We are what we eat.

This report has been making a major splash in future-focused and food-based media over the last few weeks.

If you’re planning on living on this planet for more than 10 years, or know someone else who will be, you should give it a read. The long report is 40+ pages, but the summary is much shorter and full of picture.

If you’re short on time, or alterrnatively have time to burn, start on the webpage and follow your nose to the briefs.

And finally, to make it really easy, if you do nothing else, read this.

It turns out, we need to change before the planet does.

Days on, days off.

What do you do with a public holiday on a Wednesday?

Some people, it turns out, just work straight through.

Others do their gardening.

Some go out on day trips, mini holidays.

And others simply do as little as possible.

It’s interesting to see what we do when we have an unexpected day off (except that it is expected). How does what we do with our days off reflect our values? And how is this different from what we do with our days on?

Open windows

In the summer, we spend a fair bit of time with our windows open.

We can hear the neighbours a lot more.

Maybe, if we didn’t have a fence between us, we’d wave and have a chat too.

In the meantime, we’ll just sit inside listening. And hope they don’t hear us while we’re playing raucous card games.

What makes up the property system?

To have a house you need materials, and systems to manage the energy and material flows (water, power, waste etc).

Pretty simple.

But what makes a property system a property system?

Here’s a few thoughts:

• Ownership

  There needs to be a clear understanding of where ownership sits. This get’s reflected by legal structures, but the fundamental component is ownership.

• Material

  The literal buildings as well as the skills needed to assemble them into something useful.

• Land

  An essential, but perhaps often forgotten component. Remember that land is a finite resource.

• People

  Perhaps most importantly, you and I. Putting people central to the system, not profit, and seeing people as connected to each other and the plant should be a priority of the system.

Get ready for something new

I have a university assignment starting tomorrow.

It’s going to take 5 weeks to finish.

And. I have to work on it every day. For at least 10 minutes.

Mindfulness.

Who knows what could happen on this blog.

The monster under the bed

Just because there isn’t a monsters under a child’s bed, doesn’t mean they aren’t genuinely fearing for your life.

Real monster or not, what they want, is to stop being afraid.

Underneath our irrationality is usually a genuine motivation, if not perhaps a genuine fact.

Wanting more money on the basis that we’ll be more happy makes sense when you’re under a certain income. After that, the motivation and story we’re telling ourselves (that more money = more happiness) falls over, but we still continue.

Chasing a job, career, personal relationship, retirement savings and a dream house to feel secure makes sense: We need to feel safe and secure. But how much impact does the opinions of others and the wider society influence our perception of what we need to feel secure? And how far off the mark are we from the things that actually give security?

The monster under the bed might actually be real. And the fear certainly is. But maybe we don’t need to be terrified and jump off the bed. Maybe there’s another way to stay safe, to get what we want.

Rewiring your brain

Neuroplasticity is awesome.

It’s a fancy way of saying that we can rewire our brains.

What’s more impressive, is that we can do it on purpose.

Of course, we need to fight against millennia of evolutionary development and cognitive biases to end up with an improved version, but thankfully a heap of smart people have figured out how to do it.

The underlying premise seems to be this: Do what you want to make permanent. Then do it again. Every day. For about three months if you’re really serious.

That old “practice makes perfect” adage wasn’t quite right, because you can practice something imperfectly. But there’s a nugget of truth: It probably should just be “practices makes.”

Listen first. Speak, possibly.

If listening is so important, why is our focus so often on speaking?

We have speech competitions at school, not listening competitions.

We have speaker coaches, but very few listening coaches.

We practise pitching, but rarely judging.

I suspect that the best speeches are the ones that get you to listen. And the best speaker coaches are the ones that help you craft something worth tuning into, and the best pitches are the ones which grab attention.

But being attention grabbing doesn’t make what you have to say worth listening to.

Perhaps is we all learnt to listen more, better, we might hear more thing worth listening to.

Connection across context

Sometimes, you can put a group of people in a room, and they just connect.

Regardless of context, culture, or particular agenda.

Of course, this is unusual. It usually requires every to check their ego at the door and come prepared to listen.

And listening is key to communication.

Listening, not talking.

Because what matters more that what we say, is what someone else hears.

Front fences

Apparently, one of the local Councils in New Zealand is working on changing their regulations to prohibit solid six-foot high fences along street frontages.

I’m not sure why they’re doing it, exactly, but I like the sound of a legal obligation to create a built environment that fosters connection.

How to get more efficient

Apparently, the difference between the most and least efficient person is about a factor of ten.

That feels about right. A 10x multiplier.

But here’s the trick: That all goes out the window when we work together.

Apparently, a high performing team of programmers will outperform a poorly performing team by a factor of one thousand.

ONE THOUSAND TIMES THE OUTPUT.

It turns out, if. you want to be more efficient (or even better, productive), you should just work better with others.

Sunday or Monday

When do you begin your week? Sunday or Monday?

Is Sunday the first day of the week, spent setting a platform to churn out a solid week.

Or, is it the last day of the weekend, spent dreading what is to come.

Is Monday the first day of a drudge to the weekend, or just another step in the weekly flow of activity.

Did you chose when you start the week, of does how you see Sunday shape your view of the week?

Chicken, egg. But interesting.

The real thing vs the summary

If you want to see the latest Marvel movie, but haven’t seen the earlier ones, what do you do?

Do you watch all the movies, or find a summary online?

It probably comes down to:

1. How much time you have; and

2. How much do you value getting the full experience.ā

Don’t be surprised if the experience is underwhelming if you haven’t committed the time to the lead in.

Choose a pizza place

If you’re a pizza lover looking for an simple dinner on a Friday evening, how do you chose where to get it?

• The local pizza chain: Bulk, cheap, delivered.

• The closest gourmet pizza store: Authentic, delicious, erratic.

• Homemade: What you want.

Your choice reflects your current priorities. Tomorrow morning, you might reflect on those priorities as you look at y our bank balance/rubbish bin/full stomach.

Retrospective reflection on priority setting only counts if it impacts your next decision. Rather than making a decision in the moment, set priorities now and pre-decide.

It’ll make it simpler later.

For purpose, on purpose

Why

A catchcry of three year olds. Used in a genuinely curious, but fundamentally annoying way.

Purpose

A buzzword of millennials. Used in an aspirational, inspirational way.

For something that receives so much airtime, the definition that Google provides is decidedly dull:

purpose

noun

1. the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists

2. a person's sense of resolve or determination.

However, Mirriam-Webster is worse:

purpose

noun

1. something set up as an object or end to be attained

2. a subject under discussion or an action in course of execution

Regardless, this concept of purpose, living with direction, filling life with meaning, isn’t new. What is new to the conversation is that the purpose, the reason, the end to be attained is not some material possession or particular level of status in life. What we are discovering is the value of seeking something much more simple:

Good.

The purpose, is to create more Good.

Because the world could do with a little bit more of it.

And if we’re going to live with purpose, we should live on purpose. Creation requires change, change requires movement, movement requires force, force happens on purpose.

Live fo purpose, on purpose.

How do you eat an orange?

Do you peel it with your fingers, leaving the orange stain around your nails for days?

Do you chop it up into segments with a knife? Which way do you cut first?

Do you peel it and chop it up into small pieces, put it into a bowl and then eat it with a fork?

Do you make a mess and wash up later?

Do you hate oranges, and plan to never eat one again?

We are all different.

Blow up this balloon

Why?

I need it blown up.

Why can’t you do it?

I could.

So why are you asking me to?

Because I need 200 blown up .

Oh. Fair enough.

That’s a lot of balloons.

They’re for a birthday party.

Oh. That makes sense.

And could you tie a piece of string to each one.

Long enough that they don’t touch the floor if you hold them out.

Here are scissors, and some string.

Sure.

…

Here, I blew up the balloons.

Why do you want to do something?

What do you expect?

Two key questions to ask, when something is being asked of you.

Why do you want to own a house?

What do you expect it to be like if/when you do?

Whiteboard markers come off, right?

If you’ve only ever seen whiteboard markers used on a whiteboard, then of course you’ll be surprised when you use them on your t-shirt and they don’t wipe off.

If you’re two years old, you will. The concepts of ink, whiteboards being special, and ‘dry erase’ don’t feature when you think about whiteboard pens. They’re just the pens that wipe off.

If everyone you know who owns a house seems happy, then of course you’ll be surprised if owning a house doesn’t make you happy.

The concepts of relative affordability, maintenance, insurance and 30-year mortgage commitments might not feature for you.

Controlled or chaotic

In systems which seek equilibrium, rebalancing from an imbalance can happen in many different ways.

Often, it’s a choice between controlled and chaotic.

Reading around, there’s a fair few intelligent people from a range of environments looking at various pieces of our current social-political-economic environment, and reading it as out of balance.

They tricky bit with these systems though, is that people with more social capital, more power, and more money are often a similar a group of people, and giving up connection, control and cash is painful for person. Especially someone who has plenty.

But if we’re in a system that seeks equilibrium, and I would contend that a global population of billions of individuals is random enough to drive back towards equilibrium, rebalancing will eventually occur.

They question is, will it be controlled, or chaotic?

Got Netflix?

Watch this.

And just to cross-link multiple unrelated references in my life, Seth said that

Sticking with it because it’s always been that way is a truly lousy reason to persist in a behavior that causes harm.