🧠Cultural Compass #2
A round-up of culture influencing my navigation of life.
Welcome back to the ‘Cultural Compass’ series of The Navigation, where each month I’ll be sharing a round-up of recently consumed culture (usually books, podcasts, articles; sometimes TV, and other miscellaneous items) that’s in some way had an impact on my thinking around navigating life.
Maybe something that’s caused me to reflect on an aspect of my life I want to change, something I want to strive for, a daily routine ‘hack’, or something that I just feel compelled to share, relating to the themes I’m thinking and writing about.
📰 Newsletter Legendary
First up this month, a shout out to one of the newsletters I have followed for a long time, having become a fan of its creator through a podcast she co-hosted with the equally fantastic
: The Weekly. More specifically, the March 10th edition in which Ann celebrated 10 years of the newsletter.In reflecting on how starting a newsletter becomes a practice, and how the culture of newsletters has evolved in the past decade (for newer and more experienced writers), Ann encouraged a further excitement for me about what this newsletter could become - if I let it. That is, not necessarily a world-famous media source, but a regular output for myself to keep focused on something; on the next step.
Ps. if you don’t already subscribe I can fully recommend signing up to The Ann Friedman Weekly, both for her own beautifully crafted introductions, and varied and interesting reads, listens - and even classifieds!
📑 Misconceptions on Authenticity
Following the mention of authenticity in my last post, this article questioning ‘what it really means to be authentic’ peaked my interest in yet another newsletter, that of Dr Rangan Chatterjee. Instead of diving straight in to what authenticity is, the piece chooses to look at what it is not.
Highlighting how we often think being authentic, showing up as our true selves, means being honest, consistent, and real, the author unpacks these and explains how we can still ‘be authentic’ even if we act different in different situations or with different people, or choose our words more carefully in some settings compared to others. What’s key is having an awareness that we do this, and of why we do it - but such awareness isn’t easily achieved.
Given the difficulty, or inconsistency, of reaching this awareness, the author ponders whether authenticity is actually more of an emotion, rather than the personality trait or quality we might usually think of. And so if we feel inauthentic, it could be helpful to really dig into why that emotion is being felt, what’s behind it.
The likelihood is we are actually showing up as our true selves - our only selves - because that’s all we have. However we act in, respond to, or engage with different situations is our only option. Who else is there to act, respond, engage?
After several read-throughs, I’m still pondering the insights and messaging in this one.
🎧 Creation and Connection
On a morning walk last week I listened to an episode of Grace Beverely’s podcast, Working Hard, Hardly Working, featuring Sharmadean Reid MBE - and boy did it serve some top ‘get sh*t done’ vibes! If you aren’t familiar with it, Sharmadean’s empire-building life story is quite spectacular, and her work ethic is second to none.
While we have different interests and strengths - I, for example, would never dive into making new software, just because I couldn’t find something already on the market to fit my needs, as Sharmadean pioneeringly did - hearing her faith, confidence and experience in being able to take an idea, run with it, and turn it into a success is quite awe-inspiring. As is her advice to find your niche, work hard at it, and become the go-to person for it. Not applicable to all career paths necessarily, but I think something that can still provide encouragement to commit to something you’re good at and want to develop further.
Most recently, Sharmadean founded The Stack World, bringing together women from all backgrounds to connect and learn from each other on a variety of issues and interests. Listening to her speak about creating such opportunities always gives me a bit of a buzz, and leaves me reflecting on how I could do something on smaller scale through my friendships and wider networks…
What are you reflecting on this week? Feel free to share in the comments below.
PS…
If you like what you’re reading, and want to help fuel more, you can now buy me a coffee through Ko-fi. While there may be paid subscription features for The Navigation in future, for now all is free to anyone who wants to muse and meander along with me, so this is a way to support my work in the meantime.