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December 2021

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Fishpeople tells the stories of a unique cast of characters who have dedicated their lives to the sea and the transformative effects of time spent in the ocean. It chronicles the story six people transformed by their experience with the sea. The six people profiled in the documentary include Kimi Werner, Matahi Drollet, Lynne Cox, Ray Collins, Eddie Donnellan, and Dave Rastovich.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

 American Columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich originally wrote the “Wear Sunscreen” hypothetical commencement speech as an essay published in the Chicago Tribune in June 1997. It was initially written as a column titled “Advice, Like Youth, Probably Just Wasted on the Young,” The essay is often misattributed as a commencement speech given by author Kurt Vonnegut at MIT.

In the essay, Schmich implored anyone over 26 years to write their own “Guide to life for graduates“. The essay was the inspiration for the spoken word song by Australian film director Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free To Wear Sunscreen.

Swimming is, by our human definition, a constant state of not drowning.

In Why We Swim, New York Times contributor and swimmer Bonnie Tsui writes about the art of swimming, profiled swimming enthusiasts and long-distance swimmers such as Lewis Pugh,   Lynne Cox, Kim Chambers, Diana Nyad, Gertrude Ederle, Olympic champions such as Michael Phelps,  Katie Ledecky, Dara Torres.

She also writes about everyday people such as a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein’s former palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and an Icelandic fisherman who improbably survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck. Bonnie investigates what it is about water that seduces us, and why we come back to it again and again.

In psychoanalytic theory, the taking of one’s own ego or body as a sexual object or focus of the libido or the seeking or choice of another for relational purposes on the basis of his or her similarity to the self. 1 A little bit of narcissism is needed for self-belief and self-confidence. Too much obsession with one self is what leads to malignant and grandiose narcissism.

There is no shortcut to experience.

After watching Lewis Hamilton’s Masterclass session on developing a winning mindset, I have a renewed sense of respect for Hamilton. In the video, Hamilton takes the viewers on a journey of his 28 years driving career: The false starts, failures, his training regimen, recovery, cross-training routine (Surf, Skydiving, Snowboarding, Rock climbing), role models (Lewis Father, Muhammed Alli, Ayrton Senna, Niki Lauda), imperfections (anger),team building, leadership, having fun and trusting the process. One of the most impactful and inspiring masterclass session have seen and have seen quite a few of them.

Lewis Hamilton is considered one of the greatest Formula One driver of all times. He has driven more laps in first place than any other driver in history. He’s tallied more than one hundred race victories, an all-time record, and captured seven Formula 1 World Championship trophies, matching another all-time record.

Growing Up

Lewis was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, England, in 1985; by the age of six, he was showing a preternatural gift for racing remote-control cars, routinely beating his teenage and adult opponents around the miniature courses. Impressed by his son’s hand-eye coordination and reaction speed,
Lewis’s father bought him a go-kart, a definitive step on the path to becoming a professional racing driver. He proved a precocious talent behind the wheel, winning his first karting championship in 1995 at the age of ten—the youngest driver to do so at the time. At an awards ceremony in London that year, Lewis started mapping out his future.

Be Bold

“Ayrton Senna was my favorite driver…the team that he drove for [McLaren F1] was owned by a guy
called Ron Dennis. And Ron Dennis was there,” Lewis recalls of the event. “So I went to Ron, and I said, ‘One day I wanna drive for you and be World Champion.’” And so it was: After notching two
more karting championships, in 1996 and 1997, Lewis was recruited into the McLaren Young Driver
Programme, securing his place in the Formula 1 pipeline.

Since signing with the powerhouse Mercedes-AMG Petronas team for 2013, Lewis has claimed
the World Championship in six of the seven following seasons, tying the career record for Formula 1
titles—and breaking dozens of other records along the way. (His dominance has drawn comparisons
to the likes of Michael Jordan.) He’s also become a formidable figure in pop culture, appearing on the cover of GQ magazine, releasing a clothing line with American fashion icon Tommy Hilfiger, voicing characters in Disney’s animated film franchise Cars and the bestselling video game Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, and garnering a mass following on social media.

In 2020, having established himself as England’s most decorated Formula 1 driver, Lewis
was knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within. – Maya Angelou

Social Initiatives

Noting the demographics of his field (Lewis is the only Black driver in Formula 1, and he says similar disparities exist throughout the sport in design, engineering, and other technical roles), he launched the Hamilton Commission, a task force focused on increasing representation in motorsport. He’s also earmarked nearly $30 million to support initiatives benefiting math and science students of color through his charity organization, Mission 44. Having a sense of purpose hasn’t only rejuvenated Lewis personally— he says it’s actually boosted his performance on the racetrack

Elite Sport

The Real Price of Competing. Even for privileged drivers, racing can be prohibitively expensive. In a 2015 interview with the English business publication Raconteur, Toto Wolff, head of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas team, revealed the costs of going pro: He estimates that between a junior karting career, four seasons in lower Formula series, and the expenses of transitioning into Formula 1, the total price amounts to more than $9 million.

Write It Down.

When you encounter a situation with multiple stakeholders, or find yourself the center of an information-transmission scenario, keep detailed personal notes and copies of any reports or related materials. It may sound simple, but the ability to reference them later (and, thus,
efficiently move between teams and sub-teams while collecting intel) can prove invaluable.

Coping With Failure.

Lewis spent more than a decade climbing the ladder to Formula 1, frequently joining
new series. Sometimes, he won the championship in his rookie season; other times, he came in fifth or twentieth. One year, he crashed so much that he wondered whether he had
what it took to race professionally. Enduring multiple failures—especially those that feel so profound, they make you question your path—is part of the process.

MasterClass is a streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to learn from the very best. MasterClass is an online membership – accessible on your phone, web, Apple TV, Roku devices, and Amazon Fire TV – that offers classes on a wide variety of topics taught by 90+ world-class masters at the top of their fields.

Their immersive learning experiences combine incredible video content, downloadable materials, and social interaction with the MasterClass community, all of which users can explore at their own pace.

The annual membership is available for $180 USD, which allows unlimited access to ALL on demand MasterClass content for the year

Give One Annual Membership. Get One Free.

All the best in your quest to get better. Don’t Settle: Live with Passion.

For More Information: MasterClass Home Page

Cal Newport is one of my favorite productivity writer. He is the writer that has shaped my view the most about the constructive use of the internet and social media. His books Digital Minimalism, Deep Work, and a world without E-mail were very impactful, thought-provoking and they all made me make some drastic changes. I believe the worth of a great book is determined by the change in behavior and the action that you take after reading the book.

Some of the actions have taken after reading Cal Newport books include deactivating Facebook, deleting Twitter, deleting all posts on Linkedin, stopped using Instant Messengers (such as Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, et al), Deactivating Instagram. I still check social media daily after work on my desktop to view my favorite comedy skits, Nigerian Musicians that inspire me, and some random stuff. What the insights from reading the Newport books have done for me, is that I am more mindful of how I use the internet, schedule my activities and use my free time to focus on things that matter to me such as personal growth and development, exercise, self-care, content creation et al.

When it comes to the arts, passion should always trump common sense.

American actor Robert De Niro delivered a frank, funny and thought-provoking speech to the 2015 graduating class of NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He spoke about the challenges of being an artist, the ups and downs, the roller coaster, what it takes and eventually the triumph.

We are producing data at a very fast speed than we can consume it. We are bombarded daily by a deluge of notifications, news, feeds, pings, instant messaging, tweets, shares, stories, advertising etc. According to Domo’s Data Never Sleeps 5.0 infographic: “Data is on overdrive. It’s being generated at break-neck pace, flooding out of the dozens of connected devices we use every day, and it shows no signs of slowing down.” 90% of all data today was created in the last two years – that’s 2.5 quintillion byte of data per day.

90% of all data today was created in the last two years – that’s 2.5 quintillion byte of data per day.

One of the overarching benefit of dealing with information overload that we all seem to face is the ability to fully concentrate on what really matters and not been distracted by all the sound bites on social media, instant messaging and the like. Various authors have written beautifully on the subject of concentration, use of social and becoming indistractable. Here are some insights shared by my favourite authors on the these subject Matter.

In Too Much Information: Understanding What You Don’t Want to Know,  American legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people’s lives.

We are producing more data than we can process to information. We are constantly been bombarded with notifications, alerts, pings, news, reports, etc. Social Media is one of the greatest innovation in the past decade and it has amplified our tendency to keep up with peers, family and neighbours. Information Overload is one of the unintended consequence of been constantly available and online.

Here are 30 quotes on information overload

“Hard things are hard because there are no easy answers or recipes. They are hard because your emotions are at odds with your logic. They are hard because you don’t know the answer and you cannot ask for help without showing weakness.”

In The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz, Ben Horowitz shares timeliness advice on building and running a startup. Ben tells the story of how his company Opsware went from doomed in the eyes of the world to a $1.6 billion outcome with no recapitalization. He shares war stories including several near bankruptcies, a stock price of $0.35 per share, unlimited bad press, and three separate layoffs where they lost a total of four hundred employees.

Ben describes strategies for laying off employees and executives the right way, communicating effectively, demoting a loyal friend, lessons learned as a founder-ceo, managing the toughest problems and making the tough calls.

Ben shared the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.

Our parents and care-givers tried the best they could based on their level of awareness and exposure. It is often said that you can not give what you do not have, you can not take people farther than you have gone. As much as our parents and caregivers tried, they were also victims of their upbringing, environment, societal norms and values. They were operating below the veil of consciousness based on the indoctrination, domestication, religious dogmatization, social programming and scripts handed to them by their caregivers. As American Swiss Psychoanalyst Carl Jung once observed “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it would direct your life and you would call it fate.”