36 - Focusing on Values
Well this is certainly becoming the place to be every Monday morning - 18 new subscribers joined us this week. Welcome to everyone who is joining us for their first week.
Photo of the Week
I’ve known who would be featured in this week’s photo for weeks - just not sure exactly what my great niece Lauren and I would do for our second sleepover. We decided to go to ZooBoo at the Indianapolis Zoo and then try Indianapolis’s take on the chain The Sugar Factory. Loved ZooBoo. Tons and tons of fun. I was wholeheartedly unimpressed by The Sugar Factory. Regardless, Lauren and I had loads of fun this weekend.
Values and Focus
As Lauren and I were making our way around the Zoo on Friday afternoon, two or three times she said to me, "Aunt Nicki (*1), we have to focus". We would get distracted by seeing this animal or that trick or treat table on the way to whatever we'd planned to go to next. At seven, she already realizes that the world is full of distractions that can take us away from what we intend to do.
In this week's book note, I'm sharing my mind map of the first two chapters of Johann Harii's book Stolen Focus. Harii lays out his thesis in the introduction - to get our focus back we must act globally and collectively. Focus can only be restored to levels like we saw even just back in the 1990s if we act together.
I find his thesis interesting, although he hasn't convinced me yet.
I still believe much of what we focus on has to do with our values and remaining focused on our values. While I believe it would be an improved world if we all developed our values and tried to live them every day, I believe you can see enormous benefits by defining your values and living them on your own - regardless of what anyone else does.
Let's use social media for an example. I've recently been purposefully going on Facebook and searching only for the people I specifically want to see updates from on that day - a friend who was sick, a friend navigating grief, a friend celebrating a new baby, a friend with a new puppy. I did the same thing on Twitter a while back using a List on Twitter - a specific list of only the people I really want to see and hear from. These are my primary ways of using these two tools now. I do still scroll somewhat mindlessly from time to time, but far more often I’m using these tools to get information I actually want to see.
Social media is not an evil. Yet, for it to be good, we must use it thoughtfully. It has to be a partnership. When we browse anything - and especially our social media feeds - without purpose or intention, we are letting other people's values become what we give our time and attention to. Rather than spending our time looking for things that honor our values and our intentions, we're allowing someone else to show us what they value and to try to persuade us to their values.
In my quarterly retreat workbook, I invite folks to spend some time preparing for the retreat by looking back at their own social media feeds as well as to look back through their calendars and their checkbook registers/bank account records. Regardless of what you say your values are, these three things - in any combination - will show you what values you're living. I invite you into this same exercise. What values are you living right now and are they the values you want to be living? Where do you align with how you want your values to be and where do you need more alignment?
(*1) Confused by the Nicki reference? That's also me. I'm Kara Nicole Monroe. Depending on when you met me, you may call me Kara or you may call me Nicole or if you're a member of my family you may also call me Nicki - as Lauren does. Some people even have to straddle both names like my Aunt Idris with whom I worked for about a decade. I wear my multiple personalities right out in front.
Where’s Kara?
A quick summary of where I’m going to be hanging out online and IRL over the next few weeks. Join me, and if I’m visiting near you, hit reply and let’s meet up!
In Real Life (IRL)
I head to Denver, Colorado for most of this week! Looking forward to revisiting some favorite places in Denver. If you have suggestions for places to go while I’m in Denver, please hit reply and let me know what those are.
In early November, I'm in Northern Minnesota for a few days.
In late November, I'm in Baltimore, Maryland for a couple of days.
Around the Virtual World
Join My Course and Community - You will often find me hanging out in the course and community for my course “Facts of Life Book”. Do you need to organize your most important stuff for life’s most important moments? If so, then the Facts of Life Book course is just for you. With loads of templates, tools, and guides I’ll help you get your most important information organized. Newsletter readers - get in now for the low cost of only $25 for life!
AP Productivity - I’m once again joining my friend R.J. Nestor as a mentor in his exceptional course AP Productivity. We started a Cohort in October, but you can join in on the next offering by visiting his AP Productivity page and watching this space. I’ll always let you know when a new offering is about to begin.
Very soon, I’ll be announcing how you can join the planning Retreat for 2023. We had a total of 52 people take part in the Q4 retreat over two sessions and the downloadable retreat “kit”. Can’t wait to see how this continues to grow in 2023.
Tools, Tips, & Tricks
Throat Coat Tea
I came back from vacation with COVID. Since then, in between my morning coffee and my daily water intake, I’ve been drinking at least one cup of throat coat tea each day to help ease my voice. I LOVE this stuff and for sore throats it is the ONLY thing that eases throat pain and lets me keep functioning.
You can find Throat Coat tea in most grocery stores and even some stores like CVS and Walgreens. It’s also on Amazon. Bonus pro tip - I ALWAYS carry a packet or two of it in my bag so if I’m feeling icky when I’m traveling I can have some.
So, as you start to stock up on cold and flu season supplies, add in a box of Throat Coat tea with your chicken noodle soup and throat lozenges.
Stop Zoom from Going Full Screen
While many of you are back in the office regularly, I hear from everyone that there are still far more zooms than there ever were pre-COVID. One of the things that annoys me about Zoom is when it goes Full Screen when a meeting begins. There is a setting to stop that behavior.
Open Zoom (In Windows go to Start > Zoom, on Mac in the Finder just type Zoom and it should launch).
Click the settings icon on the top right hand side of the screen (circled in the image below)
On the General tab (which is usually what the Settings window opens up to) make sure that “Enter full screen automatically when starting or joining a meeting” is unchecked. It should look just like the circled red item below.
Once you change that you can close the Settings window and close Zoom. Zoom should stop taking over your entire screen every time it opens!
What I Published This Week
I’m starting to get back into my regular publishing routines although most of this week was focused on getting our Disney Wish trip posts completed. My bestie and travel buddy will continue hitting publish as she puts the final touches on each one but you can read about that entire trip from this link: https://www.iwannabemewhenigrowup.com/blog/tags/wish-inaugural-season. These are posted in reverse order so just scroll to the bottom for the first post in the series and then scroll up from there. These posts include links/embeds to 20 videos with nearly an hour of watch time!
I also added my personal thoughts on this ship along with a deck by deck photo gallery for the ship here: https://www.iwannabemewhenigrowup.com/post/bonus-post-kara-s-ship-tour
I also posted my September month in review and my Q4 planning retreat/Q3 review post.
I am also posting a Gratitude “thread” of sorts on Twitter and adding to it daily.
Facts of Life Book Series
As I build towards the official launch of the Facts of Life Book Course and Community on January 1, I’m continuing to publish articles about some of the many different things you might include in a Facts of Life Book. While I’m continuing to publish them on on Medium and Hive you can now see all of them on the Facts of Life Book website.
My Digital “Garden”
As a part of the Obsidian Vault Rebuild Series that I wrote on Medium and YouTube, I began using Obsidian Publish. This add on tool for Obsidian allows you to easily publish your “in progress” notes to the web. If you want to see what I’m thinking about, this is a great place to see inside my head. It’s always available at https://publish.obsidian.md/iwannabeme
This Week’s Featured Book Note
Each week, I’m featuring one book note from a book I’m currently reading. Click the image to view this week’s note as a PDF file.
I started reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari after I heard this book mentioned by several different people. I am not enjoying the book because I think Hari overdramatizes some situations to suit his needs and his overdramatizations are more off putting for me personally than those of most authors. However, this is a topic I’m passionate about so I’m going to perservere.
Diversion
I have not visited the Indianapolis Zoo since the Orangutan center’s construction was finished. Lauren and I had fun interacting with the Orangutans in the exhibit. I would say Katie featured in the video below is who we met. I pulled this video because I think it’s a nice feature of that center at the Zoo and the staff trying to enrich the animals.
Ways You Can Support Me
Join the Facts of Life Book Course and Community
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