💎 Friday Gems (Blow that shit up!, Authentic Networking, Build Your Website, Power of Books, and much more!)
Stay in the present moment, the only place where you have the power to experience true satisfaction.
‘Tis the season of making resolutions.
We tell ourselves, “Next year,” I will ______, fill in the blank with what we are trying to start or stop.
There is a saying in Urdu/Hindi, the languages spoken in Pakistan and India, “Kal kissne dekha?” which roughly translates to “Who has seen tomorrow?” and usually it is said when someone is trying to put things off for tomorrow or sometime in the future instead of doing that thing today.
Who knows what the future holds.
Instead of waiting for the new year, month, week, or even tomorrow, why not start on the change you want to make today? Starting right now would be amazing so you can feel good about having taken action towards your goals and take the first step in building momentum and motivation to make the change happen.
So remember, Kal kissne dekha? ✊🏽
On to this week’s gems!
In this edition:
Career: How to network in a way that is authentic to you
Life: On accepting your calling
Learning: Carl Sagan talks about books
Tech: For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website
Wisdom: Stay in the present moment
Mindset: Blow that shit up!
Music: Ttabla (Musique de Fëte, Vol2) by Taxi Kebab
Building Relationships
💎 How to network in a way that is authentic to you
Networking is a loaded term that comes with a ton of assumptions and preconceived notions.
Networking is one of those things that we know is good for us and that we want to do more of to help our career, but our introverted nature usually gets in the way, so we push the idea aside and move on.
I used to go to conferences and stand in the corner wanting to meet new people and strike up conversations, but in the end, my fight or flight response would kick in and I wouldn’t speak to anyone and just stayed within my comfort zone.
Looking back that was a lost opportunity but I also wasn’t in the right mindset either.
As Roberta explains in her latest post
As a neurodivergent leader, I used to DREAD the idea of networking. That is, until I took the time to reframe and redefine what it meant for me.
I love her recommendation to not even use the term “networking” and replace it with “relationship building.” Wow! Just this simple shift in using a different word is powerful enough to let down our guards and to be open to meeting people to start building relationships, which we are all good at.
In her post, Roberta provides mindful questions to help you find out what works best for you, in your situation and with your strengths and goals.
What worked for Roberta?
Personally, I reframed networking as “building relationships.” As an avid gardener, I like to think of it as planting seeds. Some relationships bloom with a little nurturing, while others might not grow at all—and that’s okay.
This is a great mindset to reframe what used to be an obstacle into an opportunity for personal and career growth we can all use.
Source: Learn Mindfully
Life
💎 On accepting your calling
Notice the moments you feel envious of what someone else is doing. Whether it’s at work or in your personal life, when you see someone or anything that brings up feelings of envy, pause and take a moment to find out the cause of it. Then, take the smallest step in that direction toward your calling.
Taking action is key!
Source:
Learning
💎 Carl Sagan talks about books
Books are like seeds. They can lie dormant for centuries, but they may also produce flowers in the most unpromising of soil.
- Carl Sagan
This inspiring video is a good reminder of the power of books. Books are a direct connection and a conversation with the author however long ago it was written. In our digital age, books still have the power to stir and move us with new ideas that can change our world.
In our hurriedness to move on to the next book, consider how might we commit to applying the insights or lesson we learn in a book before moving on to the next?
At the least we can begin collecting these gems so we can find the right moment to apply the learnings in our daily lives.
What’s a book you’re reading right now? Let me know!
Big thanks to Swiss Miss.
Tech Freedom
💎 For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website
Unfortunately, this is what all of the internet is right now: social media, owned by large corporations that make changes to them to limit or suppress your speech, in order to make themselves more attractive to advertisers or just pursue their owners’ ends.
It’s time to break out of the algorithmic feeds that serve only their authoritative tech billionaire overlords.
How do we do that?
By taking the internet back to its roots.
By taking back our tech freedom.
By creating our own websites that are free from the influence of algorithms and billionaires.
But most of all…
I don’t have to worry about my work being taken down or modified or sold, or put in an AI training set against my will. I have my own website, and it is mine, and I get to own it completely. I hope someday soon I can visit your website.
This is a great call to start your own website or if you’re like me, to dust off the cobwebs from your website and give it the love it deserves so we can have a little piece of freedom from tight grips of social media.
Do you have a website where you share your ideas? Let me know in the comments. I would love to check it out.
Source: Gita Jackson in aftermath via Kotke.org
Wisdom
💎 Stay in the present moment
Stay in the Zone. It is so easy in the midst of conflict to get lost in resentment about the past or in anxieties about the future. The challenge is to do the opposite and stay in the present moment, the only place where you have the power to experience true satisfaction as well as to change the situation for the better.
— William Ury
Mindset
💎 Blow that shit up!
For those of us who have severe bouts of impostor syndrome, please, please watch this short but inspiring video of Mirna Valerio who ran the Broken Arrow Sky Race, a race not for the faint hearted.
I love her mindset and attitude to cut through the fear or doubt in the stories we tell ourselves that can hold us back for living the life we want to live.
We tell ourselves these stories all the time. We have these narrative of whether or not I belong in this space or I don’t belong in this space.
Like, that’s not for me.
And it’s hard because when you don’t see people who either look like yourself or have some kind of shared experience, it’s hard to fathom even being in this space.
Sometimes you just have to blow that shit up and say that I am just going to be in this space!
That’s the attitude and empowerment we need to cut through the stories we convince ourselves are true because we are who we are and we are exactly where we need to be.
So let’s blow that shit up and lean into each moment with confidence that we belong right where we are.
Personally, I was so moved by Mirna’s message that I signed up for the Broken Arrow Sky Race in Lake Tahoe. It’s time to let go of the fears and reach for the sky.
It’s time to blow that shit up!✊🏽
Music
💎 Ttabla (Musique de Fëte, Vol2) by Taxi Kebab
This is a wonderfully hypnotic Arabic tune to get you whirling and moving to keep you in the zone.
Enjoy a journey through the mind with the latest addition to the Low Fidelity playlist.
That’s it for this week’s gems!
If you are enjoying this newsletter, please feel free to let me know. It’s always nice to know that people are out there. 💜
Curiosity will save us,
