The Hippie Viking Blog

We have all gotten a voicemail that is clearly due to a mistake made by a re-dial that went to voicemail. As you listen to the voicemail, there is a moment about 3 seconds in where you realize the call was not intentional, and the person who called you may reveal private information that was never intended for you to hear. At that moment, you have a choice to make...Of course your curiosity starts to run wild. "oooh, I wonder what juicy things will hear? Let's see if they say anything about me. I hope I can get some leverage over this business deal by hearing them talk about a competing bid" - You did not ask for it, but you are forced to make a decision. My recommendation to you is this. IMMEDIATELY when you realize it was a butt dial, stop listening, stop the recording!!  Ok...NOW you have the ability to make a more pro-active, reasoned choice. There may be very good reasons why you do not want to listen to what may be on that recording. Some of them may actually be ...

Context: Right now, the entire country is on "shelter-in-place" lockdown due to covid-19. We are 1 week into this, and there is rampant fear, hoarding, etc. A coworker shared this with me:  https://www.instagram.com/p/B-A3NY2haqq/  - After recovering from a sense of stunned inspiration, I thought about how it could be that the "spirit" that moved Shakespeare to write this hundreds of years ago is being transmitted through such a performance from Patrick Stewart. This is the opposite of degradation. When a creative work emerges so powerful, there is only one direction it can go - down. Patrick Stewart's delivery, at it's best possible outcome is to simply move the precious cargo along through the slime and muck of vapid instagram posts. I, the listener get to unpack the precious cargo. There is nothing that Patrick Stewart "added" to the original goal of Shakespeare's writing, yet it took him a lifetime to be capable of delivering the contents u...

Steve Jobs was able to control Apple in such a way that his vision of how things need to work actually made it into the products. As a consumer, I felt that he was emotionally connected to the way that the things that Apple produced worked, and that emotional commitment transferred to me. I do not feel that anyone is committed that way to Apple any more. Here are some examples of things that just don't work the right way, but someone had to make a conscious choice to make them not work the right way. Playlists: If I add a song to a playlist on my phone, sync it to my Mac, I now get "Playlist 1". What?! That is just terrible. Who decided that this is the way that I want playlists to work? There is a "sync" button that is short for "synchronize" which is a misnomer, because that's not what it's doing. Please. Synchronize my playlists.  "Relocated Items" folder on the desktop. Please. No. Stop. Don't do that. Why are you placi...

I am constantly reminded of how the right environment well change my behavior. When sitting outside in a park allowing the sun to hit my skin and feel the breeze, I begin to relax. My thoughts slow and my breathing deepens. When I am in a crowded store and I have to keep fighting for position to get where I need to go, I have the opposite reaction. External space creates inner stillness and external chaos creates internal stress. Although it is possible to train yourself to manage chaotic external environments and remain relatively calm, it requires energy sometimes in the form of willpower in order to accomplish that. The default behavior that requires the least amount of energy is dependent upon the environment. The healthiest environment is an environment where the lowest energy choice is the highest quality choice. You are in control of the environments that you exist in. When you create an environment for yourself that makes the default option the healthy option you maximize your ...

If you have never experienced the Phil Hendrie show , I invite you to be severely entertained. Sometimes there is a person so talented, so unique, and just enjoyable on so many levels that you just have to divert your attention to them. My favorite shows are the ones where ostensibly a listener flipping through the radio hears the show, not knowing that all of the voices are one person, and calls the show irate and highly opinionated in opposition to one of the personalities. Then the other "people" start piling on, and a giant verbal brawl ignites. So many levels of funny. So much wit. You just have to experience his show.

This is a list of books that have impacted me. I annotated each so that hopefully that can help you (me?) know the "why" behind this book's relevance. Criteria for making the list: - Clear, readable prose (no Academese ) - Contains profound ideas that have improved my daily life after integrating them - Inclusive: Implementing the ideas does not require specialized pre-requisite skill - Passes the "lots of underlining" test. If the book is full of ink, it's made an impact on me My humble request of you: Please assign more weight to my annotations than the title of the book, or any pre-conceptions (if any) you have about the author. The Organized Mind Relevance: Reduces stress and "anxiety loops" by providing specific techniques for leveraging an "externalized attentional filter" so that you can remove things from your list of concerns with confidence. Who Referred it to me? Justin Bergh via the Julie Foucher "Pursuing H...

A "complaint" in the professional sense, due to dissatisfaction with a service or product is sometimes necessary in order to protect what we value. However, the complaining that I am referring to is when adults decide to hold a negative viewpoint of a given person, place, thing or idea and decide to tell us alllll about it. For example: "I can't believe he did that. He is such a jerk, and I have no idea how anybody even likes him. He has no consideration for others, and I just think that..." on...and on..... That kind of complaining is actually a form of arrogance. Because effectively what the person is saying is "My viewpoint is superior to their viewpoint, and I KNOW every detail of the situation, and would make a better choice in that situation than them." Complaining is a way to strengthen our own precarious, fearful and fragile egos at the expense of someone else. Often someone who is not within earshot, so that they don't even have the opport...