Blogosphere Roundup

It’s day 28 of the 30 day #BlogPals19 challenge. The end is in sight! And my creativity feels like ZERO.

My friend Clay resorted to art! He has abundant creativity. I have few notes and letters of his from the last decade or so with some of his original drawings, that I’m holding onto because I’m secretly sentimental.

Today was all about self-care. I went to two 90 minute hot yoga classes, and floated for 90 minutes. I’ve been isolation tank floating about monthly since August of 2018. Today was the first time I actually fell asleep for a few minutes. Aside from some (hot yoga) laundry, grocery shopping, and meal prep for the week, that was it.

I started drafting my annual 2019 Holiday Card last night. 2019 has been an emotionally exhausting year. As I wrote down the timeline of major events, I was stunned at how many life shattering events had occurred and that in general, today, I feel pretty good about all of them. But I’m not ready to write about any of that!

So,these are the things that caught my attention recently:

• I’m still waiting for a female focused version of the Art of Maniless (AoM) or is that everything else these days? Anyhow, I strongly encourage you to subscribe to their feed, they consistently make great content.
  • This is one of the best and most comprehensive (i.e LONG) “how to DEADLIFT” articles I have ever read, and I have read countless articles on this topic. I think this one is gold actually in terms of the balance of what to do and what NOT to do.
  • Podcast #559: How to Handle Difficult Conversations. Sheila Heen was one of the instructors at the Harvard Program on Negotiation I attended a few years ago. You can access her content for free via this interview/podcast. She’s amazing.
• I’ve been subscribed to Seth Godin’s blog feed for what feels like always (he’s made something new every single day, for years), and mostly I skim and delete. Today I read two amazing posts from the last week or so.
  • The uncomfortable combination of effort and acceptance. Let me sum up ” When we detach our emotional state from the results of our effort, we maximize the chances that our effort will be focused and effective. We’re not trying to control the outcome, simply putting our best effort into creating the conditions that lead to the desired outcome.”
  • The transition to leadership. This one hit home. I have had so many people be dazzled by my academic achievements, or IQ, or whatever. I try to explain that it’s like having a car with a really big engine (or a computer with a lot of RAM), that doesn’t mean you’re a great driver (or know what do with it). This post gets to the heart of it. Seth’s post has maybe 100 words. They are worth the investment.
• Ethical Criminal Behavior. I am still chewing on this one. I am a rule follower. But this post, makes it clear why that is not always the best, most kind, most ethical, path to follow. One solution would be to just move to Colorado, to California, to somewhere the rules make more sense for his family situation. It’s not always that easy.

Who are your favorite writers? Where do you find your ideas? Please let me know who and what else I should be reading.