The best talk I’ve ever watched

Hey friends,

Welcome back to another issue of Sunday Snippets. Going to do my best to make this a weekly thing moving forward, now that I’ve gotten into the swing of writing for my upcoming book. Well, I say ‘upcoming’ – the tentative publish date is June 2023, so nothing interesting happening anytime soon.

Anyway, a few things I wanted to share this week about what I’ve been thinking.

1 – Emotional Education

I watched this incredible talk by one of my favourite people in the world – Alain de Botton. Alain runs the School of Life, and is a modern-day philosopher, writer and speaker. If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are a few insights that really resonated with me:

• We become closer with people when we’re vulnerable.
• Instead of asking “what do you do?“, a more standard question when meeting someone should be “In what ways are you weird?” or “what’s broken about you?”
• 60% of our life satisfaction and happiness can be attributed to our primary relationship (eg: spouse). If a Martian came to Earth and they knew that 60% of human happiness is dependent on this relationship, they’d certainly think “wow these humans must spend at least 60% of their time figuring out how to make this vitally important aspect of their life work”.
• The Ancient Greeks saw love as a classroom. Love id an arena in which two people can support one another to become their best selves. The point of love is to teach and to learn. A good lover is a good educator.
• It’s easy for us to think that we’re too selfish, but in fact, most of us aren’t anywhere near selfish enough. We’re not used to putting our own needs, wants, desires centre stage because we’re ‘good’ people.

And then during the talk, Alain asked the audience to do a couple of exercises that I’m definitely going to try out next time I’m on a date:

• Turn to the person next to you and share (a) something you’re sad about, (b) something you’re anxious about, and (c) something you regret.
• Turn to the person next to you and complete the following sentence: “If I dared to be more selfish, I would…”

2 – I might be moving to London

I’ve been living in Cambridge (UK) for the past 9 years. 6 years of medical school, followed by 2 years of being a doctor, followed by 1 year of lockdown. A few times in that time, I’ve thought “I wonder what it would be like to live in London”.

This week, I mentioned this to a friend. Her next question was “What’s stopping you from moving to London?”

My mind was blown. I don’t know why I’ve been operating on the assumption that I just live in Cambridge. I don’t have a job tying me to a specific location, and I could just… move. Just like that. Nothing’s really stopping me.

So the plan is that from August, I’m going to get an AirBnB for a month or two to try out the experience of living in London. I’ll pack some clothes and my camera gear, and see what it’s like.

It’s made me think – what other invisible shackles am I living with that I just haven’t questioned?

❤️ My Favourite Things

📼 YouTube video – Incredibly inspiring to see the behind the scenes of a huge channel and business, learned lots of stuff to apply to ours.

🎵 Song – I’ve been listening to this Ed Sheeran song on reply basically since it came out.

✍️ Quote of the Week

“Trying to solve a problem before being taught the solution leads to better learning, even when errors are made in the attempt.”

From Make it Stick – Peter C. Brown. Resurfaced using Readwise.

🎟 Your Invitation To Sumo Day

AppSumo is all about helping businesses grow and you’re invited to their first-ever Sumo Day. 🚀

Starting July 13th, you’ll get access to products, discounts, and giveaways (e.g. iMacs) for just 72 hours! It’s their little way of saying thank you—y’know, by giving you stuff. 😉

Be sure to sign up here to get the updates!

🎬 This Week’s Videos