Oh, the humanity!

You may have heard a few days ago that Penguin Random House Canada announced the upcoming launch of Jordan Peterson’s new book, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life. The original 12 Rules for Life was a massive hit, selling over 3 million copies as of mid 2019, in addition to a worldwide tour where Peterson packed venues to speak for two hours at a time.

The response to the announcement of the sequel has been a remarkable dichotomy. …

For both the left and the right

So in yet another moment of jaw dropping insanity surrounding the US election, Katy Perry wrote this tweet in the wake of Biden’s soon to be confirmed win:

“The first thing I did when the presidency was called is text and call my family members who do not agree and tell them I love them and am here for them. #FamilyFirst. Call your family today. Happy Sunday.”

Living in a country like Australia, this is a completely sane and expected viewpoint. While there are always those on the fringes of both the left and the right that come across as rabid and single minded, the vast majority in the centre are sensible enough to not see each other as enemies, but people with different ideas on what makes an ideal society. …

You say no, but your actions might be saying yes

“Hun, you just went straight through a red light.”

I remember it like it happened yesterday, even though it was years ago now. I’d been over in Michigan to be trained on our products for a week. It’s 22 hours worth of flying from Australia, with a change at LAX and Chicago. In addition to 8 hours a day of training while feeling jetlagged out of my mind, I also had a bunch of work to catch up on at the end of each day thanks to the time zone difference between Michigan and Sydney. …

Was it worth the time and trouble?

The email list has always been the gold standard of marketing since the Internet began. You have a captive audience of followers who hang on your every word because after all, they signed up for it, so they must be interested. You can share your life with them, sell to them, there are literally no downsides and no reason not to do it.

Sounds a little bit good to be true, no?

Let me take you back a decade ago, maybe a little bit longer. The Internet was like the great land rush of 1889 — huge, open swaths of potential subscribers just waiting to put their email addresses into opt-in forms for anyone who was sharp enough to see that it was going to be a thing. Those people now have tens, even hundreds of thousands of subscribers to their credit who have stuck around, bought their stuff and made them rich. …

The daily grind sure as hell didn’t feel “normal” anymore

It was a Friday early on in March when our wider team’s boss called us together and said we’d be sent home and would work there for the foreseeable future. COVID hadn’t really hit Australia at that point, but everyone’s concern was rising and so the work from home order was a welcome one. Most of us, myself included, figured we’d probably be back to the office by the end of June.

Well, June came and went, because after the bulk of our cases in April and May, things still felt like they could go either way, so most of us then revised our prediction to maybe September. We were pretty close. Last Friday (mid October), my team stepped into the office for the first time since we’d been sent home in March. …

There’s a gaping flaw that no one seems to have noticed

If there is one thing I’ve heard constantly during my time in the corporate world, it’s the insistence that you have to set SMART goals. They’re held up as the be all and end all of individual development, because the acronym and explanation behind it seem so credible and well explained that there couldn’t possibly an argument against using it.

For those that don’t know, SMART goal setting is about using the acronym to test your goal and ensure it’s clear enough that it can be achieved. It stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Relevant

Timebound

It looks legit AF doesn’t it? Of course as things usually go, trends like this that get a lot of play in the corporate world eventually seep into the real world, so you’ll find the usual life hacking guru types espousing the practice as well. The thing is, I had a recent epiphany on this subject, and the more I think about it the more I realise that the entire premise of SMART goal setting is just more corporate bullshit, and here’s why. …

And I wasn’t even 40 yet

“Mr. Ross, it seems as though your heart doesn’t want to go back into rhythm on its own, so we’re just going to sedate you, and then we’ll shock it back into rhythm ourselves.”

My resting heart rate, which at the time was already elevated at 120bpm (double my normal RHR), shot up to about 190 upon hearing that news. The lovely young doctor who said the above realized just how much she had freaked me out and spent the next five minutes reassuring me that it was actually a very normal procedure and I had nothing to worry about.

Disclaimer: none of this is intended as medical advice, only an account of my experience and hypotheses that may help others. …

So what part are you going to play?

A couple of weeks ago, Ayodeji Awosika wrote a fantastic article about himself and the difference with other self-help writers. Namely, the fact that he practices what he preaches. I found myself continuously nodding my head at his points — namely that if something is worth doing, it’s even more worth doing when it gets hard. That’s not the time to pack it in, but to maintain the course.

My favourite line out of this piece summed it up perfectly:

“Everybody loves to quote Marcus Aurelius and Seneca until it’s time to be stoic. …