“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.” – Lemony Snicket

How To Get Addicted Reading Books

Since January, I have embarked on the goal of reading 500 hours worth of books in 2025. 

After studying some of the alleged daily habits of men like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey, I identified a commonality among them: They all read several hours daily.

After seeing that my own excuses for not reading enough could usually be chalked up to “I don’t have enough time”, I got real with myself. 

I was spending more time daily on social media than on reading. 

While some might find this depressing, for me it was hopeful- I had enough time after all.

So I decided to gradually wean myself off Instagram and replace that time with reading using a habit-tracking app. 

The result was promising; most weeks now, I average at least an hour a day, if not more. I have gone through several books this year so far, and am actually excited to read more. 

Books have opened my mind, opened doors, and even helped regulate my nervous system and feel more calm. 

Why am I saying this?

Well, it’s as simple as this: I want you to know this is possible for you too, especially if you, like me, have ever found that amount of time for social media every day.

Today, I want to tell you some of the books I have read this year that have completely changed the way I see the world, and the way I design my future. 

This way, you can dive head-first into reading, and finally build the reading habit of champions. 

My Top 4 Favorite Non-Fiction Books This Year So Far

#1: Cradle To Cradle (By: Michael Braungart and US architect William McDonough)

Of all the books in this list, this is the book I have read most recently, and it is an excellent starting point for anyone interested in learning about why we need, and how to build, a circular economy. 

I really enjoyed this book because, firstly, it was written from a fundamentally interdisciplinary perspective. One of the authors is an architect and the other is a chemist, which lends the book a rare nuance. 

As the authors discuss their experiences working with different organizations to turn their “cradle-to-grave” designs into “cradle-to-cradle” ones, you get to go on a journey into many different facets of industry, and see both the particular points where we can improve (with examples), while also seeing the larger web of materials and how they flow throughout their lifetime. 

One of the most striking insights of this book is the emphasis on material invention over material rescue. 

While it’s common for recycling tech to focus on repurposing materials once they’re downstream, Braungart and McDonough explain the importance of designing for circularity right from the start. 

Not only does this approach take away the threat of environmental degradation, but it can also reduce costs and be safer for human health.

Secondly, I was impressed by how the authors explained the importance of giving people room to indulge in new technology without wasting materials. 

They discussed the concept of “product of service”, which I have spent a lot of time thinking about, especially for products with technical materials- think TVs, phones, roasters, and so on. 

This means manufacturers retain ownership of their materials while consumers keep the ability to explore new trends. 

#2: The Creative Act: A Way Of Being (By: Rick Rubin)

I loved reading The Creative Act so much that I decided to reread it the second I reached the back cover. 

Now, I am going through it a second time, and I am still picking up insightful ideas that I didn’t fully absorb the first time around. 

What I love about this book is its variability. It consists of many tiny sections, each acting as a meditation on a particular idea relating to creativity, being an artist, and what it means to not just create art, but to live the life of an artist.  

What I appreciated most was how the book challenged the idea that creativity has to be tied to productivity. 

Rubin reframes the creative process as an act of presence. 

You’re not making something to be useful or impressive—you’re following a thread because it calls to you. 

He also talks about the role of the artist as a channel—someone who doesn’t force ideas, but receives them, like tuning into a frequency. 

It reminded me that making something worthwhile often comes from stillness, not from strain. After each reading session, I walked away from The Creative Act with a renewed trust in creativity and an even deeper commitment to protecting the quiet, slow moments that tend to be the birthplace of my best ideas.

#3: Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself (By: Dr. Joe Dispenza)

Of all these books, this is one whose lessons I have applied most directly to my daily routine, specifically in my journaling habit. 

 It bridges research from neuroscience, quantum physics, and personal transformation to challenge the way we define reality and change our lives. 

Dispenza argues that most of us live on autopilot, repeating patterns that keep us stuck, not because we lack willpower, but because we’re chemically and neurologically addicted to our current identity. 

By shifting our internal state and mastering our thoughts and emotions, we can literally rewire our brains and recondition our bodies to a new future.

What I loved about this book was how it reframed personal growth. Instead of obsessively chasing goals or endlessly tweaking habits, it invites you to begin with energy and identity. 

It challenged me to stop trying to change my life by force and instead start embodying the type of person who already lives the life I want. It was both grounding and expansive—scientific, yet deeply spiritual.

One of the book’s most mind-bending ideas is that defining your present reality solely through what you can perceive with your senses is the greatest limitation you have. 

At the atomic level, we’re made of only a fraction of actual substance—the rest is just energy. 

So why are we so focused on rearranging the “matter” instead of tuning into the energy?

#4: Essentialism (By: Greg McKeown)

As a lifelong people pleaser, Essentialism finally gave me the tools to identify what to say no to, and highlighted that to say yes to the “essential” parts of life, we inevitably have to say “no”. This is the rubric to know what to say no to, how, and when. 

As someone who has struggled with overcommitting and people-pleasing, Essentialism gave me a much-needed mental rubric for making decisions. 

The biggest shift was emotional: I stopped feeling guilty for wanting white space in my schedule. Instead, I began treating simplicity not just as a lifestyle, but as a path to freedom and fulfillment.

The main insight I got from this book was that simplicity is a crucial but underrated ingredient to happiness. The essentialist knows that less, but better, is the goal.

After all is said and done, how you spend your day is how you spend your life. 

It’s easy to forget this. But Essentialism asks you to zoom out and build a life with intention, not just momentum.

How To Build The Book-Reading Habit

Now that you have my top reads from this year so far, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts.

The million-dollar question: How do you go from scrolling for hours a day to reading for hours a day?

I have an answer for you, but it’s not short. In this post, I will tell you exactly the steps I followed to make this switch, and how you too can become addicted to reading instead of Instagram. 

In the meantime though, I wish you luck. Maybe soon, you will be addicted to reading too…

Thought To Action

1. Start a Curiosity Journal: Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s approach to learning, begin documenting your daily observations and questions. This practice nurtures a habit of inquiry and creativity.
2. Embrace Constraints to Spark Innovation: Challenge yourself with limitations to enhance problem-solving skills.
3. Integrate Artistic Practices into Learning: Incorporate art forms like drawing or music into your study routines to enhance understanding and retention of STEM concepts.
4.  Advocate for Inclusive Design: Engage in conversations and initiatives that promote clothing designs catering to diverse body types and needs.
5. Start A Reading Habit: Check out this post to easily start reading about and enjoying the topics you’ve always wanted to learn more on. 

Sources

Dispenza, J. (2012). Breaking the habit of being yourself: How to lose your mind and create a new one. Hay House.

McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less. Crown Business.

Rubin, R. (2023). The creative act: A way of being. Penguin Press.

McDonough, W., & Braungart, M. (2002). Cradle to cradle: Remaking the way we make things. North Point Press.

The post Books That Changed My Life In The Past 6 Months appeared first on Green Also Green.

“With a bucket of Lego, you can tell any story. You can build an airplane or a dragon or a pirate ship – it’s whatever you can imagine.” -Christopher Miller

What I Learned From Playing With Blocks

Perhaps the most memorable shared generational memory is of building unique LEGO creations one block at a time. 

In fact, I still have vivid recollection of spending many languid Saturday afternoons as an 8-year-old sprawled all over the floor among an ocean of LEGO bricks. My brother and I resurrected neighborhoods, cars, and tiny monuments. We had lengthy discussions about the kinds of bricks we would use, the size and color, and where we would place each structure. 

In the end, we spent hundreds of hours like this over the years- playing and building, having fun. It was not in the hope of anything more than exploring what we could do in that moment, but recalling those precious childhood memories got me thinking a lot about modular design. 

Modular design is not a concept limited to LEGO creations; in fact, you can find it all over nature. From the inner lives of termite mounds, anthills, and beehives to the structure of cells or genes, modular design (i.e. a way of building things using separate, interchangeable parts that can be combined, rearranged, or replaced without changing the whole system.) has been one of the most effective design ideas on earth for longer than humans have even been around to observe it. 

Lately, in our noble pursuit of a circular economy, some fields have started to take note of the efficiency of modular design. 

What I want to pose to you today is this: What if we leaned in to “playing with blocks” and applied it even more widely?

If you were once that kid who spent hours reconfiguring LEGO bricks into new creations, this one’s for you.

Top 3 Lessons Insights From Blocks In Nature

#1: Modularity Is Nature’s Favorite Design Language. 

Modularity means building things in independent, reusable parts that can be rearranged without needing to redesign the whole system. 

Nature does this brilliantly: cells, coral reefs, DNA, and mushroom networks all grow through repeating modular units. 

This allows for growth, adaptation, and resilience—if one part fails, the whole doesn’t collapse.

To apply this in your own life, don’t try to redesign everything all at once. 

Break your goals or routines into small, repeatable blocks—like a 20-minute creative block each morning, or modular habits that can be swapped in and out depending on your energy. 

In your career, you can build a portfolio of modular skills. 

Rather than following one rigid path, develop stackable capabilities—communication, data literacy, design, etc.—that you can rearrange for different roles or industries.

Finally, design products and systems that can grow, shrink, or shift easily. 

Modular housing, open-source platforms, and refillable packaging all reduce waste and increase adaptability. 

Build with the expectation that parts will change.

#2: A Circular Economy Is A Creative Challenge. 

A circular economy aims to eliminate waste by designing products, systems, and lifestyles for reuse, repair, and regeneration. However, this isn’t about limiting ourselves—it’s about reimagining the lifecycle of everything we create. 

Ultimately, creativity thrives not when we have infinite resources, but when we work within our constraints.

LEGO is a perfect example: the same bricks are reused across decades to build infinite new things. In the real world, companies can design products to be taken apart, repaired, and reassembled, rather than discarded.

In your life, you can think of creativity and circularity as having a mutually beneficial relationship with each other. 

The more we incorporate circularity into our design processes, the more we build our own creativity. Similarly, the more creative we are, the easier we will find it to work within our constraints and design for circularity right from the get-go. 

Ultimately, it’s most effective to view reuse not as an obligation, but as a game. 

Try to find joy in creatively repurposing what you already have—clothes, food scraps, notebooks, tech. 

Make circular living feel expressive, not restrictive.

In your career, explore how you can reuse knowledge, tools, or content in new ways. 

Don’t reinvent the wheel every time—remix it. 

Reuse old project formats, slide decks, blog structures, or workflows to spark innovation.

Try designing for disassembly and reconfiguration. Create systems with built-in second lives. Consider whether a product could become a raw material in the future.

#3: Make Failure A Design Feature. 

Nature doesn’t fear failure—it learns from it. 

Evolution is built on trial, error, mutation, and adaptation. 

Modular systems fail in small, local ways- failing in the realm of one block without taking down the whole system. 

That kind of safe-to-fail structure is essential for resilience and long-term success.

A forest doesn’t collapse if one tree falls. A LEGO structure doesn’t ruin the entire set when it breaks—it just invites a new build. 

In tech, agile design is based on this: test small, learn fast, iterate.

In your personal life, try reframing mistakes as “prototypes” of who you’re becoming. 

Instead of aiming for perfection, try short experiments—test new routines, hobbies, or habits without big commitments. Let mini-failures teach you instead of discouraging you.

At work, test pilots, seek feedback loops, and create room for iteration and improvement rather than locking into a rigid plan and risking a larger failure. 

In the end it all boils down to designing with the expectation that there will be change, evolution, and failure. 

By making this a design feature, we start building systems that can grow from failure rather than being hurt by it. 

This kind of system will last and prosper. 

Rebuilding Block By Block

When we think about lots of the big systems in the world today, unfortunately, there are very few that we can say are designed for true circularity. 

However, that doesn’t mean we should despair. 

Good design is about intentionality—and that means breaking a system down, block by block, and rebuilding it better.

Successful designs are also about iterating. 

Perhaps that can give us hope, to know that we are only at the current iteration, with many more to come, and that all it takes for us to arrive at our goal state is for someone to keep taking the next step. 

Maybe, even, the next iteration starts with you. 

Thought To Action 

1. Practice modular thinking by breaking a project, routine, or goal into swappable parts that you can rearrange.
2. Play with constraints—set a time, material, or space limit—and design something new within those boundaries.
3. Use nature as a model: observe how systems in biology adapt through repetition, resilience, and regeneration.
4. Revisit a childhood passion or game, and ask what it taught you about building, rebuilding, and imagination.
5. Explore circular design through a creative challenge: reuse one item in five totally different ways.

Sources

No external sources were used. 

The post The Block: The Ultimate Design For A Healing World appeared first on Green Also Green.

““Leonardo da Vinci, the defining Renaissance man and perhaps the greatest intersectionalist of all times, believed that in order to fully understand something one needed to view it from at least three different perspectives.” –Frans Johansson, Medici Effect: What Elephants and Epidemics Can Teach Us About Innovation

What are we trained to ignore?

If you want to understand how to change a broken system, look at what it’s trained people to ignore.

Before the mid-19th century, the concept of “germs” did not exist. There was no reason to wash your hands before cooking, nor was it the least bit odd to perform a surgery with a blood-stained frock. 

Similarly, until the 17th century, people didn’t bathe regularly either. You washed your underwear and that was that.

Finally, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the CDC even published any guidelines on hand hygiene. 

Now, 45 years later, what are we still oblivious to?

45 years into the future, what will we be surprised we missed?

This is how to change the assumptions that shape our habits—and our systems.

Innovation is at the intersections. 

There are many more examples of beliefs and scientific axioms we take for granted now that were hidden in plain sight once upon a time, but it still proves incredibly difficult to leverage our own blind spots. 

A good start is to look at the intersections of what you already know. 

In other words, you don’t actually have to think of something completely new. 

Just find the nooks and crannies of your knowledge that have not been explored yet by other people. 

How To Spot What Everyone Else Ignores 

Now that you know where to look, let me show you how to change what everyone else is ignoring.

#1: Blow up the obvious. 

So it’s always been done that way?

Well, what if it hadn’t?

Don’t take anything for granted. When others accept assumption, you can look for the cracks.

#2: Leverage the untrained eye. 

Embody the great enemy of impostor syndrome. 

When you’re new to a particular field, you have a tremendously underrated advantage, which is that you don’t take anything for granted. 

Like an obnoxious toddler, you can’t help but ask “why”. Your curiosity inevitably will unveil gaps.

Will you explore these gaps, or just accept that you aren’t qualified to question them more deeply?

#3: Follow the friction. 

Pay attention to what drives you and other people bonkers. 

Is it that women’s jeans have laughably small pockets? Is it that you are somehow always without a charging cable, or that your computer loads web pages at a glacial pace? 

Whatever it is for you, get curious. 

Your frustration is an opportunity, not an obstacle. 

#4: Zoom in on the unofficial shortcuts. 

What are the workarounds? What is the anonymous Reddit advice? How did people manage it in the past?

Human beings are natural problem-solvers. 

Sometimes we just need a little nudge to develop better iterations from our secret shortcuts.

#5: Fuse The Unrelated. 

Who says coral reefs can’t teach us anything about urban design? What about photography and disaster relief? Linguistics and agriculture?

Dare to combine the unmixable domains of your knowledge. 

It’s how all the fields that exist today came to be. All it takes it one person to get the ball rolling. 

#6: Design For The Extremes. 

Making life easier for the 1% of extreme users will often reveal how to make life better for everyone else.

So create for grandmas, toddlers, neurodivergent users, or one-handed texters. 

Their struggles will reveal what “normal” design misses.

#7: Follow the yawn. 

Stale design uncovers outdated assumptions. 

So ask: what makes you bored?

Are you tired of eating the same thing for dinner? Does wearing the same kind of clothes make you yawn? Maybe you’re bored with reading the same genre of books?

Determine what flavor of novelty you need now, and pursue it. 

How To Change The World

Now for the hard part- moving from ideation into prototyping. 

 #1: Share before you’re ready. 

Here’s the hard truth: You will always feel unqualified if you don’t start building. 

So stop waiting to feel qualified. Start being useful.

People don’t connect with perfection; they connect with clarity and effort. 

Instead of trying to look smart, try to be generous. 

Share the insight, the idea, or the hunch you can’t stop thinking about—even if it’s half-formed. When you invite others in before you’re “ready,” you don’t just share knowledge—you create momentum.

#2: Lead with usefulness. 

Not sure how to show up for your team or community? 

Be helpful first.

When you feel uncertain or underqualified, the best move is to solve a real problem—fast. 

Don’t try to impress. 

Try to relieve. 

Can you make something easier for someone else? Clarify something confusing? Create a shortcut, a template, or even a joke that lightens the load? 

Leading with usefulness builds trust faster than beating people over the head with jargon. 

It shifts the focus from you to what you offer—and that’s what builds impact.

#3: Prototype loud and ugly. 

The only bad test is the one you didn’t run.

Impact isn’t born from brainstorming alone—it’s born from bold, messy tries. 

You don’t need a website, funding, or branding to start. 

What you need is a scrappy signal: something tiny and tangible that lets you see how your idea lands. 

Whether it’s a sticky note, a clumsy email, or a one-question poll, anything real beats an idea trapped in your head. 

Remember: ugly is honest. And honesty invites feedback.

#4: Embed it into what you’re already doing. 

Impact doesn’t require more hours—it requires better weaving.

You don’t need a side hustle to create change. 

The smartest path is to embed your idea into what you’re already doing: your job, your conversations, your commute, your routines. 

So test your idea at work. Read about your topic while folding laundry. 

Maybe your dinner table chat double as research. 

Real impact doesn’t fight your life—it fits it.

#5: Build in public.

Your process is part of the product.

You don’t have to launch a polished product to make a difference—you can let others watch you build. 

Sharing your process builds credibility, invites collaboration, and attracts the people who care about the same things. 

Whether it’s a voice note, a messy diagram, or a one-line update, showing the making-of gives others permission to explore too. 

You’re not just building impact—you’re modeling courage.

#6: Solve one tiny problem at a time.

I know, I know. You want to change THE WORLD.

The secret to that is focusing your effort on one bite-sized problem at a time.

So don’t try to fix everything—you just need to fix something. 

The fastest way to create impact is to help someone solve a small, real frustration. 

That tiny fix can make a big difference—and opens the door to more.

#7: Start with one person. 

You don’t need an audience; you need a recipient.

Let me explain. 

Before you worry about reach or scalability, ask: Who needs this today?

Whether it’s a friend, a sibling, a colleague, or someone in a group chat, focus on helping one person apply what you know. 

That one conversation? It’s your prototype, your first ripple. That’s impact in motion.

So the real question isn’t whether you have what it takes—it’s whether you’re willing to use what you already know to find how to change what matters most.

Thought To Action 

1. Understand and align with your body’s natural cycles to enhance clarity and reduce the sense of being adrift.
2. Creativity is a compass when you feel lost. Cultivate creative genius using your innate curiosity and creativity. 
3. Use journaling to accelerate your progress and celebrate your wins.
4. Explore interdisciplinary projects in a team of passionate individuals. 
5. Talk to people from different careers and a diverse range of professional & cultural backgrounds.

Sources

https://www.britannica.com/science/germ-theory

https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/3/17/21181653/history-evolution-hand-washing-peter-ward-clean-body

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2137889/

The post How To Change The World By Unlocking The Invisible appeared first on Green Also Green.

““We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” — Peter Drucker

The Science Of Learning At The World’s Most Innovative University

After completing my first year at the world’s most innovative university, I realized that the way most of us think about learning is completely wrong.

Before you throw your flash cards at me, or close this tab because you’re “done with school”, let me explain.

If I were to tell you what I usually associate with learning, the first word that came to mind would be “school”. 

That doesn’t seem too crazy, as most of us consider school a place purely constructed for this thing we call learning. Then we graduate, and our school churns out an economically productive individual. 

Success.

The only problem with this is that when school ends, often our focus on learning does too.

What do most people not realize?

A decline in learning new things after we finish school also leads to a decline in creativity and critical thinking skills. 

In a professional setting, if you’re working in a team where no one is learning anything new, your collective performance could even struggle, with more people increasingly adopting fixed mindsets. 

Okay, okay, we all sort of know that learning is important at all stages of life, but I’m reminding you of this because this idea rarely translates into action. 

Today, I’m going to tell you what I have learned over the past year about how to learn effectively, even if you hated school. 

…Not just so that you can pack what I say away into another mental filing cabinet, but so that you can finally turn your knowledge into action.

Let’s get started.

The Gardeners & Carpenters In Learning

One analogy that helps me understand different approaches to learning is the same analogy used to understand different approaches to parenting.

There are the gardeners- those who nurture the growth of a young seedling, making sure it’s healthy and well-nourished with enough sunlight and water to prosper. 

Then there are the carpenters, building a structure to achieve the desired end result. 

In parenting, this is usually meant to demonstrate the difference between moulding your child into a predetermined ideal of adulthood versus focusing on giving a child what they need in that instant.

It ultimately boils down to the eternal struggle between outcome and process. 

Is it about the journey or the destination, grounding in the present moment or sacrificing for the future?

In learning, we see the same battle. 

Do we learn because it gets us that impressive salary at a Fortune 500, or because it nourishes our minds with exciting new ideas that make the lens through which we live more colorful?

The idealistic side of me wants to say learning should always be pure and internally motivated. The pragmatic side says we learn for survival and status alone. 

What it should be is perhaps not even the relevant question here. 

The truth is simply this: learning is one of the highest-leverage investments in yourself, even after you finish formal schooling, but we are only given the tools to do it one way, like the carpenter.

The Switch In Learning

The difference, though, is that once we finish school, we see a switch. 

We are no longer learning in the style of a carpenter, building up knowledge whose structural integrity must withstand exams. 

Without exams, we are learning like the gardener, growing, weaving in and out of ideas and projects like a vine stretching toward the sun. 

We don’t have to achieve depth, so we often don’t. 

We have the freedom to learn anything we want, however we want, but we usually decide there is no time left over. 

Limiting Beliefs About Learning

Now that we have already established that learning is important and that once we leave school, the way we think about learning is limiting us, let’s get specific. 

Here are 3 limiting beliefs about learning that are holding you back not only from being a better problem-solver and more creative thinker, but also from having more fun and building greater connections with others. 

#1: You learn for knowledge. 

Let me guess—you were taught that learning means memorizing facts, spitting them back out in exams, and maybe feeling smart when you can casually reference some obscure theory in a conversation.

But here’s the problem: this kind of learning doesn’t stick. 

And worse—it misses the point entirely.

Gardening reminds us that growth isn’t about hoarding seeds—it’s about what takes root. 

When you learn like a gardener, you don’t collect knowledge just to have it—you grow it to use it- to nourish your ideas, cross-pollinate fields, and feed action.

In fact, studies show that when you cram knowledge for the sake of retention or regurgitation, you forget most of it within days. 

But when you use what you learn—apply it, explain it, build with it—it transforms into something alive. Something useful. Something memorable.

#2: Learning is a chore. 

If every time you think about learning, your brain sighs like you just asked it to scrub tile grout… we have a problem.

The truth is: if you believe something is a chore, you’ll avoid it. 

It’s basic human psychology. 

High friction = low follow-through. 

And if you associate learning with drudgery, you’ll either procrastinate endlessly or push through with zero joy (and probably zero retention).

Gardeners don’t treat tending their plants like a punishment. 

They do it with music playing, while experimenting, failing, and replanting.

And they love it.

#3: It has to make sense. 

There’s this belief—especially in the productivity-obsessed world—that your interests must line up neatly into a five-year plan or a LinkedIn-optimized narrative. 

You need to justify why you’re learning about regenerative farming and computational physics and 16th-century botanical illustrations. 

Gardeners know better. 

They plant things because they feel drawn to them. They’re curious. Something in the seed speaks to something in them.

The truth is: your interests don’t have to make sense to anyone but you. 

The dots only connect looking back. Steve Jobs famously said that, and he’s right. 

He had no idea that taking a random calligraphy class would influence Apple’s entire design philosophy and help shape technology used by billions. But it did.

So plant the seeds you’re drawn to. 

Water them. 

Let them grow however they want. 

Some will flourish. Some won’t. 

But in the process, you’ll grow too. 

And later—maybe years from now—you’ll look back and say, “Oh. That’s why I needed that.”

Learning Like A Gardener

Now let me tell you what small adjustments you can make from now on to keep learning and growing effortlessly. 

#1: Learn by doing.

The most valuable thing I’ve learned after a year at a university with no exams? 

That doing—not memorizing-is—is what transforms information into understanding.

Funnily enough, I might even add that learning by doing makes memorizing an effortless byproduct of any assignment. 

Project-based learning lets ideas take root. 

It turns the abstract into something you can touch, test, reshape, and grow. 

The best part? 

You don’t need to be in school to do this. 

Learning by doing is available to everyone. You can build something tiny, test something silly, launch a little blog, redesign your bedroom as an engineering challenge, or start a recycled journal project with your own trash.

If learning is a garden, projects are the tools that help you dig into the soil.

Start small. Grow from there.

#2: Gamify, gamify, gamify. 

I hate that we talk about “going down a YouTube rabbit hole” as something negative. 

Can you imagine what it would be like if you couldn’t help but want to learn? Most people would say no, when actually, we have all experienced this addictive drive to keep accumulating information about something.

I say listen to your obsessions. 

What are the videos you can’t help but binge on YouTube? What accounts are you drawn to on Instagram?

Let’s be honest—if learning feels like drudgery, we won’t do it. 

But if it feels like play? We’ll sneak in hours without even realizing it. 

That’s why gardeners don’t need to be forced to keep tending. They fall in love with the process. They experiment. There’s no external reward, but still—it feels good.

So gamify it.

Track streaks. 

Set up a points system. 

Reward yourself with something lovely (like matcha or memes) when you finish that chapter or video. 

Better yet: build quests.

Try this: instead of making learning something you have to force, find a way to make it feel like something you want to explore. 

That might mean swapping textbooks for YouTube rabbit holes, walking podcasts, or passion projects. 

However you frame it, lower the friction. Feed the fun.

Because if learning is joyful, you’ll keep showing up. And showing up is 80% of it.

#3: Ruthlessly pursue your nonsensical, impractical interests. 

You know those weird things you’re interested in that you don’t tell people about because they “don’t fit”? 

Those are often the richest soil.

Your interests don’t have to make sense. They just have to be yours.

Maybe you love spreadsheets and sculpture, or you’re obsessed with soil chemistry and early 2000s Tumblr aesthetics. 

Maybe you’ve even been reading about how mushrooms communicate or watching videos on Japanese packaging design or sketching mechanical parts in your journal without knowing why.

Follow those threads.

Your passions don’t have to connect yet. 

They’re seeds. 

And like any good garden, some seeds grow in ways we couldn’t predict. 

So ruthlessly pursue what pulls at you. The impractical, the out-of-place, the ones that make no sense. 

That’s where you’ll find the roots of your originality—and maybe even your purpose.

Thought To Action 

1. Learn by doing—treat learning like planting a seed, and grow it through real-world projects.
2. Gamify your curiosity to reduce friction and make learning joyful again. 
3. Ruthlessly pursue your weird, impractical interests—they’re often the roots of your originality.
4. Reflect weekly to recognize how your ideas connect and evolve over time.
5. Trust your learning journey even when it doesn’t make sense—growth is rarely linear.

Sources

Ingber, S. (2019). NPR Choice page. Npr.org. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/05/28/614386847/what-kind-of-parent-are-you-carpenter-or-gardener

Okano, H., Hirano, T., & Balaban, E. (2000). Learning and memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97(23), 12403–12404. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.210381897

Reese, H. W. (2011). APA PsycNet. Psycnet.apa.org. https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2014-55719-001.html

Steffens, M. C., von Stülpnagel, R., & Schult, J. C. (2015). Memory Recall After “Learning by Doing” and “Learning by Viewing”: Boundary Conditions of an Enactment Benefit. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01907

Stein, G. M., & Murphy, C. T. (2012). The Intersection of Aging, Longevity Pathways, and Learning and Memory in C. elegans. Frontiers in Genetics, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2012.00259

Walsh, M. M., Krusmark, M. A., Jastrembski, T., Hansen, D. A., Honn, K. A., & Gunzelmann, G. (2022). Enhancing learning and retention through the distribution of practice repetitions across multiple sessions. Memory & Cognition, 51(51). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-022-01361-8

Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Sumeracki, M. A. (2018). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 3(1), 1–17. Springer Open. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-017-0087-y

The post The 3 Biggest Lies + 3 Biggest Secrets About Learning appeared first on Green Also Green.

““When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” -Henry Ford

An Invitation To Feel Lost

What people rarely admit on their LinkedIn headline, Instagram story, or in everyday braggadocious small-talk, is that everyone is feeling lost. 

In my own life it has been a constant companion. Often, it brings along its best friends too- rejection, failure, and hopelessness- to beat you over the head with history lessons from your own life. 

One day it’s, You were the slowest kid in the cross-country team. Of course you can’t run a marathon as an adult. 

Another day it’s, The first time you made a quiche, there were holes in the crust and the filling was raw. You are a bad cook and everyone hates your food. 

But underlying it all is this feeling that you are simultaneously stuck in place- trapped, blocked, and forever locked into your shortcomings- and also wandering listlessly without any idea where you’re going. 

Feeling Lost As A Superpower

Today, though, I don’t want to tell you to purge these feelings. 

Because the trouble is, even when you are taking care of your health, maintaining good fashion sense, pursuing your purpose, and doing everything right  it is still easy to feel doubtful and lost. 

So today, I won’t tell you to just believe in yourself, to just have faith that all it takes after getting knocked down 99 times is to stand up one more time than the next person. 

No, today let’s table the talk about resilience and never giving up. 

Instead, I want to tell you why being “lost” is actually where you can meet with the most unique solutions, and I will give you 3 easy mental switches you can use to make the most of it. 

Changing The Label

Right from an early age, we live in a results-oriented world. Don’t get me wrong, this makes a lot of practical sense.

The challenge with this paradigm though, is that it discourages the smaller failures on the winding road of self-discovery, and fetishizes certainty as a form of success. 

Ultimately, when we assign rewards to outcomes rather than processes, we can easily lose trust that we are on the right track. 

So before we even talk about the feeling, let’s acknowledge that to label yourself as “lost” usually implies uncertainty, and this is scary. 

But let’s also acknowledge that there is power in uncertainty. 

There is bravery in having faith. 

There are the embers of infinite different outcomes, and the more empowered you feel to explore them, the more creatively you will be able to navigate the uncertainty.

So instead of “I’m lost”, think “I’m exploring.”

Decoding Feeling Lost

For a long time, I thought I was the problem. 

Half the month, I would feel this crescendo of PMS- overthinking what other people thought about me, questioning my own abilities and worth. 

Then, the other half of the month I felt reasonably content with my life. 

For years, I did not question the pattern. 

Then, as I began to learn more about the menstrual cycle, I realized that the block of time I was consistently struggling with was the luteal phase. 

So I did some digging. 

I learned that in the luteal and menstrual phase of the female hormonal cycle, there are often certain nutrient deficiencies women commonly experience. 

Two examples are iron and magnesium. Because of this, women might feel drained of their energy, and experience more dramatic mood swings. 

Still, I didn’t make the connection between how I was feeling and what my feelings were telling me. 

Finally, I decided to test the hypothesis. 

I bought magnesium supplements, and I committed to eating lentils daily when I was on my period. 

The results?

I felt a lot better. 

Moral Of The Story…

Now of course, I still feel irritable and tired sometimes (Spoiler: Magnesium supplements don’t fix everything.), but aligninging my diet with my body’s needs changed my life. 

For me, the lesson was that those feelings were telling me something, and when I didn’t listen, I suffered more. I accepted these emotions, pushing through them without considering where they were coming from. 

In the end, I now realize that my emotions were not (and are not) a nuisance; my body and brain used these mechanisms to help me thrive.

When you feel lost, your body and brain are trying to tell you something, and it might not be that everything is a disaster. 

Instead, there is probably a small pivot that will help a lot. 

Making Space To Listen.

So when you feel lost, tune in.

Over years of feeling like I had a broken body with broken hormones and feelings, there was one thing I didn’t do: listen. 

Now, when I feel lost or stuck, I have the same temptation: increase the volume on everything else. 

The practical problem with this approach is that refusing to listen to your feelings is a lot like refusing to listen to a toddler when they are talking to you. 

What is initially just a peep of a remark or question soon becomes a whine, which soon becomes an angry howl, then maybe some tears, potentially culminating in a full-blown tantrum. 

If you are lost- not just emotionally, but also lost in a new project, lost in a new life stage, lost in a new body of knowledge- take a moment to listen to the feedback you’ve gotten (from your colleagues or your nervous system alike). 

At first, don’t ask yourself if what you hear makes sense. Just listen.

What To Do When You Feel Lost

#1: The Creative Compass

When I feel lost, it’s not just that I don’t know what to do—it’s that I can’t even hear myself think. Everyone else’s priorities suddenly feel louder than mine. 

That’s when I use the creative compass.

It’s simple: instead of trying to choose a direction out of panic, I orient myself using four creative anchors.

• N = Need. What problem or pain in the world pulls at you so much you can’t ignore it? Maybe it’s medical bias in women’s health, or maybe it’s plastic waste in your community. Name it.
• E = Energy. What activities don’t drain you, even when they’re hard? What kinds of conversations leave you buzzing with ideas? These are your energetic green lights.
• W = Wonder. What topics make you curious enough to disappear down a rabbit hole? That thing you keep Googling or thinking about on your walk? Follow it.
• S = Strength. What skills feel natural—or could—with a little practice? Not the things you’re “supposed” to be good at, but the ones you return to even when no one’s watching.

You don’t need a map—you need a compass. Try writing down your NEWS on a page when you feel directionless. 

Patterns will emerge. 

Often, the path you’re meant to walk isn’t hidden—it’s just been muffled under the noise of trying to meet everyone else’s expectations. This exercise cuts through that. And the best part? It’s uniquely yours.

#2: Be Your Own Experiment.

What helped me most when I felt lost wasn’t getting it “right”—it was getting curious. I stopped treating life like a final exam and started treating it like a series of tiny experiments.

Here’s the process:

Step 1: Form a hypothesis. Something simple. “If I walk outside for 20 minutes a day, I’ll feel more connected.” 

Step 2: Run your experiment. Set a time frame—7 to 14 days works great. Don’t aim for perfection; aim for consistency.

Step 3: Reflect. At the end, ask: What surprised me? What felt right? What drained me? What sparked something?

This approach mirrors what researchers do in labs. 

Not every hypothesis is the right fit, but over time, through iteration and observation, real breakthroughs happen.

When you feel lost, try thinking like a scientist in your own life lab. 

Replace the question “What should I do with my life?” with “What can I test this week?” It’s lower pressure—and surprisingly more effective.

#3: Prototype Your Future Self.

One of the most liberating things I’ve ever done was stop asking, “Who am I?” and start asking, “Who could I try being?”

When you’re lost, the pressure to “figure it all out” can be paralyzing. 

So don’t. 

Instead, prototype. 

Just like in the design world, your first version doesn’t have to be final—it just has to be real enough to test.

Here’s how to try it out:

Pick one identity experiment. Maybe it’s “The Artist”—someone who draws daily for 30 days.

Maybe it’s “The Innovator”—someone who spends 10 minutes a day sketching ideas for a new recycling product.

Maybe it’s “The Health Researcher”—someone who interviews 3 women about their experience in the healthcare system.

Set a few low-stakes parameters: a time box (30 days), a simple daily habit, and a way to reflect weekly. 

You’re not changing your entire life. You’re just giving one version of yourself room to breathe.

It works because it removes the pressure of making the right choice and replaces it with playful exploration.

Try it. For 30 days, become someone new—not by faking it, but by experimenting. 

You may be surprised by what fits, what sparks something, or what gently points you in a clearer direction.

Thought To Action 

1. Understand and align with your body’s natural cycles to enhance clarity and reduce the sense of being adrift.
2. Creativity is a compass when you feel lost. Cultivate creative genius using your innate curiosity and creativity. 
3. Use journaling to accelerate your progress and celebrate your wins.
4. Explore interdisciplinary projects in a team of passionate individuals. 
5. Talk to people from different careers and a diverse range of professional & cultural backgrounds.

Sources

NYU Shanghai. (n.d.). Life Design: Prototyping Your Own Future. Retrieved from https://shanghai.nyu.edu/is/life-design-prototyping-your-own-future

Stanford d.school. (n.d.). An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE. Retrieved from https://web.stanford.edu/~mshanks/MichaelShanks/files/509554.pdf

Harvard Business School Online. (2022). What Is Design Thinking & Why Is It Important?. Retrieved from https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/what-is-design-thinking

The post How to Make Feeling Lost Your Superpower appeared first on Green Also Green.

 “Before the reward, there must be labor. You plant before you harvest. You sow in tears before you reap joy.” — Ralph Ransom

Who do you want to be when you grow up?

Do you remember being five years old and rattling off the list of different careers you planned to juggle as a grown-up?

It went something like “teacher, mom, veterinarian, rock star” or “firefighter, astronaut, scuba diver, cleaner”. 

The plan was always to have one day for each job, no problem. 

Then we grew up and came to believe that there is one job per life, and career aspirations are roughly limited to being only a doctor, lawyer, engineer, or teacher. 

But I think the truth is this: many of us still have the little voice inside that does want the mix-and-match career.

Now, let me convince you that it’s still possible. 

You are limited by creativity & self-awareness.

When I was in high school, I was tormented by the constant question of how I would manage to spend the rest of my life doing only one thing. 

Well-meaning family members and teachers would make suggestions based on what they knew about my interests, hobbies, and strongest subjects. Some suggested I go into journalism because I liked writing. Others pushed me to consider academia or marine science or teaching, and the list goes on. 

The unsolicited advice was overwhelming, and somehow never seemed to really touch on the fact that I didn’t want to choose, to cut out activities I loved because they didn’t fit into what some third party could fit into a job description. 

Nor did I want to combine and water-down my love for creative-writing or my curiosity toward scientific research. 

Eventually, I realized that it was entirely possible to have a career that included time and space for creative writing, and exploration of research, design, and engineering. 

While I’m still in the process of shaping that career, that multifaceted, many-faced life, I now know it’s possible.

PSA: The barriers to achieving your dream career are not as high as you think. 

If I could go back to my high school self and give her one piece of unsolicited advice, it would be this: that you can have exactly the life you want, even if it doesn’t make sense right now how you will get there.

The problem is that most of us assume the barriers are high and give up in favor of having an easier answer to the “so…what do you do?” question. 

Self-Awareness: Getting Clear On WHAT Career To Create

When we are “sold” on the notion of certain careers in high school or college, we feed on the glamor of all the different life paths we can pursue. 

If you’re a software engineer, you will be at the forefront of an AI revolution, they say. If you go into medicine, you will save people’s lives. 

And as the list goes on, the indecision goes. 

Often, when what we really feel is “I want to do everything, but realize I can’t” or “I’m not excited about it, but sure”, we float along towards one of the well-charted career paths. 

There is nothing wrong with this, but you should also know there’s another way. 

Instead of doing a side-by-side comparison of the glamorous parts of each career and title, think about your criteria first. 

What skillsets do you want to be using on a daily basis? How flexible do you want your calendar to be? What lifestyle do you want to sustain? Do you have an accurate perception of the money you need to make it happen? 

Get clear on who you want to be within your career (because you will be spending about 80,000 hours on it throughout your life), then reverse engineer from there.

Think in terms of experiences, not titles. 

If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say, “I want to be a doctor” when they had no interest in the day-to-day of that profession, I could retire early. 

The same goes for titles like “CEO” or “founder”. It sounds cool as a title but is grueling work in practice.

Thinking about careers through the lens of titles is misleading in this way. Instead, let’s consider creating a mental image of your perfect work day. 

You can use some of the below thought exercises to help.

Thought Exercises

Consider these questions as though you were already in your dream career:

• How does your day feel?
• Who are you working with? What community surrounds you?
• What problems are you solving? What skills are you using to solve them?
• What are your hours? When are you getting home?
• What deliverable(s) are you creating, if any?

Creativity: HOW To Create Your Vision In Real Life

Once you can begin to visualize your ideal career, it’s time to start creating it. 

This looks different for everyone, but I will focus on two aspects I have used in my own life to develop a growing network and skillset. 

#1: How To Create Your Dream Career Network. 

Talk to people. 

This is the most underrated way to chart your path to the life of your dreams. 

It’s how you will find out about job openings. 

It’s how you will discover what working in a certain field (or multiple fields) is truly like. 

Furthermore, it is how you will discover what is possible. You will probably be surprised. 

#2: How To Create The Skillsets Of Your Dream Career. 

Instead of taking an online course, try to build your own projects using the skills you want to acquire. 

If you think that sounds ridiculous because you don’t have those skills yet, this is exactly the point. 

Research suggests that one of the best ways to learn a new skill is to apply your knowledge. 

Applying your knowledge through a project also allows you to build a portfolio. This gives you something to point to when others ask for proof of your skill set. 

To support this with technical knowledge, use the typical online courses and YouTube videos. 

How To Recognize If You’re On Track, Just Not There Yet. 

There is also such a thing as being on track to your dream career in terms of your habits and mindset, but just not having the results manifest yet.

If you’re wondering if this is you, ask yourself: If you keep up what you’re doing now, will you be there in 5-10 years?

If the answer is no, try some of the exercises above. 

If the answer is yes, keep your vision clear to maintain consistency & motivation. 

Thought to Action 

1. Conversation: Engage in curiosity-based conversations with more people from outside your area of expertise, your industry & your culture. 
2. Journaling: Use journaling to track your progress in all areas of your life, including when you are advocating for the issues you care about. 
3. History: Learn from the creative geniuses of history how to leverage the tools we have today to generate impactful solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. 
4. Self-educate:  Leverage the plethora of free podcasts, YouTube videos, Coursera courses, and more to expand your mind and empower you to solve the problems you care about. 
5. Habits: Apply these 3 methods to start thinking outside of the box by switching up your routines and changing the way you look at the world around you. 

Sources

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/jrit-06-2018-0013/full/html

The post How To Create Your Dream Career When It Doesn’t Exist Yet appeared first on Green Also Green.

“To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak.” – Indian Proverb

The Long Walk Towards Something Better

The walk (or dance) towards something better can feel long, lonely, and futile. 

There are many moments of wondering why you even bothered in the first place, and wondering if anyone out there even hears what you’re saying, let alone cares.

Whether it’s climate change activism, social justice work, or even just advocating for yourself, it is easy to lose hope but imperative not to. 

You’ll get there one day, and when you do, it will be worth it. 

Today though, I’m not asking you to take my word for it. 

Instead, I want to share with you some lessons from the world of dance on how to create impact while maintaining hope and joy.

Dance Lesson #1: Repetition does not equal futility. 

In dance, the same steps rehearsed over and over create transformation—not just in performance, but in the performer. 

Change often feels invisible until it’s embodied. 

Activism and social entrepreneurship are no different. Every email, every march, every tough conversation is a rehearsal for a freer world.

So when you feel that sense of growing hopelessness, remember that when you “go through the motions”, even when you don’t feel like it, you are still creating change. 

How To Apply This

1. Set a micro goal and repeat it daily — e.g., write to one local representative per week, or spend 5 minutes daily reading about an issue you care about.
2. Track your repetitions — use a calendar or habit tracker to visually see your consistency and remind yourself of your progress.
3. Reframe “going through the motions” — when you feel bored or burned out, remind yourself this is part of the transformation process, not a sign of failure.
4. Reflect monthly — journal or record a short voice note about what’s shifted in you over time from your repeated actions.
5. Celebrate the small wins — every message sent, every conversation had, every resource shared contributes to collective change. Name them.
6. Use repetition as resistance — when systems want you to give up, continuing to show up is itself a rebellious act. Treat consistency as protest.
7. Teach or share what you’ve repeated — guide a friend through a task you now know by heart.

Dance Lesson #2: Harness the pause. 

In dance, movement without breath leads to collapse. Throughout every step, you must breathe, and it’s through this breath that you recognize your space in the room and the state of your body. 

When we want to create change, we often think of action- adding on a big new step that changes the world. 

But what if change is also about what we take away- taking away the sense of guilt that can come with feeling joy in a world overcome with suffering, taking away the stress and anxiety of overcommitting just to “feel useful”, taking away the belief that change is only possible if we sacrifice. 

Rest is an important pillar of creating impact. 

At the end of the day, stepping back doesn’t mean giving up—it means honoring your body and your rhythm.

How To Apply This

1. Schedule a weekly “no” moment — set aside 30 minutes each week to not do anything, no matter how small. Let that be your breath.
2. Create a joy ritual — deliberately engage in something that brings you joy, even in tough times: music, cooking, nature, dancing. Let yourself have it.
3. Try “pause journaling” — each day, write down one thing you chose not to do in service of your mental health or energy.
4. Unsubscribe or unfollow — once a week, remove one source of noise or urgency from your digital world.
5. Learn from nature — take a short walk without a podcast or phone. Just notice. Breathe. Let your body recalibrate.
6. Rest without guilt — when you take a break, write a sticky note: “This rest is a contribution to the world I’m building.”
7. Say “no” with love — practice declining commitments with grace. You don’t owe overextension to anyone.

Dance Lesson #3: Presence is the goal.

Don’t make perfect the enemy of good (or the enemy of progress).

In dance, much like in advocacy work, missteps are inevitable. The question is not how to have perfect execution straight from the get-go, but how to stay present with any errors you commit and learn how to improvise.

Always comparing yourself to a gold-standard future outcome makes every small step feel futile. Instead, try to measure your progress day-to-day, moment-to-moment. 

This might also highlight some areas where you can align better with the values that are important in your work and your life. 

How To Apply This

1. Start each day with a grounding ritual — a stretch, a breath, a mantra like “I am here. This is enough.”
2. Shift from outcome to process — ask yourself, “What do I want to experience today, not just accomplish?”
3. Notice when you compare — gently call yourself out when you start focusing on the ideal instead of the real.
4. Celebrate honest mistakes — once a week, share something that didn’t go to plan and what it taught you.
5. Use sensory anchors — when overwhelmed, notice five things you can see, hear, or feel to return to the moment.
6. Check in with your values — once a week, ask: “Am I still aligned with what matters most to me?”
7. Replace “perfect” with “present” — next time you’re unsure how to show up, just aim to be truly there.

Dance Lesson #4: Find your ensemble. 

Another way to avoid feeling burnout is to find your ensemble. 

This might mean you find a team of people to work on the same project with, but it could also mean working alongside others who are doing similar work. 

Whatever it looks like for you, find your people. 

It will make life 1000x easier, allow you to reinforce your own skills with the talents of others, delegate, lean on others when you need help, and just enjoy the overall process more deeply. 

Change happens when we move together- not just in unison, but in deep connection. 

Even when your solo feels isolating, there is always an ensemble waiting for you.

How To Apply This

1. Join one group aligned with your interests — a local club, Discord server, reading circle, group of friends or online forum.
2. Collaborate on a small project — even if it’s just co-hosting a one-time workshop or writing a blog post with a friend.
3. Send one message a week — reach out to someone whose work you admire, even briefly, and express interest in connecting.
4. Practice peer check-ins — have a 15-minute weekly call with someone doing similar work to share challenges and victories.
5. Celebrate others — spotlight a teammate or peer publicly once a month. Appreciation builds connection.
6. Co-work virtually — share quiet focus time with others via Zoom or in person to stay accountable and connected.
7. Ask for help — once a month, practice the vulnerable art of leaning on someone else. It deepens trust.

Dance Lesson #5: Embody first. 

Everyone hates a hypocrite. 

Growing up, it’s the first thing we pick apart in our parents, and one of the most common complaints about people we don’t like. 

The tricky part comes when we turn the analytical laser back towards ourselves. 

To be a good leader, this act of constantly bridging the gap between your words and your practice is crucial. 

If others can see the holes, they will not be inspired to embody what you stand for either. 

Embody the change you want to see in others. It will keep your followers loyal.

How To Apply This

1. Audit your actions vs. values — choose one value (e.g. compassion, sustainability) and ask, “How do I show this daily?”
2. Start with yourself — before asking others to change, take a step that reflects the shift you want to see.
3. Use “I” language — speak from your own commitments and lived experience, not just ideals.
4. Model the behavior — if you want a team or family to communicate better, practice that openly.
5. Invite accountability — ask a friend or mentor to point out when your actions aren’t aligning with your values.
6. Simplify your message — boil your beliefs down to one sentence and ensure your life reflects it.
7. Lead from example, not ego — let your embodiment be quiet but consistent. People notice integrity.

Thought to Action 

1. Conversation: Engage in curiosity-based conversations with more people from outside your area of expertise, your industry & your culture. 
2. Journaling: Use journaling to track your progress in all areas of your life, including when you are advocating for the issues you care about. 
3. History: Learn from the creative geniuses of history how to leverage the tools we have today to generate impactful solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. 
4. Self-educate:  Leverage the plethora of free podcasts, YouTube videos, Coursera courses, and more to expand your mind and empower you to solve the problems you care about. 
5. Habits: Apply these 3 methods to start thinking outside of the box by switching up your routines and changing the way you look at the world around you. 

Sources

No external sources were used for this article. 

The post Dance + Activism: How To *Actually* Change The World appeared first on Green Also Green.

“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” -Jim Rohn

How To Be Smarter With One Simple Habit

We all want to know how to be smarter, but what if I told you there was a single habit that could give you leverage over the majority of other people in the world?

It will boost your creativity and problem-solving skills. 

It will inspire you. 

It will help you relax. 

It will help you empathize with others.

It will make you smarter, richer, happier, and more interesting.

It’s a habit billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet credit for their immense success. Yet it is also something most of us claim to not “have time for”. 

What is this high-leverage habit?

Reading.

I know what you’re thinking. 

You are busy, and you don’t have the free time and flexibility of a billionaire. It would be nice, you say, but it’s just not realistic.

In most cases, people know why reading is beneficial. 

It’s like going to the gym- you want to, you intend to, but life always gets in the way. It’s just one of those things. 

So today, my goal is not to tell you why you should read, but how. 

I will share the lessons I’ve learned to go from reading almost nothing on a daily basis to easily reading over ten hours a week. 

My goal?

To give you the single most powerful tool possible to generate creative interdisciplinary solutions.

Step #1: Pick Material You’re Excited To Learn About.

One of the big mistakes that get people disillusioned with reading is simply picking a painfully boring book, and then refusing to break up with it. 

There are two ways to avoid this. 

One is to only give a chance to the books you’re excited about.

Don’t be pressured by what everyone else is reading, what is (or is not) a New York Times bestseller, or what you think is a more “impressive” book to say you have read. 

Remember, you don’t have to justify your reading to anyone.

Two is to put down a book once you realize it’s bad.

Don’t fall prey to the mindset that you need to “commit” to a book, even once it becomes apparent that it’s a waste of time for you.

If it bores you, you will probably not be able to retain the information anyway. 

Use ChatGPT to help you. 

Once you find books you are genuinely excited about, put them on a list so that you remember to order them

Feel free to use the following ChatGPT prompt below to help confirm this is a book you will love.

You can follow up this prompt by asking ChatGPT to recommend additional titles based on what your interests are.

Just copy and paste, then personalize it for yourself: 

I am interested in [insert here some ideas, authors, concepts, hobbies, or genres you are interested in exploring], and I typically enjoy content like [insert here books, movies, articles, podcasts, or YouTube channels you have enjoyed in the past]. Based on this, please help me decide whether to read [insert here book you are considering].

Step #2: Make it into a game. 

Now you have the book, and the question is how on earth to make the time to read it. 

The first thing is to realize that you have the time, but not the priority. 

Ouch.

If you, like many of us, spend more time on Instagram or Netflix than with a book in your hands, this is the uncomfortable truth.

Not to fear!

There is hope because now you can see that it’s possible to fit reading into your life if you want to. 

In fact, the trick I use to read more is the same trick social media apps like Snapchat and language-learning apps like Duolingo use. 

It’s gamification!

Use a habit tracker!

To gamify reading, I downloaded a habit tracker onto my phone to log my reading hours and see how I was progressing each week. 

Once in the habit tracker, create a new habit and log each reading session’s time after completion. 

Below is a picture of my habit tracker. 

Start small, and gradually build up. 

Another big mistake people make when building new habits is to go big all at once. 

This is a noble goal, but it often ends in failure because it creates an “all or nothing” mentality with no room for error. When error does inevitably occur (and life happens), you might end up just giving up. 

Want to avoid this?

Start small and build up slowly. 

Start with 15 minutes daily, then increase by fifteen-minute increments once you have managed to comfortably find the space for the given amount of time.  

Step #3: Take notes. Test ideas. 

So you have a habit, now what?

If you want to stop here, that is perfectly fine, but if you are reading a more informational book whose contents you want to somehow implement in your life, I have some ideas. 

Reading time is learning time, after all, and one of the best ways to retain knowledge is to apply it. 

First, flag the information that stands out to you. 

The simplest ways to do this are underlining sections of text, and taking notes- in the margins, on your phone, using voice recordings, or on your laptop are all fine.

Anything you want to explore later or remember in a conversation is fair game.  

How To Test Your Ideas

Now that you’ve got some ideas down, you can test them by asking what others think and engaging in discussions to strengthen your reasoning. 

This will give you external feedback to work off when you then continue to engage with what you’re reading. 

Step #4: Maintain the habit. 

To make sure the habit sticks, track your progress. 

It’s easy to maintain a new habit for a day or a week, but once a month passes, it’s tempting to quit.

One approach I have been using is setting a goal of 500 hours reading for 2025. Every week, I can see if I’m on track or not, and this motivates me to keep going. 

You can try this approach by setting targets for how many books to read per three-month window, for example. 

Thought to Action 

1. Conversation: Engage in curiosity-based conversations with more people from outside your area of expertise, your industry & your culture. 
2. Journaling: Use journaling to track your progress in all areas of your life, including ideas you have while reading. 
3. History: Learn from the creative geniuses of history how to leverage the tools we have today to generate impactful solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. 
4. Self-educate: Don’t stop at reading. Leverage the plethora of free podcasts, YouTube videos, Coursera courses, and more to expand your mind and empower you to solve the problems you care about. 
5. Habits: Apply these 3 methods to start thinking outside of the box by switching up your routines and changing the way you look at the world around you. 

Sources

No external sources were used for this post.

The post How To Be Smarter Than 99% Of People appeared first on Green Also Green.

“Don’t think about making women fit the world- think about making the world fit women.” – Gloria Steinem

Me Before Cycle Syncing 

I’m going to be honest with you. For a long time, I thought I was just a lazy person. 

I would spend at least half the month steeped in a cocktail of anger, depression, tiredness, everybody-hates-me-ness, and the other half recovering. 

I was always tired. I was often sad. 

I frequently wondered why I couldn’t just sit down and study, write, ideate, and create. 

One part of me assumed it was “teenage brain”. The other part assumed life was just a consistently difficult experience, and I simply hadn’t developed enough discipline to get everything done.

Enter: Cycle Syncing

Gradually, I began to try a new approach- scheduling creative and analytical work at different points in the month, supplementing with magnesium during my luteal and menstrual phases, having four separate grocery lists for whatever phase my hormones were in.

I was cycle syncing- adapting my eating, working, exercising, and social interactions to fit my hormones rather than forcing myself to show up the exact same way every day. 

Today, I want to tell you some of the lessons I learned from this process- lessons that will hopefully make you a more creative problem-solver, or maybe- if your hormones work on a daily cycle and not a monthly- more aware of how to support those around you. 

PSA: You aren’t lazy. 

There is a myth that to be a high-achieving person, your daily routine must consist of waking up at 5am, spending three hours at the gym, running uphill to work (uphill both ways), and cranking out 25 hours of deep work without taking breaks. 

Okay, maybe this is extreme, but it is not too far from how most of us imagine the gold standard of productivity. 

The problem here can be boiled down to one word: hormones. 

While male hormones work on a 24-hour cycle, female hormones simply don’t, and this makes a big difference toward how males and females should each optimize their performance at different tasks. 

For men, with testosterone peaking in the morning, the 5am wake-up call to do deep work and intense workouts makes perfect sense. 

For women, on the other hand, not quite. 

So today, I will be talking to those of us with female hormone cycles about how I learned to harness my hormones to be a more creative problem-solver. 

My hope? To help you harness your hormones too.

Let’s get started. 

#1: Track, observe, adjust.

The first step to addressing your specific needs in relation to what your hormones are doing is to know what phase of your hormone cycle you are in. 

Because this is a gradual process, there are several approaches you can use to help with this, and ultimately, the best way to gain awareness is to understand what each phase feels like for you and what factors might influence this (e.g. dietary, exercise, mental health, etc.).

To begin, you can use an app like Clue to track your periods. Then, when you’re planning each week, you can log in, check what phase of your cycle it says you’re in- follicular, ovulation, luteal or menstrual-  and plan accordingly. 

For example, in the follicular and ovulatory phases, you are likely to feel more energized and sociable, so you could aim to schedule networking events, dinner parties, of other get-togethers then. On the other hand, you might plan more reflective, gentle activities during the luteal and menstrual phase, such as that yoga class you’ve been wanting to make it to, or that quiet spa day you have been needing. In work, you could use the luteal and menstrual phase for organizational, strategic, or creative tasks, and the follicular and ovulatory phases for problem-solving and collaborative tasks. 

Then, as you begin to experiment with what tasks your energy levels are more inclined to at each phase, you can fine-tune your scheduling to your own hormones.

Cycle Syncing Tips: Awareness For Each Phase

All:

• Use a period tracker like Flo or Clue

Follicular Phase:

• During this phase, you are likely to feel highly energized. 
• You will likely see little to no discharge.
• Roughly days 6-13

Ovulatory Phase:

• During this phase, you are likely to see stretchy, clear and wet discharge. 
• You are likely to feel very energized when in this phase (more than in any other phase).
• Roughly days 14-16

Luteal Phase:

• During this phase, you might experience sudden mood shifts due to the sudden drop in estrogen from ovulation. Symptoms like PMS might suggest you are in this phase. 
• You might also notice more white, creamy discharge. 
• Roughly days 17-28

Menstrual Phase:

• Easy to track- this is when you’re on your period! You can use this as a reference point for when the other phases are happening. 
• Roughly days 1-5

#2: Ride the energy wave. 

When you live in a female body, there is a consistent fluctuation in your energy levels that you can expect pretty much every month. 

What does this mean for you?

You can roughly predict how much energy you will have over the next week, and when you will be more “in the mood” for certain activities. 

In a world designed for male hormones, this idea might seem strange.

But if you yourself have a body that doesn’t work this way, realizing that your energy levels are on a 28-day (ish) cycle can completely revolutionize how you think about “laziness”, “hustle”, and productivity overall. 

The best approach, in my opinion?

Ride the wave. 

When you undergoing the extremely energy-intensive process of menstruation, let yourself rest. Accept that your body is putting a lot of energy towards shedding the lining of your uterus, and that might mean you get less done those days. You will not go so intense in the gym. You will need more sleep. It’s okay. 

On the other hand, harness the energetic high of the follicular and ovulatory phase. Go out with friends. Go on that weekend trip. Batch-create content, or meals, or new experiences. 

Cycle Syncing Tips: How To Ride The Energy Wave

Follicular Phase:

• Your most experimental and mentally-flexible phase – try new routines and ideas at this time. 

Ovulatory Phase:

• Your social butterfly is unleashed- use it to connect meaningfully.
• Lean into boldness. 
• Don’t overschedule yourself. A big dip in your energy is coming up. 

Luteal Phase:

• Frontload your work early in this phase so you can spend more time resting towards the end. 
• Prioritize editing, decluttering, and organizational tasks. 
• Limit unnecessary social interactions.

Menstrual Phase:

• Build in “buffer days” on your calendar.
• Prioritize rest and hydration, and view rest as productive. 

#3: There’s a time to be a social butterfly & time to be a hermit crab.

As an introvert, my natural habitat will always be at home, in my sweatpants, curled up with a book. 

That said if I’m going to register for a networking event, I will get much more out of it if I go durning my follicular phase, as I will be less self-conscious and much more sociable than if I go during my luteal phase. 

This willingness can also be influenced by diet (e.g. Many women experience magnesium deficiencies during their luteal phase, leading to symptoms like PMS. Magnesium supplementation can help with this.), exercise (e.g. Strength-training, cardio, and yoga can each significantly mitigate your emotional state at different points in your cycle), and general stress levels.

Cycle Syncing Tips: Dealing With Other Humans

Follicular & Ovulatory Phases:

• Schedule meetups, dates, and collaborative work during this phase—you’re more outgoing and mentally sharp.

Luteal & Menstrual Phases:

• Set boundaries around plans—this is a “nesting” time.
• You might be more sensitive to conflict; try not to schedule emotionally charged conversations late in this phase.
• Say “no” freely—this is a great time to withdraw and reset.
• If you need connection, prioritize low-key, comforting company.

#4: Rest is an opportunity for growth. 

Everyone has ideas for how to stay “productive” when your energy is high, but what do you do when your energy levels are low (besides sleep)?

In my experience, it helps to consider two types of energy here- physical energy and emotional energy. 

During the luteal phase, emotional energy is low, and I tend to feel more sensitive. During the menstrual phase, on the other hand, my physical energy is low and my emotional energy is moderate. 

However, there is strength in sensitivity, as cliche as it sounds. In my experience, this is a great time to do creative work, organize my schedule, and complete any administrative tasks I might have been procrastinating on.

For the type of low energy characteristic of the menstrual phase, on the other hand, it is a great time to do slower exercises, such as gentle walks or taking time to stretch. 

Cycle Syncing Tips: How to Rest & How To Push

Follicular Phase:

• Perfect for: brainstorming, planning projects, starting habits, trying new things.
  
• Avoid: intense decision-making about rest or relationships—your mood is higher than it will be later in the cycle.

Ovulatory Phase:

• Perfect for: visibility (presentations, launches), collaborative work, pitching.
  
• Avoid: major decisions about rest or future goals—you may feel overly optimistic.
  

Luteal Phase:

• Perfect for: editing, finishing tasks, checking details, home organization.
  
• Avoid: high-stimulation environments or long days packed with people—protect your energy.

Menstrual Phase:

• Perfect for: reflection, journaling, spiritual practices, evaluating what’s working or not.
  
• Avoid: major meetings, demanding tasks, or making long-term decisions unless absolutely necessary.

Thought to Action 

1. Label your week by phase (follicular, ovulatory, luteal, menstrual) and try aligning your to-do list to match.
2. Consider working in femtech to solve problems in women’s health, which is sure to be highly lucrative. 
3. Learn the four phases of the female hormone cycle —get familiar with what you or your partner/friend/team might be going through.
4. Normalize conversations about periods and energy—mention it casually to reduce shame and improve empathy.
5. Use journaling to monitor your emotions, energy levels, and productivity at different points in your cycle.

Sources

https://helloclue.com/articles/cycle-a-z/wet-sticky-what-your-discharge-is-telling-you

https://www.healthline.com/health/womens-health/stages-of-menstrual-cycle

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/menstrual-cycle-phases

The post Cycle Syncing: The Biological Secret That Will 10x Your Productivity appeared first on Green Also Green.

“60% of the time it works every time.” -Brian Fantana (Played by Paul Rudd), Anchorman

What I learned about data advocacy from Ron Burgundy.

It was around Christmas when I sat with my brother in the living room watching Anchorman and laughed over the adventures of Ron Burgundy, the protagonist of the film (played by Will Ferrell).

The beauty of Anchorman is the satire. It portrays the childishness of misogyny in the workplace with a rare comedic elegance. Ron Burgundy and his posse, the epitome of the toxic “boys club” in the newsroom, are threatened by the presence of even just one female anchor on the channel, Veronica Corningstone (played by Christina Applegate). 

However, what I want to talk to you about today is my favorite quote from the film, which comes from Paul Rudd’s character, Brian Fantana. It goes like this:

“60% of the time it works every time.”

Of course, Burgundy replies with what we already know: “That doesn’t make sense.”

But this got me thinking. 

Oftentimes, the statistics we hear and the data we use to make decisions make similarly ludicrous claims.

The Birth Of A Statistic

All statistics have an origin story.

It’s easy to forget this. 

Imagine you are conducting a study on coronary heart disease. 

In one version of your study, your participants are all women aged 30-60. In another, they are men aged 20-50. In another study, your participants are all college students. In another, they are only vegetarians. 

Within each of these, the simple choice of who gets to be a participant in your study drastically influences what kind of results you get, regardless of whether you are studying the influence of medication, lifestyle choices (e.g. diet or exercise), or anything else. 

The same principle applies to whether your study is interventional or observational, how you measure the study outcomes, and even what rules your statistical analysis uses to deem a correlation “significant” or not.

It boils down to this: How you observe determines what you observe.

Thus, statistics are born from the lens and tools we are using to observe the world. 

So when Brian Fantana claims “60% of the time it works every time”, we laugh, because we know it’s nonsensical to say something “works every time” if you are only looking at 60% of the attempts.

What we fail to acknowledge is that a lot of statistical claims work this way. 

For example, it’s commonplace to extrapolate medical results from predominantly white, predominantly male samples to the entire population.

It’s common to extrapolate psychological findings from industrialized, Western populations to non-industrialized, Eastern populations. 

We know these so-called “data-based” approaches are based on flawed assumptions, but we use them anyway. 

We accept the error. 

Science is objective, right? 

Torture The Data!!!

Well… not entirely. 

How we observe determines what we observe. 

Data collection and analysis are both rife with bias, and this bias is only perpetuated by the belief that something so “technical” must by its very nature be objective. 

So what do you do when you want to dive deeper into the story behind the data? 

Torture it. 

How To Torture Data (…In the name of advocacy)

Torturing the data is a lot like analyzing a poem. 

First, you have to understand grammar. You must know the sounds each letter is making and the way letters come together to make words, and the way words come together to make each line. 

Then, you have to understand connotation. The color black isn’t just a color; it’s a symbol. It communicates a sense of evil sometimes, but at others it was signal elegance or mystery. Sometimes, red symbolizes passion. At others, it is a sign of good luck. 

But if you want to really dive into a poem, you don’t stop here. 

If you dive deeper, you also ask about the context. 

Who was the poet? What time period was the poem written in? What culture was this written within? Who was the poem written for? What are all the angles (if you can even access them all)?

Data is like this – telling countless different stories depending on who collected it, why, how, when, and where. 

Data analysis is our way of dissecting what the story is, and maybe even more importantly, our way of deciding how to respond. 

It’s an art almost as much as it is a science. 

For now though, here are 4 frameworks you can use to leverage the data you have, turning it into impact. 

Impact to Advocacy Tip #1: Think beyond numbers. 

Numbers tell a story, but they don’t tell the whole story.

Data often has blind spots—missing contexts, underrepresented groups, or nuances that numbers alone can’t capture. 

That’s why combining data with real conversations and lived experiences helps fill the gaps. 

How to Apply This Approach For Advocacy:

1. Start with the Data – Identify key insights and trends from your dataset. What patterns stand out? What gaps or anomalies do you notice?
   
2. Go to the Source – Engage with the people behind the numbers. Talk to individuals, attend community meetings, or conduct informal interviews.
   
3. Ask “Why?” and “How?” – Use open-ended questions to understand the lived experiences behind the data. Example: If data shows a low participation rate in a program, ask why people aren’t joining. Is it awareness? Accessibility? Cultural barriers?
   
4. Compare Insights – Look for mismatches between the data and real-world experiences. If the numbers suggest one thing but people say another, dig deeper.
   
5. Refine Your Narrative – Adjust your analysis based on what you’ve learned, ensuring your conclusions reflect both statistical evidence and human reality.

Impact to Advocacy Tip #2: Use multiple metrics to measure impact. 

Data isn’t just about defining the problem you’re dealing with. 

It’s also about measuring your success at developing a solution. 

Many people make the mistake of tracking only one metric, but real impact is multidimensional. 

A single number rarely tells the full story, which is why looking at multiple data points ensures a more complete picture of success.

How to Apply This Approach To Advocacy:

1. Empathize – Understand the people affected by the problem. What challenges do they face? What does success look like to them?
   
2. Define – Use data to clearly articulate the problem. Instead of just saying “food insecurity is rising,” define who is affected, where, and why.
   
3. Ideate – Brainstorm potential solutions while considering how success should be measured beyond just one statistic.
   
4. Prototype – Implement a small-scale version of your solution while tracking multiple indicators.
   
5. Test & Measure – Instead of just tracking the number of meals distributed, also look at long-term impact (e.g., changes in income, school performance, or community health)..

Impact to Advocacy Tip #3: Ask “So what?”

Numbers might tell you what’s happening, but they don’t explain why it matters. 

Too often, people stop at presenting statistics without considering their human significance. 

For example, let’s say 30% of elderly people live alone. 

So what? 

Instead of responding with another number, consider: What does isolation feel like? How does it affect mental health? What support systems are needed?

By asking “So what?”, you move beyond data points to uncover the real-life impact behind them. 

Then, instead of answering with more numbers, use empathy to connect the data to people’s lived experiences.

How to Apply This Approach In Advocacy:

1. Start with a Statistic – Identify a key data point related to your work. Example: “40% of low-income students drop out of college.”
   
2. Ask “So What?” – Why does this number matter? What’s the consequence of ignoring it?
   
3. Find the Human Story – Instead of citing another statistic, answer with a personal or collective experience. What does dropping out mean for a student’s future, mental health, or family?
   
4. Use This to Guide Action – Now that you understand the real-world impact, how does this shape your next steps? What kind of solution would actually help?

Impact to Advocacy Tip #4: Apply the  Four Levels of Data Impact (DIKW Pyramid)

Not all data is created equal. 

A statistic alone doesn’t lead to meaningful action—it has to be processed, interpreted, and applied. 

The DIKW Pyramid (Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom) helps you move beyond just collecting numbers and toward making strategic, high-impact decisions.

How to Apply This Approach  To Advocacy:

1. Start with Data – Collect raw numbers, facts, or statistics. (Example: 60% of startups fail.)
   
2. Turn Data into Information – Analyze patterns and trends to understand why something is happening. (Most failures occur due to funding gaps.)
   
3. Convert Information into Knowledge – Identify the deeper implications. (Minority-owned businesses are disproportionately affected.)
   
4. Apply Wisdom – Use insights to make informed, actionable decisions. (We need policy incentives to close the funding gap.)

Data Is Your Friend.

Data is all around us, and it always has been. 

The only difference between data now and at other points in history is that now we collect more of it than ever before. 

In many ways, this is scary, but I invite you to think about it differently. 

I invite you to be empowered by this. 

We don’t have to play a guessing game anymore when it comes to making an impact. 

We don’t have to jump so many hurdles to access the vast sea of databases and scientific journals. 

With a wifi connection and a laptop, anyone can use open-source datasets and scientific articles from online to build their own evidence-based solution to the world’s problems. 

If we want a starting point for where to make an impact, we need not look any further than our computer screens. 

So why not start using these tools today to dive into the data, to think critically about advocacy?

I promise it’s easier than you think, and the impact will surprise you. 

Thought to Action 

1. Self-Educate: Immerse yourself in the world of data literacy. Utilize free online courses and resources to understand data collection, analysis, and interpretation. This foundational knowledge will empower you to harness data effectively in your advocacy efforts.​
2. Engage with Communities: Combine quantitative data with qualitative insights by engaging directly with the communities you aim to support. Attend local events, conduct interviews, or organize focus groups to gather personal stories that add depth to your data.​
3. Diversify Metrics: When measuring the impact of your initiatives, go beyond surface-level statistics. Consider multiple metrics that reflect both immediate outcomes and long-term effects, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation of your efforts.​
4. Ask “So What?”: For every data point you encounter, challenge yourself to understand its real-world implications. Reflect on how the numbers translate to human experiences and adjust your strategies to address these underlying issues effectively.​
5. Apply the DIKW Pyramid: Transform raw data into actionable wisdom by progressing through the stages of Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom. This approach ensures that your advocacy is informed by deep insights, leading to more impactful outcomes.

Sources

https://www.bhf.org.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-public-affairs/transforming-healthcare/tackling-inequalities-in-heart-health-and-care-our-policy-initiatives/download-bias-and-biology-briefing

https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/psychologys-weird-problems/C324108A678435B4F18EF712EFB793BB

https://www.correlation-one.com/blog/data-advocacy-big-data-transformation

The post Advocacy That Works: 4 Ways To Turn Data Into Impact appeared first on Green Also Green.