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What do we do now that Trump has won?

If we are smart, we learn from this election. Below are a few lessons.

• Feelings are real. The late, great Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” That may be true but there are millions of Americans who feel dislocated and disassociated with their own country. The America they grew up in no longer seems to exist. There are lots of reasons for this and while pining with nostalgia can be remarkably unfulfilling, the feeling is real and should not be ignored. • The future is scary. Far too many people do not believe that the future is brighter than the present. Technology is changing society in ways we can only begin to imagine. There are tens of millions of Americans who had good jobs in factories and businesses that went away and no serious effort was made to prepare people for these changes. And it will only get worse. Consider, there are nearly 2 million full-time truck and taxi drivers in the U.S. What will they do when driverless trucks take their jobs? • We have raised the value “the best interests of the stockholder” to be the ultimate value. It need not be that way. There are hundreds of examples where businesses also kept in mind that business are not ethical beings but that their leaders can be and therefore can take into consideration how their actions benefit employees, communities, and even competitors. • We need to again value humility and honesty. We need to hold accountable those who don’t whether it is in business, politics or culture. This is a decision that each of us makes multiple times daily. • Just because we can does not mean we should. We are discovering new things all the time which is wonderful but knowledge must be tempered by realization that our decisions have consequences, many unforeseen, and we have a right to make judicious decisions before we alter things.

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