In these (semi-regular) posts, I share five things.
Loves, hates, ideas I’m pondering, places I’m supporting, whatever.
Here we go:
HABIT I’M REBUILDING:
I haven’t been waking up early for a while, and this week I bit the bullet and got back to being the first one up each day. I talk about my relationship with sleep a whole lot in the book, and I’ve come to accept that I’ll probably always find sleep addictive. I’ll fall back into a pattern of sleeping in easier than some other people will.
I heard a great podcast episode this week that touched on this. It was on the How To Money show and they interviewed 5am Joel. One of the questions was about at what point it became easy to get up at 5am every single day. His answer? It didn’t. It was still hard, even several years into the daily discipline. But, crucially, it was hard for just two minutes, and then the ‘pain’ passed and the experience became wonderful.
And don’t fixate on 5am as a specific number and decide that’s unrealistic. You choose your own time. If you’re wanting to get up earlier, your time could be 6am or 6.30am or 7am. You decide.
BOOK I’M ENJOYING:
As I write this, I’ve finished reading it, but I enjoyed it so much I want to give it a mention!
The book is The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company. It’s a really readable account of his career development and the leadership principles he follows.
I read it in a single day and took a lot from it.
QUOTE I’M PONDERING:
From Brainpickings.org’s 13 Life Learnings:
In any bond of depth and significance, forgive, forgive, forgive. And then forgive again.
TOOL I’M USING:
I recently ordered the Family Emergency Binder from SmartMoneyMamas.
It’s a digital product that provides one central place to log all of the important information that a person would need in the event of an emergency, or the absolute unthinkable.
It includes sections for you to log important information about your child, so that any caregiver who has to take your child at zero notice because of an emergency is able to play their favourite song, invite their best friend over for a play date, make their favourite snack, etc. Imagine a scenario where you can’t do a handover – the binder does it for you.
As well as that, the binder allows you to log all of your financial information. Again, this is planning for the worst case scenario. If you’re the person in the home who manages all of the finances and you pass away, how much time and effort and stress would it add on to your spouse or another person to locate everything? And to do that while mourning for your loss? Heartbreaking.
Sure, this isn’t a nice topic, but it is something we’ll all have to deal with, and the binder is helping me do that.
PODCAST EPISODE OF THE WEEK:
This has to go to Tim Ferriss’ How To Say No.
I’m not quite sure how I discovered this episode now, as it’s from 2017, but in it Tim reads aloud some of the rejections he received from people he approached to feature in his book Tribe of Mentors.
These letters are an absolute lesson in how to say no with class and kindness.
That’s all for now.
