Get to know our members in their current season of interests and work. This month, meet Lawrence Humblet!

Lawrence Humblet is a data analytics consultant and helps companies get clarity by untangling their data. He works with businesses to answer critical questions with data to unlock the next stage of growth. Lawrence is originally from Australia and likes skiing, coffee, wine, techno, street photography, and puppies. In Good Gorilla you will find him at the new espresso machine, or watching hockey highlights, er, working by the biggest windows.

Recent Picks

To Read

I’m currently reading The Courage to be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It’s an entertaining philosophical book written in a Socratic dialogue format covering some theories of Alfred Adler (19th century philosopher and peer of Freud and Jung). I’ve found so far that it (if you’re open enough) allows you to reframe your experiences and mindset so that your attitude may be more in harmony with a lifestyle of happiness. I don’t accept everything in the book, but it’s a nice opportunity for my ideas to be challenged.  

To Watch

Seinfeld. It’s not recent but I’m literally always watching Seinfeld. 

To Listen 

Tim Ferriss often has some interesting guests on his podcast, and recently I loved an episode he did with Brene Brown, the author of Daring Greatly. They discuss striving for achievement vs self-acceptance/complacency, and productive conversations in relationships. 

A couple of (paraphrased) quotes:

• “You cannot actually drive to improve yourself in a meaningful way, unless it is underpinned by self acceptance.”
• “Marriage is not something that’s always 50/50. A partnership works when you can carry their 20, or they carry your 20 [when the other person’s health/energy/motivation is at an 80]. Or figuring out a plan for kindness if the occasion happens when you both can’t make up the 100.”

To Dance 

Cercle is an organisation that produces unique music events in natural and cultural landmarks around the world. They put on this concert with Solomun (a DJ) in a Roman theatre built in the 1st century. It’s not recent, but I listen to this set when trying to get into a working groove!

In Progress

I’m terrible at keeping in touch with close friends, and my social media is only really updated with the bigger things in my life. I’m currently working on a personal project to build a platform allowing me to share something good, something bad, and something mundane with my closest 10 friends only.

The idea is this: Every day I write something good/bad/mundane that happened. The app randomises which one is displayed and my close friends get to see it. The randomisation is to discourage selective expression.

e.g. “I ate some amazing dumplings today” (good) / “A good potential client said no to my proposal” (bad) / “Standing at the office microwave heating up my soup for lunch” (mundane). 

Randomly for today, my friends may only see the note about the microwave. Tomorrow they might see what I write in the bad section. This way they get a glimpse of something a little closer to the reality of my experience rather than what I post on Instagram.

Favorite Artist

Recently I’ve come across Hiroshi Nagai, an artist whose colourful pop-style work covered a lot of Japanese City Pop albums from the 80s. 

Kickstart Motivation

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.” – Mark Twain. 

For me, this means identifying clearly what my biggest task (frog) is for the day, and making sure I take care of it (or them) early. Otherwise I find that the frog looms over my head and a looming frog can be stressful!

Learn more about Lawrence Humblet at lawrencehumblet.com.