Cross your toes for Waikato Med School, speaking to only one, and the Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones™
Hey friend,
Here are seven things I thought were worth sharing with you this week + some thoughtful quotes:
No sign of the promised Waikato Medical School in the budget. While I’m hearing that VC Quigley is still telling his troops to hold out hope, the future’s looking bleak for the half-a-billion-dollar dream. David Seymour, now Deputy Prime Minister, insulted Waikato’s business leaders in a recent meeting saying: "If this community has concluded that the path to salvation is the construction of a medical school, an additional department in the university, then there may actually be bigger and [more] deep-seated problems here than the lack of a medical school, quite frankly.”
The reason that many speeches fall flat is because the presenter gets stuck on the idea that they’re talking to a crowd. When we’re speaking or writing, the crowd is just an illusion. Really, there is one person over there, another over there, repeated again and again. The alternative method is simple: find one person, exactly one, and write to them, allowing the others to listen in. If it’s not going to work for one person, why will it work on a crowd? From Seth Godin’s blog.
A new UNICEF report has found that Aotearoa has the highest child suicide rate out of 36 high-income countries. The report is a global ranking of child wellbeing in wealthy nations. The suicide rate among New Zealand children is nearly three times higher than the average across the OECD and EU.
When was the last time you watched a show or movie without picking up your phone in the middle of it? How about in the first 10 minutes? Do you struggle to read more than a chapter at a time? A page? Yep, same. Our attention spans are worsening and worsening. We’re more easily distracted than ever - largely thanks to our smartphones. Loved this essay on retraining our brains to focus again.
The most important decision: “What should I do next?”. Not next year or for the rest of my life. Right now. The endless list of options, some not even consciously considered, that we work through a thousand times a day - sum them up, and these millions of tiny decisions become the life we’ve chosen. One next at a time. From Sahil Bloom’s newsletter.
Why Everything Is Making You Feel Bored? by Johnny Harris is a great reminder of how we’re messing up our brain chemistry, and what we can try do about it. “It’s largely due to the growing absence of genuine human connection. These days, people rarely gather in person, and when they do, many are ready to leave within an hour. They’re often overstimulated and distracted, conditioned by the constant barrage of information and digital noise from the internet.” This boredom resources doc is great too. I also really enjoyed Jimmy Carr’s latest appearance on Joe Rogan - some great stuff about boredom in there: “Boredom is unappreciated serenity”.
James Dyson (like, the Dyson guy) introduces the new Dyson PencilVac Fluffycones™ cleaner - their latest, most advanced floorcare technology. His presentation was great. They could have pretended it was going to solve all of worlds problems and achieve world peace, but instead they presented it in exactly the right way. No fake enthusiasm, or over polished speech. Just an old guy talking 10 minutes about his new vacuum stick.
Four thoughtful quotes:
James Clear on finding find low input tasks with high value outcomes:
"Your first task is to find what feels effortless to you.
Your second task is to put maximum effort into it."
Sahil Bloom on the say/do gap:
“If an outside observer watched me for a week, how serious would they say I am about achieving my goals?”
Anthony De Mello on awareness:
“You’re never so centered on yourself as when you’re depressed. You’re never so ready to forget yourself as when you are happy.
Happiness releases you from self. It is suffering and pain and misery and depression that tie you to the self.
Look how conscious you are of your tooth when you have a toothache. When you don’t have a toothache, you’re not even aware you have a tooth, or that you have a head, for that matter, when you don’t have a headache.”
James Clear on comparison:
“To improve, compare little things.
marketing strategies
exercise technique
writing tactics
To be miserable, compare big things.
career path
marriage
net worth
Comparison is the thief of joy when applied broadly, but the teacher of skills when applied narrowly.”
Have a great week,
Ben xx