Hello friend,

I hope you've had a great week.

Mine has been pleasingly busy. I've particularly enjoyed delivering training on a range of topics including public speaking and equality, diversity, and inclusion.

On the subject of training, I am delivering a new one-day, in-person course next week called Presenting and Public Speaking With Confidence. I have a few places left, so if you're on-island, available, and interested, I'd love to see you there.

It's Liberation Day today in Guernsey, so may I take this opportunity to wish you a Happy Liberation Day, wherever you are in the world.

Now, onto this weekend's digest...

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✏️ Doodle Essays

This week's doodle essay highlights an issue I am becoming increasingly aware of. We know AI is great for reducing friction, but what happens when we outsource too much to AI? We need cognitive friction to learn. Are we at risk of removing it completely? I'd love to know your thoughts.

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📚 Read

Here are some articles from other creators I thought you might enjoy:

• Hanna from Card Catalog writes about our information diet and recommends creating an"information village" in this detailed article.
• Scott Young makes a compelling case for daily exercise in this article.
• Wes Kao helps us to reduce the cognitive load of our colleagues by speaking in the affirmative ("do this", instead of "don't do that").

If you're curious about the books I'm reading, you can see my library in Notion here: Martine's Library.

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📺 Watch

I'm currently carrying out a personal experiment: playing my ukulele for 10 minutes a day. I am curious about how much I can improve with such a small time commitment, and whether there will be any other positive outcomes.

​This short TED Ed video explains what happens in your brain when you play an instrument...

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As I mentioned in the introduction, I'm teaching public speaking a fair bit at the moment. For anyone not able to make my in-person sessions, but still interested in the topic, I highly recommend following Vinh Giang on YouTube. His content and teaching are excellent and I often share is work in my sessions. Here's a great example to help you speak more clearly...

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🎧 Listen

I enjoyed the latest episode of Cal Newport's Deep Questions where he talks with David Epstein about the theory of constraints. I'm curious about this topic and plan to read Epstein's latest book, Inside the Box.

​This episode of The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast (an interview with Dr Julie Smith on what do when you feel overwhelmed and cannot switch off) is next in my listening queue.

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That's all from me today. Have a great week, and I will be in touch again next weekend.

Best wishes,

Martine

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