G’day curious legend.

It’s the end of the month which means it’s time for me to send you a bespoke and made-to-measure collection of books and podcasts to provoke some noodling for you over the next month.

Let’s dive in:

If you’re telling yourself a story you need to be better at time management:

Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman is sure to elbow you in the ribs.

If you’re looking for a novel that confronts our relationship with the environment:

Bewilderment by Richard Powers will make you pause and think.

If you’re interested in a no-bullshit take on philosophy and ethics:

Try this interview with Michael Schur.

If you’re a fanboy of Debbie Millman’s interview style (just like me):

Don’t miss this interview where she was the one being interviewed by Brené Brown.

In the meantime, keep being awesome.

Who is this feedback really for? You, them, or someone else?

Because offering feedback merely to make yourself feel better is very different than offering feedback to help someone else move forward.

Put another way: it’s better to show up in service of others than show up in service of minimising your own discomfort.

The best way to get better at a skill isn’t by memorising facts so that you can regurgitate them in a multiple-choice test taken in a sweaty exam hall in the middle of summer. If it were, you’d still remember how to do algebra and long division (shout out to the maths nerds who do still remember, you’re the exception to my rule).

No, the best way to learn is by practicing skills that interest you with other people doing the same. It’s to be in a space where you can ask questions and be curious. To give and receive feedback. To watch others and reflect on how you can learn from them.

Or, as my friend Jen said far more eloquently in this podcast: “get better by surrounding yourself with other people who are also getting better.” 

How often do you spend time doing what you are uniquely qualified to do?

Because everyone has a superpower and it doesn’t involve sitting in a Zoom meeting reading emails while someone presents an 87-page slide deck. There are people who need what you have to offer and it’s on you to intentionally create space to give it to them.

I was recently struck by this metaphorical punch in the gut from William Zinsser’s book On Writing Well:

“The essence of writing is rewriting.”

The best writer in the world doesn’t sit down and create a finished, polished, publishable piece. They sit down, they write and they dance with the voice that tells them it’s terrible. Then they review. Then rewrite. Then dance with the voice some more. Then repeat this process. Over and over again until eventually, it molds itself into something worth sharing.

Day by day, word by word, iteration by iteration.

The lesson I take is that if you, like me, feel stuck every once in a while (ie every day) start by giving yourself something (anything) to react to.

What would be the most helpful thing you could do to nudge it forward in the next 24 hours?

Because procrastination begets procrastination whereas nudges beget progress. Also, how good is the word beget?!

A random selection of tried and tested prompts for you to noodle on. See if you can fill a page based on one of the below:

• Right now I’m feeling…
• 10 awesome things that happened today are…
• Where am I most often experiencing friction in my day?
• What’s the hard part?
• A successful day for me looks like…
• Who am I becoming?
• What would 80 year old me say to current day me?

Once you’ve picked one of these the process might look something like this:

Grab a new notepad out of the cupboard > spend 10min summoning up the courage to put ink onto the beautiful fresh pages > write the neatest first 3 lines you’ve ever written, as if you were back in grade 3 going for your pen license > swear under your breath as you realise you misspelled a word > in your frustration to scribble out said word spill coffee all over the fresh pages of your brand new notepad > swear under breath some more > revert back to your regular, barely legible writing technique on your now coffee-stained page.

The joys of introspection. Go go go.

What’s the best question you’ve ever been asked? How has your answer to it changed?

Because questions are often the gatekeeper to life’s greatest aha moments and you’re allowed to revisit the good ones again and again.

For inspiration:

Great questions sound like this and terrible (but amusing) questions sound like this.