Sam Radford

Husband, father, lover of books, writer, tech geek, sports fan, and pragmatic idealist from Sheffield, England. 
June 2, 2021

Fame vs. hard work (and what we truly value)

Having written yesterday about talent not being enough and the importance of hard work, I came across the following segment in an interview with Kate Winslet in the New York Times: “Ms. Winslet has been known to warn young actors on a set not to confuse social media fame with the hard work of acting. “I have certainly heard, twice, of ...
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June 1, 2021

‘It takes me forever to get it to look so easy’

When we look at others who are extremely good at something, we assume it’s all natural talent. And, thus, unfair. Why do they get all the talent? We all probably have particular people who we’re especially jealous of. Me? It’s Lin-Manuel Miranda. He seemed to get far to big a piece of the talent pie! I was reminded of this discovering ...
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May 31, 2021

13 biases that prevent us seeing

I wrote about the podcast Learning How to Seea while back. If you didn’t take the time to listen back then, I’d still recommend it. The six episodes walk you through 13 biases that Brian McClaren has identified. Biases that get in the way of us seeing clearly. In a recent blog post, Richard Rohr (who joins Brian and Jacqui Lewis on the...
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May 28, 2021

Yup, I loved ‘Friends, The Reunion’!

I watched Friends: The Reunion yesterday lunchtime. I put it on while eating my sandwich, expecting to watch fifteen minutes or so, and then head back upstairs to my office. A little shy of two hours later, the final credits were rolling. I loved it! Friends was the perfect time for me when it first aired. I was at university from 1996...
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May 27, 2021

The me you can’t see

I watched the first couple of episodes of The Me You Can’t Seeon Apple TV+ this week. What a powerful series this is shaping up to be. Forget the headlines about Prince Harry you may have seen. There’s a depth and richness to this documentary series on mental health and well-being that goes beyond the tabloid news stories. Though I’m n...
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May 26, 2021

‘Everything I do is the most important thing I do’

I enjoyed this response by the actor Mads Mikkelsen when asked about his philosophy in an interview for Vulture*: “My approach to what I do in my job — and it might even be the approach to my life — is that everything I do is the most important thing I do. Whether it’s a play or the next film. It is the most important thing. I know it’...
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May 25, 2021

Book Notes: “The Power of the Dog” by Don Winslow

I while ago I put a request out on my Instagram Stories asking for fiction recommendations. My fiction pile was down to nothing, and I was struggling for inspiration. Thankfully, friends and followers came through and my fiction pile has been thoroughly reestablished. One of the recommendations was The Power of the Dog. It’s actually t...
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May 24, 2021

Opening up about our struggles in a workplace environment

My cousin, Peter Radford, wrote a heartfelt post recently that touched a nerve. He addresses the reality that all our online meetings and working from home make it easier than ever to fake it when it comes to expressing how we are feeling: “Faking has got easier this year. Remote team meetings are easier to fake than in-person meetings...
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May 21, 2021

TV shows I’ve been enjoying recently

It’s Friday. It’s nearly the weekend. So here’s something a little lighter for today’s post. I thought I’d share some of my favourite TV shows I’ve been watching lately. I’ll start with ‘Roadkill’. This is a BBC political drama starring Hugh Laurie. It’s four one hour episodes. And – confession time – I watched them all last night! It’...
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May 20, 2021

‘It’s just who I am’

I know I’m not alone in having used, ‘It’s just who I am’ as an excuse. Rather than embracing the need to change or improve or develop, we settle. We embrace a version of ourselves that is closed to getting better. This is not to suggest we don’t genuinely have traits that are unique to us. We do. Whether innate or acquired, there are ...
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May 19, 2021

Book Notes: “How to Change” by Katy Milkman

I finished How to Change a few weeks ago and it continues to resonate in my mind. I’m still processing and applying the insights and lessons I absorbed. In short, if you need to change an area of your life, this book is a wonderful starting place! It’s full of evidence-backed counsel on how to deal with everything from procrastination ...
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May 18, 2021

Start with caring

I stumbled across a quote by Xandria Ooi, shared in a blog post by Rebecca Toh, that has stayed with me this last week or so. Here’s what she wrote: “In life we don’t have to strive to be hardworking. We just have to strive to care. Because it is only when we care about something that we are driven and motivated to put in the work need...
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May 17, 2021

Back in the groove

It’s good to be be back after a week away from blogging, social media, news, and my usual daily workouts! Last week was the first of what I’m calling a ’sabbath’ or rest week that I’m going to take every seven weeks. Give myself a chance to reset, refresh, replenish, and get reinvigorated. Which is exactly how I feel after this last we...
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May 7, 2021

Not missing Facebook

It’s coming up to a month since I announced I was leaving Facebook. It’s been far less of a big deal than I imagined. I’ve hardly thought about it at all. In fact, the only time I can recall thinking about it was my wife’s birthday. (I was interested in having a nosey at all the messages left for her by friends and family.) Other than ...
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May 6, 2021

Doing the work

Have you ever had someone say ’thank-you’ after you’ve done a task and seem genuinely stunned or amazed by what you’ve done? In their eyes, you’ve done the impossible. So pulling if off appears almost miraculous. It wasn’t of course. You just took on the necessary – and often boring – job of doing the work. And when it comes to work, a...
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May 5, 2021

Working towards a fairer share of household worrying

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to increase my share of the household responsibilities. Reading Fair Play by Eve Rodsky opened my eyes to the ways in which I wasn’t doing my fair share. I have now achieved the status of ‘perfect husband’ and my wife doesn’t have a single complaint about me. Okay, maybe not quite... And,...
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May 4, 2021

Book Notes: “Wintering” by Katherine May

I mentioned that I was reading Winteringa few weeks ago. And I did something I never normally do: recommended a book I hadn’t yet read. Thankfully, having now read the book, I am not going to need to withdraw said recommendation! May’s book is a beautiful and evocative rumination on winter. Using both literal and metaphorical reflectio...
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May 3, 2021

A time to be dormant

Austin Kleon wrote a delightful response to Adam Grant’s essay on languishing that I wrote about previously. He suggests that languishing, for him at least, is the wrong word. ‘I’m not languishing, I’m dormant,’ he writes. Semantics? Maybe. The difference in meaning may be subtle, but I take his point: “It seems to me that the reason t...
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April 30, 2021

Book Notes: “Faith after Doubt” by Brian McLaren

I’ve been reading books by Brian McLaren for coming up to twenty years. He is someone whose faith journey is several steps ahead of mine and, as such, he’s been a mentor from afar to me. His latest book, Faith after Doubt, is my favourite of his books to date. It captures the journey I’ve been on for the last twenty years as well as pr...
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April 29, 2021

Why we read: escaping reality or exploring it?

My brother-in-law, Russell Thompson, posted some interesting reflections on why we read on his blog recently. The whole piece is worth your time, but his conclusion stands out: “So reading is about escaping reality and also facing it. It can be about dreams and reality, sadness and happiness, thinking and not thinking. It’s a landscape...
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April 28, 2021

Perfectly imperfect

My wife, Rachel, turned forty today. She brings so much love, joy, and light into the world, and it only seems right to share a few words to celebrate her life. I’ll start by saying that one of my favourite things about Rachel is that, no matter what is going on – whether personally, professionally, or globally – she never loses hope. ...
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April 27, 2021

Taking control of (some) of your working day

I enjoyed Oliver Burkeman’s recent article in The Imperfectionist, his newsletter. He reflects on the one seemingly universal truth of productivity: That, no matter who we are, three to four hours is our limit when it comes to work that requires intense mental focus. But what are we to do with that information? Most of us – sadly – are...
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April 26, 2021

“I want to know what you ache for”

I’m not a poetry person. I would love to be, but it hardly ever clicks for me. Every so often I’ll give another collection of poems a try, but no matter how hard I try, I still don’t get it. My friend Beth, a former English teacher, even made it her personal mission to help me love poetry. I think she’s given up! After watching – and e...
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April 23, 2021

How I got myself out of a state of languishing

Yesterday’s post introduced the concept of languishing. It’s a mental state that sits somewhere between depression and flourishing. And, in the fallout from the last year, it’s a state many of us – myself included – have found ourselves in. I noticed it when, for example, I'd bump into another parent at the school gates, dropping my yo...
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April 22, 2021

Languishing: the neglected middle child of mental health

I wrote last week about the need to acknowledge and recover from the trauma inflicted on us all thanks to Covid. In a similar vein, Psychologist Adam Grant has an insightful article in the New York Times on what is being called ‘languishing’. Here’s how Grant describes it: “Languishing is a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels a...
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April 21, 2021

Knowing deeper

“Wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper.” I came across this quote from Cynthia Bourgeault in one of Fr. Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations some weeks ago. I love this idea of knowing deeper. So much knowing today feels shallow; a mere endless collecting of more information. Many of us are getting smarte...
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April 20, 2021

A strange update to the Apple TV 4K box

I’m a big Apple TV fan. The little black box sits under each TV in our household. Its centralised organising of all our family TV watching is pretty much perfect. Every major provider here in the UK, apart from Netflix, now integrates with the Apple TV app. And it makes for a great overall experience. Sure it’s pricey, but I don’t thin...
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April 20, 2021

Fundamentalists and fundamentalism: none of us are immune

Behavioural Science has an absorbing interview with Morton Schapiro and Saul Morson about their forthcoming book Minds Wide Shut. The authors take on the subject of fundamentalism, helping us broaden our understanding of its reach. We tend to associate fundamentalism with religion and politics. But fundamentalist thinking stretches int...
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April 19, 2021

The rarity of true friendship

I’ve written previously about friendship. And one of my spiritual mentors, Fr Richard Rohr, has further stretched my understanding and appreciation of what true friendship is. In a recent Daily Meditation of his, he wrote: “Most people also have colleagues with whom they work or associates with whom they spend regular time. But this st...
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April 16, 2021

When the leaves fall from us

I wrote yesterday about our need for a recovery plan from the trauma of the last year. And then, later in the day, I came across this quote via James Clear, from the book Wintering by Katherine May: “We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender ...
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