Four Friday Newsletter #6

This is the content I’ve sent to my friends subscribed to my newsletter approximately a week ago; now available on the blog.

If you want to receive this before it goes live, sign up to the Four Friday newsletter, designed to bring the four coolest, most useful, sometimes the funniest, most awesomestestestestest things I come across. Four. Every Week.

The Four Friday is designed to make your life easier, at home or at work. Hacks, tricks, articles and tools to live a better life. Sign up HERE.

Below the video and under that the transcription with the links to the various resources and references. Enjoy :).

Transcript and links:

Hey guys, happy Friday. If it is Friday indeed when you get this. Yes, changing things up. This is the Four Friday, which is four cool things, four usable things, four groundbreaking things, four tools, four objects, whatever it is that I come across every weekend and I’ll share them on Friday. This is not a sales newsletter, there’s nothing to sell. It’s really to add value. This database is growing quickly as well, so please share the cool things that you find and I’ll be happy to include them in the Four Friday Newsletter and share them with the rest of the community.

A book I am listening to for the second time
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins.

It’s an incredible audiobook that really embodies the challenging of beliefs, of what is possible. It’s the story, incredible story, of this guy who comes from incredibly challenging upbringing and circumstances and literally transforms his life, his mindset to become the baddest ass on the planet. The story is told in a very raw way. It’s a raw story by nature, but it’s also told in a very crude way. So it’s not for the faint of heart.

But it’s incredibly inspiring and it really challenges us, it challenges me at least, to look outside of excuses, look outside of the comfort zone, look outside of what we believe is possible. The author isn’t inviting anybody to either idolise him or do what he did. But certainly, the story really pushes you to ask yourself difficult questions, which by default will make you better. I don’t want to spoil it here. Just read it (or listen to it – it’s available on Audible).

Best Running/Sport Headphones I have Had – under £100.
AfterShokz Trekz Air Open-Ear Wireless Bone Conduction Headphones

The second is a cool purchase, the coolest thing that I’ve ever bought under £100. I have gotten into running again. I have now fully recovered from my knee injury. So I’m starting to run and to train. I’ve got a good but very heavy pair of headphones and also have the classic buds that you stick into your ears. Neither of which are very good for running. So I decided to invest quite a bit for a pair of thin, very light headphones, I think about 99 quid, and I bought this bone conductor type headphones. They don’t even go into your ear. They just sit next to it. So if you cycle or if you run, you’re still aware of cars.

They are incredible. They’re amazing. They’re light, waterproof. It’s truly incredible. It’s probably the best sub £100 purchase I’ve made in the last few years.

Something for the Netflixers
A 6-part series based on true events

A Netflix series that I watched, which really took me to another place is The Spy with Sacha Baron Cohen, which, probably because you don’t expect him to be in such a serious role, takes you by surprise – a pleasant one. A true story of a 007-type agent from Israel, who infiltrates Syria, befriending all the most powerful people to get all the way to being … Well, I don’t want to spot it actually, but anyway, it’s been a very intense and eye-opening experience to watch it. Six episode series, which is also why I like it because it’s nice and short, and yes, mind-boggling. Really, really good. I watched it when I was travelling and I watched all of it on the planes and it has been really remarkable.

A brief word on mental health and social media

Number four, mental health. So this is neither something that I found or something that I’m recommending. It’s just something that occurred to me recently. I’ve been travelling a lot and speaking at a lot of events including a large Google event. You obviously post these things on social media and you look cool. It looks like you travel, it looks like you speak at important events and you are successful. I received a few messages and a few of them said things like “Oh, I’m so pleased that you’re doing so well.”

Actually, that made me reflect because yes, things are going well but things don’t always go well. Even when things are going well, within that, there are parts of our lives that don’t. And that’s normal.

There are days when I’ll wake up and procrastinate. Sometimes I feel down for no particular reason. We’re all in the same boat. Sometimes we are more up than down and sometimes we are more down than up. Some of us go through bigger challenges than others at any given time. But I guess the message here is to not really compare our entire life, our ups and our downs to somebody’s five minutes on Facebook or Instagram. What we post on social media is the best part of us, most of the time, and I think what we do naturally is to look at it and think, “Oh wow, look at them. They are doing well in business. Look at their new car, they look happy as a couple. They’re going on holiday. Shit, my life is rubbish compared to that”.

All those things are just highlights of one’s life. Sometimes they are not even true – there are many pretenders on SM. And when they are true, they’re only parts of life. It’s very normal for people to be up and down. We tend to compare everything that we know about us, with that little snapshot that we see about somebody else, and I don’t think that’s a fair comparison because it makes us feel very low by default. Comparing isn’t a good idea altogether, but comparing our entirety with someone’s highlights is a really bad one.

Remember, progress, not status, is the real driver of happiness.

That’s it. That’s the Four Friday for this week. I’ll do all I can to send Four Friday every week but sometimes it will come every two weeks or three weeks. It doesn’t matter. If I’ve got nothing useful to say, then I’ll say nothing. I wish you a great weekend and I love you all. See ya!

❤❤❤❤