👟👠 Free book and a special invite (#21)

Hi !  Welcome back. This week I am thinking (and writing) about exercise, free books (yes really, see below), communities, rubber ducks and incompetence. If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can join here or by clicking the button below. - Eve D.❣️

Bonus: see below for an invite to a special Whatsapp group…

WHAT’S UP:

🐘 I leave for Kruger Park tomorrow, and I am not going to lie…I’m slightly freaking out. I am worried about the distance (up to 20km a day, the most I’ve walked is 11km), about the sun (some apps say it will be 38deg, but I’m ignoring those and am focussing on the ones that say it will be 32deg), and about the animals (wouldn’t want to be trampled by an elephant). Nevertheless, I am also very excited and am thrilled to be going.

☎️ Interesting side note: I have never been away from mobile access for more than half a day, and here I am going to be unreachable for 3 days. I am expecting to detox my brain sufficiently to have much less appetite for social media and an appreciation for the fact that the world kept on turning even when I didn’t check on its welfare every 30 minutes.

Anyway, wish me luck! 🤞💪 🦒 

FREE BOOK!

Listen to this strange coincidence. Yesterday I stumbled across a six month old YouTube interview with Chris Anderson (founder of TED talks) where he talks about his recent book, Infectious Generosity. Unfortunately I only managed to get through about half of the interview because the interviewer was so annoying. She kept on throwing Chris’s name into each question in the most unnatural way, and I wanted to slap her. She’s a behaviour researcher at Google, and I can just picture her thinking that people respond better if you address them by their first name, but not in every fcking question, Zara, and not if it makes you sound like a psychopath. Honestly, it was unbearable. But I digress.

I listened enough to the talk (which, please remember, I stumbled across by fate) to know that I would enjoy reading the book. It’s all about how acts of generosity, no matter how tiny, can collectively become the force that overpowers all the current craziness of the world. I like that idea. I even went to Amazon to research the book, and add it to my wishlist for when I start moving through my Kindle backlog.

And then today, which is just the day after I listened to the 6-month old talk, I saw this tweet:

The book is literally being given away for free (how generous, see!) and the tweet found its way to me. Is that a coincidence? I think not! I am clearly meant to read the book, and to share it with you too. If you want to get a free digital or audio book copy, no strings attached, here is the link.

COMMUNITY

Want to make new friends?

Speaking of coincidence or serendipity, a word that keeps on popping up everywhere I turn is community. I am hearing people talk about how feeling a part of a community is essential to mental health, how our lack of community is a new dilemma that leaves us in constant fight or flight mode, and just today I had lunch with a friend who also randomly brought up the subject of how she wishes she had a stronger sense of belonging and support.

It got me thinking about Covid time, when an ex-friend (long story!) set up a Whatsapp support group for about 40 or so people, so we could bitch and moan, but also support each other during those unprecedented times. It also helped us stay accountable to our goals (which, let’s be honest, was mostly just to survive without killing someone before lockdown ended). That group was a lifesaver for me at that time…I really enjoyed the community and support, even though I didn’t initially know most of the participants. We ended up sharing a lot of our traumas and grief, and I think everyone was stronger for it.

So I’m toying with the idea of setting up a Whatsapp group for some of the women who read this newsletter, and who feel they would benefit from getting and giving advice to each other. I know Whatsapp groups can get a bit much, but I also think that having 20 or 30 women who will listen your problems/opinions/funny stories etc can be very helpful and warming. It will take a while for the group to get to a decent size, but I think would in any case limit the group to 40 women only. I think that’s manageable. (I run other Whatsapp groups…one has 500 participants, so I have some experience in this 😀 )

Anyway, if you would like to join please just reply to this email and send me your mobile number, and I’ll add you if there is enough interest. I’ll be away next week, but I’ll get to your email eventually :-) (And yes, it has to be Whatsapp, and no, it can’t be Facebook). Come join - it will be fun!

BLOOMING WONDERFUL

On certain days in the year, Jane Hall collects a specimen of every plant that is flowering in her garden, and documents them. I think this wonderful! She must have the most beautiful meadow growing in her back yard, and this is such a memorable and inventive way of tracking the seasonal changes. And of learning more about each plant 🌷 At the time she took this photo, she had 62 species. #Aspirational

WEAPONIZED INCOMPETENCE

My father often told the tale of how, as a newlywed, my mother asked him to do the laundry and he put whites and colours together and…was never asked to do the laundry again. My dad loved to tell a good story, and this one always got a lot of laughs, but even as a kid I doubted its accuracy. I couldn’t see my mother asking my dad to help her with the housework, ever. Theirs was a very traditional marriage 😀 .

I was reminded of his story when I read about “Weaponized incompetence” where someone deliberately makes it look like they are unable to take on a specific task, thus leaving others to do it for them.

Does this happen in your house? My Zac definitely falls back on this all the time (can’t make me a coffee, doesn’t know how; can’t sweep the lounge, it always looks worse than before he started; can’t set his own study schedule, it’s never realistic enough). Does it happen to you at work? Sometimes it seems easier to just do a job ourselves out of fear of having to fix someone’s sloppiness or incompetence, or to avoid the frustration of having to explain things a dozen times. But maybe we are just being played?

RUBBERDUCKING

There is a famous “trick” that software developers have taught each other, called “rubberducking”. It started with one developer who literally carried a small rubber duck in his backpack. Any time he had a coding problem he couldn’t get his head around, he would explain the problem to the duck, in simple language, line by line of the code. That process would help him discover a solution to the problem.

I don’t think this applies to just coding! When Micole was struggling with her A-level biology, I got her a whiteboard and suggested she “teach” the subject to an imaginary class. It worked 😃. I also articulate concepts as I write my book, and find it to be an amazing process to identify holes in arguments and explanations. I guess it’s a form of therapy…after all the best benefit of therapy is simply being able to talk things out with someone who is somewhat qualified to listen. And who can reliably say that a duck isn’t qualified? No one!

This duck planter is available from cottonon.com, and I’m not saying you need to have a duck on your desk, I’m just saying that if you do have one I would totally understand!

IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW

LONGEVITY

Now that I am getting all fit for the Kruger hike, I am spending more time trying to figure out how to carry over this active lifestyle into post-Kruger time. I acknowledge that consistent exercise is the most powerful weapon we have to a healthy mindset and body. So, two things on this:

1…I might do a multi-day long hike. I mentioned last week how Kristin, the Norwegian, does ultra long hikes across the world and no, I will not be doing that. But a friend and I might do a 3 or 4 day group hike in South Africa next year. We’re trying to find the right one, but it will probably be 10-15km a day and will be at or near the coast. Maybe you want to join us? It will be organized by a third party, and we will just book our slots. It would be fun to do it as a small group of middle aged women, doing it because we can.

2 …It’s insane how much time we are expected to dedicate to stay fit and healthy. It sounds like a bit of a life scam, to be honest. According to Peter Attia (author of Outlive) you need to do:

• 3hrs of Zone-2 training a week. That’s 3 hours of exercise intensive enough that although you could talk while doing it, you would prefer not to. None of my hikes fall into this category of intensity, which sounds like pure hell, to be honest.

• 30 minutes of Zone-5 training, once a week. Half of that is recovery. Zone 5 is a level at which you can go max for 4 minutes, then need to rest for 4 minutes…and you should only be able to repeat this on-and- off four times before you “collapse” from exhaustion. This is hell. I can’t imagine.

• 2-3 sessions of resistance training per week, to build and maintain muscle strengths.

Isn’t that insane? That’s a lot of time and motivation required. I’m still mulling this over, and wondering if it’s worth it.

MOVIE NIGHT

For this week’s movie date night we watched Usual Suspects. I had seen it before, when it first came out (twenty nine years ago this month!), so I knew the main points of the plot, but I was still wowed by the brilliance of the movie. I know Kevin Spacey is a persona non grata, but we can’t deny his acting skills. If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend.

(Also, I now know exactly where I was in August, twenty nine years ago…New York City. I clearly remember the cryptic “Who is Keyser Soze?” ads plastered on buses and taxis everywhere).

Speaking of movies, Matt Damon is one of my favourite actors (I’ve always had a min crush on the poor man) so I thought this was quite funny. I would have willingly spent much more 😅 

Thanks for reading!

That’s it for this week. (Want more? You can find past editions here). I hope you have a great weekend and upcoming week. Please keep sharing /forwarding to your friends/groups 😄 . You can also email me privately by hitting reply on this email.

🔥 **Don’t forget to let me know if you want to join the Whatsapp group** 🔥 

PS