have a sweet weekend March 19 xx
It’s Friday and sunny. Who’s to complain? I hope you STILL have no plans for Sunday.
And that you’re paving your own road out there, perhaps through a green field??!!!
Me, I’m off to a wedding in Perth. My mate James Thomas, a reporter on Today Tonight, is getting married. Finally. James was the first person in the world to visit me in hospital when I was born (he’s a few months older than me; his mum and dad are best friends with mine). As he announced at his 30th birthday, after I gave the speech, “we tried kissing once, when were about 18, but it was like pashing my sister”. Which is what a brother would say, right! Ooooh, but in different circumstances. OK, I’ll climb out of that hole now…
Anyway, some nice stuff to share over a glass of pinot grigio in the autumnal evening glow, perhaps:
1. Know you’re not alone when you Just. Don’t. Feel Like being a grown up. (But learn to go there anyway): I love this quote from Julius Erving…
“Being a professional is doing the things you love to do, on the days you don’t feel like them”.
Kind of spurred me on this week to get real about what I’m doing. When you work for yourself you can find all kinds of sabotaging excuses for not getting stuff done on off days.
I also emailed back and forth with Seth Godin during the week. Which excited me no end. The guy is a genius.
His post “I don’t feel like it” is a reminder to pull you finger out if you really want to create great things. Seth’s new book Linchpins touches on the importance of pushing through “the resistance” and fighting “the lizard brain” so that you can deliver your artistic gift.
2. Drink milk. If you feel like it. New research flesh out in Salon.com clears up a whole heap of questions I know I’ve had in the past regarding lactose intolerance. The take-a-friggen-chill-pill upshot is this: most of us can handle the equivalent of 1 cup of milk a day, cheese has less lactose than milk, and the bacteria in yoghurt breaks down the lactose, making it quite digestible.
My personal take is read your body’s signs. Some days I know I can drink milk, others I can’t. And be aware that we’re fed the milk message quite forcibly by industry bodies that are paid for by the dairy farmers. Ditto with soy milk. Both are OK for us, but not great for us. See what your body says.
3. Be thankful: I think this site, thxthxthx is very very cute. The About Me blurb reads: Leah Dieterich’s mother always told her to write thank you notes. So she does. To everything. thxthxthx is her daily exercise in gratitude. I wrote about having a gratitude ritual in Sunday Life a few months back when Dr John Demartini was visiting.
I still, every night, lie in bed and think of three things I’m grateful for. I just reflect on them. Nothing more. Sometimes they’re crap things that I’m glad I was able to traverse.
Below are some of Leah’s thank yous…
4. Simply backup: Leo Babauta of Zen Habits’ new site mnmlist is as pared-back as a monk’s haircut. In his latest post he shares how he backs up his computer without using an extra hard drive. Thrown in there is a reminder that, really, it’s OK to lose stuff. Let it gooooo…..Let it gooooo….
5. Get paid to be artistic + witty: Billed as “the world’s first social cartoon character”, Eric the Circle is the story of a circle named Eric. It’s being created by anyone out there with 5 minutes to log on and draw a cartoon about Eric. The cartoons will become a book, with the contributers paid for their efforts. Nice!!
A drawing tool on the site makes drawing and adding captions easy. Viewers vote on the submitted cartoons, and those that fare the best will be published in the book.
A gorgeous AUSTRALIAN concept that brings us together to share. Nice and Nice again!!!
Seth Godin is a genius – I remember reading ‘Unleashing the idea virus’ years ago – just brilliant stuff.
On Being Professional:
Ah yes, our lizard brain. A great book on this is ‘Means Markets & Lizard Brains’ (abit financial/economic centric but still an excellent read on irrational behaviour).
To help get through the daily grind I have notes stuck on my computer monitor. My current favourite being “Feelings ≠ Decisions” (Feelings are not Decisions). It just says it all for me and I made it up myself! In short, I might be feeling crap but that doesn’t mean it’s a decision to not do what I’m feeling crap about – it’s just a feeling. The others on my monitor post-it note are –
• Shenpa: impulse control is freedom.
• Hardest & Highest Priorities 1st.
• Focus = Productivity (not time elapsed).
• Keep Your Word = Be Accountable.
• Thinks Less, Act More.
• Feelings ≠ Decisions.
• Finish what you started.
• Create Change Daily.
I also read a little list of “reminders” each morning when I wake up – very embarassing and Anthony Robbins-ish but hey, it works for me. (Though I do hide it away when the cleaner comes each week so he doesn’t think I’m nuts). I’ve listed it below – minus a few lines which are abit too personal to print –
• I believe – I have faith.
• I will build a bridge to my dreams.
• I have everything I need within me now.
• I trust myself in every moment to make the best judgement.
• I am determined, persistent and fearless in my actions.
• The future is unknown but not uncertain – all barriers are just illusions.
• Imagine it done, reach out & touch that place, then pull yourself forward into the future.
• Remember you haven’t failed until you stop trying.
• I will do whatever it takes. I am unrelenting.
• I will make today great.
• Every day counts.
On Being Grateful:
Each night when I’m in bed I ask myself “what was good about today?”. It’s amazing what you bring up even on bad days. I can always think of at least 2-3 good things that happened that day. I’ve been doing this for years now and it really brightens my life and most importantly brings perspective to those difficult days and troubling periods in life.
It started out when I realised that every night on retiring I would start going through all my worries & problems and all the things that went wrong that day and how I could do them better. This just made me more stressed and made life feel very heavy. Basically, it made my tummy hurt.
So I tried flipping it all upside-down and instead started asking “what was good about today?” and my daily happiness just soared from there.
On Being Backed Up:
I’m a redundancy freak (part of my job description and IT work) so computer backup is my art. I use raided hard drives, multiple machines, monthly backup images, daily offsite backups, etc however the best tip I can offer “civilians” would be the daily online backup I use > http://backup.ironmountain.com/
It costs about $300 a year for 10Gb (so best for data only, not all your media files – photos, videos, etc). However it’s still 75% cheaper than say Telstra or Symantec, etc. Essentially it’s the largest and #1 backup data centre in the US so they can offer the lowest cost per Gb storage than anybody else on the planet (and with higher data integrity & security – they also shred documents and even crush old hard drives).
I’ve been using them daily for 5 years now without a hitch – you simply install the software, select the files to be backed up daily, then it automatically backs them up online and offshore each night without you lifting a finger (including all your email). You can then access these backed up files from anywhere in the world – all you need is a web browser and internet connection and you’re good-to-go. (Great for when travelling or on holidays).
It’s far better than using backup tapes or external hard drives which (a) you have to manually stuff around with hence always forget to do each day and (b) are often kept onsite with the main computer so when Mr Burglar steals your laptop he takes the backup drive too (or when Mr Fire strikes he burns the whole house down taking out all your data).