Thoughts at 5am

For the last 5 days I’ve been focusing one thing only at work, deliver a presentation about a topic that I knew nothing about 1 month ago. That is climate change. My task was to make a presentation to the most important policymaker in the country to convince him to act on it. The funny thing is I was skeptical about climate change a month ago, so first I needed to convince myself or try to be less skeptical. I read everything that I thought was relevant to educate me, then delivered a presentation to the management last night at 8pm (my usual bedtime). My presentation was 8 slides long including cover page and outline page, which makes only 6 slides of content. As I presented in 15 min, I felt like an imposter each minute of it. I don’t remember ever having this feeling, “pretend” to be an expert about something that I’m definitely not. Fortunately, good preparation, being humble, keep it simple and focused, paid off. It left me 5 hrs of sleep as I couldn’t wind down but I felt good.

Valentines days is approaching and I have no idea what we will do. Sofia has been secretly preparing for gifts using house craft. I love that she enjoys making things for the family for special events, as if those events are excuse for her to make something.

Evening walks after dinner seems to be the new norm. The moment the last one finishes, the person would say ready to go. It is a great way to finish the day and the girls simply love to be outdoor whenever they can.

I just read this article about two different type of people view on happiness. I’m definitely in the camp of Epictetus, I feel happy after accomplish something hard. If something does not me feel a bit uncomfortable or scared, then it’s not challenging enough.

Listened to Tim Ferris show with founder of Netflix. I really like the show and I could listen them for hours. Some people is just so charming and energetic. Regardless of the content, how it’s delivered probably determined 50% of the success. Something to keep in mind. I often spend so much time in preparing the content that left me little time to prepare for the actual presentation. But more and more, I plan to leave more time to practice delivering to make the content more impactful.

My plan for today:

• go for a short run
• golf with Sofia
• do January finance
• work little
• read more
• walk longer
• sleep early