A small selection of books and podcasts that made me think, laugh, cry and do some noodlin’ in August:

For anyone seeking a (very) practical guide to making better decisions

How To Decide by Annie Duke.

For a fictional and captivating escape back in time to Darwin, Australia during WWII:

All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton

For those ready to laugh so hard you have to pause the podcast:

Any episode of Smartless will do the trick, including this recent interview with Octavia Spencer

For a healthy example of what it sounds like to model vulnerability:

Ryan Shelton on The Imperfects.

PS. Do you love sharing useful, noodle-worthy resources with others? Then share this blog with some friends and sit back and relax knowing you did a good deed for the day.

Imagine a game of basketball comes down to the last play. There’s 1 second to go, scores are level and someone hits a shot right on the buzzer to win the game.

The fans of the winning team go nuts, jumping out of their chairs screaming, hugging and high-fiving one another (it’s a pre-COVID game of basketball after all).

The fans of the losing team slump forward in their chairs, throw their hats on the ground and look for the exit.

The neutral fan is somewhere in the middle, in awe of what a great game they witnessed and not as invested in the result as the other two parties.

Everyone in the crowd has seen the exact same series of events and ascribes an entirely different meaning to said events. This meaning, depending on who they choose to support, then shapes how they feel, behave and respond to others.

Without the basketball analogy: We each create our own meaning of things that we see/read/hear/consume.

Of course, this isn’t only true in a hypothetical game of basketball.

So the thing that has me scratching my noodle, puffing my imaginary pipe and peering out the window over my spectacles is: What am I choosing to give meaning to? What would it look like if I didn’t?

How will you know you’ve been successful?

Because the temptation to be self-critical, unsatisfied, and seeking the allure (and falsehood) of perfect is real.

No one will judge you as harshly as you judge yourself, so how will you know you’ve been successful?

They can change your life in 30 seconds.

It could be by asking a great question, challenging you to step up or installing a magic blue table.

The good news is there are a myriad of ways teachers open doors and turn on lights for others, so it’s worth pondering:

1. What would it look like to thank the great teachers in my life?
2. How might I seek to be a great teacher for others?

Thanks to Jim Collins’ 2016 blog for the reminder and the brilliant Robbie Wood for sharing it with me.

What might I create today?

Because to-do’s could do with a makeover and to-create’s inspire agency and curiosity.

Hear more in this week’s episode of The Long and The Short Of It. It’s only 17min (or 11min if you listen in 1.5x speed because you love efficiency).

A couple of weeks ago I received the following message from my brother:

“If you are what you eat, then you think what you read.”

These last five words struck me as profoundly true.

That is: that our thoughts, beliefs, dreams, fears, doubts and insecurities are shaped by the things we consume. Be it books, news articles, social media, TV shows, movies, podcasts, advertisements and anything in between.

With this in mind, I see two things worth noodling on:

1. What am I reading and consuming?
2. How is it serving me?

Also, full credit to my sister who, within minutes of receiving the same message, replied:

“I guess that makes me a chocolate frog.”

What would you do with your time knowing the project won’t go the way you think it might? 

Because at some point things won’t go to plan (hello pandemic my old friend). Knowing this, it pays to make sure you’ll enjoy the process.

Practicing humility can allow us to:

• Be open to feedback
• Uncover blindspots
• Hear solutions we might not have thought of
• Empower others to speak up and lead
• Learn things we wouldn’t otherwise know
• Expand our worldview
• Foster self-awareness
• Create meaningful connections with others

Put another away: When we realise we don’t know everything (nor do we have to) and neither does our boss, then we open the door to possibility and connection.

Nobody knows everything but together we know a lot.