Have you been down the psychedelic YouTube rabbit hole of kaleidoscopic videos? In this themed episode Juan and I discuss the topic of the 'Kaleidoscopes'. We start off with our usual MMM's and definition before explaining the story of Sir David Brewster and his misfortune on not making any money from one of the biggest fads/crazes to ever exist! We also touch upon: how to build a kaleidoscope, the different types of scopes out there, what you can expect from the most expensive version, why humans find these objects so fascinating as well as a couple more facts from the wacky history of this invention.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Intro & Mere Mortal Moments3:50 - Definition4:36 - The invention of the kaleidoscope6:56 - Patents & copywriting 8:24 - How to build a kaleidoscope10:50 - The YouTube rabbit hole12:58 - Types of kaleidoscopes15:45 - Most expensive kaleidoscope19:15 - Why are coloured patterns so interesting22:52 - The latest Victorian craze23:34 - A penny for a peek25:11 - The varying Mere Mortal content

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

Have you ever stared into a strangers eyes for a long period of time? In this episode of 'Musings' Juan and I discuss: our recent spreading of false info in Ep #122, the default mode network, my recent experience going to an eye gazing event, the different types of people you can encounter in life, my recent experience going to a Buddhist meditation session, the different types of meditation, finding your tribe, Juan's adventure to the Dragon Ball Z style Ivory Temple and the styles of meditation that we find effective.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Mere Mortal Moments1:30 - Calling each other out for spreading false information5:33 - Default Mode Network8:18 - Eye gazing13:37 - Altered vision and out of body experiences19:17 - Magicians, wizards and spiritual people23:59 - Learnings: finding your tribe26:55 - A Buddhist meditation session32:15 - The different types of meditation37:13 - Lovely people but not my people40:20 - Juan in the Ivory Temple43:30 - What meditation style works for the Mere Mortals44:49 - Come chant with us!

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

Relentless - the act of being unceasingly intense, become relentless when it comes to the things that have meaning in your life.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Meanderings, Interviews & Themed Podcast.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalsmedia.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_mediaFacebook: https://facebook.com/MeremortalsmediaSupport the show

What would happen if Australia introduced a Universal Basic Income (UBI)? In this episode of 'Meanderings' Juan and I discuss: would people quit their work and become lazy with a UBI, have we all been tricked into working for others, what would happen if we all received $1000 a month, the difference between a large UBI and small one, why incentives matter, why we need to be careful about Soviet style socialism and the Mere Mortals run for the 2024 presidency.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Mere Mortal Moments2:44 - Would Universal Basic Income make us lazy?5:21 - Have we been tricked into being productive?10:14 - Societal changes with $1000 a month UBI15:50 - What about for $50,000 a year?21:22 - Incentives for essential jobs23:52 - The slippery slope to socialism30:25 - Mere Mortals Management: economic plan

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

Tom Libelt loves to bounce around careers and is a man of many skills. He began his work life haggling with Russians/Poles outside of soccer stadiums before being faced with the ultimatum; to be an astronaut, circus performer, businessman or musician. He ended up choosing the two latter options (for now!!), releasing two albums before becoming a master salesman. Nowadays he runs Smart Brand Marketing whilst travelling between Thailand, USA and Poland.
In this discussion with Juan they begin with Tom recounting his childhood beginnings and how this shaped him into the person he is today. The second part revolves around some general advice on how to create a location independent business as well as the type of mindset and relationships you will have to create. The conversation ends with a deeper dive into overnight successes/silver bullets and how there is actually a huge amount of energy/effort/introspection that is behind every long-term, sustainable business.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Introduction1:08 - Tom's Mere Mortal Moment3:11 - Gym lessons applied to business6:15 - Haggling with Russians9:50 - A kid with nothing to lose13:24 - Astronaut, circus, business or music21:06 - Bouncing across careers25:35 - Selling SEO in the early days30:19 - Location independent business and Thailand37:30 - Partners, employees and business relationships42:46 - Semi-Retirement: knowing when to put on the brakes50:59 - Overnight success takes time54:37 - Resistance, the muse and turning pro58:14 - The problem with silver bullets1:01:06 - Anti-hustle book recommendation: Power of One1:02:18 - Connect with Tom & the staying power of social media
Connect with Tom Libelt:Website: https://smartbrandmarketing.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomlibelt
About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

What is the worst type of humour out there? In this themed episode Juan and I discuss the topic of 'Joking'. We start off with our usual MMM's (big overlap this time) and a definition before diving into the serious side of humour. But we don't stay there long before getting into some humour of our own. We chat about crappy styles of humour (pranks/sarcasm/dad jokes), my crash course in how to be funny, Sid the Cookie Monster and ending with how to take life a bit less seriously and see the joke in everything.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Intro & Mere Mortal Moments2:17 - Definition3:34 - Relief & Superiority Theory8:26 - The art of delivering a joke11:48 - Not a fan of prank videos, negative sarcasm and dad jokes18:07 - How to be funny!20:18 - The funniest Juan has ever been24:16 - Mere Mortal pranksters28:19 - The Cookie Monster's real name29:19 - Taking everything as a joke31:07 - Mere Mortals shirts

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

With the rise of instant translation technology is it a waste of time to learn a new language? In this episode of 'Musings' Juan and I discuss: why consultants always are flexible depending on the context, the miracle morning and the SAVERS acronym (silence/affirmations/visualisation/exercise/reading/scripting), what our morning routines look like, whether we are losing skills due to an overreliance on technology, how translation earbuds won't work very well in practice, is the next generation going to be incapable of basic tasks (like reading a map), why humans and the ego is resistant to change and how the dinosaurs really died!
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Intro & Mere Mortal Moments3:11 - The consulting mindset: it depends4:25 - SAVERS: the miracle morning7:59 - Being inflexible about your wake up time9:06 - The Mere Mortals morning routine18:00 - Losing skills due to technology20:11 - What's the point of learning a language?27:02 - Will my kids be incapable of basic skills?30:53 - Anti-technologists resistant to change35:24 - Dinosaur conspiracy theories36:48 - A hot planet full of Kyrins; no Juans exist

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

Is it a Sprint folks, a Marathon or something else entirely...
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Meanderings, Interviews & Themed Podcast.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Website: https://www.meremortalsmedia.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_mediaFacebook: https://facebook.com/MeremortalsmediaSupport the show

Is it good to workout at such intensity that at the end of a session you need to vomit? In this episode of 'Meanderings' Juan and I discuss: the wonderful powers of baking soda to eliminate body odour, our differing philosophies on a healthy intensity for a workout session, avoiding exogenous chemicals in shampoo/deodorants, whether constant use of hand sanitisers can actually make you sick, the book 'The Dorito Effect' and why food tastes differently than the past and heirloom tomatoes and the general disgusting taste of tomatoes.
As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - MMM: Public service announcement on baking soda3:34 - Is it ever good to puke?6:35 - Working out so hard that you need to puke11:17 - A more naturalistic approach18:57 - Can hand sanitiser be detrimental to your health?23:31 - The Dorito Effect by Mark Schatzker25:25 - Tomatoes taste like shit

About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show

James Dooner is the director of the Australian division of 'The Foot Collective'. TFC focuses on creating foundational health in the body by focusing on proper foot health and also creating a community around the aspect of 'play'. In this conversation James and I explore the ways you can create better foot health (walking barefoot/minimalist shoes), why intrinsically motivated play is so important for not just children but also adults, getting back into nature and how to create a community.
Unfortunately the audio quality in some small certain sections was corrupted so don't worry, your device is not malfunctioning! The bulk of the audio is fine though so please persevere through those couple of 30s periods where the quality deteriorates. As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!
Timeline:0:00 - Overview of the discussion1:25 - James's Mere Mortal Moment2:48 - The Foot Collective Australia9:55 - Separating the person from the company12:56 - Creating a community as a business15:29 - Why intrinsically motivated 'play' is important25:56 - Getting back into nature and reconnecting with our nature26:21 - How to create foot health and solve underlying injuries33:32 - Influential books38:22 - Goals related to keystone morning habits41:55 - When will you go a full month without hearing about COVID45:51 - Connect with James and TFC Australia
Connect with James:https://www.instagram.com/tfc.australia/https://www.instagram.com/thefootcollective/https://tfc-shopaus.com/
About Mere Mortals:Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.
Connect with Mere Mortals:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mere_mortals_media/Support the show