Category: 5 Share Friday

1.Quote I’m pondering this week “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” –Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

2. Ever wondered how to store your spinach, kale and salad leaves so they last longer? At home we’ve been using sealed bags with tiny holes for a while and it really does make a huge difference. Here’s a good write up / video. In its most basic form you can use a Ziplock bag with skewer pricks (around 12-20 dies the trick). Bags you can wash and reuse are even better. The rigmarole of preparing and storing can seem like a chore at first, though once you’ve experienced the results you’re unlikely to go back to storing greens any other way!

3. I was pleased to listen to a recent Freakonomics podcast about happiness (How to be happy ep. 345). A friend messaged me asking if I’d heard it, I hadn’t so immediately downloaded it to my phone. Its focus is Denmark and includes Helen Russell, author of A Year of Living Danishly. It’s a fascinating listen (38 mins) as being in Denmark for 3 months now I totally get it. I’m even warming up to the cost of living being 20% more as the lifestyle you get is worth it. Have a listen, most shocking for me was learning of the happiness suicide paradox..

4. In my quest for music to inspire and help productivity I’ve recently been listening to the soundtrack to Bastion the video game. It’s worth giving it a listen. Although not to everyone’s tastes, I find it gets me in the flow and has been excellent when popping off to a quiet space to crack through tasks that require deep thinking, enjoy.

5. Back in December I wrote a post about crypto currency, it’s the post on my site that google finds the most. I’ve even had exchanges reach out to me asking if I’d link to them (I don’t do affiliate links). Back then crypto was rocketing to heady heights and my own portfolio was 5x what it is now. Luckily for me I only purchased alt coins with profit from other alt coins. This means any losses I’ve had are bad decisions without monetary effect on my day to day. Not so for everyone caught up in the ‘crypto rush’ and this article is a nice reminder that nothing is free.

Wishing you a terrific weekend!

1. Quote I’m pondering this week “Some men see things as they are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were, and ask why not” – Robert Kennedy
2. On the subject of Robert Kennedy. My birthday this year (June 8) was 50 years to the day that his funeral train travelled across part of America. This week I reminded myself by watching this short, moving video showing the train and all the people who came out to pay their respects. A great example of a man who left a legacy. A man who believed we can all change the world with small events that cause ripples. A person who gave hope and dreams to millions of believers, those of us who believe in equality and kindness.
3. This post on how Fortnite became the Instagram of gaming is fascinating. Even if you aren’t interested in games, reading this will blow your mind. Children and teenagers are addicted and we would all benefit of being more aware.
4. These 4 best career advice lessons are short and made me think. I admire her openness on sharing of her choices. Whilst I wouldn’t append my spouse to the bottom of my priorities list, she was open and honest about it, and it worked for them.
5. Every weekday I catch a 25 minute train journey to the centre of Copenhagen. The first thing I do when I grab a seat is listen to Lazy day by Relaxation Factory. It’s an instrumental song that tunes me out and sets me up for the day relaxed and positive. Not to everyones taste yet it works for me. You can find it for free on this site. 

Wishing you a great weekend!

1. Quote I’ve been pondering this week “The only people who get paid enough, get paid what they’re worth, are people who don’t follow the instruction book, who create art, who are innovative, who work without a map. That option is now available to everyone, so take it.” – Seth Godin

2. Your smart phone can give apps your location and journeys even when location services is turned off. This article has been a fascinating read for me as I hadn’t considered the other sensors in our phones being put to different uses. I imagine, over time privacy settings will change inline with this find. For now if you think your location privacy is safe with settings on your phone set to off think again.

3. As a family we’ve been building a system for our evening meal. We’ve been refining and polishing over the last 18 months and it’s working great! The foundation for each meal is a roasted food base, like veg (can include meat) and a sauce. Every meal is quick to produce, tasty and nutritious. I’ve shared my favourite Buddha bowl before. A newer favourite is sweet and sour sauce, this one comes from a great recipe book called forks over knives. Sharing below and breaking all sorts of copyright laws. Enjoy!

4. Regular readers know how much I value continuous learning. So when I found this article distilling 2 of my favourite principles for living I couldn’t believe it. It’s well written and if you do read and decide to embrace them in your life, overtime you will see a positive difference.

5. In my role at Unity I’m being challenged regarding my essentialist practices. My responsibilities cover a breadth of areas and teams, and with the hot weather the office is reaching that calescent point where even my shoes are off during the day in order to keep my feet cool.

Focusing with sweat on my forehead, deciding what’s essential and saying no to the non essential is harder than ever. So it was refreshing when I came across Tim Ferriss’ latest podcast where he shares a Greg McKeown Essentialism chapter on saying ‘No’. It’s episode 328 here, it’s 55 minutes long and worth listening too to learn how to say no the decent way.

1. Quote I’ve been pondering this week “If you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen” – Conan O’Brien

2. Person that’s changed my perspective – James Bridle. His TED talk here contains content everyone would benefit from. It’s becoming more impossible to know where information originates. We can no longer tell if it’s bots or people making content, and we’re now building the entire world on this technology. As James says “..We’re taking all of this data, a lot of it bad data, a lot of historical data full of prejudice, full of all of our worst impulses of history, and we’re building that into huge data sets and then we’re automating it. And we’re munging it together into things like credit reports, into insurance premiums, into things like predictive policing systems, into sentencing guidelines.”

We’ve discouraged our son watching YouTube for over 2 months now and have noticed a positive difference. A difference where our 5 year old is visibly more creative, more questioning and more determined, and he watched less than an hour a day…

3. I learned about a form of blackmailing Sextortion – I recently received an email claiming to have videos of me watching porn. The sender said they’d send to my contacts unless I sent them Bitcoin. What’s more disturbing is that it contained a password I recognised. I don’t watch porn though the thing I couldn’t understand was how it contained a password I had used on the internet. Then I remembered this site and found the password used was an old one used on LinkedIn. According to here data breach information is sold regularly, so it’s likely the sender obtained an old password when Linkedin was breached a number of years ago.

If you haven’t made your online accounts secure yet then it’s worth considering. Here’s the best write up I’ve found on how to secure yourself.

4. Music I’m listening too – We’re big fans of Matt Costa in our home and lately our 5 year old has been singing along to the words “Sunshine”. It’s been amazing watching him appreciate beats and tunes as the years have gone by. The album Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies For The Film Curious George is our favourite one for when we’re all home and want good tunes for everyone to enjoy. Nearly every song extols some kind of goodness in the world.

5. We’ve got Netflix working in Denmark using our UK account so we’ve been enjoying the new season of Shooter (if you like suspense you’ll like this). I also love Final Space a Futurama esque cartoon that has the potential to be amazing as they tweak it on the fly.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone.