September; thoughts on making the most of things, and bear watching 🐻
Oh hey,
In the last bookmark, I mentioned needing the sort of holiday where you sit and do nothing for a week. Well, I wished too hard because two days after that went out, I had an MRI which revealed I had fractured my tibia plateau and damaged my MCL. So as it happens, I did get a bit of forced ‘doing nothing’ (well, more ‘doing less’, to be honest). Not *quite* what I was after, but a useful reminder of a) how much you use your knee (it’s loads), and b) that sometimes you just need to accept the uncontrollable and roll with it.
Whilst my usual hobbies of walking around a lot, hiking, pilates, weight training, and generally enjoying two functional knees, have had to either pause or be heavily adapted, and my fledgling new hobby of indoor rock climbing has stopped before it even really started, I’ve been focusing on what I can do.
I can still do upper body and core work at the gym. I can get on the stationery bike (not too long, not too heavy), I can learn to swim instead of learning to climb. I can go to the infrared sauna (🤤). And I can use this time to binge read and learn. So I’ve signed up for three courses, one creative challenge, and after 11.5 years of him nudging, I’ve finally been convinced to let my boyfriend teach me how to swim. First lesson was this weekend. I didn’t drown ✅ and we’re still talking ✅.
This approach is also proving useful in the first unexpectedly quieter period of work I’ve had since early 2021. Rather than stare sadly at blocks of empty time in my diary I’ve thrown myself into catching up with interesting people in Australia and overseas, exploring collaborations, learning (see above), plotting my next podcast (more news on that soon), writing things, creating things, planning some events (also more on those soon) and just enjoying the spontaneity that’s possible when you have some extra time and flexibility. This was perfectly embodied last week when a friend text to say he was down from Sydney and had had a meeting cancelled, so we ended up in the pub for a couple of hours having massive life chats at 3pm on a Wednesday.
In amongst all of this, I’m reading an excellent book called Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. I’m about half way through and whilst I’m not completely loving the writing style, I am loving the structure, ideas and thought experiments in the book. It’s set in the near-ish future and is written from multiple people’s perspectives as they navigate the climate disaster that has unfolded as a result of the (in)actions right now. Honestly, it’s pretty bleak, but it’s full of interesting questions and ‘oh shit’ moments. Well worth reading.
(Side note: If you want the full immersive experience, read the first chapter whilst sitting in the sauna, as I unintentionally did. I swear that first chapter will stay with me forever as a result.)
What have you been reading, listening to, watching, or enjoying? Hit reply or leave a comment and let me know ⭐️
Making the most of things,
Steph
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The it list 🔥
Here’s a few other things I’ve been obsessing over, enjoying, or doing recently…
Podcast - Fearless Conversations: After a two year hiatus, Jim and Damien are back having big conversations. In last week’s episode, my rather impressive friend (and the magic graphic design brain behind my business), Jess Kelly, joined Jim and Damien to talk about the guts, heart, and stomach it takes to run a business. She shares the highs and lows of running HUCX, the business she co-founded with her husband Matt, and why their system is such an important tool in tackling Australia’s housing (and quality) affordability crisis. Spotify | Apple
Tool - Capacities: Notion has been in my tech stack for a little while, but it’s never been quite ‘right’ for capturing and collating things like links and signals etc. I’ve looked at Obsidian a few times but it makes me want to cry. So when I heard about Capacities, which is essentially the best of both of those tools (and more), I was very excited. It’s always hard starting a new PKM tool, but I’m loving the thoughtful features (like being able to WhatsApp links/notes/ideas to it!) and the fact it’s object, not folder based. Check it out
Website - Bearcam: It’s brown bear season in Alaska and my new favourite thing to have on my second screen is the livestream of the bear cams. So many bears! They’re just hanging out in the river, catching salmon, and getting nice and fat before they hibernate for winter. A delight. (Warning: you may find yourself not going to the bathroom because you get really invested in whether a bear is going to finally catch a salmon and don’t want to miss it).
Film - Tetris (Apple TV): I had *zero* knowledge of the origin story of one of the OG computer games, and it’s a fascinating story. It feels like these stories are a bit of a trend right now (see: Air, Blackberry, The Playlist) but I’m a sucker for them, and this was one worth catching.
Film - After Yang (Prime): We’re so conditioned for dystopian stories when it comes to AI, that this quiet and rather beautiful story of a robot older sibling is both unexpected and thought-provoking.
Documentary - Ego: I went to the preview of the new Michael Gudinski documentary a few weeks ago, and thought it was brilliant. An excellent and fun telling of the Australian music scene in the 80s/90s, what changed, and the role that Michael played in supporting artists and disrupting the industry. (I had never heard of Michael and didn’t know he’d died in 2021, so that was a bit of a sad shock at the end for me!).
Netflix - Unknown Cosmic Time Machine: This documentary about the mind-blowingly complex project of creating and launching the James Webb telescope is an inspiring example of what’s possible when you think *really* big, and *really* long term.
Book - Self Promotion Without Social Media by Tess McCabe: Tess’ latest book is a practical and useful reminder of all of the business development, connection, and collaboration activities that are possible beyond social media (spoiler: there are many). Grab your copy here.
Some places I popped up this month 👋🏻
Podcast - More to Learn with Adam Ashton: I joined Adam to talk about the topic of quitting while you’re ahead, reading, and general philosophies on living. Spotify | Apple
News - SmartCompany: I accidentally ended up contributing to this SmartCompany piece after journalist Tegan Jones saw a LinkedIn post I wrote about the new LinkedIn AI tool. (I really enjoy Tegan’s journalism work and the Queens of the Drone Age podcast she’s part of, so I was pretty stoked to be briefly collaborating with her on this).