 percent of young adults said they had a “sense that things are falling apart,” 42 percent said gun violence in schools was weighing on them, 34 percent said the same of climate change, and 30 percent reported worrying about political leaders being incompetent or corrupt. (source)

• CEOs — Inspired by Brian Nichol

  • Allowing for variance from industry to industry, a recent 2021 study estimated that about 15 to 20 percent of firm outcomes can be attributed to CEOs, depending on the sample period and empirical models. That data point is substantiated by this study as well.

  • In one survey of 800 C-suite executives last year, nearly half said most or all of the CEO role could be replaced by artificial intelligence. 

  • And yet, CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978.

One Last Thing

• If you’d like to support Lakelight, you can spread the word about us or you can give us one of the cars from this list.