Reading time: 4.33

1.079 words

Hey Reader,

It’s actually really easy to change things.

Not the huge things, like stopping orange tyrants from making wars or reversing climate change overnight.

But the small things that lead to the big things — it’s really easy to change those.

Like, people are sad and angry and scared, and that makes them want to blame other people for stuff that’s not other people’s fault, and then more people are sad and scared, and so it goes.

The difference between snapping at someone and smiling at them can be huge, right? I know it is for me. It can make everything grey or make my day.

So here are 8 ideas to help you spread a little joy and 6 of them won’t cost you a penny.

1. Compliment a stranger. Don’t make it (too) weird and be mindful of context but… if you love someone’s shoes or glasses or they look utterly fabulous, tell them! A woman on a train once made my day when she said just looking at my outfit made her smile because I looked like a ray of sunshine. I told an old lady dressed up to the nines in the Co-Op that she looked amazing, and you should have seen her face.
2. Dance in the supermarket. Not full on flash mob or Swan Lake, just a little boogie. I’m always dancing to the tunes in my head anyway, and if I hear a song on the supermarket radio I will dance with my trolley. It makes me smile, and it’ll make anyone who sees you smile too.
3. Put a note in a library book. I like to write a little something kind or funny or silly on a Post-It note and stick it in the library book I’m returning for the next person to find.
4. Send postcards just because. Pick a person you know at random each week and send them a postcard telling them something great about themself. Or a bad joke. Or both.
5. Stick googly eyes on stuff. :eyes I know they’re plastic but I think the joy of an unexpected googly eye balances it out. Carry them with you for mirrors, street signs, cacti, labels…
6. Leave treats for delivery drivers and bin colelctors, posties, gardeners, cleaners, maids, waiting staff… Maybe sweets or fruits or a Rubik’s cube or a book.
7. Pull faces at babies. They love it. It makes them laugh. Then you laugh. Then the parents laugh. Suddenly everyone is laughing and that is lush.
8. Find out what a stranger likes, then ask them tons of questions. Few things bring me more quiet joy that someone being interested in my nerdy little hobbies.

One thing that would bring me joy today: do you know anyone who’s thinking of writing a book? Would you introduce them to me please? Thank you so much!

Happy Friday and let’s open up the Goodie Bag.

Claire Linney’s top 100 books

The Guardian published the list of the top 100 best novels of all time this month. Toni Morrison is in it three times, which is cool, but it’s still more white and male than I’d like. And also quite worthy and literary with very little sci fi or fantasy, which is just as worthy as “high literature”. And no kids’ books! And where’s Terry Pratchett? Anyway, it’s obviously subjective because it was voted on by authors and critics. We can make our own lists, and author Claire Linney did just that.

I love other people’s “must read” books because it’s how I find books I might not otherwise pick up. And it’s how I diversify my bookshelves.

This excellent article on the coaching trust recession

Have you ever spent a horrifying amount of money on business coaching and been filled with regret afterwards? I have. It seems to be a rite of passage as a baby business owner that none of us should have to go through.

Lindsay Pinchuk wrote an excellent and detailed piece on the problems with high-ticket masterminds and it made me cross and made me feel better because my values are always “how can I help my clients get exactly where they need to be” and not “how much money can I extract from people” — it is possible to make great money and NOT be a grifter.

Scabba

I… honestly, I have no words for this absolute war crime. So, as we’re on the subject of business grifters, I present to you: Lewis and Dan with their hit single Scabba.

The New Yorker headline of the millennium

All other headline writers can go home now, Fran Hoepfner has won with:

I think this even beats “Blind bisexual goose named Thomas who spent six years in a love triangle with two swans and helped raise 68 babies dies at the ripe old age of 40.”

Actually, maybe not, but it’s a close second.

NASA’s Puzzle People

Listening to the BBC podcast 13 Minutes about the space shuttle, I learned about NASA’s Puzzle People. They were a huge team of youngsters who tiled the space shuttle with 34,000 heat-shield tiles. Then they pulled them off and rebonded them and did them again. They had t-shirts made with “puzzle people” on the back. How cool is that? There’s a story behind everything. Go and find one today. Then I’d love it if you told me about it, too.

What I’m reading

Just finished Wild by Cheryl Strayed and I absolutely LOVED IT. It’s her memoir of walking the Pacific Crest Trail, and her grief, and her journey from lost to found, and it’s SO GOOD.

I have a tottering pile of books — a tsundoku of books — and I really want to spend the summer on the beach reading them.

What I’m writing

I’ve started writing my other newsletter again — Late to the Party. It’s nothing to do with what I do here and it’s everything to do with being autistic and late diagnosed and comedy. If you’d like to sign up you can do so here.

Word of the week

Heliolatry: A worship or reverence of the sun.

Seems appropriate given the current heatwave.

Quote of the week

Stay cool everyone!

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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