Scratching my Niches: # Five

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👋Hello friends. A lot of new digital faces this time, hi, thank you for joining :)

We have a bit of a different format this month. I’m gonna keep it on the briefer side and save some for next month(ish) — including a new client spotlight💥

Quick🤰🏻note, we’re in the home strrrretchhhh. Wifey and big-sis-to-be are ready for Feb, and we’re prepping away for this beautiful chaos that’s about to ensue. We are beyond blessed.

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Thinking of daughters and wives and families… a big part of the last minute format change was the tragic news about Kobe and all the families on board and affected.

This one shook me in a way I never quite expected or really experienced. I still can’t fully describe it, and have been trying to make sense of it for days.

But it’s certainly a reminder to cherish every moment with those closest to you — nothing is guaranteed.

This was my first time meeting Kobe.

As a kid, basketball was really my first love. I was destined to make it to the NBA and thought about it constantly. There wasn’t a door frame untouched as I passed through, taking another opportunity to work on my vertical leap (💭someday I’d throw down like this slam dunk champ, he’s only 17!).

I was obsessed with collecting basketball cards and rookies were my favorite, including this one from ‘96. I vividly remember unwrapping the package and discovering this gold foiled gem inside, wondering who’s this Kobe Bryant guy?

Soon after, I bought those Oakley sunglasses.

Actually I bought multiple fake ones in Battery Park on my first ever trip to NYC and tried to resell them back home in Michigan, which was probably my first failed biz venture — “No way man, those aren’t Kobe’s!”

Every time on the playground when splitting up teams we’d be calling out who’s Kobe, who’s Jordan, etc, etc. but always Kobe & MJ… To see this guy break into the league straight out of high school and be so dominant was mesmerizing. And inspiring.

Shane Parrish @ShaneAParrish

One thing I loved about Kobe was that he never took his talent for granted.

Eventually I grew apart from the game. I thought I was too short and my best chance at greatness was somewhere else.

Kobe continued to dominate until the very end, and his discipline and dedication to doing the work — day in and day out— was truly unmatched.

I didn’t know a lot about his life post-NBA, but from what I learned, it was clear that mentality carried on after basketball, and he continued to pour that focus and love into his family and all those he cared about.

…So this past Sunday night, already thinking about him, his relationship with his daughter, all he still had to experience with her, his 3 daughters and wife left behind, and the other families, and on and on…

I sat down for 5 minutes and this Grammy performance of a song I’ve never heard happened to come on. And it all hits…

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My heart goes out to all the families affected. Just horrible.

This tragedy was another of life’s reminders, and a special note to all the dads and daughters, to cherish all that we’re so lucky to continue living for each day.

🙏Thanks Kobe #8

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On to this month’s semi-regular programming. I’m starting with some other great newsletters where I learn from and find great content #meta

There are a lot more in the mix, but these are the regulars.

📧 Newsletters

(1) Article Group’s weekly newsletter by Steve Bryant

This has been a weekly staple. “Helps radically curious humans navigate uncertainty, seek the most interesting challenges, and make better creative decisions in marketing and beyond”

This is for you if:

• you like great writing, and great content about great content by people in the content biz

• you like useful resources, frameworks, strategy guides and decks, given to you, so you can apply to your own businesses

(2) Per my Last Email by Packy McCormick

Weekly email, always full of good stuff. Loved the most recent tribute to Kobe from a Philly native’s point of view — turns out I wasn’t the only one buying Kobe’s Oakleys!

This is for you if:

• you’re interested in online and in person communities and what they mean for the future of education, real estate, and technology

• you like reading how a smart person thinks and watch his experiments in real time

(3) Good Work, a Newsletter by Holloway

This is for you if:

• you like wide-ranging research and discussion on the future of work, beyond the buzzwords

• you’re interested in super in-depth guides to navigating complex topics, along with short summaries or resources

(4) 3-2-1 Thursday newsletter by James Clear

Been a long time reader of his essays, including one of my favorites diving into Kobe’s commitment to deliberate practice.

I really dig the new 3-2-1 format.

This is for you if:

• you like really high quality info, backed by years of research and experience on habits and psychology of change

• you want that info distilled down into bite size nuggets of wisdom

(5) CB Insights by Anand Sanwal & Marcelo Ballvé

This fills the gap of what I thought was missing when I was at Bloomberg — more relatable coverage of “technology trends, venture capital, startups, and the industries of tomorrow” and without the blind hype train of every startup blog out there. Can easily skim the daily newsletter for what’s interesting or dive deeper.

This is for you if:

• you like seeing how an enterprise media brand engages with its audience in a relatable and human way, with humor and quality content

cbinsights

So what do you think? German beer brand showing guys with beer bellies. Def not what you see in most beer ads. Helpful or harmful to the brand? #beer #beerporn #truthinadvertising #marketing

January 20, 2020

*(# ?)*

I’m looking for a solid, simple, ‘foundation/fundamentals of cooking’ newsletter if anyone has any recs. Want to approach with a beginner’s mind.

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📚 I Read and listened to these books, respectively:

1. The Bhagavad Gita, translated by Juan Mascaro

2. Indistractable, by Nir Eyal

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🤔 Thinking about these articles…

How to Email. An etiquette update: Brevity is the highest virtue. James Hamblin (3min)

Let’s all get on board here please. I used to be a huge offender with long emails, trying to cover every possible point.

Brevity signals respect. Three sentences or fewer.

An email is an imposition on a person’s time. Writing to someone is saying I know you have a finite amount of time and attention today, and in life, and I’m going to take some of it.

Undue formality only wastes more of that time. And it wastes the writer’s time in worrying about exactly how formal to be.

Rarely does an email require more than three sentences. If it does, consider calling or getting together in person. Social interaction is healthy, and more time spent in the inbox isn’t likely to be.

Decade of Living Dangerously, Part 2 - John Mauldin (16min)

Philippa Dunne recently said in The Liscio Report that we no longer have a shared sense of reality in this country. We observe the same circumstances with our own interpretation of reality, then wonder why other people don’t see it the way we do.

I look at these problems every day and I have trouble understanding the complexities. The average person? A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. We have retreated into our social media and personal echo chambers and made them our reality, completely different than that of other groups/tribes.

The Fallacy of Channels: Startups Beware — Mark Suster (8min)

Ten years old and still spot on.

Strategy Drunk — Nathan Bashaw (3min)

“Strategy drunk” is when a person is so excited about the potential returns from a strategy, that they overlook how improbable some components of the strategy are, and forge ahead anyway. They’ve taken a look at some problem, and after learning a little about it, come up with very questionable ideas. A little learning is a dangerous thing, indeed.

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Tunes of the month 🎶

Joey P has been a regular on the work day playlist

I can’t not smile every listen… I wonder if this was an underground hit from a few years ago or went unnoticed. love it.

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👋That’s all folks. Thanks for reading!

See you next month(ish) as a family of four, God willing.

I love you,

Derek