Aug 3, 2021

#50 How Curious! How to Live, Making the Future plus 50 ideas

Revue

How Curious!

August 3 · Issue #50 · View online

A short monthly newsletter packed with awesome new discoveries and personal recommendations! #Books #Podcasts #Tech #Humour #Psychology #BestOfTheWeb

Happy August and welcome to the 50th issue of ‘How Curious!’ 5️⃣ 0️⃣ 🎊

This newsletter started as a 2018 New Year resolution! 3.5 years later, it’s safe to say the resolution has stuck. 💪

After a memorable 5+ months in Gran Canaria I’m back in Ireland for a few weeks. As the most liveable place I’ve ever been to, Gran Canaria currently pips Barcelona and London for the most likely location I’ll settle down. 🏖️

Having gotten the one-shot Janssen vaccine I’m looking forward to catching up with family and friends before my next adventures. 🇮🇪💉

West of Ireland sunset

Quotes

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner. - Tallulah Bankhead

We think we understand the rules when we become adults, but what we really experience is a narrowing of the imagination. – David Lynch

Choosing the priority is as important as working on it. - James Clear

Books

How to Live | Derek Sivers

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I’m a huge Derek Sivers fan and devour all his books as soon as they’re released. His latest book explores 27 conflicting answers to the question of how to live. Thought-provoking!

Sign-up to his mailing list to get notified when it’s on wider release.

If you knew you’d go blind tomorrow, how intensely would you look at the world today? If you knew you’d go deaf tomorrow, how intensely would you listen? Fill your senses as if this was your last day on Earth. One day that will be true.

But if you avoid pain, you avoid improvement. Avoid embarrassment and you avoid success. Avoid risk, and you avoid reward.

Don’t live somewhere pleasant surrounded by normal people. Live among your fellow freaks, where obsession is normal and ambition is rewarded.

Sign Here: The enterprise guide to closing contracts quickly | Alex Hamilton

www.amazon.co.uk – Share

When learning about a specific domain I find books written but leaders that currently operate in that space to be the most efficient way of downloading their knowledge! This book may be of interest to anyone working with enterprise contracts.

It’s often better to get rid of a negotiation point than to capture in a playbook. When issues come up, consider if you can get rid of them by tweaking your standard terms.

View my digital bookshelf here and current reading list here.

Podcasts

Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop | Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

www.airr.io – Share

Pepsi twice ended up in court after promotions went disastrously wrong. Other big companies have fallen into the same trap - promising customers rewards so generous that to fulfill the promise might mean corporate bankruptcy.

Businesses and customers alike are sometimes blinded by the big numbers in such PR stunts - but it’s usually the customers, not the businesses, who end up losing out.

Atlassian: Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar | How I Built This with Guy Raz

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It’s been a while since I last listened to an episode of ‘How I Built This’. Wow! I’d forgotten how much these episodes inspire and encourage me to pursue a career outside the social norm.

Atlassian’s Jira project management tool is a staple in every large-scale software project I’ve worked on. The backstory is quite neat.

In 2001, Mike Cannon-Brookes sent an email to his college classmates in Sydney, asking if anyone was interested in helping him launch a tech startup after graduation. Back then, entrepreneurship wasn’t a popular career path in Australia; and Mike’s only taker was Scott Farquhar, a fellow student who shared Mike’s passion for computers and his frustration for the corporate grind.

Marc Andreessen - Making the Future - Invest Like the Best, EP. 232

www.airr.io – Share

Marc Andreessen is an early pioneer of the internet, and the co-founder of the legendary venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.

In this episode, I particularly enjoyed the discussion on the power of transitioning from atoms to bits and its impacts on increasing productivity.

His insights on three large but slow-moving industries: education, healthcare & housing, are also insightful.

Best of the web

50 Ideas That Changed My Life - David Perell

perell.com – Share

This article has 50 principles to help you think better.

My favourites include:

1) Inversion - Avoiding stupidity is easier than trying to be brilliant.
25) Parkinson’s law - Work expands to fill the time available.
44) Convexity - If you want to be lucky, look for opportunities with big upsides and low downsides.

FutureMe: Write a Letter to your Future Self

www.futureme.org – Share

Write a letter to the future: set goals for yourself, make a prediction about the world. Envision the future, and then make it happen. FutureMe has been delivering letters to the future for millions of people since 2002.

Time.is - exact time, any time zone

time.is – Share

Simple website to rapidly check the time in other timezones.

Bonus reading: 14 locations around the world that defy time standards

So, what have you learned?

The pandemic has killed millions, confined billions to lockdowns, and impacted almost every facet of our lives.

But what have you learned from it? How has it changed your views and beliefs? How will your life change when ‘normality’ returns?

If you haven’t already done so, then now is a great time to reflect. What are your take-aways from what is likely to be one of the biggest (hopefully!) global shocks of our lifetime?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I hope to include a post on my learnings in next month’s newsletter.

In the meantime, please let me know your main learnings!

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