The soft life

This week’s The Digest is jam-packed with fascinating reads on mindfulness, luxury fashion, tech and more. As ever, I share a wide range of interesting articles and insights, including how millennial women are breaking the rules in more ways than one, a short history of The Stanley Cup, before ending on a hopeful note with a fabulous TED Radio Hour about how the next generation could be the most sustainable yet. It’s a good one!

Read below.

I captured the above quote while listening to Galloway talk about his latest book, T​he Algebra of Wealth, and answering advice requests from a slew of young people worried about their career prospects in the current economy.

If you’re not familiar with the author, entrepreneur, previously NYU Stern professor in clinical marketing, he’s quite the character. I absolutely loved hearing him rant and deliver exceptional advice (and full disclosure of his own personal wealth). I suggest you try his book or find him on a podcast near you. Or if you feel like diving in, he's offering a course this May on the topic. Discover here.

​

Millennial women are breaking the rules in more ways than one. Many of them are leaving the corporate rate race in favour of the ‘soft life’. With a culture of near-perpetual burnout, some make the choice to no longer be defined by their output. I understand them. Side note: I’ve just argued my way to an SEO report that wanted to turn my podcast description to ‘mindful productivity.’

We’re conditioned to be praised or rewarded based on how much we can achieve. I always feel guilty when I don’t ‘do enough’, and I work for myself. Thankfully I have a therapist who tells me off about this. We need to learn to find value in who we are, to ‘be’ while we explore how to contribute to society without falling apart in the process. Read about it in the Guardian.

Barilla (the pasta) x Marie Kondo is an unexpected and quite joyful collaboration.

​Italy is entering a risotto crisis, and it’s serious (for risotto lovers like me).

This article felt like an answer to this piece from the Independent a couple of weeks ago, asking for ‘help, we’re drowning over here.’

Wherever you find yourself in that scale, you can look to this epic 80 year old for inspiration.

​A history of the Spanish Siesta, because why not?

This history of the Stanley Cup is THE video you need to watch this week. It’s beautifully made, funny and includes mesmerising business tactics. Watch here.

For comparison, or if you want more on the Stanley Cup, check out this Forbes video.

Side effects of both possibly include ordering your own Stanley cup (guilty!).

Read about the soap opera vibes of The Drama Kings of Tech. Are they the modern telenovela? Favourite quote: ‘They [the kings of tech] insist that they are the grown-ups. We will believe it when we see it.’

If you work in fashion, like I used to, you may be interested in reading about the ‘implosion’ of the luxury fashion etailers in the FT.​

In other related news, rich people are suing Hermès for not taking their money.​

Fascinating article on Reddit’s successful IPO and how the platform content moderation strategy was the maker of this success.

If you feel optimistic, beware, this piece on the end of ‘shared reality’ in the age of AI may elevate your stress levels.

Did we really need Gwyneth Paltrow to bring us a meditation app to meditate with our eyes open? I’m not sure. Find out about it here.

And do we think that anxious Gen Z needs to find mindfulness with a headset, thanks to the collaboration between Headspace and Meta for Headspace XR?

Meanwhile, Insight Timer (a platform I’m partial to since I offer live classes on their app, as well as prerecorded classes and my first online course, Loving Kindness 101) is battling Apple which currently takes 30% of donations received by the teachers. Apple considers us teachers a digital product 🫠 => I could not disagree more, because, well, I’m not a digital product. Bad Apple. BAD!

Watch Insight Timer teachers raise the issue in this video. And read a message from Insight Timer CEO on the topic here. Let it be said that #IstandwithInsightTimer.

Let’s close with a message of hope.

This TED speaker thinks the next generation could be the first sustainable generation. To share with young people near you because they probably would enjoy hearing that things may not be as hopeless as they’d think. Discovered in this episode from the TED Radio Hour, ‘Flipping the Script.’​