Here are a few links that captured my attention this week:

1.  Congratulations to Rosie on her TED talk on failure and vulnerability.  She talks about how creative work makes you vulnerable and relates an ability to tolerate vulnerability to perseverance and success.  I resonated with how hard it can be to get negative feedback on creative work.  I got flashbacks of my university painting critique.  Every person’s work before mine sparked lively discussion.  When it was my turn, there was dead silence.  It was awful, soul crushing.  It ended well though because weeks later the dean of the art school stole my painting and had it exhibited at the state capitol building. It can feel vulnerable writing here too.  I’m not a “writer”, I just happen to write (mediocrely), and in order to keep doing it, I had to develop a tolerance for negative judgment.

2.  Marketing is insidiously creeping into everything.  I know there isn’t anything inherently wrong with it; it’s a necessary part of the world we live in, and people do need to make a living, but I still find myself feeling resentful at how intrusive sponsored content has been these days. Are there no more sacred spaces?  To better understand how I felt, I looked up a journal article on a study investigating the cognitive and emotional reactions of readers to sponsored content on blogs.  The takeaway is that I’m not alone here.  When disclosure about sponsored content is given, readers automatically defend against persuasive marketing with cognitive counterarguing and negative emotional reactions.  And those with higher education levels are more likely to react this way.

3.  Last month, my bank account was wiped out and I almost went bankrupt.  A chain analysis revealed that an important email reminder got lost in my inbox.  I was able to resolve the issue but the stress of it all got me looking for a solution.  I found a practice called inbox zero.  My inbox went from thousands of unread mail down to zero.

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