Hi Friends-
I’m thrilled to tell you that my podcast Hurry Slowly is now back with a second season! For the first episode, I take a deep dive into the untapped potential of appreciation with bestselling author Adam Grant.
I’ve been following Adam’s fascinating research into appreciation, generosity, and what gives our lives meaning for 5+ years, so it was exciting to finally sit down and pick his brain.
And what a brain it is! We dig into the afterglow effects of expressing appreciation, how to build a helping culture at work, and the dark side of helping — something Adam calls “generosity burnout.”
Listen to “Don’t Underestimate the Power of Appreciation.”
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In praise of mediocrity. A nice meditation on the value of being not so great at some things: “When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you? Lost here is the gentle pursuit of a modest competence, the doing of something just because you enjoy it, not because you are good at it.”
Use unhappiness and chaos to offer your gift. A reader shared this lovely piece from Zen Habits on seeing the challenges to doing great work as a beautiful practice ground: “This is your challenge, in every moment. Expand your range by not needing conditions to be perfect. Not needing everything to be in order. Not needing to have all your messages responded to, all your inboxes and social media checked, all your articles read, all your crumbs swept up, before you dive into your purpose.”
Why emotional excess is essential to writing and creativity. I like these thoughtful excerpts from Anais Nin’s diaries on Brainpickings: “Creation comes from an overflow, so you have to learn to intake, to imbibe, to nourish yourself and not be afraid of fullness. The fullness is like a tidal wave which then carries you, sweeps you into experience and into writing. Permit yourself to flow and overflow, allow for the rise in temperature, all the expansions and intensifications. Something is always born of excess.”
Overcommiting makes you untrustworthy. A nice piece from HBR on why it’s so easy to overcommit these days, and how to stop doing it: “Last year I decided I would stop rescheduling my commitments and treat them as just that: commitments. And what I found is that when I committed to do the things I said I’d do, I actually felt much less stressed by them. As I kept more and more commitments, I got more and more confident. And I learned how long things really take, so I got better and better at giving estimates on when I could deliver.”
+ Banksy made a painting that shredded itself at auction.
+ Tim Berners-Lee launches Solid, saves Internet.
+ Everything is waiting for you.
+ This is every TED talk ever.
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TOOLS FOR CALM COLLABORATION:
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SHOUT-OUTS:
Much appreciation to: Dense Discovery, CreativeMornings, and Erlin Worthington for link ideas.
The beautiful artwork is from: Michael Cina and John Klukas for their project ZuluZuluu.
You can support this newsletter by: Tweeting about it, or leaving a review for Hurry Slowly on iTunes.
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Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I host Hurry Slowly — a podcast about how you can be more productive, creative, and resilient by slowing down — write books that will help you reclaim your time, and give uncommonly useful talks.
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