Stress moderation is at the top of the pillars of health care wisdom for the empowered volunteer. You can actually die from stress related effects.

When volunteers think of how to work their time around volunteer projects they don’t automatically think of stress. Their passion for the volunteer group or the charity supported by the group helps them prioritize their emotions and their time management. Simply put, they make it work no matter how much effort it takes to get the job done.

For the empowered volunteer, what is the incentive for someone who is not already involved in the represented group to join, pending their busy, busy, busy schedule? Obviously if they have a passion for the charity they might be persuaded. But what if they are not passionate for the charity? What then? They say that they are too stressed and that they don’t have any time! Then the empowered volunteer needs to refer to the pillars of health wisdom!

The empowered volunteer is all about helping people. That must be the first priority, above all other things.

If you put people first, the other things will find a way to resolve themselves, one way or another. Happy passionate people solve problems and they also brag about the experience. They also have better health, statistically speaking. First, let’s tackle the stress issue and then we will address the other health studies and how they affect our message.

Stress is manageable in our lives. But for those who find themselves under extreme stress they should explore the science discoveries from the power of positivity.

This topic was addressed by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph. D. in her book, nicely named Positivity! In it she presents credible and robust scientific evidence on how proper meditation helps humans deal with stress. Then she moves on to give concrete examples of how to meditate and other features in order to help drive your health benefits from lowering the effects from stress on your body. She has placed guided meditations and other simple tools on her website, which is very easy to use and worthy of a visit for anyone who would like to feel better in our stressful world. This kind of easy to do it yourself stress modification is why Dr. Fredrickson’s book and website are a pillar of wisdom for the empowered volunteer.

http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php

Once you go to the site, use the tools tab or the take the test tab and see how you are faring on an individual level. With over two decades of research on this subject along with tons of behavioral science supporting data going back several more decades it is worth checking it out and seeing if you can benefit. To be honest, everyone can benefit unless you just don’t want to let it help you. Meditation has been used by many civilizations for thousands of years, from Christians like St. Augustine to Chinese Kung Fu monks.

Never underestimate how you can improve your life with small changes that affect your health in a magnified way beyond the small time and effort you expend.

Decades of data from research into how social status affects your health are also available and helpful for the empowered volunteer to understand for their pillars of health wisdom. Scientists use the term social economic status (SES) for these kinds of studies and conversations about them. SES is in general terms an individual’s social level in society. Usually this is divided into three areas, low or working class, middle class and upper middle class or upper class status levels. Low class is the working people, usually living from pay check to pay check. Poverty level is below this group.

Middle class is the group who was lifted by many factors after WWII, but one of the most controversial was the GI Bill, which allowed many of those returning from the war to attend college and then better their lives with better paying jobs and more upward mobility. In this case, a veterans group was instrumental in helping pass this important piece of legislation, one which in looking back historians and economics agree was a huge success.

Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion and former Republican National Chairman, is credited with drawing up the first draft of the GI Bill.

Some people reading this will be surprised that a former Republican Party National Chairman could have been involved with promoting a middle class path towards education back in the days after WWII. Back then, only the very rich could afford college. But keep in mind, political parties change over time and their policies change over time too.

The GOP today is not your grandfather’s party! The current Republican Party thinking on education is reflective of some of those changes in mindset regarding middle class education at the high school level as well as for higher education and is thus beyond the scope of this post.

SES is very important to the empowered volunteer from the point of those who are least likely to be volunteering and which also can benefit the most from volunteering, health wise.

Upper middle class is more often defined as someone who has physical assets which generate enough income so that if that person suddenly stopped their regular employment they could still live off their passive income. This status level is worthy of achievement and is the focus of another pillar of wisdom, that of wealth which will be addressed in a forthcoming post. For our purposes here, the higher the status the better the likely hood of good health is expected.

Michael Marmot, in his ground breaking book 2004 book, The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity has reviewed and distilled the data results from over three decades of studies in order to write about how we can benefit from this knowledge.

One key to his book was that if someone has little autonomy over their lives, as most working class people find themselves, then they are more likely to have lower health.

This is true for many countries beyond the United States too. It goes further though, for those people reporting “the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health.” He found that low control over one’s life to be the big central factor that linked everything to health, happiness, etc.

In America’s past labor unions were often the only way for laborers to exert any form of control over their lives. Before the unions formed, safety and other factors we take for granted today were not common in many industries.

For those people then and even today in many industries, having some control over their life could determine their future health. Volunteering is one path towards restoring some form of control over one’s life if it is not found elsewhere. Each person can control how much they volunteer and where, and to what extent for each group they join.

This kind of life control opportunity can help them if they are in a job where they have little or no control over their lives. 

The main thing here is that no matter what your station in life, you can do things to help your health and your mental or emotional wellbeing. The positivity ratio is so simple once you start that you will wonder why you have not heard of it before. I would suggest starting with the guided meditation and then moving on where ever you are comfortable. This tool is absolutely awesome for its potential to help people with high stress jobs.

The health harming aspects attributed to many working class jobs should surprise no one. They have been apparent for generations of American workers. From swing shifts to heated environments too hot to stay in for very long to extended nursing hours for patient coverage. The potential ways to combat the negative effects seem to have escaped the general public’s notice, until now hopefully. Even middle class American’s can use this information to their advantage so that the stress from the job doesn’t inflict further harm to your health.

Knowing the health harming effects of low autonomy is important for the health of employees and management.

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American’s are not a classless society as we often think we are. This was observed by Michael Marmot in his book, The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity. In this book he mentions that in their sports affiliations Americans break along class lines according to the size of the balls used in the games, with the smaller balls indicative of the  higher status or class of society. So golf, tennis, baseball, football (American, not soccer) and then basketball designating the status of the fans. This is not true for other parts of the world, China or India or even in Europe.

This is interesting in understanding sports in America. Now polo is not mentioned, but rest assured it is so exclusive and expensive to participate in that it is also high status and very high class. The rest of the major sports played with a ball follow the pattern in the United States.

Canada’s issues in national pride, obstructed in unity by two languages seems to unite around their hockey teams. Soccer is the dominant sport in the rest of the world, bar local sports which are not world wide. Ever see a soccer fan without passion? Just as in America Green Bay Packer fans are avid, so are soccer fans around the world.

So how does this affect the empowered volunteer? Understanding the society which you are prospecting in is always a good idea. So how do you use this in your prospecting? Hopefully it was addressed in your SWOT analysis, but if not let’s try and help you out now.

When you are prospecting for members, some are going to have issues with regular times or even where the meetings or campaigns for the charity are held or some other thing. It happens with busy people and it happens with regular people too. They could be working some kind of swing shift or even working for themselves or as sales people who respond on a moments notice to help with the sale. Tons of American’s have varying schedules and that hurts your efforts.

In your SWOT analysis hopefully your group(s) put provisions for contacting community members who have influence to help your cause. The members may be friends of some of your membership and if so hopefully that person takes on the task of asking for joining your cause, whatever the capacity they can provide even if it is not joining and attending all of the functions. These include but are not limited to Mayors, city officials, county officials, members of other charities that in any way associate with your cause, and whoever else made the list.

Do not forget friendly faith groups, school officials and teachers, community colleges, universities near by, technical schools for adults, hospitals officials, and any other groups who are community minded and not in conflict with your message or cause.

Bottom line, all members of society can volunteer, some volunteer their money when they can’t volunteer their time. Both types are helpful to the cause, but the volunteer who gives of their time gains the connections and the social interactions which help their health. Use both types of volunteers to the best of your ability.

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Ben Franklin with Will Rogers book in background, both were Masons

Groups, where only the dues fees are paid and no interactions are required have very little benefit as far as social capital goes for the individual. Freemasons just to attain membership must do much more than pay their dues fees. They must memorize passages from the Old Testament relating to the group. This level of commitment is rare for most groups.

The photo above shows a statue of Ben Franklin, a man from a very large family who had to make his own way in the world. He used fraternal groups for introductions to prominent members of Philadelphia and through connections he managed to expand his printing business.

The book on the far right is of Will Rogers, an interesting character who used rope tricks from the cowboy rodeo shows to engage and entertain crowds. He was also known for humor, with many quotes still attributed to him.

The last thing this photo shows is Langhorne’s Plutarch series of books,1826. This set of books could often be found in the few books that traveled west in America’s expansion during the early 1800′s with the explorers and settlers. The reason may be found in the in depth contrast and comparison Plutarch conducted between high status people in the ancient world.

The study of such people’s lives was still considered important centuries later and for the settlers this book set for many, along with Bibles owned by nearly every family would find its way on the frontier. Books were considered important and worth the weight to bring along. Status and accomplishments go hand in hand. History records high status individuals more often than those less known. You may not be recorded into the history books, but you can make an important contribution towards your favorite group if you take the empowered volunteer route.

One premise of this site is that an individual in a group can make an impact on the growth of that group. A few sales techniques and some old fashion pressing the flesh as well as just plain spreading the word will help most groups over a period of time bring in new members. The use of the approach and techniques in this set of posts will take the empowered volunteer far beyond mere chance, allowing for some aspect of control over the time spent prospecting verses the results expected.

Keeping members engaged and happy once they do join will take more than just asking them to join and then forgetting about them. Some groups today exhibit serious issues concerning membership retention, which place them out of touch with today’s potential members. These issues will require leadership and remedies if retaining members recently brought in is desirable. Perhaps any issues impacting retention should be addressed before sending out an empowered volunteer?

This site will address several issues facing a recruiter and some facing individual groups. A business methodology will be presented to provide a format for analysis of the issues involved in an organization at the local level. Techniques from sales will be evaluated for use by the recruiters. Examples from researched success stories will be presented to demonstrate how effective membership building can be conducted in even the least agreeable situations.

Concrete ideas for building memberships and overcoming tough issues will be dealt with using real life examples. Finally, a listing of organizations will be presented along with their respective issues. Many of these groups will reflect a drastic population drop over the last few years.

This site is not intended to be the universal instant answer book on membership building. It is intended to provide the empowered volunteer with the tools and methods to start the ball rolling. If a group of individuals should decide to take on the task of building membership, so much the better as long as cooperation among members is maintained.

The individual or group will have to complete their own analysis of the issues at their level and then focus on the potential solutions within their scope of authority. This will truly be a situation where what you put into the effort is what potentially you will get out of it. Put another way, garbage in from a half hearted or lazy analysis will almost always yield garbage out in the form of diminished or inadequate results.

This site will review many fraternal, civic, and Veterans groups. It is suggested that the group use the SWOT analysis, an example of which is provided as a guide only and not as a definitive work which is ready to implement for every case. Very few outsiders not currently located within the local group can assess the group’s issues as well as one of their own should be able to do.

Michael Marmot is a professor of epidemiology and public health at University College London, where he is also the director of International Center for health and Society. He also serves as an advisor to the World Health Organization. His premise concerning our topic from his book, The Social Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity  is that someone who has higher status will be statistically more likely to live longer, feel less stress, find themselves more in control of their life than another individual with less social status. This information is the result of nearly 30 years of research he has conducted.

The key to improving the status of an individual is the amount of control one has over one’s life and the ability for an individual to fully participate in society.

Furthermore Marmot writes “Americans are divided in their sports affiliations along class lines—the smaller the ball, the higher the social rank: golf, baseball, football, and basketball”.

An individual who has a lack of control over their life or job function, like those of low rank in the US Military reflect low social status. Playing golf, simply because it is associated with high social status is not enough by itself to automatically pull an individual out of the low status social position if, for example they still live on board the ship rather than off base in a house, possess only a bicycle for transportation rather than a decent vehicle, all while living from pay check to pay check. In short, status is determined by the total package of the individual’s life, not simply one aspect of an individual in isolation.

Another example of social status lies within the military. A person might be of low social status seemingly due to low rank, perhaps enlisted rank 3 (E-3). This is the third step in rank for enlisted members and it is often granted to individuals who sign up for a long training school, without any further criteria. On the other hand, a person who is from the fleet and has “earned” this rank of E-3 before attending school will carry much more status over the instant E-3 if both individuals compete for a position head to head.

In order to further to convey the aspect of status imagine another fleet E-3 has the coveted “SEAL” insignia on his breast, his status is now beyond the reach of the instant E-3 or the fleet E-3, all other circumstances being equal. I can imagine only irregular circumstances where this status comparison would not be true. If the fleet E-3 without the SEAL insignia was perhaps a former E-6 who is near retirement and was for some reason reduced in rank, perhaps his cumulative knowledge and social capital might balance the status of the SEAL.

This is a very rare situation, one I have heard of occurring in the Army once in a while when an officer is allowed to stay in the service but due to manning levels has been reduced in rank (riffed, it is called). I personally have only seen this happen once in my Navy career, to an officer with the rank of Lieutenant who was reduced to an E-6. She was a high status women recruiter division officer who was passed over for promotion and then opted to finish her career of 20 years rather than throw away the last two or three years needed to obtain a pension.

Methods for raising one’s social status vary, but a few include education, relative position of rank or placement in employment hierarchy, monetary compensation for employment, status perception of employment (professor verses teacher, electrician verses electrical engineer), and to some extent perceived esteem between neighbors and friends.

In an analogy on status and inequality one military member of the Navy, an enlisted person with the rank of Petty Officer First Class (E-6) bought a house in a subdivision where his surrounding neighbors were all junior officers or senior enlisted or retired military. He was treated by his neighbors in a “hands off” manor due to his low rank and corresponding lower status as perceived by the neighboring officers and their wives. The neighboring wives ostracized his wife due to her husbands enlisted rank. He had neither the social capital nor the status to contend or balance out the neighbor’s perceptions of inequality.

Status is relative though, from this persons piers he was viewed as high status due to where he lived since they didn’t know of the social stigma associated with being and enlisted man in an officer dominated housing area. In this case, bringing in his high status network companions from volunteer activities to functions at his house eventually neutralized the negative status as viewed by his neighbors, though this happened over considerable time. This is a true story.

To continue our military analogy, perhaps the E-3 obtains a college degree in a soft major, such as psychology. His or her status is certainly raised when compared to other E-3’s without a college diploma. However, when compared to an E-6 of 7 years who is contending for an officer position and has a high GPA in a hard major, say in electrical engineering the comparison reflects the E-3 as lacking comparable social status due to both time in rank and perceived prestige of each one’s respective education.

Even if the two were of equal rank and time in service, the prestige of a hard major usually supercedes the perception and prestige of a soft major. If furthermore the person with the hard major was adapt at social capital and networking, this person would be more statistically likely to live longer and face the other positive health benefits associated with higher status relative to the lower status individual.

Two military officers meet, it is normal for the senior one to receive a salute if they are in uniform. Then it is customary to notice if one or both have one of the military academy rings. If both have one, this ring “knocking” is said to cement a bond between the two that is worth while, more so than if one or both were not members. This action can occur between members of other colleges as well when they meet.

The individual implications here for the status disparity that is noted are far more than simply to take up golf to get ahead. If someone wishes to position themselves in a potentially higher status  position, they would be well served to broaden their social capital by increasing the opportunity of their networking accomplishments, with an emphasis of quality network members. The time spent increasing the quality of a members network has been shown to yield tremendous results. Many famous individuals have experienced this networking perspective, quality beats quantity in nearly every instance.

The prolific business book author, syndicated newspaper columnist, and multimillion dollar business owner Harvey Mackay in his book Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty: The Only Networking Book You’ll Ever Need says in chapter 19 on volunteering, “Lesson? You don’t need a Harvard MBA—sometimes referred to as a yuppie union card—to find a network that gives you access to important people in your community. The nominating committee of almost any civic organization is an open season to your community’s leadership.” If you have access to important community leaders in your network (high quality contacts), your climb in status (high quality yield) is sure to follow.

The empowered volunteer must understand that the people he or she helps will increase their social capital and thus increases the likelihood of the many health benefits the studies show are usually associated with joining  and participating in groups. Status and social capital are closely intertwined and often very difficult to separate. They are however, something the empowered volunteer must keep in mind when they are positioning themselves to help their group. This is a great selling point if the empowered volunteer can convey the concept sincerely to their potential new members.

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Social network world wide

Michael Marmot, in his book “The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity” makes the case through massive data gleaned from many sources over 30 years that health can be determined by social status, with the level of integration of a society as a predictor of the health of that society.

This idea was first predicted by pioneering Sociologist Durkheim and while now called Social Capital many studies find the connection valid as a predictor of social health as well as potential aid for the individual participant to learn from and apply for their own lives.

In other words, the better connected a society is the better the level of trust and the better the health of the society as a whole would be expected. This does not always mean the rich are expected to have better health on the macro level or whole society level. Many other things enter into this line of thinking. How close an individual is to others in society for instance plays a huge role in their life expectancy.

Life expectancy can also be extended as a society during wars as demonstrated by Amartya Sen who found that in Britain during the war years an increase in life expectancy existed and was thought to be from the positive effects on societies’ social integration which directly reflected mortality rates.  War brought folks together in a way that focused their efforts and their common cause, resulting in longer life for society as a whole despite the deaths from the war.

Durkheim, a father of Sociology studied social integration from religious, domestic, and political points of view with regards to suicide rates. His findings supported his conclusions that the more integrated a society was the less the rate of suicide would be. Specifically in 19^th century Europe he found that Protestant countries in Europe were often found to have higher rates of suicide than countries where the population was mostly Catholic.

In general the rates of suicide were even lower for Jewish populations. His conclusions from these studies were that the strong and unified society for the Jewish population and also for the Catholic population supported people and resulted in lower suicide rates than the Protestant populations where a more individualist approach to life was observed.

Please note this does not endorse one religion over another, it cites how populations in specific countries implemented their respective religions and how that part of their lives impacted their health.

Durkheim went on to study the effects of marriage on populations and the effects of war on total population suicide rates as well. He concluded that social integration was one of the biggest factors in not only the health of a population but in the individuals as well. Now called social capital and studied for the last 30 years or so before Marmot’s book in 2004, social integration can be applied by the individual confidently for both status raising health impact as well as strategies for health improvement through social connections.

The bottom line is that individuals can do things to increase their social status. They can do things to increase their social capital.

They can also significantly raise their health expectations by positively driving these aspects of their lives!

If you take the proper actions, you can improve your chances of not only extending your life but having a better quality of life. Many people would expect that the rich would as a society outlive the poorer societies. Money is not the single best predictor of longer life however when it comes to societies.

Ichiro Kawaichi from Harvard University was a researcher who took on this question on the relationship between the differences in social capital and the good or low health expectations. His team used surveys to quantify the level of trust in groups and then looked for the expected results of health levels. Societies that can be viewed as high in social cohesion like Japan who is rich, Kerala which is poor, or in the middle like Costa Rica have better health than others with equal wealth but less social cohesion, concludes Marmot in his book, The Status Syndrome. So the amount of money of a society is less a predictor of health than many people would think.

Another aspect to health is the impact on individuals who have low control over their lives, or at least a perception of that low control.

Marmot writes, “Furthermore, the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health”. Low control was the link in this issue between health and living poor. Generally speaking, the poor view their lives as having less control and the well-off view their lives as having more control over their individual decisions.

This concept of health and income inequality with regards to an aging population is something we in the United States will confront in greater degrees in our future as our economies seem to be driving a greater economic wedge between the poor and the rich. Can government policy changes help overcome the health disparities predicted or perhaps resulting from the poor who have low control over their lives and yet will be entering the government health care system at greater rates in the next few years?

This post is right now concerned with the individual and how that member of society can positively impact their potential future health by making changes in their lives. These changes need to be cost effective and also not barred by social status. They need to be within the reach of the normal American. I believe the studies cited in this post reflect that potential for the normal American to positively impact their lives. These studies and many others show an individual’s health impact positively improving by increasing social connections. This is one reason for someone to join a group!

The empowered volunteer’s mission is to help people understand the benefits of joining their respective group.

In short, the stage is set for the Empowered Volunteer to take charge of their lives and reap the potential impact on their health and mental wellbeing while helping others find their way towards these same benefits. This is truly a win-win situation.

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