Once a month, I curate the best links on how to find work that you love, be excellent at what you do, and unlock any door that stands in your way. Mostly, I gather articles and podcasts that capture my attention because they make me think or laugh. Here is the link round-up for April 2018!
• Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. This is the story of an alarm clock that was stuck behind a wall for THIRTEEN years and went off twice a day at the same time!! Hard to believe they didn’t think to break open the wall for all that time! Ah, the things we choose to live with!
• Ageism is a sad fact of life. We all need to speak to it and do something about it. In other words, hire women your mom’s age!
• The high cost of housing in major cities is well known. In search of reasonable rent, the middle-class backbone of San Francisco — maitre d’s, teachers, bookstore managers, lounge musicians, copywriters and merchandise planners — are engaging in an unusual experiment in communal living: They are moving into dorms.
• Speaking of high cost of living, cities like Detroit, Akron and South Bend — get ready. Silicon Valley is over.
• A grandfather left an amazing legacy for his children and grandchildren. So beautiful.
• Usually, when we think about a portfolio, we think of finance, business, or art. But how about thinking of it in terms of a career? A portfolioist takes inspiration from these other disciplines to create an adaptable, diversified, and personal career. She does the hard work of figuring out what the world truly needs, maps that to a range of skills she possesses (and enjoys), and folds that into a business model. Sounds like my kind of job!!
• I love obituaries. The vast majority of the thousands obituaries published in the NY Times over the past 150 years, chronicled the lives of men, mostly white ones. Left out are some amazing women who left indelible marks. Here are a just a few.
• And while we are looking at lives well lived, here’s a look at people that are still alive who inspire us daily. Lives Well Lived is a feature documentary film by Sky Bergman that celebrates the incredible wit and wisdom of adults 75 to 100 years old who are living their lives to the fullest. Encompassing over 3000 years of experience, forty people share their secrets and insights to living a meaningful life.
• And while we are thinking about living well and dying well and leaving legacies, let’s not forget the importance of exercise! Here are the best ways to exercise those aging muscles!
• As we reach retirement age, we reach that moment when we have to decide what is next. This woman decided at age 64, to go back to graduate school. The end result: priceless.
• The Awakening Joy class by James Baraz is, well a joy. Finding joy is not easy. We often face dark times and are called upon to bring consciousness, love and skillful action into the world. Here are a few conversations between James and some very wise people who talk about how they navigate the dificult times and find their way to the small pockets of light.
• A woman with four kids, a bit of middle age malaise, a complicated second marraige, and lots of questions decided to start a Facebook group where she and other women could ask each other the myriad of questions that were keeping them up at night (including “How do you get a good night’s sleep?” ) The result is “What Would Virginia Woolf Do?” (WWVWD) a growing movment of over 7000 that meet online, in real life, and is now a book. Check it out!
• The future of weed consumption is filled with vape pens, sugar-free pretzels, and a lot of contraptions that Silicon Valley hasn’t invented yet. But what does the new school of products mean for the humble (some might say classic) joint? It’s the end of the joint as we know it.
Happy reading and listening,
Photo: Willie Franklin.