#031 ✰ 2021 we're coming after you
Energized and optimistic as hell.
Bonjour 2021!!
I hope you’re just as excited as I am to start this new year.
I wanted to start with how grateful I am to work on a mission that I love with two dudes I admire and care for, yep these two. This, in itself, is incredibly fulfilling.
I am equally proud of my other job, as the mom of the funniest 20-month boy in this world, and I am excited to be nurturing another little human as I speak 👼. How can I be anything else but optimistic!
👋 For the new comers, hello and welcome! Our mission here: we want to help people free themselves from rampant consumerism, so that they can dedicate more time, money and bandwidth to be and build. 👉 We want to be the tool that empowers your future materialistic decisions.
I have read - you too, probably - countless newsletters about resolutions the past three weeks. And then, this: “January 19 (…) the day people are most likely to give up on their New Year’s resolutions.” [thanks Ulysse]. So by the time you’re reading this newsletter, most of the ambitious resolutions I’ll have read about, would have vanished. Psshtt. 💨
I am not blaming anyone, I think it’s human to just want to erase what’s behind us and start the new year, fresh and ambitious. We’ve all done that. For three consecutive years now, I’ve done a simplified version of Tim Ferris’s Past Year Review, and it has helped balancing the mood of the last days of the year (plus it’s really fun to re-read it in retrospect).
To start 2021, here are the two angles I find most interesting to explore, personally:
1. Changing our mindset rather than our circumstances - Dr Laurie Santos
We think that changing our circumstances will improve our well-being, but the research on happiness suggests that changing your circumstances just doesn't work as well as we think. New circumstances might make us happier for a little while, but you tend to get adapted to awesome new circumstances pretty quickly.
And that’s why we're actually better off focusing on resolutions that involve changing our mindsets. For example, trying to look at the world through a different lens; trying to become more present; trying to become more grateful; trying to become more compassionate. Those are the kinds of changes that really will have a longstanding impact on our wellbeing. The problem is that we don't realize changes like these are so powerful, and so they tend not to be in the big list of new year's resolutions that we see every year.
More about it here.
2. Resetting the digital - OM Malik & Anil Dash
Here’s what I have done to start the year:
unfollowed all the blogs I never really read / could not find value in
unfollowed (for the same reasons) some newsletters I had subscribed to
de-activated notifications for the apps that were just distractions
deleted apps that didn’t bring any value / where I was losing my time (e.g. Instagram) + those I haven’t used the past 3 months
I can already feel the difference. Less junk. More focus.
What’s up, 2021?
📲 the app
a new onboarding flow
Starting now, only the folks taking the onboarding tour with me will get to test our alpha. We want to make sure you receive a personalized experience and the best out of our product.
Feel like it's for you? Sign up here [direct access]! 🥂
Know anyone who's being intentional in buying less & better?👇new feature : Your Acquisition History
👆 a brand new view, over 6 months, of everything you acquired, per category.
disclaimer: I am counting all the toddler stuff as mine, don't judge eh 😝what’s coming next : your Shopify & Amazon orders… right in the app!
We’re working on facilitating the adding flow with a forward feature of any Shopify and Amazon order confirmation email. Stay tuned!👯♀️ the community
We host weekly get-together in our Discord, happening on Thursdays, 6pm GMT.
Each time, we’re starting around a specific piece of content / question.
Yesterday, we commented Matt D’Avella’s newest documentary on Netflix: Less Is Now.
If you’d like to be a part of this crew, here’s how!
💡 the library
📖 The Icarus Deception, by Seth Godin
About owning your one and unique life. About creating art and shipping it out there. One of the quote that most sticked:
(...) after he [Columbus] returned from a voyage, the naysayers in the elite were giving him a hard time about his trip, pointing out that if he hadn't done it, well, someone else would have done it anyway. It was inevitable, no big deal. According to a book written in 1565, this is how he dealt with his critics:
Colombus did not respond to these words but asked for an egg to be brought to him. He placed it on the table and said: "My lords, I will lay a wager with any of you that you are unable to make this egg stand on its end like I will do without any kind of help or aid." They all tried without success and when the egg returned to Colombus, he tapped it gently on the table breaking it slightly and, with this, the egg stood on its end. All those present were confounded and understood what he meant: that once the feat has been done, anyone knows how to do it.
📖 Les Vertus de L’Echec 🥖🇫🇷 , by Charles Pépin
L'échec, ce tabou. Charles Pépin illustre à merveille comment les échecs ont forgé les grandes femmes et les grandes hommes de ce monde, comment apprendre d’eux rend heureux, aussi. Il évoque le tabou (français?) dans l'éducation, en entreprise. Echouer c'est pourtant notre condition d'humain pour apprendre et devenir meilleur.
🎙 Zen Habits, Antifragility, Contentment and Unschooling, Leo Babauta interviewed by Tim Ferris
The whole thing about unschooling is absolute gold (55”) “School (and home-schooling) is about conformity, your ability to follow the rules (…) it takes the decision-making away from the kid”.
Can this explain why so many college kids are now so troubled with the consequences the pandemic had on their lives? Suddenly, the structure disappears and no one’s here to tell them what to do. This is sad.🎙 What the Enneagram Says About Your Money Style, Rachel Cruze (Dave Ramsey’s daughter) interviewed by Ian Morgan Cron (thanks Julie P.)
Funny to re-take the enneagram test - Mathilde on Jan 13th is a 3>7>2 -. Can your personality type influence your relationship with money and stuff?
Our library is collaborative, so please don’t be shy and recommend the great content you’ve digested recently!
Have a beautiful day and weekend.
Entering a new lockdown with a smile and a good book (The Consolation of Philosophy).
Take care,
Mathilde 🔮
