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New volunteers get trained in Lexington, Ky., to help out at CASA of Lexington in April 2023. AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel As gerontologistssocial scientists who study aging populationswe envision a future in which older people leave a doctors visit with a prescription to go volunteer for something. Does that sound far-fetched? Theres scientific research backing it up. Good for your health While spending more than a dozen years researching what happens when older adults volunteer with nonprofits, including churches, weve found that volunteers consider themselves to be in better health than their peers who dont. In addition, their blood pressure is lower, and they appear to be aging more slowly than other people of the same age. Other researchers have found that volunteering is associated with a lower risk of having a heart attack. The mental health benefits are just as striking. Volunteering is tied to having fewer symptoms of depression and being more satisfied with your life. It often brings an instant boost in moodalong with a deeper sense of meaning and purpose. Even engaging in whats known as informal helpinglending a hand to friends, neighbors, or community members in need, without getting paid or participating in an organized programcan help you in similar ways. There are also health benefits for those who start volunteering much earlier in life. Children and teens who volunteer tend to have better health and lower levels of anxiety and fewer behavioral problems than those who dont volunteer. Changing demographics The number of U.S. adults at least 62 years oldthe earliest age at which you can claim Social Security retirement benefitshas grown by nearly 35 million since 2000, while the number of children and teens under 18 has fallen by nearly 1.5 million. There are now about 76 million Americans over 62 and 71 million under 18. This change has been gradual. Following a long-term demographic shift, record numbers of Americans are reaching retirement age. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/FWpvb/1 Benefits for society and the economy The benefits of volunteering arent just for the volunteers themselves. The total value of the hours of unpaid work volunteers put in totals an estimated U.S.$170 billion each year, according to AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on national and community service. And participating in community service programs can lead to better job prospects for volunteers, that same agency has found. AmeriCorps Seniors, which focuses on engaging volunteers ages 55 and older, runs programs that offer major benefits to their communities. These include the Foster Grandparent program, which connects older adult mentors to children, and the Senior Companion program, which connects volunteers to older adults seeking some help to continue living independently in their own homes. A current AmeriCorps Seniors pilot program is helping adults 55 and up, who can have more trouble landing new jobs than younger people, gain new job skills through their community service. People of all ages can get together through volunteering. Some organizations intentionally encourage this kind of intergenerational cooperation, including CoGenerate and Generations United. https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/MYh8W/1 Rebuilding communities Researchers have also found that volunteering may increase trust within a community, especially when it brings together people from different backgrounds. It can strengthen social cohesion, a term researchers use to describe how much people bond and help each other, and reduce prejudice. Volunteers views on social issues may change through their work, too: More than 4 in 5 adults over 55 who tutored public school students to strengthen their reading skills in the national Experience Corps program, for example, stated that their views on public education evolved as a result. Those volunteers expressed more support for public education and said theyd be more likely to vote in favor of spending on schools. An American pastime Our findings are backed by science, but they also have roots in American history. Alexis de Tocquevillea French philosopher and diplomat who arrived in the United States in 1831 to study the new nations penal systemwas so impressed by the scale of volunteering in the U.S. that he wrote about it in his 1835 book Democracy in America. Tocqueville observed that Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds were likely to unite in many kinds of groups or associations. More recently, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has said that volunteering can strengthencommunities, and that community is a powerful source of life satisfaction and life expectancy. If you arent volunteering today, here are a few ideas to help you begin. Start small. Try joining an organization or association in your community, taking part in neighborhood cleanups, or volunteering at your local senior center, animal shelter, or museum. Love gardening? You can take care of local parks, conservation areas, community gardens, and more. Once youre ready for a bigger commitment, consider becoming a mentor through programs such as OASIS Intergenerational Tutoring or Big Brothers Big Sisters. And consider a more extensive level of commitment to organizations or causes you care deeply about. This might include joining a nonprofit board of directors, volunteering more hours, or taking on a volunteer leadership role. At a time when trust is eroding and divisions seem insurmountable, volunteering offers something rare: an evidence-backed way to reconnect with communities, institutions, and each other. Reach out to your favorite nonprofit, visit Volunteer.gov or VolunteerMatch.org, or connect with a nonprofit resource center, a regional United Way or a community foundation to find volunteer opportunities near you. Cal J. Halvorsen is an associate professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis. Seoyoun Kim is an associate adjunct of sociology at the University of Michigan. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Melody Wilding is a professor of human behavior at Hunter College and was recently named one of Insiders most innovative career coaches. Her background as a therapist and emotions researcher informs her unique approach, weaving evidence-based neuroscience and psychology with professional development. She is the author of Trust Yourself. Whats the big idea? Do you feel stuck navigating office politics, micromanagement, or being overlooked at work? In Managing Up, human behavior professor and executive coach Melody Wilding reveals how to subtly teach those above you to respect your ideaswithout needing a title change. Through real-life stories and research-backed strategies, she breaks down 10 key conversations that help you build influence, set boundaries, and operate from a position of power. Packed with actionable scripts and expert insights, this book is a must-read for anyone ready to take control of their career. Below, Melody shares five key insights from her new book, Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge. Listen to the audio versionread by Melody herselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Managing up is not about making your bosss life easier. Its about taking control of your own work experience. We often equate managing up with sucking upknowing your bosss coffee order, agreeing with everything they say, jumping at their urgent requests. Turning yourself into a professional yes-person may have been enough to get ahead 10 or 20 years ago, but things have changed. Were working in a world of hybrid teams, instant messaging, and four generations collaborating side by side. Your leader might be younger than you, expertise matters more than hierarchy, and face time happens through Zoom. In this new reality, you need to get buy-in for your ideas even when budgets are tight, and to have strong boundaries when yet another task is dumped on your plate. Lets face it: There will always be managers who are scattered, conflict-avoidant, or terrible at giving feedback. But when you master managing up, youre no longer at the mercy of their limitations. This is why managing up is NOT about your boss at all. Its about you doing your best work and securing the resources, opportunities, and recognition you deserve. Your career growth and peace of mind at work depend not only on how you perform your responsibilities but also on how effectively you advocate for yourself, influence decision-makers, and design the conditions for your success. The moment you shift from How can I please my boss, how can I stay in their good graces? to How can I partner with my boss to achieve my goals and theirs? new possibilities open. By stepping out of the order taker role and into a respected advisor mindset, youre leveling the playing field. 2. Theres a method to managing up. If youve been told that you need to get better at influencing upward, then youve probably received some of this advice: Come with solutions, not problems! Build trust with leadership! Anticipate their needs! Make them look good! Be proactive! These pithy one-liners sound good but tend to be oversimplified and fall apart the minute things get complicated or dont go as planned. Which, if were honest, might be often. You dont have time to duct tape and shoestring scattered strategies together . . . and its not going to work for long. When you master managing up, youre no longer at the mercy of their limitations. Thats precisely why I developed the 10 conversations frameworkto give you a comprehensive, systematic road map to master the skill of managing up, where each step conversations build on the next. When I say conversations, this includes the overlooked opportunities and interactions we have every day to shape our leaders perception of us, like those two minutes before everyone else joins the meeting when its just you and the VP making small talk. The book begins with the most foundational conversations: Alignment: How do I know which tasks are most crucial to focus on? Styles: How can I work with different personalities? Ownership: What can I do to presentand go aftermy ideas without overstepping? Boundaries: What do I say when my manager dumps yet another task on my plate? Feedback: How do I voice my opinion and deliver criticism up the chain of command? These conversations give way to more advanced ones later in the booknetworking, visibility, advancement, money, and eventually even the quitting conversation. 3. Psychology is your secret advantage. You know those moments that make you want to pull your hair out? Your boss needs three meetings to make a decision that feels obvious. Your brilliant idea gets shot down because you didnt build enough consensus. Your promotion gets delayed despite your teams record-breaking quarter. Its tempting to throw your hands up. To label your boss as difficult. To take it personally. But heres what my career as a researcher and coach has taught me: When we say someone is difficult, what we often mean is theyre different: They process information differently than we do. They make decisions in a way that feels foreign to us. They have pressures and priorities we cant see. Until you understand what actually drives decisions at the topthe hidden incentives, the competing agendas, the unspoken fearsyoure just throwing tactics at the wall and hoping something sticks. Every strategy in this book is grounded in the science of persuasion, trust-building, and more. As you rise in your career, how you handle the people dynamics around you gives you an edge: Instead of getting frustrated that your big-picture boss cares about the details, you lead with the vision. Instead of feeling dismissed when your risk-averse leader seems resistant, you address their concerns before they voice them. Instead of getting frustrated when an action-oriented executive shoots down ideas mid-sentence, you lead with the bottom line and save the context for follow-up. 4. Go beyond your boss. Think about your last major project. You probably had to coordinate with stakeholders across three different departments. Your resources might be controlled by someone youve never met. That promotion you want? Its likely being decided by a committee. The truth is, your boss might be your biggest advocate, but theyre just one voice in a chorus of decision-makers shaping your career. I see this reality check hit hard when people come to me frustrated: I dont get it. My boss loves me. So why do I keep getting passed over? Nine times out of ten, its because theyve invested everything in that one relationship while ignoring the broader network ofsenior leaders who influence their success. Todays workplaces are a complex web of dotted lines, matrix reporting, and cross-functional teams. When it comes to internal networking, focus on connecting with three groups: decision-makers who control resources and opportunities, power peers who are rising stars across the organization, and behind-the-scenes operators who make everything actually happen (assistants, HR, IT). Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information. Use what I call the info-ask strategy. Before you can ask for career sponsorship or resources, ask for information. Maybe its best practices from that VP whose project you want to join, insights into how approvals really happen from that senior director, or vendor recommendations from that influential peer. This approach does three powerful things: it signals respect for others expertise, demonstrates a genuine desire to learn (not just take), and creates natural follow-up opportunities to share how their advice helped. 5. You teach people how to treat you in the workplace. Its easy to feel powerless at work. The latest reorg shifted your role. Your teams headcount got frozen. Your skip-level keeps scheduling over your focus time. During the past few years, the number of professionals who believe they have little to no control over their careers, futures, and work relationships has doubled. A staggering 40% of workers grapple with a sense of helplessness. But heres what most people miss: Every interaction is a chance to subtly shape how others treat you. When your boss dumps a last-minute project on your team, you have a choice. You could just say yes (and reinforce that your time doesnt matter), or you could say, I can take this on, but it means pushing back the Q2 planning work we discussed. Which would you prefer I prioritize? This simple trade-off shows youre strategic, not just accommodating. When an executive criticizes your work in front of the team, you could stay quiet (teaching them this behavior is acceptable), or you could say, Could we discuss these concerns one-on-one? It would help me better understand your expectations. This shows youre professional while setting a clear boundary about how you expect feedback to be delivered. You have more power than you realize to shape the dynamics around you. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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Americas craft brewers already have enough problems. Hard seltzers and cocktails are muscling into beer sales. Millennials and Gen Z dont drink as much as their elders. Brewpubs still havent fully recovered from the shock of COVID-19 five years ago. Now theres a new threat: President Donald Trumps tariffs, including levies of 25% on imported steel and aluminum and on goods from Canada and Mexico. Its going to cost the industry a substantial amount of money, said Matt Cole, brewmaster at Ohio-based Fat Heads Brewery. Trumps trade war will be crippling for our industry if this carries out into months and years. The tariffs, some of which have been suspended until April 2, could impact brewers in ways big and small, said Bart Watson, president and CEO of the Brewers Association, the trade group for craft beer. Aluminum cans are in Trumps crosshairs. And nearly all the steel kegs used by U.S. brewers are made in Germany, so a tariff on finished steel products raises the cost of kegs. Tariffs on Canadian products like barley and malt would also increase costs. And some brewers depend on raspberries and other fruit from Mexico, Watson said. At Port City Brewing in Alexandria, Virginia, founder Bill Butcher worries that hell have to raise the price of a six-pack of his best-selling Optimal Wit and other brews to $18.99 from around $12.99, and to charge more for a pint at his tasting room. Are people still going to come here and pay $12 a pint instead of $8? he said. Our business will slow down. For Port City, the biggest threat comes from the looming tariff on Canadian imports. Every three weeks, the brewery receives a 40,000-pound truckload of pilsner malt from Canada, which goes into a 55,000-pound silo on the brewerys grounds. Butcher said he cant find malt of comparable quality anywhere else. Trumps tariffs also hit Port City in a roundabout way: The levy on aluminum, which went into effect March 12, is causing big brewers to switch from aluminum cans to bottles. Port City, which bottles 70% of its beer, found itself unable to get bottles. Our bottle supplier is cutting us off at the end of the month, Butcher said. That caught us by surprise. Fat Heads Brewery gets its barley from Canada. Cole said it could shift to sources in Idaho and Montana, but the shipping logistics are more complicated. And Trumps tariffs, by putting Canadian barley at a competitive disadvantage, would allow U.S. producers to raise domestic prices. Fat Heads is trying to mitigate the impact of the tariffs. Anticipating higher aluminum prices, for instance, the brewery stockpiled beer canswhich it gets from a U.S. supplierand now has three million cans in its warehouse, 30% of what it needs annually. It has also shifted production to painted cans, which are cheaper than those with shrink-wrapped film sleeves. In Arizona, some brewers are already eliminating or reducing the beers they offer in aluminum cans to cut costs, said Cale Aylsworth, the director of sales and relations at O.H.S.O. Brewery and Distillery and president of the Arizona Craft Brewers Guild. This is a blow to Arizona craft. I hate to see less local options on the shelf, Aylsworth said. Some brewers have also lost access to store shelves from one big customer: Canada, which is the top foreign market for U.S. craft beer, accounting for almost 38% of exports. But Canadians are furious that Trump targeted their products, and Canadian importers have been cancelling orders and pulling U.S. beer off store shelves. The tariffs come at an already difficult time for brewers. After years of steady growththe number of U.S. breweries more than doubled to 9,736 between 2014 and 2024the industry is struggling to compete with seltzers and other beverages and to win over younger customers. In 2024, brewery closings outnumbered openings for the first time since the mid-2000s, Watson of the Brewers Association said. He estimates that U.S. craft beer production dipped 2% to 3% last year. Craft brewing had a period of phenomenal growth, but we are not in that era anymore, he said. Were in a more mature market. Port Citys production peaked in 2019 at 16,000 barrels of beerequivalent to 220,000 cases. Then COVID hit and hammered the companys draft beer business in bars and restaurants. The comeback has been slow. Butcher expects Port City to produce 13,000 barrels this year. The brewery seeks to set itself apart by emphasizing its award-winning brews. In 2015, Port City was named small brewery of the year at the Great American Beer Festival. But it isnt easy with import taxes threatening to raise the cost of ingredients and packaging. Its hard enough to run a small business when your supply chain is in intact, he said. And the erratic way that Trump has rolled out the taxesannouncing them, then suspending them, then threatening new oneshas made it even more difficult to plan. The unpredictability just injects an element of chaos, Butcher said. Aylsworth, in Arizona, said big brewers have whole teams of people to calculate the impact of tariffs, but smaller brewers must stretch their resources to navigate them. That’s on top of the other complexities of running a brewery, from zoning laws to licensing permits to labor shortages. But for many brewers, the heaviest burden right now is lower sales as customers cut back on beer, Aylsworth said. That’s why many brewers are trying hard not to raise prices. In todays world, with the economy and the high level of uncertainty, people are spending less, Cole said. Beer is an affordable luxury, and we want to make sure we dont lose that. Dee-Ann Durbin and Paul Wiseman, AP business writers
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