Tag: blogging

Motivational Mondays – 31/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 31/08/20

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Hello fine readers and welcome back to my Motivational Mondays Post – The only weekly newsletter to give your medicine with a spoon full of sugar!

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow!

As always I’ve finished with 1 silly story to lighten your Monday blues… 

Love to all X

4 x Thoughts From Me:

If you can improve your life knowing you already have enough, then future failures will hurt you less and future successes will bring you more joy. 

The early bird often catches the worm because he or she is an early bird. If you’re a night owl, forcing yourself to catch worms in the morning isn’t the best strategy. Far better to build your day according to a schedule that suits your chronotype. Why hunt for worms if it’s easier for you to catch mice?

For all wannabe bloggers: understand we all have to start from scratch and that it takes time and effort for things to take off. Most important are your reasons for blogging. Let it be about the love of writing. Let it be about helping others, however small the number. If your words reach just one person then you’ve already achieved something special. Forget the numbers and speak from your heart. Forget the numbers and concentrate on making connections instead. Forget the numbers and enjoy the journey.

An intolerance of right wing politics from the left only strengthens intolerance in the right and vice versa. Not having tolerance for those who you disagree only strengthens their position, as well as your own. It only deepens the divide. What we need is greater understanding. We cannot change what we don’t understand.

3 x Quotes From Others:

“To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” – Octavia Butler

“After a point of time, when you get success and fame, money and everything, the purpose of life has to be redefined. For me, I think that purpose is to build bridges. Artists can do that very easily, more than politicians.” – A. R. Rahman

“Democracy is only as good as the education that surrounds it.”- Socrates

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This interesting No Stupid Questions podcast episode with Steven Dubner and Angela Duckworth: How Much of Your Life Do You Actually Control? In this episode Steven and Angela discuss the advantages of having an internal locus of control versus an external locus. They also discuss the reasons why we procrastinate and how to stop it. Note and quotes below.

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Those who have an internal locus of control tend to think they effect outcomes more than they actually do. They believe life is controlled by them. Those with an external locus tend to think they have less control than they actually do. They believe life happens to them. 
  • People with an internal locus tend to be more successful. They have better mental health. People with external locus are more prone to depression- tend to be more lackadaisical at work. 
  • The most productive thing one can do in a difficult situation is to concentrate on controlling the controllables.
  • Good to have two columns in your mind. What you can control and what you can’t. Make the active choice to concentrate your finite attention and energy on what you can control. Give up wasting it on blaming external circumstances outside of your control. 
  • Children taught to have a growth mindset and to have grit perform better. It’s important to teach this mindset keeping in mind that other children – through no fault of their own – are disadvantaged. We can’t continue to create a culture of superiority where adults believe it’s only because they worked harder that they have been more successful. 
  • “Why put off what you can do tomorrow till the day after tomorrow?” – Mark Twain 
  • Why do we procrastinate? We procrastinate because of fear. Not because of laziness. 
  • We often think of a task as being far more difficult and taxing than it really is. As a result we expend more emotional energy procrastinating than we would if we simply got on with the task.
  • I love deadlines. I need deadlines. Without the deadline I’d be about 90% less productive than I am. 
  • Procrastinating is a form of impulsivity. It’s a failure to delay gratification – like the marshmallow test. The question is whether you are going to do what’s best for your future self or please your present self? 
  • A procrastinator correlates with lower achievement and lower self esteem 
  • Upside to procrastination?- more creative. Procrastinating can be used as a useful creative tool. To connect the dots. 
  • But deliberately delaying a task or a problem to think of a solution – is that procrastination? Procrastination is used as a negative term to describe an action we wish we had done earlier. 
  • Tip 1. Break big tasks into small tasks. The dread is often because you are anticipating the enormity of a task like writing a book. When focusing on small manageable chunks progress becomes easier. 
  • Tip 2. Just start. Self deception. I’m just going to take a look. I’m just going to do 5 mins. Simply start and you’ll often find you end up doing more than you expected.

2 – This excellent TED talk – Why Schools Should Teach Children For The Real World – by Ted Dintersmith.

“As automation eliminates structured jobs and careers, schools should focus on training students to be bold, creative and entrepreneurial. Instead, argues education advocate Ted Dintersmith, the core purpose of education has been lost in a wave of testing, data and increasingly irrelevant metrics. In this talk, he underscores the need to educate for innovative and creative strengths, and trust our schools and teachers to prepare our kids for life, instead of standardized tests.”

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

This one will be short and sweet, just like my gorgeous silly boy who decided to start naming his nose after things!

Yes you read that correctly.

As my wife explained, he’s started pointing at his nose and saying things like, “This is car!”

I laughed before replying, “That’s good to nose…”

I’m here all week ladies and gentlemen!

Till next time…

Have a Happy Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

What can you write about that nobody else can?

(Thank you all so much for reading. If you have any suggestions, thoughts or ideas about today’s weekly post I’d love to hear from you in the comments at the bottom.)

PREVIOUS MONDAY POSTS:

Motivational Mondays – 24/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 17/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 10/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 03/08/20

Motivational Mondays – 27/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 20/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 13/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

200 Followers!

200 Followers!

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Can you believe it?

200 whole individual follower people!

That’s 199 people I don’t know and my mum! Hi mum 👋!

Extraordinary stuff.

Where do I begin?

Of course it’s been a long and arduous journey since I started blogging, with many ups and downs along the way, but to reach 200 followers is beyond my wildest expectations! (I’m guessing it’s beyond anybody’s wildest expectations!)

Couple this with winning what can only be described as the blogging equivalent of an Oscar last month, one could only conclude this is the finest blog in the entire blogosphere!

But don’t take my word for it, just ask my mum!

Now please bare with me while I try to be serious for a second…

I genuinely want to thank all of you who have taken the time to read my pokey little blog this year.

I started blogging because I wanted to help others in some way, shape or from, while also improve my limited skills as a writer. Having overcome a number of personal issues with depression and anxiety in recent years, I also believed I had something more to offer than simply telling people how great they are (which of course they are).

I’ve no idea if much my words have had any effect, but I can say with absolute certainty your words have helped me enormously. If I got into this because I enjoy writing, connecting with all of you lovely people is what will keep me in the game for much longer.

The sheer number of amazing individuals all trying to help one another become better people is truly inspiring. It really has been a great things to feed off of, especially this year.

To each and every one of you – for helping to teach me, to challenge my very limited ways of thinking, for engaging me with humour, love and compassion – thank you all so so much. You have all been a massive silver lining to the monstrous storm cloud that is 2020.

Love to all,

AP2.

Mystery Blogger Award #1

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By… 

The creator of this award is Okoto Engima.

First up, a massive thank you to BThought1 for awarding my exceptional blog Clear-Air-Turbulence this most prestigious award!!! I joke of course, I’m not sure how prestigious this award actually is… 😂 Seriously though, it’s an absolute honour you thought of my poky blog given the sheer amount of truly exceptional blogs out there. It’s connecting with wonderful individuals such as yourself that has made blogging so meaningful for me. To all of my lovely readers I highly recommend checking out his excellent blog. He’s a very insightful writer.

So what are the Rules for this most prestigious blogging award?

1. Put the award logo on your blog.

2. Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

3. Mention the creator of the award.

4. Answers the five questions you were asked.

5. Tell the readers three things about yourself.

6. Nominate your favourite bloggers.

Notify the bloggers( tell them you nominated them) by commenting on one of their posts.

7. Ask your nominees five questions with one weird or funny one.

8. Share a link to your best posts.

Onto the questions!

1. What keeps you motivated in these difficult times?
As a pilot I can tell you it isn’t flying! Aside from playing with my very silly family I’d have to say that blogging has become my favourite lockdown activity. It’s more productive than binge watching NETFLIX at least…

2. Are you a story-teller or a story-listener?
I’m a terrible listener – mainly because that requires patience. Telling a good story on the other hand is all about embellishing the truth, or omitting it entirely. This I’m very good at. 

3. Who inspires you the most?
Without a doubt my ridiculous two year old son. He has shown me more about what it means to be alive than any adult every has.

4. Why do you enjoy writing and blogging?
I think too much. Writing is an amazing way to focus the monkey mind on something positive. Left to its own devices my brain usually goes places it shouldn’t. A bit like walking around a dodgy neighbourhood past midnight. It’s actually quite dangerous.

5. What music do you like to listen to?
Before children I used to listen to many different types of awesome hipster music. Now all I’m allowed to listen to is the wheels on the bus go round and round. It’s ironic that my son thinks it needs to be played all day long as well.

3 things about myself: 

1. I’m half kiwi (the animal, not the fruit).

2. I became a pilot to travel the world not to fly aeroplanes.

3. I’m obsessed with psychology and philosophy .

My nominees are:

1. Pointless Overthinking

2. Word Of Wayne

3. Junkiegenius

4. Glitter In The Darkness

5. The Magpie Fancier

To all my lovely readers – all your blogs have inspired me in some way so please consider yourself nominated too! 

To my nominees please use the same questions above.

I hope you enjoyed learning a little more about me. It’s getting late here in Hong Kong so I’m gonna turn in. If you want to read some more of my fine work please click here. I would caution that my writing usually requires a pinch of salt.

Love to all X

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL – JULY 2020 – The Importance Of Crying, The Dangers Of Hoping, My Worst Landing As A Pilot and More…

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL – JULY 2020 – The Importance Of Crying, The Dangers Of Hoping, My Worst Landing As A Pilot and More…

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Hello lovely readers and welcome to my monthly newsletter. Included is a round up of what I’ve been writing and reading, plus some closing thoughts from this month. I hope you enjoy!

WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING:

Why Crying Like A Little Girl Is The Manliest Thing You Can Do

This post challenges the narrative that only girls should cry and why we need to stop telling our young boys that men don’t. It goes further to talk about the harmful narratives partially responsible for the statistic that men are 3 to 4 times more likely to commit suicide than women, despite being nearly half as likely to develop depression. I’m particularly proud of this one. I hope you can join the debate and be part of the change in narrative we need.

How Parents Can Promote The Evolution Of Feminism Mindfully

This follows on from the above post. It gives a few of my thoughts about why we need to be careful with what we tell ALL our children and how we, as parents, can manage the evolution of feminism more mindfully. As I stated,

“There’s nothing wrong with challenging the narrative women are less capable than men which, of course, is complete BS, but to teach our girls the same things we’ve been teaching our boys is not a smart move.” 

How My Worst Landing As A Pilot Came To Define Me As A Person

The following is a personal story about a particularly bad day ‘at the office’ for me. A story of my most traumatic experience as a young pilot. One that took me some time to recover from. That said, it is one I now look back on as a defining moment in my career. One that led me to seek the help I needed and shape me into the man I am today. I’m not only a better pilot because of it, I’m a better person. If anyone has suffered from depression, anxiety or PTSD, it also tells the story of how I overcame some of these personal struggles.

The Hopeless Nature Of Hoping

A rather one sided piece designed to challenge our perception of hope as an emotion. I believe that if hope doesn’t inspire action it can actually do more harm than good. Of course you have to take this one with a pinch of salt, but much of what I have to say is about challenging ideas and beliefs – not changing them. Even if I don’t completely agree with the argument, I still want to write ideas in such a way they start a dialogue/debate. I hope (ha) you enjoy.

The Secret Ingredient Missing From Every Conversation

Can you guess what that is? This post gives my thoughts on how one might better approach a conversation. This was actually my most popular post of the month. Hope you enjoy it too!

A C.L.E.A.R. Model For Problem Solving In Everyday Life

The CLEAR model is an easy-to-use, structured approach designed for problem solving on the flight deck of an aeroplane. Thought I’d share it with you lovely readers and apply it to problem solving – specifically dealing with depression and anxiety – in everyday life. Had a lot of fun writing this one.

If Honesty Isn’t The Value We Look For In Our Leaders Then What Does That Say About Us?

I’m not sure whether I want my blog to be overtly political or not, but with everything going on I decided to vent some frustrations. I mean for most of my words to come from the heart but this one is very much from the gut. I remember feeling angry as I wrote this and decided to go with it. I actually wrote it back in early June following the death of George Floyd but was hesitant to post it then. In the end I decided it’s that very awkwardness we all need to be confronting more regularly. At any rate, I think it brings up a very good point about the need to look for honesty in our leaders.

The Simplest, Most Effective Way To Overcome Writer’s Block

A fun little post to finish. This one’s a doozy. Hope you enjoy.

Motivational Mondays

My weekly newsletter designed to rewrite the narrative that Mondays are the most depressing day of the week and to get you in the mood for the week ahead. Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to in the week that have helped me grow. It finishes with 1 something silly to designed to make you lovely readers smile. The link above was this weeks post. Below are from the rest of the month. Enjoy!

Motivational Mondays – 20/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 13/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING:

So I decided to purchase this e-course called Blogging Bootcamp from the genius behind The Art Of Blogging. To say this was money well spent is a massive understatement. If you want to further your blog, be a better writer and grow as an all round human being, Cristian’s blogging bootcamp has it all and then some. I highly recommend anyone remotely interested in being a better blogging to sign up. I promise you won’t regret it.

WHAT I’VE LEARNT:

Do you want to know why I’m so excited about the time we’re living in? Why I’m so optimistic? It’s because change is happening. Change that is necessary to ensure we don’t go back to what normal was because normal has stopped working. I believe we are about to embark on the great global revolution of our time.

COVID has been one almighty wakeup call but this is just the beginning. Look at how united and politically involved the younger generations are! The change that is coming is inevitable. It’s no longer a debate. We ALL need to change our ways and the way we think about each other. We need to stop thinking as individuals and start thinking as a collective.

As sure as shit one person can eat a bat in a wet market and bring the world to its knees, you best believe that every single thing you do matters. Every single moment, every single action you take has a ripple effect that extents far beyond your immediate self. We are more interconnected than ever before. This isn’t a bad thing provided we can see how hurting another ultimately hurts ourselves. Provided we can see how important and precious each moment on this earth is.

I believe we are nothing if not the people before us and we will be for nothing if we don’t fight for those who come after us. There’s still an almighty storm to weather but together I strongly believe we can get through it. If you don’t want to sink you need to be on the ship.

Thank you for reading guys and gals. As always I welcome ALL thoughts and opinions on this blog. I’m very interested in having my beliefs and thoughts challenged so I can grow as a person. If you want to stroke my ego I won’t object either of course… Love to all. X

Motivational Mondays – 27/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 27/07/20

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Hello fine readers and welcome to my Motivational Mondays Post – a weekly newsletter that attempts to rewrite the narrative Mondays are the most depressing day of the week. (Or at least start it off in a slightly better fashion.)

Following a 4:3:2:1 approach, it contains 4 exceptional thoughts from me (ha), 3 admittedly better quotes from others, and 2 things I’ve been reading and/or listening to this week that have helped me grow. 

As always I’ve finished with 1 something silly to hopefully make you all smile. 

Love to all X

(To my lovely readers: If you have any suggestions, thoughts or ideas about today’s weekly post I’d love to hear from you in the comments at the bottom. Thank you all so much for reading.)

4 x Thoughts From Me:

Try not to simply think outside the box, but destroy it entirely. 

The need to be right is the ego equivalent of being on crack. It’s both extremely addictive and extremely damaging. 

Consider thinking less about making money and more about making friends. They can help you in a way that money can’t. How do you make the very best kind of friends? By helping others as a matter of course. 

Maybe we’ve got the order wrong. After school we tell our kids to go straight into university and then straight into a career. At which point so many of us wake up and realise we should have done something else entirely. What if, after school, we sent our children out into the real world so they can experience what it’s really like. To spend a few years getting by on minimum wage or doing volunteer work. To understand what it is to truly struggle. What if we gave them that sort of education first and then asked them what they want their life to be about?

3 x Quotes From Others:

“An eye for an eye will only make the world blind” – Mahatma Gandhi

“The important thing is not what we write but how we write, and in my opinion the modern writer must be an adventurer above all, willing to take every risk, and be prepared to founder in his effort if need be. In other words we must write dangerously.” – James Joyce

“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” – Søren Kierkegaard

2 x Things That Helped Me Grow

1 – This fascinating intelligence squared podcast episode –Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, with Jenny Kleeman and Carl Miller. In this episode award-winning journalist Jenny Kleeman discuses the unintended consequences future technologies might have for us in our quest to have the perfect sex, the perfect food, the perfect birth and the perfect death.

MY PERSONAL NOTES AND QUOTES:

  • Sex Robots – “One person’s bright future is another person’s dystopia.”
  • Abyss creations is a multi millions dollar business that makes hyper realistic silicone dolls to have sex with. The man behind it is now introducing animatronics to the dolls to make them as human as possible. Moving towards becoming a companion as much as just a sex robot. 
  • The implications? Claim to be doing this for the lonely – those who have no chance at a real relationship. On the flip side it’s those people who might really need real human contact. Will this really help them?
  • For me the much bigger problem is that people will be able to have relationships where only what they want matters. When you have this sort of relationship where only one side is ever satisfied – real relationships in the real world are going to feel a lot more like hard work. 
  • Vegan meat – “We shut our eyes when we open our mouth.”
  • We know animals often live horrible lives to become our meat. They cause cancer and heart disease. They are a massive contributor to green house gas emissions. Yet it’s still not enough to prevent most of us from eating it. However if we carry on like this we are going to cause our own extinction. Something has to give. 
  • 2 directions we can go. 1 is to eat less meat. The other is to eat the same amount of meat but in another way. 
  • Many tech giants are looking at the second option of growing meat in laboratories. This is different to plant based meats such as impossible burger or beyond meat. What they do is take a culture from a live animal without killing it and then replicate the cells to grow meat. 
  • It’s based on the premise that the ethical argument for eating meat has failed. (As it so often does). It’s better to tell people to eat certain kinds of meat that are better for the environment.
  • Birth – “It was far easier to find people to say on the record they would like to have sex with a robot than it was to find someone say they would like to gestate a baby in a bag.”
  • Using artificial wombs to gestate a baby. Referred to as ectogenesis. The motivation is to improve outcomes for premature babies whereby you can place them back into an artificial womb till they are ready to come out instead of trying to keep them alive in an incubator. 
  • The invention is called the bio bag. It’s like a zip lock bag which they fill with man made amniotic fluid and a cord that attaches to the umbilical cord to oxygenate blood and get rid of carbon dioxide (They had very successful results with lambs back in 2017).
  • The scarier implications are if governments start deciding whether a mother can be trusted to gestate her own baby. Although it could be looked at as a great equaliser. Both sexes just supply what’s needed and the women don’t have to suffer in their careers as a result. 
  • However I feel this “weakness” that we have is something that men unequivocally don’t have. To harbour and carry life. It’s also a source of strength. The essence of what it means to be a women. I think if we give this up it may actually be more beneficial to men than to women. Even in the most misogynistic societies women are respected for their ability to give life.
  • These inventions are going to exist either way. It is up to us as to whether we buy them or not. 
  • The question to ask is do we really need this technology or do we already have the answers?
  • I found it empowering to realise that we already have the power in our hands. It’s just that it’s going to be harder work than just buying for something. But isn’t that what will make us stronger? 

2 – This fantastic TEDxFolkestone Talk with Tim Box on the importance of having anxiety and how to stop feeling anxious about anxiety. “What would the world look like if no one had anxiety? The truth is that anxiety is a necessary emotion that helps steer us towards happiness. I would like to explore what a world without anxiety would look like, and why that isn’t necessarily a good thing. How there are only two types of people free from anxiety; psychopaths and the dead.” If you struggle with anxiety the following is well worth your time:

1 x Silly Thing To Make You Smile:

I’m struggling for a good story this week folks so instead I’m gonna leave you with the following meme that sums up my feelings about racism and prejudice.

Till next week…

Have a Happy Fucking Monday Everybody!

P.S. Don’t forget to exercise your silly muscle this week!

One bonus question for you all:

Is it better to live as a coward or die as a hero?

PREVIOUS MONDAY POSTS:

Motivational Mondays – 20/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 13/07/20

Motivational Mondays – 06/07/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 29/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 22/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 15/06/20

Happy F***ing Mondays – 08/06/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 25/05/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 18/05/20

Happy Silly Mondays – 11/05/20