The Best Communicator in the World
by Jon Wortmann for ChangeThis.com
If you feel shy, nervous, or afraid, you’re not crazy, you’re not alone, and today is the day you stop letting ugly communication damage your relationships. Authentic communication can become as natural as breathing – when you pay attention to a few essential aspects of what connects people.
read on…
In bathrooms, boardrooms, buses, bagel shops, and everywhere else, we all need to imagine a little girl following us around, repeating everything we say and everything we do. Think about all the things you want for yourself and your daughters, granddaughters, and girls everywhere – and teach them by living it yourself.
Nell Merlino in
“Stepping Out of Line: Lessons for Women Who Want It Their Way in Life, in Love and at Work (Broadway)
What a quote.
What a reminder.
What a fact, worthy of that constant consideration
Are you living it?
I really like where Bernard Salt for The Australian is going with this article.
And I suspect, so will most mothers as it resonates around the values stuff that we would like our children, and in turn all those around us quite frankly, to not only understand but to demonstrate…
Especially when sometimes we feel like we’re the only ones trying to live and breathe such a message. As we have all come to realise at some point or other, sometimes consistent role-modelling can be tough!
THE media has gone into a frenzy in recent months tracking the minutiae of recession trends evident in consumer spending.
“Lipstick sales are up” because women are spending on small indulgences rather than on complete outfits. “Hemlines are down” because women are more conservative during a downturn. And my favourite, “Men are reverting to beards” because they don’t have to buy razors.
Others (well, me) are talking of a new morality that is underpinning consumer behaviour: green is not just good for the environment, it is good for the soul. All of a sudden, conspicuous consumption is shameful and frugality is honourable… read on
and whilst on the subject of what is good for the soul… so to is travelling. I’ve often thought of putting a hit list like this together myself, but hey when someone beats you to it (namely Ben Groundwater from The Age), and their list is very similar to yours… then I only need supply the link!
Australia’s been built on a tradition of pinching the best stuff from other countries and claiming it as our own (Russel Crowe aside). We’ve stolen other people’s food, we’ve stolen their drinks, we’ve mastered their sports and claimed their bands.
So I don’t think there’s anything wrong with knocking off a few more gems.
When you travel, you tend to notice certain things and think to yourself, “Why don’t we do that in Australia?” Here’s a list of some of those things. I say we give them a shot.
1. Siesta (love this one)
2. Self-service bike hire (we really like the fold-up bikes, and the many SMART cars on the road)
3. No ties
4. Sharing food
5. Autobahns
6. Drinking laws
7. Beachside bars
8. Singing
9. Philandering world leaders (not sure about this one!)
10. Island time
for more details, and/or to make comment…read on
I read Alain de Botton’s latest gem whilst swanning around Spain, on “adventures with daughter”. I really enjoyed it. I do like the way he writes; and I do like what he says, and how he says it. I am a fan of his offerings I must admit.
I’d like to see him extend that to the Pleasures and Sorrows of being Entrepreneurial…I’m sure there would be many a good tale to be told and many great questions to ask.
I am particularly encouraged to see that he, and noted others, are putting their money where their philosophy is, and have set up The School of Life. Oh to be involved in something like that here in Australia…
Lynn Barber from The Age got to interview him whilst we were away. I’ve included it here, “The Way Words Work” for your viewing pleasure.
Been back nearly a week now…my, where has that time gone?
Slowly but surely getting back into the routine and rhythm of what is our daily life. Can’t wait for the next adventure though. But until then, daughter has basketball training this evening!
I really like this top 10, and they still work equally well when travelling with children. This is my comment which I added to this post, in reponse to the question…”The best thing you’ve learnt while travelling?”
The best thing I’ve learnt about travelling?…has to involve children.
My life as a traveller can be split into two, pre-daughter and post-daughter. What I’ve learnt about that is this; they are equally as exciting and rewarding, they are also completely different.
I made a decision early on that my adventurous life was not going to cease just because a little bundle of joy made an unexpected entrance. She is now 11 years old and has been to more countries than I had been before she arrived! Well not quite, but close enough.
Do NOT stop travelling once you’re a parent. Experience the different ways the same people, the same places even, will react to you and little one, and love it all over again. Doors open for you (in more ways than one!) and bring out a richness in folk that you had no idea about.
Maybe you can’t go as often as you’re now financing two! but go anyway. All of you, and all of those you meet, are much better off for the experience.
Happy adventuring!
jambo jambo
I’m sitting in the back row of the computer school of Nungwi (northern Zanzibar, Tanzania), in the middle of the Excel and Internet class. I’m using the spare computer that they rent out to tourists to raise money to keep the computer school going. Call that entrepreneurial or what!
I am pleased to report that most of the students are female. So watch out world, here they come…
an update…
We arrived in Zanzibar Christmas Day. Not our average kind of Christmas Day by a long shot, but certainly one of the most memorable. We shopped and bargained and purchased (as most on Zanzibar are Muslim and therefore do not close for Christmas… bonus!).
Once we’d had enough of that we went to the Africa House Hotel and sat in luxuriously rich surrounds watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean. Whilst not the most spectacular sunset ever, it was still pretty special. We then had to shop our way back to the hotel (of course we did) before finding ourselves rubbing shoulders with the locals at the seafood market along the shores of Stone Town. Not your average market by any means, one where the fish comes straight from the water onto the BBQ, cooked for your culinary pleasure. To finish off was to indulge in their specialty, chocolate and banana pizza… hhhmmmmmm
Boxing Day was spent finishing off the shopping (because of course we did not complete the job the day before!) and then headed north, to where I find myself now.
Its been a good rest here as the constant tent erection and dismantling was wearing a little thin by day 8-9. So to have time out by sleeping in beds, lounging for a day or two really as recharged the batteries. To the point where my girl has had her hair braided, her ankle henna’d and her tan lines sufficiently added too…
Next we head back into civilisation, to Dar es Salaam and then off to Malawi for more lounging and camping…
We hope the fat bloke in the red suit found you well and was able to assist in making your dreams come alive.
ho ho ho denise
kwaheri
