Webby Clare

Thoughts and other writings by Clare Conroy

Head & Heart #23

By Leave a Comment

I’m going to iterate the format of my Head & Heart posts (again) and, inspired by Dan Pink’s recent changes to his newsletter, instead of trying to comprehensively capture all the interesting (at least to me) things I’ve been consuming, doing, thinking and feeling, I’m simply going to focus on sharing three things that have caught my attention – a blog post, book, podcast episode, quote etc.

1. New Friendship is the Last Great Romance

I don’t know whom I’ll meet and I don’t know if we’ll have a pleasant, but forgettable connection, or if some part of me will light up in her presence and crave to keep lighting up. I don’t know if our illumination will be reciprocal. Maybe I’ll be totally hyped by being in her presence and she’ll find me interesting enough but not someone she can’t live without. That’s the risk, and it’s part of what makes the whole endeavor so intriguing.

I love love love Courtney Martin’s writing. We’re roughly the same age, with two young kids, and often when reading her posts I feel like she has perfectly captured what’s going on in my head/life. This piece about initiating new female friendships as an adult is lovely.

2. Running as Spiritual Practice

This episode of the On Being podcast made me so excited about getting back into running in a couple of months time once by body is fully recovered from L’s birth.

3. Eve Ensler: Happiness in body and soul (TED)

…happiness exists in action; it exists in telling the truth and saying what your truth is; and it exists in giving away what you want the most.

Eve Ensler’s advice about giving away what you want the most is something that I often find myself thinking about and it came up again in a conversation this week, so I’ve gone back and listened to her wonderful TED talk and also to her On Being interview with Krista Tippett (which now makes me want to re-read In the Body of the World).

————————

Some other updates…

Day 100 – It actually took me 145 days to get there, but I finished #100happydays with a lovely family bushwalk.

  • Today I finished my latest attempt at the #100happydays photo project (it took me about 145 days but I got there in the end). This is one of the most consistently beneficial practices for my happiness. It forces me to actively look for and appreciate the moments of happiness each day (even if the day on the whole feels hard or exhausting). Photos are on Instagram.
  • I’ve been less successful with The Minimalism Game though. A week of visitors + E’s birthday meant that I got a bit distracted (and we had an influx of new stuff as a result of the birthday celebrations). I reckon I got rid of 200 items/books/pieces of clothing, but the house feels as full as ever. August provides a new opportunity to start again.
  • I’m excited to be working on an upcoming Lead Mama Lead workshop on Creating Your Own Definition of Success. If you’re in Canberra please consider coming along.

Things I’ve been thinking about (29/1)

By Leave a Comment

Presentations / public speaking

Have been thinking a lot about this following my presentation last week. Bought, and quickly made my way through Scott Berkun‘s Confessions of a Public Speaker. The book was a really easy, enjoyable, funny read. Two particularly memorable bits… the discussion about the similarities between fear and excitement; and the part about creating interesting titles for talks.

I’ve also been thinking about how conditioned we are to expect ‘boring’. We expect long, text-heavy, poorly prepared PowerPoint based lectures. Why do we tolerate this? Why do we continue to allow it? I believe that everything can be made more interesting. Induction, occupational health & safety, employee briefings are so dull and have infinite scope for improvement.

Wedding dreams

For as long as I can remember I’ve had ‘anxiety’ dreams just before I travel, or have a big assignment due. Usually they involve me forgetting to do something. I had my first wedding anxiety dream this week where I forgot to send the celebrant our vows and readings etc before the ceremony. And then it got to a few minutes before the ceremony and I went into a mad panic of trying to find someone at the hotel (we’re not actually getting married at a hotel, but in my dream we were) to email or fax the celebrant.

So, what did I do? Got up at 4am and wrote my vows. And they have now been safely emailed to the celebrant!

Ubuntu

I listened to Elizabeth Lesser’s TEDWomen talk on Friday morning and in it she mentions the word ‘ubuntu’ (which I only knew as the name for an open-source operating system). Basically, ubuntu is all about our relationships with others and our human need for interconnectedness. But I really liked how Elizabeth explained ubuntu in her talk… ‘I need you in order to be me, and you need me in order to be you’.

Things I’ve been thinking about (19/1)

By 1 Comment

The slightly random things that I’ve noticed/have been pondering today…

The science of love, and the future of women – Helen Fisher

“Love” is fascinating… And this is such an interesting talk which makes me think lots about the relationships between neuroscience, emotions and behaviour.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-ewvCNguug[/youtube]

Sorry

What does ‘sorry’ mean? How do different people use the expression ‘sorry’ differently? Can this lead to frustration/confusion? Can you use ‘sorry’ too much? Does it lose its meaning to the person saying it, and the person hearing it when it’s used frequently? Can it be used as an expression of sympathy, without apology for wrong doing or a mistake?

Definitions and uses for the word ‘sorry’ from the Macmillan Dictionary

The Holstee Manifesto

Love it!

Company manifesto from Holstee (kickass products, sustainably made, with a social impact).

via David Hood

Dahl

Jason and I made dahl for the the first time (recipe from Maeve O’Meara’s Food Safari). But we used canned lentils (from the back of the pantry and therefore of indeterminate age) and olive oil instead of ghee… And the result was okay, but not great… Next time I’m going to try Emily’s recipe – which I only remembered was included as an appendix to the 2010 Backhouse Lecture [pdf] after we’d starting making our batch.

TED talks that I don’t stop talking about

By Leave a Comment

TED is all about ideas worth spreading, right? So I figure that one the best indicators of an effective TED talk is that I end up telling everyone and anyone who’ll listen about it. I’ve enjoyed tonnes of TED talks on a range of different topics, but I’m very conscious of a few that I talk about constantly. Here they are…

The influence of our social networks

By Leave a Comment

I must admit that when I hear the term ‘social network’ I immediately think of web-based tools and services – Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. But this TED talk explores the (surprising and somewhat hidden) power of more traditional social networks – the networks of family, friends and neighbours that we create and form part of. I found this talk interesting, surprising and inspiring…

I also enjoyed James Fowler’s PopTech 2009 talk on the same subject.

Experience vs. memory

By Leave a Comment

One of the recent TED talks I’ve enjoyed… In it Daniel Kahneman discusses the ‘remembering self’ an the ‘experiencing self’ and poses an interesting thought experiment:

Imagine that your next vacation you know that at the end of the vacation all your pictures will be destroyed, and you’ll get an amnesic drug so that you won’t remember anything. Now, would you choose the same vacation? And if you would choose a different vacation, there is a conflict between your two selves, and you need to think about how to adjudicate that conflict, and it’s actually not at all obvious because, if you think in terms of time, then you get one answer. And if you think in terms of memories, you might get another answer. Why do we pick the vacations we do, is a problem that confronts us with a choice between the two selves.

It reminded me of this photo (which I know I’ve told lots of people about, but I don’t think I’ve posted yet)…

My favourite TED talks

By Leave a Comment

Following today’s first TEDxCanberra brainstorm, I thought I’d share a few of my favourite TED talks. Still have lots of talks from TED2010 on my ‘to watch’ list….

What are your favourites?