Category: Growth & Learning

  • Lessons from camping gear

    Lessons from camping gear

    Why would anyone love camping gear, lool 🤣 Yeah well, hear me out.

    High-end camping gear brands are pushing the boundaries. There’s a lot of competition and the best brands are fighting hard.

    That’s great for us the consumer. It means we’re continually getting new and better gear. I have titanium coffee cups from mountain designs and some gear from sea to summit. If you spend more, there are of course brands that are a lot more serious and cost a great deal more. For me, I’m happy with the ones I’ve found.

    What’s great about innovation isn’t just the new gear, it’s also the honing in on better functionality of it’s purpose. With each improvement, the gear performs better at something. Whatever it’s designed for.

    Smaller, more compact, lighter more durable is a theme in my life. I like small and high quality. It allows me to reduce my footprint and also move closer to a mobile lifestyle. What I think I’ve found though is, camping gear is so far ahead in design compared to the standard items that we’d normally use at home, that its starting to make sense to swap them out.

    Out go the big ceramic mugs from k-mart, in come the titanium mugs. As an artist that also loves ceramics, it doesn’t mean I’m throwing out my beautiful square mugs from Kyoto anytime soon.

    I love my mountain design mugs. They have a lid!! 🩵✨

    One lesson for me has been, just because something is presented to us in the stores and everyone buys it, doesn’t mean it’s the best option. Consider the alternatives, do the research and find the best option for you. There’s so much out there.

    Smaller means things take up less space, pack away better and they hold less if it’s a container. By putting restrictions on ourselves like plate and cup size, we train ourselves to also consume less.

    When I eat out in restaurants in Perth, one meal is often enough for two and it’s sometimes enough for four people. Reducing waste at home and consuming less, means using smaller utensils and crockery. If there’s less room to plate food, we eat less.

    For everyday use, camping gear rocks. Small, functionally superior and sustainably produced things are hard to ignore. So when it comes to selecting what stays in my life, camping gear is winning more and more.

    And when you think about it, camping really is a funny word. We’re always camping on this earth really, no matter where we choose to live.

  • Boil the bay leaf

    Boil the bay leaf

    There was a thread I was following that someone posted with a throw away comment about, “what does one bay leaf add to anything anyway?!” 🤣 Valid.

    There’s a lot of recipes that have a bay leaf or two in the list of ingredients but they never really explain much what it’s for or what it adds to the dish.

    When you think about it, there’s a bunch of common ingredients like bay leaves. If we take an elimination approach, we’d cook the dish in halves one with, one without bay leaves. Who can be bothered doing that though! 🤣

    But someone had a clever response to this problem, and that is to cook it on its own.
    Yes, put the bay leaf into a small portion of water and boil (or distill it if you have the gear) it until the water is flavoured by the leaves.

    Smart. By understanding the building block, we can start to comprehend what it brings to the mix.

    So yeah, ima try that experiment on the weekend. I wanna know what the flavour is.

    Thanks internet stranger 🧡✨

  • 5 years of swimming

    5 years of swimming

    I think it’s been at least five years, swimming every (almost!) afternoon after work.

    Years ago I decided to take my physical health a little more seriously. I can’t remember the actual reasons tbh, but I wanted regular exercise that was achievable, practical and not too expensive.

    I tried running, but it just wasn’t me. I can run, but it just feels like such an effort for minimal results. Maybe I’m doing it wrong 😂

    I’m so far, not a gym person. Instead, I use the kettle bells at home and I seem to be able to do most of what I want with those.

    My regular full-body exercise though, is swimming and I love it.

    It’s my switch off after work, it’s a cool down , it’s my mechanism for changing over to my time and it’s great exercise for my whole body.

    It is very cold in winter tho! But I’ve found over the years that I’ve gotten stronger and stronger with ignoring the cold. If the ice water is really healthy, then I’m getting a good dose of it. Recent research seems to indicate few benefits though it seems.

    If you’re looking for regular exercise regimes, what works for you and each person will be different, but I can recommend this combination. It works for me.

    In tough times, or when stress has been high, exercise and art have saved me and kept me sane. Regular physical body movement is the best, especially if you need to get out of your head.


  • Two great things in life

    Two great things in life

    We have the capacity to contribute good to the world on a daily basis and
    amongst all of the bustle of life’s journey, I think there are two really great
    things we can achieve as humans on this planet. Not all of us are able or
    want to, but these two are special;


    Create a human life
    If it’s what’s lined up for you in life, creating another human being that will live on and contribute to the betterment of the world is a wonderful thing. It may be the best thing you will ever do on this planet.


    Save a life
    If you happen to be in the situation where it’s required, where you have the skills and someone is in need of help – save someone’s life. It may be that you redirect someone away from danger, warn them, physically drag them out of it, or otherwise – but do it. Save their life so that they can live on and better the world. We never know what that person will become, achieve or effect in the world in the future.


    A while back my team and I made a thing, it teaches you first aid skills and it might help you save a life. It was the precursor to the current set of online first aid courses available at St John WA. More info: https://stjohnwa.com.au/first-aid-
    training/first-aid-skills

  • How to really get things done, each and every day

    How to really get things done, each and every day

    If you’re struggling with completing things, procrastination or a time of laziness, this blog might be for you.

    I sometimes get asked, how do you get so much done? It’s nothing to flex about. With experience I think focus just gets easier and easier. Ignore the noise, filter your inputs and keep your high standards. We all struggle at times though.

    We all meet periods of slowness (when comparing with our vision of life progress) or times where distractions or scattered energy take away our focus.

    I used to default to lists as my main management tool or motivational source. Make a list, write it down, publicly call it out, put it in the NY resolutions, make a this, make a that …. there’s endless ways to approach how to get things done in your life.

    Although I still use lists, now they’re limited to what is achievable in the day.

    One secret to completing something, is not the tool or list, it’s our commitment.

    If you commit internally (to yourself) that you’ll complete something, you will. Where and in what you write that thing down, or stick onto a whiteboard etc – doesn’t really matter.

    When you internalise the commitment of completing it, you will.

    You may not get it done in a day, many things take sustained effort. With an internal agreement of commitment though, completion is within you.

    If you’re unable to complete something, your internal voice should be sending alerts, “I don’t think so…!!!”. With practice, we can train this internal voice for more and more accuracy.

    Here’s what I do the night before or early in the morning. Choose the things for the day (usually 1-5). Better if they can be competed today. I order them around whatever else will affect work during the day (kids, other etc). Then I start and finish one and move to the next.

    It doesn’t always go like that, but as a general pattern it works. Take the time to finish one thing and tell yourself it’s done (affirmation, release). Then move to the next.

    With each task, I reaffirm the commitment to complete it, then just do it. If I have any doubts around it, I don’t even start it.

    Work like a ninja. That’s what my Japanese ceo friend used to tell me. Attack and move like a ninja, get the job done.

    Hope this helps you get things done.

    I know that when I struggle with focus, I come back to the smaller commitments and completing things one by one. It’s a solid method to rebuild confidence and momentum.