Sam Radford

Husband, father, lover of books, writer, tech geek, sports fan, and pragmatic idealist from Sheffield, England. 
August 23, 2021

Bravery has many faces

Glennon Doyle shared some astute thoughts in a post on Instagram last week. Here’s what she said: “There is a family next to me at the store. I just heard the dad say to his kid: “Well, it’s brave to go on a roller coaster. And it’s also brave to say you don’t want to go on a roller coaster.” Wanted to tell you something. That is good....
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August 20, 2021

Owning our limitations

Shawn Blanc wrote about the ‘law of tradeoffs’ in his newsletter this week, saying: “In order to give your perpetual devotion to any one thing it will require the perpetual neglect of many other things. Focus requires tradeoffs.” He then added: “You can only focus on so many areas of life at a time. And you can only do focused, deep wo...
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August 19, 2021

Fooling ourselves

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. —Richard Feynman” I started reading The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef last night. It’s a book focussed on helping people get better at seeing clearly and rationally. Much as we might like to think otherwise, this is no easy task. She starts...
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August 18, 2021

Is the rise of Western atheism permanent?

“Do you ever wonder why Western atheism is on the rise? Why does the Christian West, by far, produce the highest number of atheists? What I believe, and have dedicated my life to reversing, is that we have not moved doctrine and dogma to the level of inner experience. As long as “received teaching” doesn't become experiential knowledge...
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August 17, 2021

A pathway into deeper knowing

I’m reading John Philip Newell’s delightful book ‘Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul’ at the moment. The most recent chapter I read explored the role of the imagination in Celtic spirituality. I found this quote, talking about C.S. Lewis, sagacious: “He saw that the world of the imaginal is not simply fantasy, that it can be a pathway into deep...
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August 16, 2021

Happiness or contentment?

I appreciated this Hasidic proverb I stumbled across last week: “While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.” This suggestion that seeking happiness moves us away from contentment is profound and provocative. But there’s wisdom to be considered here. Happiness is a temporary state, dependent on circumstances. But contentment e...
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August 13, 2021

Being creative in showing appreciation

It’s always tempting to wait for birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries, or other special occasions to let friends and family know that we love and appreciate them. Most gift-giving and note writing is saved for those predictable moments in any given year. Which is fine! I’m not suggesting we stop using these moments to show our love for ...
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August 12, 2021

Regarding others as better than ourselves

I try and read a chapter of Scripture most mornings. Today’s chapter was from a segment of an ancient letter written to the church in Philippi some time in the first century AD. These two verses jumped out at me, mostly because of how counter-cultural they sound to our modern ears: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in h...
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August 6, 2021

The future of the office

Seth Godin published a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece on his blog today about the future of the office. He starts out by reminding us of something that’s easy to forget: “The office is a fairly modern phenomenon. We got by for millenia without them.” After reflecting on how work has worked for the last forty years, his comments...
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August 5, 2021

The past vs. the future

I had a conversation with a friend of mine from Germany a month or so ago. We ended up discussing our relationship to the past and to the future. In the midst of our back and forth, I ended up saying this: “We look to the past nostalgically but we look to the future fearfully.” It’s a generalisation, but there’s a kernel of truth here....
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August 4, 2021

Book Notes – “The Boy from the Woods” and “The Innocent” by Harlan Coben

I was away on holiday last week – hence the lack of blog posts. We had a family trip in a caravan that was a lot of fun. Weather wasn’t amazing, but we enjoyed lots of day trips and had an all-round a good time. And, surprisingly, I managed to read two novels while away. I say surprised because, as I’m sure any fellow parents with youn...
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August 3, 2021

Let us serve love with our strength

One of the books I dip into periodically is called Sounds of the Eternal: A Celtic Psalter by John Philip Newell. It’s a collection of morning and evening prayers for each day of the week. One line, in the Tuesday morning collection of prayers, has been leaping out at me these last few weeks: “Let us serve love with our strength this d...
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August 2, 2021

Just be nice!

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard myself telling my daughters to ‘just be nice’ to each other. I can say that it’s a lot. I found myself thinking about that word ‘nice’ today. It’s a strangely bland and yet deeply powerful word. On the one hand, it can feel like a nothing word; a lazy descriptor for something we cannot think o...
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July 27, 2021

A curious idiot

Austin Kleon shares some great thoughts on curiosity in a recent blog post of his. He starts by sharing sharing a quote from Jason Sudekis, discussing his approach to playing the character Ted Lasso: “What if you played an ignorant guy who was actually curious?” Austin then points to another quote, this one by Mike Monteiro: “The secre...
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July 23, 2021

Seven types of rest

I came across an article on the TED website this week about rest. It’s easy to think of rest as something singular. And, not only that, something we merge with sleep. But we’ve all experienced those times when, despite a good night of sleep, or a decent period of what we thought was rest, we don’t feel rested at all. Why is that? It’s ...
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July 22, 2021

Losing track of what we spend

Tim Harford’s recent column for the Financial Times, reproduced on his blog, addresses the challenges of living in an increasingly cashless society. What is the main challenge? How easy it is to spend money! With contactless payments, Apple Pay, Amazon’s one-click payments, it’s never been easier to spend money. Online stores have, oh-...
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July 21, 2021

Generosity and kindness: The true nature of humanity

As some of you may well have picked up, we’ve been isolating as a family for the last 10 days. Today was the first day we were allowed back out following Imogen, my youngest daughter, getting Covid. The main thing that struck me throughout this time has been the kindness and generosity of friends, family, and neighbours. So many people...
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July 20, 2021

How to give advice

Baltasar Gracian, a Spanish philosopher, had this to say about giving advice to others: “When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.” I love this! No one likes to feel stupid. Or that they don’t know something. And the truth is, more often than no...
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July 19, 2021

Max vs. Lewis (AKA despair at human nature)

Though I don’t watch much Formula 1 racing nowadays, I do still follow it. And, since we’re currently having to isolate after my youngest daughter tested positive for Covid, I was able to watch the British Grand Prix yesterday. What a race! (Quick aside: before you switch off thinking this is a sports post, it isn’t a sports post – tha...
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July 16, 2021

Easy has a cost

James Clear’s latest newsletter delivers a good reminder that there’s a cost to always taking the path of least resistance: “Strangely, life gets harder when you try to make it easy. Exercising might be hard, but never moving makes life harder. Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder. Mastering your ...
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July 15, 2021

How many close friendships are sustainable?

You’ve probably heard of “Dunbar’s number”. It is the number of stable relationships people are cognitively able to maintain at once. And, in case you’ve forgotten or didn’t know, that number is 150. But it’s not just about that number 150. In reality, that 150 consists of a series of concentric circles, each representing different kin...
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July 14, 2021

Slowing down to go further

I enjoyed Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s recent article on slowness for Ness Labs. She explores the benefits of slowing down, reminding us that faster is not always (often?) better: “It may seem counterintuitive, but slowing down can be a faster way to achieve your goals. Fighting our urge to live and work faster can lead to clearer thinking, d...
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July 13, 2021

The death throes of masculine power

I’m reading Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul by John Philip Newell at the moment. It came out last week and is an exploration of Celtic wisdom and what we can learn from various Celtic teachers through the ages. Two chapters in and I’m loving it. I’ll write a ‘Book Notes’ post once I’ve finished it. But this, from chapter two, entitled ’Sacre...
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July 12, 2021

Inspired by a 19 year-old

So, it wasn't to be. England lost to Italy on penalties in the final of the European football championship. Ultimately, the penalty shootout came down to England’s 19 year-old player, Bukayo Saka. Score and the shootout would continue, miss and the trophy would head to Rome. And he missed. You didn’t have to imagine the devastation and...
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July 8, 2021

Watch what you say

In Katy Milkman’s recent newsletter, she interviews Alison Wood Brooks about how to reappraise or reframe anxiety. This from Alison makes a lot of sense: “One way is just talking about your feelings differently. The way we label our emotions verbally to ourselves, out loud and to other people is consequential. So, when someone says, “H...
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July 7, 2021

Book Notes: “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley

I finished reading The Guest List a couple of nights ago. This was a book recommended to me when I asked people via social media for some fiction suggestions a couple of months back. I can’t recall who mentioned this, but I’m so glad they did. I loved it! The setting is a remote island off the Irish coast. Guests are heading over for t...
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July 6, 2021

We all need a not-to-do list

I love the not-to-do list Anne-Laure Le Cunff shared on the Ness Labs website recently. I’ve copied the first three of the ten below, but do take a look at the rest: “1. Do not constantly check your emails. Instead, batch your email-checking time in one or two slots during the day. Some people also add an auto-responder to let senders ...
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July 5, 2021

Wasting years by not wasting hours

Morgan Housel shared this quote in a recent blog post of his, and I couldn’t agree more: “Psychologist Amos Tversky once said “the secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”” Work can easily become little more than completing one task after another. Very ofte...
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June 25, 2021

Six weeks on, one week off

It’s hard to believe another six weeks have already passed. Regular readers of my blog will know what I've decided to take a week off from writing here every six weeks. I consider it a sabbath or rest week. I also break from social media, news, and my exercise regime. And I then use that time to freshen things up: read more, journal mo...
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June 24, 2021

My journey with back pain

Since around October 2019 I’ve struggled with back pain. I hasn’t affected me much during the daytime, but it has caused me considerable discomfort at night. Until the start of this year, it would be a very rare occurrence for me to sleep through the night. Typically I would wake several times – often for significant amounts of time. I...
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