Scratching my Niches: Number 4
We've got holidays, tunes, client spotlight, an unpublished blog, getting spiritual, and other links :)
👋Hello friends 🦃🎄,
Happy thanksgi...uhh… happy holidays and Merry Christmas! Time sure flies this time of year, so much so that this got pushed back a tad longer than I intended, but hey, here we are!
Instead of giving you the turkey day special, I’m hitting your inbox on the beginning of the last full work week before everyone says bye bye 2019. For those with the time and attention to read it right now, idk how you’re doing it, but thank you — it’s been fun pulling this one together.
These past couple months have been an absolute whirlwind, but also a time of reflecting on how grateful I am to be in it.
I’m thankful for the challenge and opportunity to build a business, and also spend time with my growing baby girl, and for an insanely hard working and supportive wife that continues to selflessly give everything to this family to make it all possible.
I’m also extremely grateful for all of you for being a part of the process. Getting this newsletter going is definitely one of my top 2019 accomplishments, so thank you again!
🥂Here’s to wishing you all a wonderful holiday season with family and friends, and a very Happy New Year! I’m looking forward to soaking up every moment of Christmas with our little girl and our last year as a family of 3… See you in 2020.
Love y’all 👋
Top Tunes of the Year
According to my recollection with some help from Spotify. (Side note, what a great campaign by their team (!) and excellent example of using usage data to give the customer insights they find valuable and are highly shareable.)
Here’s my self curated list of what I recall as the biggest delights of the year, new and old.
Client Spotlight
🚨Client Profile #1 alertttt 🚨
Photo by Felix Kunze from Offsite 2015. The Great Lawn at Cedar Lakes Estate.
Cedar Lakes Estate is a 500-acre summer camp from the 1920's that’s been converted into a luxurious private estate, with all of the comforts of a 5-star hotel, but an authentic and nostalgic vibe that naturally brings people together.
For the past 8 years since its transformation, they’ve been delighting the hell out of their customers — whether that’s brides and grooms for their most important day, or employees escaping the office with their teams — and as a result, they’ve seen incredible growth through word of mouth.
I’ve been working with them to develop relationships with key customers and strategic partners to drive awareness and grow the corporate retreat business.
It’s been a fun project and I’m excited for what lies ahead — they’ve already hosted retreats for some of the world’s best companies (Glossier, Bombas, Harry's, Airbnb, Giphy, Spotify, Uber, and many more), and the list keeps growing as companies search for better ways to build culture outside the happy hour or hotel conference room.
If you know anyone looking for an awesome venue to inspire their teams just 1.5 hours north of NYC — hit me up! derek(at)cedarlakesestate(dot)com
The Land of Unfinished Projects
✔️✔️An Unpublished List of “Startup Resources” from 2014
I finally shared this unpublished post from the archives — a collection of different newsletters, books, blogs, articles, and online resources I found helpful in navigating a career transition in the early 2010s from finance to tech.
I was surprised by how much is still relevant 5 years later and how much has changed. I resisted the urge to overly edit, so this serves as a snapshot in time that I’m sure others will recognize and reminisce with. Hope you enjoy.
🥃Quick Amaro update, in case you were wondering
Very pleased with how this came out. Lingering bitterness was a little longer than I would have wanted (my guess is the cardamom or gentian root), but from the ‘big time bitter fans’ I heard it was just right. Great blend of warming spices, earth and mintiness, with the right touch of dried fruit sweetness and citrus to round it out. I think I gotta make another batch.
Links & Listens
📚Read this…
Confessions of a Spiritual Dickhead by Sean Hotchkiss [12 min]
Spirituality is either thriving or under attack, depending on what the word means to you.
Wellness, self-care, mindfulness, and meditation are all buzzwords more prevalent than ever, yet traditional forms of religion, and outward expression of it, seem to be under constant scrutiny and declining (my friend Packy expands on this point quite nicely).
The number of options for ‘things’ to give us meaning and purpose certainly aren’t shrinking, and I think we can all notice marketers found a winning formula to remind us of what’s important for a fulfilling life: Be more present. Get off your phone. But buy these virtuous objects that define your values…
This piece has probably consumed most of my thinking for this newsletter. I chose it because Sean provides such an open and honest look into the internal questioning and conflict that lead his own journey and search for meaning. I can’t quite place why it struck a chord or all the questions it’s been stirring up… or why.
These past couple years I’ve been catching myself at times, seeing the current me do things the former would never think possible. Like yoga, or curiously reading ancient sanskrit (Bhagavad Gita), philosophy, or making time to meditate. Clearly a pattern and an uncomfortable feeling like there’s a line or an edge that I’m close to — either going too deep, or not believing and not going deep enough. I think it’s something that applies to just about anything.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. Check it out on Medium here.
In 2017, I moved to Gooptown, U.S.A., aka Los Angeles, aka ground zero for spiritual materialism. I had my soul “retrieved” by a shaman on a Sunday morning in Pasadena, I gulped paper cups of ayahuasca with white-clothed hipsters in a yoga studio, and shared hits of poisonous toad venom with a lawyer in Topanga Canyon. I tried Transcendental Meditation, read up on Carl Jung’s Theory of Individuation, and stood stone naked in a sulfuric bath, watching the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean at the Esalen Institute.
With each experience, I felt I was getting closer to something. Maybe it was the better version of myself I’d always been seeking? The version of myself that was finally good enough, whole enough, the version that was worth living for. As for my mistakes — I tried to forget them. I was on a purer path now.
My new affliction was so common it has a name: spiritual bypass.
The Buddhist teacher John Welwood called spiritual bypass: “using spiritual ideas to sidestep, or avoid facing emotions, psychological wounds, and unfinished development tasks.” Basically, it’s when the ego co-opts a person’s spiritual journey.
**related bonus reads:
💩Suzy Batiz’s Empire of Odor (New Yorker)
lolz - Silicon Valley's extreme new productivity hack: LSD (GQ)
Any religious or philosophical text…
Stillness is the Key (referenced in Books below)
Letter to a friend who may start a new investment platform by Graham Duncan [17 min]
Though written as advice to someone starting a new fund, this applies to anyone starting something new… Graham elaborates on why these are the 7 most important questions to ask and understand about yourself.
(1) Are you ready to fully own the ambiguity of a new initiative? (2) Is your spouse fully on board? (3) How will you accelerate the process of building trust with new partners? (4) How will you protect the climate within your skull? (5) How are you going to source enough good ideas? (6) What are you compulsive about? Is it possible to put that at the center of the platform’s activity? (7) Are you really focusing on what you’re going to value over the long term?
Many high achievers are compulsively exploring the world in search of something — some for truth, some for power, others for beauty — and I think it’s a disservice to yourself and your future partners to not orient your platform around the piece of investing that you really love. Embrace your funk.
PS, Kumquat Ventures is looking for LPs with cash and on the hunt for yield - who’s interested? Get @ me.
Fraud & Virtue by Anand Sanwal [1 min]
I’m a big Anand fan. His newsletter for CB Insights is always in my regular rotation. I was particularly fond of his intro in this edition, couldn’t possibly sum up better.
**related bonus reads: any of Scott Galloway’s WeWork hot takes
🎧Listen (podcast)…
🤠Ken Burns on the Tim Ferriss Show 🤠
I love Kenny B! Though I definitely used to fall asleep to his documentaries in high school when we’d have a substitute teacher. If I only knew then what I was missing.
This podcast interview promotes his new documentary on country music, but also reveals Ken’s wisdom across several topics including:
What it means to be an American — “There is no them vs them. There is only us. Just pure American. It’s what makes this the greatest country in the whole world.”
Making decisions with the head vs the heart
How to deal with intense anxiety as a creator
How country music represents a uniquely American art form, influenced by all backgrounds and walks of life
“There’s always the certainty that the opposite of what I might believe in might also be true.”
📚 Books. More reading…
It’s been a great year for books and I thought I’d share a list of some of my favorites. There were a lot I didn’t get to, but I’m only one shy of my yearly 24 goal and a couple weeks to go. Always love hearing recs if you have any that you’ve enjoyed!
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown
Hands down one of the greatest stories I’ve ever read. The individuals. The teammates. The teamwork. The historical significance. The discipline and craftsmanship of the sport.. I flew through this.High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove
A legend for good reason.Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder by Nassim Taleb
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Taleb
Didn’t read these back to back to back, several months in between actually. Two instant classics that I will refer back to.Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
Was really resisting this one, but couldn’t be more pleased I picked it up. What I needed to read.Perennial Seller: The Art of Making and Marketing Work that Lasts by Ryan Holiday
I think this is honestly one of his best. Under the radar, with so much wisdom packed in.Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard
Teddy, you animal! Fascinating tale of our former presidents’ journey into the brutally harsh Amazon, and just what an incredibly disciplined and determined adventurer and explorer he was.12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson
Your Erroneous Zones by Wayne Dwyer
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
If you like movies, watch these…
Sing Street (Amazon)
Highly recommend this feel good flick, I was smiling pretty much the whole time. Originally released in Ireland & UK back in 2016 — thanks Matt for one of the many great recs.
“For brothers everywhere” so says the director… non spoiling teaser scene below:
Parasite (in theaters)
There’s plenty of praise for this masterpiece you can Google to convince you. 1000% worth the subtitles, incredible film.
American Factory (Netflix)
Really enjoyed this doc, which provides a glimpse into several different lives and in ways you wouldn’t expect, and reminder of just how globally connected we all are.
Thanks for the rec Greg!
Maiden (Amazon)
Besides being ‘rail meat’ once for the Bloomberg sailing team on the Hudson and watching racing crews on the Great Lakes, I have very little sailing experience. So this was an absolutely fascinating account of an insane around the world sailing race, and the inner workings and political dynamics of how a team that no one would even take seriously came together.
So many odds stacked against this crew that refused to give up. A story you wonder how you haven’t heard of before…
That’s a wrap! Here’s a highlight from the month :) Always great when friends come to town!
👋Bye