No apologies

A couple of snippets on making statements vs apologies, firstly the rise of Peggy Olson via -

And the ever excellent Tina Fey:

Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, “I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?” Make statements, with your actions and your voice.

Somewhat related: Learning to Love Criticism.

All of these things reached my inbox over the last couple of weeks from various different sources.  I know gender equality is certainly the flavour of the season (did you see the Chanel show?) but there is substance to this groundswell, and it is relevant and necessary.

Read / watch

So, it's been awhile.  Again, there is a direct correlation between how much I plop life updates on here and how much is going on in my actual life.  A small handful of things I have collected along the way, that have stuck with me of late -

This thoughtful animation that takes a portion of George Saunders' commencement speech on kindness:

This quote from my beloved Elizabeth Gilbert:

"Someday you’re gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You’ll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing."

And I've been really enjoying this woman's writing recently.

Read / watch.  These are are all thinking words.

On vunerability

This weekend was a lot of catching up on life admin - laundry, getting keys copied, having pants hemmed and also catching up on talks and videos people have sent me as 'must watches' and just hadn't gotten around to.  As a part of that I finally watched this excellent talk on the power of vulnerability by Brene Brown - also the voice behind this piece on empathy that I raved about.  

Somewhat related to Louis C.K.'s rant on just allowing yourself to be sad, she hilariously and sincerely talks about vulnerability being necessary - don't block your emotions out with a "beer and a banana nut muffin".  Ok, I'm not explaining this well, just watch it.  Then after that, watch the her follow up on listening to shame.

Good thoughts as we enter the chaos of the working week.

Guaranteed LOL

Someone asked me the other day if I had a YouTube clip that can guaranteed make me laugh out loud, every time - and literally, not just in typed 'lols'.  I know I'm slow on this one, but my brother sent me this a few days ago and it has been making the loops with me, it just gets funnier every time:

"And you're in *Yemen*..."
Love Kirsten Wiig.  Do you have a guaranteed IRL LOL?

The power of empathy

I love the RSA shorts, this latest one on the power of empathy is simultaneously hilarious and thought provoking.  Take a moment to watch it, won't you?

"Empathy is a choice, and it's a vulnerable choice because in order to connect with you, I have to connect with something within myself that knows that feeling."

I've written about how I have been thinking about kindness a lot lately, I think empathy is its buddy that it goes hand in hand with.

Just be sad

Louis C.K. hates cell phones - 

I predict this clip making the rounds at the moment will reach the same epic status as his 'Everything's amazing and noone's happy' rant.  After talking through why he's not giving his kids cell phones, he gets passionate about resisting our constant, knee-jerk reaction to reach for our phones to fill the empty spaces of our day.  He recalls a time when he was listening to a Bruce Springsteen song in his car and was overcome with sadness -

You know what, don't.
Just be sad.
Just let the sadness stand in the way of it.
And let it hit you like a truck.
I let it come and Bruce -- and I started to feel, oh, my God.
And I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch.
I cried so much and it was beautiful.
It was like this beautiful -- it was just this -- sadness is poetic.
You're lucky to live sad moments.
And then I had happy feelings because when you let yourself feel sad your body has like anti-bodies.
You have happiness rushing in to meet the sadness.
I was grateful to feel sad and then I met it with true profound happiness.

Oh his truth cracks me up!  Also - yet another reason to resist the urge to hang out with your cell phone.

If you were born a woman -

- how would you be different?

I remember watching parts of Tootsie with my mama years ago, when they would play it as the Saturday night movie TV (remember when that's how you'd watch movies?).  This is a really moving snippet of an interview with Dustin Hoffman, and how playing Dorothy Michaels was "never a comedy" for him:

"There's too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed."

How to be alone

- or, things that made you realise you, at some point, did some growing up along the way.

Reflecting on life now vs life in my early 20s has come up a lot in conversation for me lately.  Maybe it was the Buzzfeed article that plugged it into me and my circle of friends' subconsciousnesses, but the highlights go deeper than that.  One standout is that I relish the pockets of time when I can be alone and have no problems with taking up a corner of a cafe by myself, resisting "the urge to hang out with your cell phone" and just watching the people go by.  Five years ago I think this would have terrified me, but it's now become a weekend treat that I plan for; I think carefully about what cafe I want to take myself out to (quality over quantity is also something that's changed over the years) and scheme about what I'm going to order for my date of one.

I've been meaning to post this video by Andrea Dorfman for awhile now, it sums it up the quiet confidence earned in this exercise so beautifully.  "You could be, in an instant, surrounded if you needed it."

Take yourself out one day, I think you'll like it.

Stand wide and tall

I just watched this talk by social psychologist from Amy Cuddy on Body Language - her study on how your body language can change your mindset is so compelling, and the talk is moving and practical beyond 'sit up straight more'.  If you ever feel like a fraud sometimes, like you're "not supposed to be here" (story of my life), this is well worth watching through to the end.

Guess I'll be doing some wonder woman poses on my way out the door tomorrow morning!  Via swissmiss.

You don't get credit for being safe

I'm not a huge fan of the language but these 1.5 minutes from Ice T certainly get the point across.  I must admit I make colourful word-choice allowances for anyone who has ever been on Law & Order: SVU, and I can't actually separate Ice T from his character Fin.  Anyway, enjoy:

Dedicating this to a buddy of mine who has been everything from the person who warmed the desk next to me through to my biggest inspiration when I've needed it most.

Happy Sundays (or Mondays, for those folk living in the future).

'Baby otter' is my favourite

This TED talk found me via a comment on this post on play.  Ironic that I have been too busy to watch it until recently, but as it turns out all of my time at work looking out the window and googling for baby animals has been adding years to my life.

Game designer Jane McGonical talks about how games boost resilience, extend your life and directly have you getting away from having the top five regrets of the dying.  Watch from the ~12 minute mark if you just want to play her 'game'.

A playful finish to the long weekend.

Sunday links

I actively crave the misschu vegan rice paper rolls to the point where I have sometimes planned my week around when I can eat them next.

Been a big week, what better way to end it than to troll the internet.

There's an equally hilarious part 2 to moving to San Francisco.  Hayes Valley was actually the first choice that I had in mind and this article cements my decision (obnoxious food-loving instagramer anyone?  I couldn't have described myself better).  Speaking of which, cannot get enough of these rich kids.  It's the hash tags that push me over the edge, my only misgiving is that it's not updated regularly enough #getonmylevel #wealth.

On the other end of the cultural scale, I loved this brilliant interview with Elizabeth Gilbert (still such a huge fan of that TED talk).  "I want to look out my window and see indefensible amounts of beauty".  So great.

With thoughts of moving cities, making new friends was on C's mind - this New Yorker article is one of the best I've read on something I think we all sometimes feel a little anxious about.  And on that, I love these five guys.

Hope your Sunday was good to you, and now to bed.

Design and Thinking

A colleague over in the US recently got selected to participate in the Leading by Design Fellows Program at the California College of the Arts.  It's one of the first of its kind in the US which teaches design thinking and strategy to business leaders, and is an extension of 'Design and Thinking' - a documentary that came out recently -

“Why is it that big huge corporations get beaten by kids in garages?” 

I must admit I find this oddly validating and all the more thankful for the way my life's dots have joined up.  Whenever I explain my education background vs what I'm doing now I always have a mix of people thinking that I've either sold out or assuming I have this pent-up unused 'creativity', but in my mind I'm constantly applying all the strategic thinking and problem solving that I learnt at university - and definitely more than I would be if I were a 'designer' pushing out graphics for some corporation.

I think this is what the garage kids call living the dream.

Miss Representation

I saw Miss Representation a couple of weeks back and have been meaning to write about it.  We had it screened here at work because it was seen as such a vital film exploring the misrepresentations of women, and how this has led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence.  The topic isn't new to anyone but I definitely walked away with a few questions about my own behavior and how I've indadvertedly played a part to support this misrepresentation (addiction to The Hills, anyone?  Brb watching Kim Kardashian's wedding).

There was a comment in particular that struck me, it was Gloria Steinem speaking just as the credits were about to roll -

“If you and I, every time we pass a mirror, downgrade how we look and complain about how we look, if we remember that a girl is watching us and that’s what she’s learning..."

This weekend just past I caught myself looking in the mirror and telling myself that I had better up the strength training as my bingo arms were unacceptable, and I deleted a bulk of photos where I felt like I had the shadow of a double chin.  It's a disquieting thing when you think you're on one side of an argument but then you realise you are actually rallying loudly on the other.

Here's to remembering that there is always another girl, learning from us.

Kid car tunes

These kids are cooler than I am -

Pretty sure I was only listening to my Jolibee tunes when I was their age - I love the girl's expressions when it comes to Kimbra's part.

A great little clip to get your morning going.  Enjoy!

Starting a movement

Or, the importance of celebrating your first followers.

Some hilarious footage illustrating how to start a movement - in less than 5 minutes.

"Your first follower makes that lone nut a leader."

The happy secret

Want to increase sales by 37%?  Start a gratitude journal.

Okay that's not really the point, but I want to hook you into this TED talk which was exactly the 12 minutes I needed to see today.  Shawn Achor speaks on his study of 'positive outliers' (i.e. people considered well above average) and his findings on how happiness impacts our success.  Moreover, the talk itself is laugh out loud funny as it puts research behind why guarding your happiness is advantageous.

I can't get the smile off my face.  Happy Monday!

Today's options

I'm the furthest thing away from a raging feminist, but I did enjoy this talk by Sheryl Sandberg that went around on International Womens' Day last year (ex-Googler, now Facebooker and champion of getting more women in leadership); it's well worth the 15 minutes it runs for, if you haven't already seen it.

Anyway, this article on 'A Woman's Place' in Silicon Valley included my favourite quote from her so far - not just for women:

"The reason I don't have a plan is because if I have a plan I'm limited to today's options."

A huge thank you to my dad's boss for passing it on (I'm ashamed to say I only 'read' The New Yorker for the cartoons).  Here's to not having a plan!

On genius -

Not new by any means, but always good to return to when each day is trucking along frustratingly, and you feel like your 'just turning up' everyday isn't enough.

I'm going to cite the most popular YouTube comment on this as it pretty much how I feel about it right now: 'By coincidence I watched this today - and apparently I needed just that. Thanks, genius.'

Travel advice

Tired of waking up in a city that isn't yours?
'In the daylight anywhere feels like home'.  Great song to wake up to, wherever you find yourself.

Faithful map

With that as my soundtrack, I've marked out all the Isabel Marant stockists in SF, and the closest post office to MOMA.  This pretty much sums up the day ahead before dinner with friends tonight.