In this episode, the Season 1 Finale of 8MI (lol..) I look into the connection between gifts,gratitude and gullibility to figure out whether kindness could in fact be a con!  After a break to focus on some other exciting projects, I'll be back for Season 2, but if you've only JUST discovered the podcast... Stick around! There's more where this episode came from and more yet to come. Till next time!

If you don't believe in Coincidence, then this episode was meant to be!  

In the space of less than a week, I was handed a full-page historical article called The Barbados Principle which had appeared in one of the major German daily newspapers, and then received a link to a forward-looking speech given by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amor Mottley.  What were the odds of that happening?!  The article and the speech are related, even though they deal with events and ideas separated by over 350 years!  

So, whether by coincidence or not, in this episode I share my thoughts on how an understanding of history can bring meaning to our plans for the future. 

I've always had a close relationship with my smartphone. It's such an indispensible extension of everything I do on a daily basis that I started noticing the extent to which managing its battery is as important to me as managing my own! Every action we take in our lives, be it on our phones or in the real world requires power or energy and carries behind it a trail of effects.  In this episode, I look at the connection between smartphones, energy, actions and their common denominator: Karma.

The exhortation "Pull yourself together!" was a staple of my education at boarding school in the U.K. It could be heard slung at a school child suffering from academic anxiety, at another who was interacting from emotion without the required "stiffness of upper lip", or even at those (like me) with slightly hypochondriac school-skipping tendencies.  In later life, I've often thought about what it feels like to respond to such a command or self-expectation, always concluding that, far from being in any way healing or constructive, pulling myself together generally feels like pulling myself apart!  One could argue that the notion of a "centre of self" into which a person can contract, pertains to what a person "feels" and "shows" more than who they essentially are', but for me the lines that we draw between those manifestations of self are...artificial.  In this episode, I look at the words we use to refer to "being ourselves", and how important they can be in how we judge ourselves, respond to judgement from others, and engage with the world around us.

Apple is preparing to enable its App Tracking Transparency feature by default on iPhones from early spring 2021.  In case you didn't know, (and I didn't) iOS apps contain and an Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA)  which can track the fact that you looked at a product on one app, and communicate that information to other apps so they can advertise similar products to you! These IDFA's are a form of behavioural tracker or "Cookie".  Until now, on an iPhone, you could only opt out of app tracking cookies if you 1) knew they existed and 2) knew where to find the transparency feature which would make the "opt-out" option available to you!  Unlike tracking between apps on iOS, tracking within a browser (like Safari, Chrome or Explorer) is regulated which is why you may have already seen user consent pop-ups when surfing the net. 

Realising that I didn't really know what Cookies are, nor what is behind the user-consent popups I often see in my content - so I embarked on a mission to find out! In this episode, I explain what Cookies actually do, what happens when you click to accept them, and what options you have to feel less spookily tracked by ads online!

Apart from the techniques I suggest in the episode itself, I would also recommend the use of a Virtual Private Network or VPN which adds another layer of protection to your online activity. I use Express VPN (not sponsored in any way) but there are a whole load of excellent VPN service providers out there. 

Your data is valuable, and worth protecting! 

When I created 8 Minute Idea, I always knew there would be topics that would take more than 8 minutes to present.  Even before the first episode was written, I decided to label these episodes [UNPACKED] as I have here for the first time for this special Inaguration Day Edition of the show. 

One of my teachers used to tell me that interrupting the everyday routine of "doing things" was like damming a river, a process which brings all the "debris of experience" that we all carry invisibly under the water of our conciousness to rise to the surface where it can be "scooped off" and scrutinised.

In my experience, achieving this sometimes means occasionally not actually doing anything for some time: hours or even a whole day to allow natural processes in the mind to be completed.  This episode is about that opportunity and why it's so important.

There is a close link between the way we see the world, the language we use to speak about it and the people with whom we resonate on the basis of our use of language.  In this episode, inspired by the 2016 science fiction film Arrival directed by Denis Villeneuve, which was, in turn, based on the short story, "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, I talk about my fascination with the power of language to influence life perspectives and gift new insight.  In Chiang's story, a linguist learns an alien language and [SPOILER ALERT] acquires the ability to travel through time... Touching on my own terrestrial experiences of language  as a  "portal", I explain why I think it's so important to be authentic about what we choose to say and not say.

Have you ever noticed how, once you've taken a position on an issue and expressed it, you tend to resist reversing it? Or how in the world of election campaigning, so-called "flip-flopping" is construed as a weakness and often attacked by the opposition?  We seem to prefer that our thoughts, opinions, and other aspects of our self-image be consistent, and we expect as much from our elected officials.  In this episode, I recount a positive childhood experience of this psychological phenomenon and illustrate how it can also be weaponsied against us if we're not careful.

In this episode, I talk about my fascination with food as a "feel-good" ingredient in my life, highlight a pandemic food trend and share an ancient recipe for spontaneously feeling better in any life-situation.

In the pilot episode, I share my experience of working in wildly differing professional environments based on my evolving interests, and what I've observed about Effort vs. Energy. For a long time, I believed that success was the product of one life goal backed up with tireless effort.  But in reality I have found much more happiness in allowing myself to follow the stream of my curiosity to see what sticks, why it sticks and for how long.  Want to share your thoughts?  Have an idea for a future episode? Send an email to [email protected] and add a voice message to be included in a future episode!