Category Archives: Pondering

Review: Growing Up Aboriginal In Australia

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Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia
Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia edited by Dr Anita Heiss
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful book Growing Up Aboriginal Australia is.
Full disclosure, my amazing Mum wrote one of the stories featured.

It’s a touch sad to finally complete it. I’ve enjoyed flicking through and reading one or two of the stories from time to time at random.

This is apparently a sign of a good book.

Some of the accounts brought joy, truly brightening my day with appreciation. Others shared a more solemn account worthy of reflection.
I acknowledge the strength of all the authors putting their very personal stories to paper.

It made me think deeply about my own view of growing up Aboriginal in Australia.

For that I am grateful.

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Before podcasts were cool

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This week I enjoyed some replies to Kim Kardashian West’s excitement about the Serial podcast. They were mocking that antiquated platforms like MySpace and Blackberry Messenger would be buzzing with news about a podcast which kind of peaked back in 2015.

It made me reflect on podcasts in general.

For those unfamiliar, a podcast is just radio on the internet which fetches new episodes when they’re ready, and you can play them whenever you want. How cool is that.

I’ve enjoyed listening to them for roughly 12 years now.

Podcasts now download onto my 70 year old mother’s smart phone, after she got me to subscribe her to something she wanted to follow.

From what was initially quite a complicated and nerdy pursuit, it’s wonderful to see ditsy reality TV stars are now enjoying them too.

My own tastes in podcasts have changed over time.

I thought I’d archive my current subscriptions for future reference. No doubt, this will continue to change over time.

Ryan's podcast subscriptions
List of my podcasts subscriptions – Sep 2018

I think I’d classify all my podcasts into a Venn diagram of:

  1. For fun
  2. To learn
  3. and the overlap of both.

I’ve listed them in the order that I tend to listen to them.

Fun:

  • Criminal – Perhaps the greatest podcast voice ever, Phoebe Judge.
  • Everything is alive – This is an interview with an inanimate object willing to share its perspective. There has been a can of cola, light pole, pillow. They all have a story to tell. It’s early days for this one, and shows some promise.
  • note to self – one I’m not always into, allegedly detailing the impacts that technology has on everyday life.

Learning:

  • 99% invisible – For me, one of the best podcasts around, certainly the best web site – covering the hidden design and architecture which shapes our world.
  • Design of Business, Business of Design – very cool interviews with design leaders and the role it plays.
  • Freakonomics Radio – if you enjoyed the book, you’ll enjoy the podcast with author Stephen J. Dubner or Steven Dubner (depending where on the Wikipedia page you look).
  • Stanford Uni’s DFJ Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders – maybe my first ever subscription. Each episode brings amazing insights from an expert in entrepreneurship.
  • HBR Ideacast – Nice short summaries of latest Harvard Business Review topics, often including interviews with the authors.
  • Coffee pods – Aussie Holly Ransom interviews leaders in various fields that can offer some wisdom and experience to inspire others.

Equal parts of Fun and Learning:

  • No such thing as a fish – from the QI TV Show elves, a weekly podcast of the funniest/quirkiest facts they found.
  • ReplyAll – nerdy podcast about the Internet, so about everything in general.
    Bit of an addendum: there was a significant protest by some ex-staffers regarding the show’s culture and management. Disappointing to hear, glad I had stopped listening before all this came out.
  • The Allusionist – fun accounts about the origin and interesting parts of language.

I used to listen to some which would fall completely under the Motivational category. But quite contradictory, I found they were all very easy to tire of.
The better ones were The Tim Ferriss Podcast, (though over 5 minutes of ads led me to take some of his Four Hour Work Week advice and drop media inputs which don’t meet your goals). And Lewis Howes is a great guy and has a popular podcast called School Of Greatness – though for me, he used it far too much to promote his books. So I currently have no motivating ones in the playlist.

Similar to the old iPod adage, you might be able to tell a lot about someone from the podcasts they subscribe to, or don’t. And it’s always interesting to find others who like listening to similar stuff ..

The next phase of more mainstream podcasting might be interesting as major players get involved, and advertising becomes more sophisticated and captures larger (though maybe more fickle) audiences.

Podcasts have been an invaluable companion for my daily commutes. And I’d like to think they’ll get more useful with things like smart speaker devices, and connected homes.

I’ll check back some time to see what’s changed.

Chance encounter with The King, and Review: Out Of The Shadows

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During our Australian holidays, we had a chance encounter with rugby league great, Wally Lewis while walking into Brisbane Airport.
It’s interesting how sometimes you can spot a celebrity from a mere flash of them quite a distance away.

He was kind enough to pose for a photo with us.
In case he needed some convincing, to seal the deal I mentioned I did name my second son “Lewis” afterall.
I forgot to add that my first son is Myles, so we have pretty close to the famous Wally Lewis and Gene Miles combination.

Wally and wife Jacqui were lovely during our short interaction/interruption while they were on their way to the Dally M awards.
We were grateful, and it had me recounting to the boys again how inspiring he had been as a player.

 

Out Of The Shadows

A few days later at my parents’ place, the boys were flicking through some papers on the bookshelf when they came across the Wally Lewis book, “Out Of The Shadows”; by Neil Cadigan, and Wally Lewis.

We should ignore the fact that my Lewis saw the cover and excitedly exclaimed “Oh look, it’s Dr Phil!”

I decided to read the book before leaving Brisbane, as a result of our chance encounter at the airport.

When you’re like me and average reading 5 books a year, completing an entire book in just three days is what’s called a challenge.

Reading it was quite simple really. The book was a lovely and warm account. I’m probably similar to a lot of Queenslanders, who knew only some of the story of Wally’s epilepsy. The book gives great perspective. It shares the full chronology leading up to the diagnosis, and then living long-term with the disorder while still leading a busy professional schedule. I really had no idea how big an ordeal this was, and accounts from others supplemented the events along the way. It really uncovered my own ignorance around epilepsy. It’s no spoiler that the story has a happy ending. Many aren’t so lucky.

I’m glad I read this book, which I was certainly encouraged to do after seeing The King in the flesh. It made me appreciate how inspiring Wally is as a man.

A wonderful account of The King’s biggest battle outside of rugby league, epilepsy. It was nice to read more about the man who inspired so many on the sporting field, and now is arguably doing even more important work in lifting awareness of the disorder – and even taking control of your health generally.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Also, I went through our Brisbane holiday photos from 12 months earlier.
On that trip we managed to catch a Broncos home match, where the boys got their first encounter with King Wally Lewis, the Emperor of Lang Park!

Wally Lewis statue

Broncos vs Parramatta Eels 24/08/2017

 

Tips for a rich life, LOL

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When I began earning pocket money as a kid, I was pretty good at saving.

It was almost an obsession. (An obsession I eventually got over.)

I had thoughts of becoming an “infinityaire” – a term I coined, like a millionaire or billionaire, except the money never stopped growing.

To go with these earnings, I figured I’d lead quite an extravagant life with lemonade on tap.

This life didn’t pan out.

(Perhaps beyond my years, that affluent vision had me having no children.)

I don’t own aqua-coloured jeans.

I’m unable to buy something from Amazon without scrutinizing the cost.

Perhaps this is a fortunate place to be in. I appreciate every little thing that fills my life.

And I’m kind of proud, a $10 bottle of wine tastes about as good to me as a $100 one.

In other areas I’ve found ways to live a wealthy life, without the wealthy price tag.

Did you know? Buying new socks is an economical way to get that new shoe feeling.

I’ve shared here some tweeted tips for feeling rich, without needing to be so:

And lastly, perhaps feeling rich can be a matter of how you communicate:

Review: True Girt

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True Girt
True Girt by David Hunt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

At the outset, it’s probably a good idea to clarify, this book is not “True Grit“ by wee-drinking author Mr Bear Grylls. Although if you’re after a tale of desperate and deprived actions of slightly deranged people in perilous conditions, you may not be disappointed. *sound of tucker bag being zipped up*

I enjoyed this follow-up to Girt.  Both books provide a great antidote to the shiny history of Australia we were taught in schools ‘down under’. Many of the key figures in founding the land became celebrated as place names, but it took a volume like True Girt to aptly describe how many of these characters were.. well.. a bunch of pricks.

Along the way, we appreciate how unique Australia is.  Where else is there a such a massive convict past, a sponsored horror of injustice against the original inhabitants, an unexplorable land so enticing to work-experience explorers, and then an uprising culture of rebels who appear to this day as tattoos amongst proud pre-grownups? And then there was the discrimination against other religions and races – glad we sorted out that issue long ago.

Australia has a history that beggars belief, but it’s what a few of us call home.

Many gold nuggets were shared, like Australia inventing what became standard democratic processes (with a few oversights).  And we finally learn the collective noun of Hipsters. It makes sense.

True to the author’s word, this follow-up has even more hilarious moments where I laughed out loud before looking around nervously.

I look forward to whatever next installment comes.

A good thing about history, it doesn’t stop.

 

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Review: The Princess Diarist

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The Princess Diarist
The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Audio books usually lack something compared to regular books. It’s not the case when you can hear the late great Carrie Fisher reading her own brilliantly funny account of the wonder days of Star Wars and its ensuing fame. It made me smile every day. Perhaps a more appropriate title would be “My infatuation with Harrison Ford”.

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#AlcoholFreeApril

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Once again, I challenged myself to drink no alcohol for the month of April. And I pretty much succeeded.

I failed to check in on one day – which does stand out on the calendar.  It happened after a lot of deliberation with myself. I decided a friend’s (all-inclusive) wedding was a reasonable excuse to enjoy a few drinks. I convinced myself it’d be rude of me not to.

Throughout the year I feel I’m a moderate drinker.  Some nights I enjoy a beer or two.  At times though, it feels a little too much of a habit. And the reasons to enjoy a drink seem to outweigh the many positive reasons to not have one.

April is a good enough Cold Turkey demonstration that I don’t need alcohol in my life.

I knew I could do it. Although the notes I logged through the month don’t seem to show an unwavering resolve:

Once the month was done, I joked that I could wake up at 12:01am on the 1st of May and get smashed, or wait until breakfast. Instead, I stayed alcohol free a few more days into May, which is a good sign.

I might now consider a few further teetotaler initiatives which people refer to through the year.

There is the increasingly popular Dry July fundraiser, and the month of Oc’Sober’, and “No Alcohol November” which might be a good lead-up to the excesses of Christmas.

Let’s see.

In fact because of Christmas excesses, in January I used to reactively take a month off alcohol.  The results were impressive. On top of no alcohol, I would return to eating normal foods and quantities, and easily drop around 4 kilogrammes.

 

The end of this #AlcoholFreeApril made me think further into an idea I had for a supportive system – dare I say it, mobile app.
Its goal would be to help people understand their own drinking habits. It’d do this objectively, and set such clarity that it’s easy to follow progress. And intelligently it would encourage/”gamify” when it would be better to not have a drink.

Here are a few of the features I’ve considered:

  • Help to identify a goal you record & track against, which highlights how well your weekly behaviour is aligning.
  • Set a particular day or two where you never drink. Breaking this comes with a penalty.
  • After drinking for a few days in a row, there should be the right encouragement to pause.
  • And likewise, after drinking certain quantity of drinks, there is a baseline to get you back to your goal.
  • On the positive side, perhaps it could give a green light to have a drink, after a length of time or after certain physical activities/stresses .. perhaps you can save these up for the right time.

 

OR, you could just go through life using your own will-power; supplemented with the occasional month off.

Although, where is the fun in that?

2016 goals smashed – just. Kind of.

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In 2016 I again tried to make continual progress over 12 months in a couple of personal areas I find important:

  • Running 1200kms, and
  • Reading 12 books.

Both of these numbers neatly ensure each and every month I keep running and reading. Or, so I hoped.

In reality, it’s never that simple for me.

My 2015 goals became a real challenge when the priority shifted from running to looking for new job opportunities.
And this past year, after beginning a new role opening an ambitious new attraction I struggled to find the time & head-space to read for pleasure.

Unable to find time is such a cop out. The obvious truth is, if you find something important enough, you make time. But we’ll get to that shortly ..

 

Run 1200 kilometres in a calendar year (supposedly 100km per month)

As it turned out, my running goal was quite straight-forward to complete this year.

In fact, I ran 1374km in all (exceeding even the cliched 110% effort).  This was mostly on account of running a second marathon in the year during my Australian holiday. It really wasn’t planned like this.
My parents coincidentally booked my boys and I into a wonderful resort on the Gold Coast on the same weekend in July as Australia’s premier road race, the Gold Coast Marathon. The marathon course passed two streets away from where we were staying on Surfer’s Paradise. And it happened to be where I ran my first marathon back in 2007. So I saw no alternative but crank up the training in the month before we left Dubai, and run the popular event.

It really boosted my kilometres. Usually my running tally flattens right out in July during Dubai’s summer.

 

Read 12 books in a calendar year (supposedly 1 book per month)

My reading goal on the other hand, it really came down to the wire.

I made almost no progress in the first half of the year. A couple of times I wasn’t sure I’d make it. November became such a stressful ascent, and December’s four books seemed almost insurmountable.

But I kept reading when I could, especially on my commute to and from work.

Right until the final afternoon of 31st of December, I was literally reading while running .. well, listening to an audio book on my final long runs.

Then after my exhausted return from 32.5kms I had to finish reading a final 40-50 pages.   But I managed.  I completed the final 12th book and my reading challenge.

S-U-C-C-E-S-S

It’s a good feeling to again complete these two resolutions, particularly after it seemed that one goal became near impossible.

Maybe it’s a strength to adapt to life and fit in such a variety of things, not focusing on a singular goal.

Perhaps my subconscious enjoys the drama of bringing things back from the seemingly impossible.

If so, perhaps I’d like to retire this part of my subconscious in 2017.

Making some regular progress each and every week would be wonderful to avoid getting into stressful situations with little time remaining.

Let’s see what 2017 brings.

But there was actually something I didn’t complete this year as planned ..

 

Publish 12 blogs in a calendar year (supposedly 1 blog per month)

When I renewed my 1200kms and 12 books challenges, I also thought to myself that I’d like to blog 12 times.  Again, at the start of the year this is a number which seems so easy.

In January an obvious blog for me is to write about the Dubai Marathon that I tend to run. And it seemed like a particularly good story this year as I had trained hard, and even employed a new training regime with an expert online coach. What an uplifting blog to write, in my 9th year of running to return to my best form. Though for a couple of reasons, I didn’t finish close to my goal time and I felt quite disappointed for many weeks.

I thought I’d get over it, and still share my thoughts from the day.  But this disappointing blot kept me from writing for a month. And it kept me from writing in the month after that when we had a nice trip to Ras Al Khaimer, a repeat of the trip we take each year – which I wrote about in 2015 (“Another RAK half weekend – 13-14 February 2015”).

Even in July when I holidayed in Australia I didn’t document my usual notes from our adventures. The fact that I had a resolution to write 12, demotivated me to recover the blog situation. I wasn’t getting back onto the horse.

Finally in December, I enjoyed the Striders half marathon too much and had to pen a few notes from the event, (“Yet another Striders half – 09 Dec 2016”).  And perhaps it was decidedly restarting the practice for the fresh running season and the coming year.

So the final score card has just one blog out of 12, for the 12 months.

Interestingly, when I was reflecting on my 2016 goals and I remembered the blog idea, it almost didn’t seem like a resolution. I gave up on it so early and so easily, I suppose wasn’t really serious about this one this past year.

2017?

I’ll take off the pressure for 2017, and blog as much as I feel – with no reference to any arbitrary numbers.

But I’ll definitely read 12 books & run 1200kms.
I’ve got two years experience that no matter how challenging it seems they are to achieve, I always have them COMPLETELY under control.

*Sigh*

2015 goals, SMASHED!

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At the start of the year I created two goals.

One was a regimented goal to run 100kms per month, 1200kms over the year. It was a hopeful attempt to maintain a better level of fitness rather than getting into prime shape for a marathon now and again.
Last year I set a goal to run 1400kms in the year. It was a pretty random number except that it was the year 2014 – and I wondered if I could challenge myself each year to increase the figure accordingly.
Nope. I failed 1400, by quite a margin.

So this year, I was more realistic and wanted to be slightly less arbitrary. 100kms in a month isn’t too far for a runner, but covering this distance each month for a year is beyond anything I’ve done before. To put the overall distance into perspective, 1200kms is the distance between Brisbane and Canberra (a 13 hour drive).
Things began well, like each year’s goals generally do.
Though just before summer, without any warning, my job vanished before my eyes. I was seriously considering a return home to Australia.

Unsurprisingly my running was hugely impacted. I managed maybe just one bitter-filled run per week.
I added a median line to the total kilometres graph which my running app plots. Its trajectory showed the 100kms per month I should cover. In July, I think you can actually see my kilometre progress crying in depression as it failed to keep up with the plan.
2015 running goal
The kilometres dropped so far that by the end of June I had run only about a quarter of my year long goal.

Fortunately the cliche did apply, ‘When one door closes, another one opens’. In two months I started with a new employer, and gave myself a month to settle before returning to my running goal with a vengeance.

I started a new routine, upping the kilometres in quite a big way.  It wasn’t easy to keep up the momentum with everything that was happening in life.  Though having gone through such a big challenge on the job front, there was enough new-found determination to keep me unwavering from making the time.

In fact, I only missed two sessions in the next four months of training.

I did the math and planned the distances for each and every run. With two months to go, it still looked unclear whether I’d reach the goal or not.

As I ticked over the runs in the final few weeks I could definitely see the finish line.  It was just a matter of continuing the focus.  I clearly made it, after a monster 231kms logged in December. It was the longest I’ve ever run in a month, to make it the longest I have ever run in a year.

 

The other goal I set for myself this year was to read 12 books in the year. Supposedly that’s one book per month.

With all the reading I do at work, I sadly don’t feel like reading for pleasure. Hence the attempt to bring back the habit.

Having these two goals could always make for an interesting finish, as it gets close to the final deadline. I can imagine frantically reading while running the last few kilometres in late December.

But this year I did have an old trick up my sleeve, given my new daily commute.

It could be argued listening to audio books is not reading. My thought is it definitely is.  I listen and interpret the words, just as I would if I had read them.  I plotted the progress against the goal also, but this trajectory was more easy to manage.

2015 reading goal

 

Goodreads, where I plotted my books kept a nice record of the books I read as part of the year’s challenge:  https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2015/12648231-ryan-brinkworth. And all the books I’ve read with reviews are on the site as well, https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/12648231-ryan-brinkworth?shelf=read

 

2015 turned out to be a good year.

It’s one I can always reflect on as the first time I smashed my goals, despite a pretty major challenge along the way.

A lucid reality

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I often forget my dreams. At times they’re so boring, I maybe just don’t see the point in remembering them.

But one particular dream I keep remembering. I believe it’s what’s known as a lucid dream.

In it, I was with my brother in a particular shopping mall in Australia (Strathpine to be precise), and at that time I only had my first son – who would have been two or three years old.

Something happened while my brother and I were walking and my son got separated from us. It was a scary situation considering he was so young and the mall was so big and busy with people.
My mind quickly filled with panic. I wondered where he could have become lost.
At that point, I remember it crystal clearly, I thought to myself I could either run around frantically retracing my steps; OR it’s a lot easier to avoid this worry and wake up from this dream.

It was a clear option, a completely stress-free one. So I simply woke myself up and felt instantly relieved. I knew all was well, and felt so grateful to avoid the incident – even if it was just in dream form.