March wrap 🌯 (extra spicy 🌶)
Hello
It’s been a month! In between getting back to work travel, lunches in the city with friends, celebrating three years of working for myself, a stack of work (turns out lots of people want to reimagine their learning curriculums and employee experience at the moment), and… you guessed it, getting the spicy cough 🌶😷, my reading habit has been very lumpy.
That said, I did read some things! So keep scrolling for the March reading wrap, including some mini reviews of what I liked, and what I didn’t, from last month’s book choices.
Things I’ve been enjoying this month (whilst I’ve clearly not been reading) include:
Podcast - Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead: I’ve been endlessly sharing two recent episodes from Brené, including this one about leading in an age of employee activism, and this one about how toxic work cultures are driving the great resignation (and the elements of a toxic culture).
Netflix - Drive to Survive: I’m nonplussed by Formula 1, but I do enjoy this behind the scenes of the teams, drivers, competition, and behaviours (good, bad, and ugly). I shared a few thoughts on the latest series here.
Apple TV - Beastie Boys Story: this is something I didn’t enjoy. I had been saving this for an afternoon at home but it was pretty disappointing, I didn’t actually finish watching it. It’s a recording of Mike Diamond (Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) doing a live stage talk about their childhoods, friendship, music, influences. It’s very scripted and feels limited by the format, unlike a lot of good music documentaries.
Disney+ - Summer of Soul: I loved this documentary about 1969’s Harlem Culture Festival, footage of which was largely untouched for 50 years. The documentary is heavy on the music, nicely balanced with interviews from performers and festival goers about the importance of the festival against the backdrop of what was happening for Black Americans in the late 60s.
No meetings Mondays - When I had a j-o-b, I always had two meeting free days per week (one whole day, and two half days), it was critical to survival. I’ve recently brought that discipline back to my diary after slipping into less helpful habits last year, I’m now 3 months into a pretty consistent practice of no meetings on a Monday. It’s such a treat each week, I love it. This article by Neil Pasricha is a great starting point for bringing this into your own life.
Holiday planning!! I’ve got two spreadsheets in progress with my itineraries for the UK in May and NYC in August 🤓 (any NYC tips appreciated as I’ve not been since 2010).
What have you been into this March? Pop a comment to this post to share more, or just tap the little heart button if you liked something you read.
Elbow bumps,
Steph
PS. To borrow from Austin Kleon (and everyone else who borrows this from Austin Kleon), this newsletter and the podcast are 'free but not cheap'. You can support their ongoing creation by buying me a coffee as a one off 'thank you', purchasing a card from the Good Press card store, or leaving giving the podcast a (five 😉) star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Thanks!
What I read in March (the month with fewer books than usual)
Each month on Instagram, I summarise the books I’ve read that month with their star rating and a short, 1 sentence review. You get the longer-form;
👀BOOKS I READ WITH MY EYES 👀
Creative Acts for Curious People by Sarah Stein Greenberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Facilitator friends listen up, this is a fantastic addition to your facilitation library (everyone has a facilitation library, right??). It’s not a ‘read it cover to cover’ book, but it is a beautiful book to dip into when you want to challenge a group’s thinking, stretch their imagination, ask a different question, or bring a group together meaningfully. It’s also full of inspiring Human Centred Design stories on how groups solved wicked problems together. Oh and the design of the book is outstanding too.
Imaginable by Jane McGonigal ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is the kind of book that really excites me. Futurist & Game Designer (such a cool skills combo) Jane McGonigal shares how to be ready for the future so that future big shocks don’t shock you, because you’ve already ‘practiced’ for them. The exercises and examples she shares of strong possibilities for the next ten years are equally exciting and confronting, and worth everyone stretching their imagination and seriously thinking about. The only thing that prevented this being five stars was that I found the message about why we should practice our future thinking a little repetitive.
FlexAbility by Karen Morley ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Practical ideas about avoiding burnout packaged into one digestible book. I’ll be honest, there wasn’t really anything new in here; manage your mindset, know your purpose, work more effectively, look after yourself etc. It felt a little bit like an ‘other people’s ideas’ type of book, but that said, for someone who’s completely new to any of these concepts it might be a useful starting point before they go deeper elsewhere.
👂🏻BOOKS I READ WITH MY EARS👂🏻
Acid for the Children by Flea ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was interested in hearing more about Flea, someone whose work I’ve enjoyed* for decades, but I knew almost nothing about. Like most autobiographies, his childhood spread across Australia and New York, was challenging for multiple reasons. His sensitivity was certainly not nurtured, resulting in a lot of insecurities throughout his life. Weirdly, it hardly had anything about the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, they were more a side note to a few stories to various drug taking adventures and misadventures.
Ayoade on Ayoade by Richard Ayoade ⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is one of the weirdest and most surreal books I’ve ever read, which probably isn’t a surprise if you’re familiar with Richard Ayoade’s work. I did love the quirky concept of Richard Ayoade interviewing himself, but pretending to be two versions of himself, but it’s super weird. Don’t expect to go away with any insights, but it was a bit of fun.
*other than live, I’ve seen RHCP live twice and have been thoroughly underwhelmed both times.