Another way of measuring performance, the best Christmas album, crown shyness, herding cats, and more in The Zone No. 10.
- You’re Only As Good As Your Worst Day. Performance is often measured by what happens when things go well. But maybe we should look at what happens on the worst day.
- Ear Candy: the best Christmas album of all time is Frank Sinatra‘s The Christmas Album, without any doubt. I listen to it on repeat from the first advent to Christmas. A new favorite this year is Ingrid Michaelson‘s Songs for the Season. It sounds like a classic album from the 1940s, maybe the soundtrack to an old black and white Hollywood Christmas movie – but it’s from 2018. The album, inspired by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole, has a nostalgic touch that is wonderful!
- Internet is now flooded with “Best Of“-lists; this is my small contribution. It feels good to find something positive to say about this horrendous year. You can find other lists in the previous installments of the Zone here, here, and here.
- 52 Books worth reading recommended by TED speakers such as Bill Gates, Susan Cain, Simon Sinek, Stefan Sagmeister, and others, covering various topics (creativity, design, history, philosophy, mind and brain, work, etc.). A gold mine; make sure to check it!
- Smithsonian magazine’s Best Books of 2020
- Kirkus Reviews2020 Best Books of the Year
- The Most Popular Art on the Getty Website in 2020
- While we’re still on the subject of 2020: bad sex award canceled as public exposed to ‘too many bad things in 2020.’
- Quarantine Brain Nothing made sense this year — unless you were on the internet.
- Laughter may be the best medicine in Covid-19 times. Or complaining to a tree.
- Still on the subject of trees: have you heard about crown shyness? It’s a phenomenon observed in some tree species, in which the crowns of fully stocked trees don’t touch each other, forming a canopy with channel-like gaps. Their version of “social distancing?”
- Tsunami from Heaven: an amazing rainstorm time-lapse captured by photographer Peter Maier in Austria.
- Tuesday was the Cat Herders Day! The whole of 2020 has felt like an enormous exercise in herding cats.
My Zone
A Quote I’m Pondering
As I see it, not everyone who publishes a book is an author. They’re just someone who has published a book. The best way to become an author is to write more books, just as a true entrepreneur starts more than one business. The best way to become a true comedian, filmmaker, designer, or entrepreneur is to never stop, to keep going. They hustle, they keep creating. Very few of us can afford to abandon our gift after our first attempt, convinced that our legacy is secured. Nor should we. We should prove to the world and to ourselves that we do it again…and again.
Ryan Holiday
From My Photo Archives
NB: There won’t be a Zone post next week as it’s Christmas Eve. You shouldn’t be surfing the web then, even for such great content as this. Take care, be safe, and don’t forget to laugh!
The Zone will be back on December 31st with a special year-end edition.
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