Dan's Daily

You can start a sentence with ‘and’.

And whoever told you that you can’t, is wrong.

Writing is about what sounds and feels right.

The rules are a helpful guide, but don’t let them suck the soul out of what you have to say.

Since travel opened up last July, I’ve noticed an odd thing in a few of the smaller, tourist towns I’ve passed through.

Some products are sold very close to, or even past, their best before date.

I noticed it with sunscreen in Spain, and a health foods and supplements store in New Zealand.

It makes sense. Many stores in these places missed their usual flow of travellers for almost 18 months. Products bought, and expected to be sold, weren’t. So they sit on shelves until they do.

At the beginning, I complained about the “expired” sunscreen. But as time has passed, I’ve developed a bit of Best Before Leniency.

Everyone has had a tough couple years, especially hospitality and tourism. And given the best before date is only a guide, there’s no need to waste.

This is a small and trivial example, but it did get me thinking more about leniency as a concept. We can choose to be more lenient if we want to, and we can choose to put fewer things into black and white categories. And I wonder if that’d make a difference, for us and for others.

Genuine question: what is the best way to learn how to relax when under pressure to ultimately make better decisions?

There is a lot of theory on decision making, but much less on making good decisions when under pressure. And learning via personal experience (often through mistakes) seems like an inefficient and costly way to learn.

I’d be keen to hear your thoughts!

Since I moved to the UK, a lot of people here have asked me, “How do you find the weather?”

Given talking about the weather is a famous British pastime, I see most of them get excited, expecting me to say something like, “Ooo it’s dreadfully cold and grey, isn’t it?”

But, to their surprise, I usually respond with, “I actually quite like it!”

Yes, it’s cold, and damp, and grey, but at least it’s relatively predictable. And I emphasise “relatively” because I think weather here is more predictable than New Zealand—which is my baseline.

In New Zealand, you can pull your blinds in the morning, the sky will be clear blue, and then 30 minutes later when you arrive at work it can be bucketing down.

Much of life is relative. And if that’s true, then much of life is about understanding our own baselines, and being empathetic to the baselines and relative experiences of others.

I watched Spider-man: No Way Home for the second time last night. I won’t share any spoilers, because it really is a doozy, but I wanted to share a podcast I listened to earlier this week that really put the Spider-man and Marvel Cinematic Universe into perspective: The Spider-man Problem by Planet Money.

Getting Spider-man onto the big screen is really hard. There are competing companies, contracts, and characters that make for one hell of a story.

For example, did you know that Marvel actually sold the exclusive film rights for Spider-man to Sony more than 20 years ago, and Sony have to produce a Spider-man film at least once every 5.75 years or else they lose the rights?

At the core of the story though is a company, Marvel Studios, who are so exceptional at what they do, they’re dragging everyone who works with them to unparalleled heights of success. And the behind the scenes are almost as fascinating—but perhaps not as explosive—as the onscreen action.

Or are you just finding your way?

The difference is huge.

When we’re in the middle of the maze, it’s easy to lose mistake one for the other.

The dead end. The loop. The “I feel like I’ve been here before,” are likely just pitstops on the way to the exit.

“Supposed to…”

“Should’ve done…”

“What if…”

It’s easy to form a habit where these become the default words used to explain the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of our daily lives.

But how many of these are self-imposed thoughts and beliefs?

And how many of them stop us from doing the things that bring us the most joy and fulfilment?

“Advice isn’t one person telling another person what to do, it’s a conversation; a partnership. You’re both just human beings collaborating on the project of being a person.” – John Paul Brammer in Life Kit.

Learning how to be a human, and hopefully a good one, really is the meta project we’re all working on.

It’s the project that our families, careers, friendships, and hobbies all feed into.

And it’s really nice to see it as a collaboration we work on with others, rather than a journey we go on alone.

Rafael Nadal just won his 21st Gland Slam at the Australian Open.

In a stunning 5-hour epic, he bet Daniil Medvedev in the final, and is now 1 Grand Slam ahead of both Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

However, following the match, my newsfeeds started to fill up with a lot of “GOAT talk”, and it just doesn’t feel right.

There’s a reason why we don’t speculate about the ending of a movie when we’re in the middle of the action. The story is still unfolding. There are twists and turns that are yet to come.

It’s only with time, distance, and results, that any Greatest of All Time debate can be had.

It’s a treat to watch Nadal, Federer, and Djokovic battle for the honour of being the greatest male tennis player—but the rest of the story still needs to be written.

Exercising. Working out. Training.

There’s as much difference in those words as there is in the following:

Peckish. Hungry. Starving.

So when I tell myself I’m training, I turn up with a different attitude.

The nuance, the words, they matter.

Some days you’ll have 80% to give. Others, you’ll have 120%.

It’s not wrong to have less energy on some days, and an abundance on others.

There’s little value in overpromising, overextending, and overexerting.

On the other hand, there’s a tonne of value in 1) knowing what you have to give, and 2) giving that.

“Fortunate is one who can understand the causes of things.” – Virgil

What would happen if we accepted fewer reasons at face value, and asked “Why?” more often?

And imagine the possibilities if we made this a habit.

There’s something about writing down a goal, and then sharing it with the world.

Public commitment leads to public accountability, which (hopefully) leads to greater follow through.

A few of my friends are committing to run a half marathon, and I’m joining them. My goal is to complete one before the middle of the year.

I have friends who eat half marathons for breakfast, but this is going to be a challenge for me. Running hasn’t been a part of my exercise regime for a long time, but I’m looking forward to getting better at it. That being said, I’m first aiming for good preparation and race completion; my time isn’t important right now.

And now that I’ve made this goal public, I’m much more likely to achieve it.

Light streamed in through the cabin window.

It felt brighter than normal.

I clamoured over to the window and saw a stunning set of mountain ranges.

The brightness was explained by the cloudless sky and the reflection of the sun off the snow.

I’d lost track of how long I’d been asleep, but I knew were somewhere between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai.

I raced back to my seat to look at the map and figure out where we were.

We were flying over Iraq’s north east, so I figured the mountains outside the window were likely in Iran—I had no idea such stunning mountain ranges existed there.

I’m a devout aisle sitter, but it’s views like this make me reconsider.

I had an incredible month back home in New Zealand.

I camped, fished, swam, hiked, road tripped, surfed, BBQ’d, got boosted, and got lasered!

As I sit back here in the UK and reflect on the trip, I’m reminded that the activities rarely matter, and that it’s always the people that make the moments memorable.