While we got some snow this week my children were disappointed that there were no school closures. Do you remember listening to the radio before your parents even got up to see if school was closed? I certainly do, and I remember the world of possibility that was opened up with an extra day to go adventure in the snow.
What opens that adventure for you?
I’m also thinking/struggling with content again. I have some projects that would take a bigger time of focus to push them through to completion, but I’ve got a reputation for shipping weekly here and on YouTube. As always the question is, do I go deep and publish less or do I keep up the pace and sacrifice some research and deep time?
I’ve tried this in the past, and I couldn’t stop myself from publishing something regularly despite saying I’d take time away to do deeper content. Love to get a reply with your thoughts on it.
If you’ve found my content helpful then new in 2019 I’ve opened up a Patreon page. You can help ensure that more helpful content keeps coming.
I Shipped
Monday was all about sharing how I plan my months. I’m not sure I’ll do this every month because if nothing changes I’m not even sure what I’ll say, but the default for the first video of a month will be sharing my monthly planning with you.
Wednesday I talked about WPMU Dev, grace, and the willingness to have our ideas about a company changed. In that I say that if you’re not willing to question your ideas and give a second chance, this isn’t the right email list for you. The unsubscribe link is at the bottom.
Friday Five
1. What Steve did when he felt overwhelmed
I’ve felt the same way and while I didn’t do a Trello board, I did add a bunch of stuff to Things. You can see exactly what I’m doing if you follow me on YouTube.
2. Do we need Chrome?
The dominance of Chrome has a major detrimental effect on the Web as an open platform: developers are increasingly shunning other browsers in their testing and bug-fixing routines.
I’m not so sure about this, though I do think that we need browser diversity. I wonder what it would take to have the EU force Google to offer a “lottery” of alternate browsers in it’s search just like it force Microsoft to do in it’s operating system.
Sure you can choose a different search engine, but Google is the default and as much as I love DuckDuck Go, there are still times I have to turn to Google to get what I want.
Of note, I’m a Firefox user. After years of Chrome eating all the RAM I had Firefox Quantum was fast and awesome. Even with the issues of iOS not letting my specify a browser as default outside of Safari, more and more apps are letting my tell them which browser I prefer.
3. On Mental Toughness
Research is starting to reveal that your mental toughness — or “grit” as they call it — plays a more important role than anything else for achieving your goals in health, business, and life. That’s good news because you can’t do much about the genes you were born with, but you can do a lot to develop mental toughness.
As a long distance mountain runner it’s awesome to see the number of “older” runners turning out amazing performances. I’m reminded of Bronco Billy’s (Jeff Browning) results that just keep him in the top of the whole field at 48 years of age. In our local races the most competitive category is often the 40 – 50 group with 7 of the top 10 being in that range.
It’s not that the younger people are slower, far from it. Many times over shorter distances they’ll blow the older runners away, but when things get hard over hours and days of movement that mental toughness and experience of slogging it out keep the older runners on track.
The same goes for running a business. 10 year into running my business there are “troubles” that don’t even phase me. I listen to people just starting their business and remember being stressed about the same issues, but now they barely register on my radar.
If there is one thing that will help you make it in your business, it’s developing mental toughness so that when things get tough, you dig just a bit deeper and keep on going.
4. The bare minimum for listening…
Is to have learned something from someone else. listen to the rest of this for more awesome discussion on good conversation.
5. What man needs to know when 28 days have passed?
Going back to the theatre of Man the Hunter, the lives of men have been taken to represent those of humans overall. When it comes to the other half of humanity, there is often nothing but silence. And these silences are everywhere.
I feel like I’m more attuned to this with 3 girls as children than I ever was before. The article goes on to address how crash test dummies representative of only men increase female fatalities. How stab vests designed to fit men don’t protect female officers.
Being a dude I didn’t even think about some of the things mentioned here as designed to fit men, like:
- a standard brick which most men can get their hand around, but few women can
- a standard A1 portfolio
- standard diameter wrenches and tools
- standard safety clothing NOT designed for women’s hips and bust
We’ve got a long way to go.