Practically Peaceful #8
I met my YouTube hero, putting my big boy pants on and happiness before achievement.
Hey mates,
Sorry about dragging the chain a bit and getting this to you much less frequently than weekly lately. More on that in a tick.
Such a sick moment for me last week though, I met my favourite YouTuber!
I have been inspired and helped a lot over the last few years by watching Matt D’Avella, so when I saw him just walking around on some street in Sydney as I was driving past, I just had to stop and say g’day. It was a bit of an ambush and I may have stopped in the middle of a driving lane, put the hazards on, whipped the kid out and marched in his direction with pace. But I’m stoked that I did.
He confirmed my suspicions that he’d be a legend in real life, as well. He asked me the dreaded “so what are you up to for work at the moment?”. Dreaded only because it’s someone like him and I would've liked to have had a more definitive answer by the time I met him but I said what I’ve been saying here a lot: “I’m just getting started in this content creating space and I’m trying a bit of everything and I wasn’t really sure what platform or medium was ‘my thing’ at the moment”. I said that I’d started this newsletter and had been doing a fair bit of writing to which he said something like, ‘if you can write, you can do anything. Writing is the foundation for all content-creating online, including creating videos.’ I am grateful for his advice, reassurance and the time that I had to chat with him. A definite fanboy moment for me. It left me feeling pumped to get out there and continue having a go with this stuff.
So much so that I whipped out the tripod the next day to start filming a YouTube video and within the first minute of trying: I damaged the piece of equipment I was trying to refurbish for the video, the little man came and stood right between said piece and the camera and said “What are you doing, Dad?” and the top of the tripod holding my phone that was filming, broke into 100 pieces. Ha. Winning.
Practical - not being consistent when ‘life gets in the way’.
Matt Head (https://mattkhead.com/) recently shared a James Clear post this week and it hit me at the right time:
I have definitely let life ‘get in the way’ during the last few weeks. Not that I’d choose work over family, I just need to find a way to ensure that I still get work done when things pop-up.
We’ve had plenty of family from Melbourne visit us here in Sydney recently and I’ve been travelling a fair bit around town helping out with family stuff. On top of that, I came down with another lurgy. I’ve used these excuses to not get much work done.
It’s been a firm reminder that I am not treating this work with the importance it requires. It’s more of a hobby that gets done most of the time.
This might be because:
I find it more difficult to motivate myself for my own projects. As opposed to having the accountability of a boss, etc.
This is a slow burn that will be an income producing thing, far into the future. While I consider myself a long-term thinker, sometimes I let more ‘urgent’ income-producing or other activities take priority.
Peaceful -
I’m currently reading Joy On Demand by Chade-Meng Tan.
This book is a game changer for me.
Chade-Meng Tan had quite a humble upbringing in Singapore and was a self-confessed miserable person. He became one of the earliest software engineers at Google then started Google's first mindfulness-based, emotional intelligence course. This ended up becoming his full-time thing and led to becoming a New York Times bestselling author and speaker on the topic.
50% of the title of this publication you’re reading is obviously the word ‘peaceful’, so clearly I understand the potential benefits of mindfulness and meditation. I’ve been a health clinician for 15 years and understand the importance of the mind/body connection, have read plenty of books and have dabbled in meditation over the years, though have never committed to a daily practice.
I think this book has sold it to me better than others though because of the benefits that spread to the professional/work realm, as well - with things like the intro being titled ‘how I learned to be jolly for fun and profit.’ Chade-Meng Tan talks about the benefits that include: better decision making, higher creativity, being calm under pressure and greater success in our work lives.
He also references a book written by his mate, Shawn Achor, which is called ‘The Happiness Advantage’ which references hundreds of studies carried out over decades, and he says “Shawn makes a convincing case that happiness is a major advantage in the pursuit of success.” Maybe that’ll be next on my reading list.
One of the biggest takeaways I have from this so far is that happiness needs to come first (which supposedly, actually makes ‘success’ more likely). Rather than the common cultural norm that we have, which is that material or career success leads to happiness.
Maybe that’s that whole point of what I’m getting at with this newsletter? Maybe it should just be the mindfulness/peaceful stuff? Because the ‘practical’ strategic stuff will just naturally follow as your best decisions are made from a calm, relaxed but alert mind.
Currently the ‘practical’ side of what I write about is exciting to me, so I’m honouring that while it’s there and incorporating that, too.
Woah, deep stuff.
That’s all for this time.
Have a great one ✌️