Hello, everyone! Publishing Edition Five was a bit delayed due to work backlog and board meetings, but it was primarily due to my first real vacation last month since I-Don’t-Even-Know-How-Long. More on that, particularly Lisbon, below, but it’s good to be back and running ahead.
What are you currently working on?
Between a recent board meeting, going through pipeline, and finalizing our website (keep this bookmarked for now!), I did a fun interview with Traub in their Sunday Safari section. I recommended 5 shops I love (all in NYC, by the way), and not surprisingly, 3 of them are sneaker shops. Let me know what you think!
What are you currently excited about?
I had not been to Lisbon in many years, but especially after dozens of friends making trips out to the capital over the past few years, I knew that it had to be a stop along this mini-Europe trip (headed to Bordeaux for a wedding, which is a pretty hard destination to beat, wedding-wise). The city has been a great place for younger (and solo) travelers due to how inclusive it and the country’s become; it’s also affordable, highly cultured, and easy to get around via public transportation and walking. If you need recommendations, ping me!
Along with this trip, it gave me a deep reminder of a New Year’s Resolution I did a few years ago: to take a mini-trip (4-5 days) per quarter and 1-2 major trips (7+ days) every year. It’s not always easy to do, but even trying to do short-burst trips of escaping civilization into nature for 1 or 2 days does wonders to you mentally and physically. We don’t have to channel our inner Thoreau, but it these short jaunts remind me of a New Yorker piece on what walking (and nature) can do to our creative minds.
“Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts.”
What’s a story or article that you're currently thinking about?
Back on September 29th, Fortune’s Polina Marinova penned a recent edition of her weekend newsletter, The Profile, and while the stories she recommended were fantastic, her opener has been on a topic that I can’t stop thinking about and talking with colleagues: Malicious Intent. As Polina points out:
Malice is actually a legal term that refers to someone’s intention to injure another party. As you can imagine, proving it is extremely difficult.
In this extremely polarized political climate, we more often than not, even as sound, intelligent humans, interpret remarks that rub us the wrong way. I’ve definitely reactive, in Polina’s words, in an “explosive,” “eye for an eye” way, and almost all of us are unfortunately guilty of this response. But what if, instead of exploding, we did this:
It took me way too long to understand the slight, but very important, difference. So now, I always ask myself this question: “Was there malicious intent?” It’s made my life 100 million times easier. Why? Because the majority of the time, the answer is “no.” (This is a game-changer if you have to endure any sort of family gathering, trust me.)
The reality is that 99% of the time, there’s no malice. It’s just carelessness … which is OK to point out, but it’s not worth getting upset over.
Polina sums this opener up with Hanlon’s Razor, which dictates “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect.”
In other words, not everything is out to get you.
What’s a product you’re currently obsessed with?
During my trip, I stumbled upon, wandered into, and purchased a pair of sunglasses from Jimmy Fairly, a France-based optical startup that launched back in 2011/2012. I’d go into more detail behind this, but I (not surprisingly) did a Twitter thread below:
Wild Card: What’s an item you can’t shake your mind off of?
I’ve got three wild cards this time (sorry, blame the lateness on this edition!).
Mini-Journaling: There’s been a recent push back into journaling, and I’m all for it. Going back to the New Yorker article, “Walking organizes the world around us; writing organizes our thoughts.” And while long-form journaling is fantastic, I also would add a letter of recommendation to the idea of “Mini-Journaling,” where it’s more spur-of-the-moment driven but gives you a chance to be more present and aware of what is going on around you.
If you’re curious about trying mini-journaling, I do it in three ways:
I meditate in the morning via Insight Timer; once I complete it, a journal entry pops up to be completed (there’s a setting in the app).
At the end of the day, I open up the in-beta app of Mental Health League, mark if my day was a Win, Loss, or Tie, and go into relative detail. The app also allows me to see how my teammates are doing and either cheer them on or send responses of motivation.
Right before bed, I write in my One Line a Day Journal. It’s set to 1 paragraph long per day, and each journal contains 5 years’ worth of entries.
When it comes to long-form journaling, I rely on my trusty Grow Daily Journal by Baron Fig. It’s the best in my opinion.
My new favorite newsletter: The Kicks You Wear, a weekly edition about the business of sneakers, done by Axios’s Mike Sykes. Obviously it satisfies my kicks fix, but it’s a great deep and cutting read into where the big brands (and up-and-comers) are coming and going. The latest piece on Jordan’s re-rise is a good one.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
~ C O L O P H O N ~
Please send all feedback, both positive and negative, to sumeetshahwork@gmail.com as this project continues to evolve.
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