The Connection Newsletter 17 - What, like it’s hard?

The Connection Newsletter 17 - What, like it’s hard?

July 23, 2018

Hello!

This is edition #17 of The Connection, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Thrilled you're here.

Spent last week in SF for work, glad to be back on the East Coast and getting in some family time.

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First, I posted an article in Medium about

. Obviously to do well in a role, you have to have the chops (skills) to succeed. However, looking back at my career trajectory, I often lacked the skills at the start. Habit #2 (“be likable) AND a lot of luck got my foot in many doors -- the other 12 habits kept those doors open.

.

I’m still experimenting with publishing on Medium.

If you like the article, please push the “clap” button.

The more “claps,” the more people will see it. If you’re on mobile, you can hold down on that button for mucho claps :)

On to this week’s articles:

...

A fascinating read about

. The entire read is illuminating. Some highlights:

“The finance industry talks too much about what to do, and not enough about what happens in your head when you try to do it.”

“Some people are born into families that encourage education; others are against it. Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship; others are born into war and destitution. I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it. But realize that not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself.”“[We don’t see] the irony that history is the study of surprises and changes while using it as a guide to the future. An overreliance on past data as a signal to future conditions in a field where innovation and change is the lifeblood of progress.”

...

Netflix’s not-so-secret strategy?

, according to Todd Yelin (VP Product) on the Economist podcast:

“What we do is we are very much diversifying our portfolio of the kinds of content we have -- different costs, different genres, different kinds of people, different places in the world et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera

. So with that ability, we don’t have to make sure oh my God, this title is live or die. It needs to be huge for Netflix or game over.

…

. The first article I published in college was an interview with Tucker Max. I’ve followed his career trajectory in the periphery, from Rudius Media to the

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

movie to his latest company, Book in a Box. This piece is another interesting twist in the saga.

Favorite quote:

“His sincere bafflement that he has anything to answer for [in light of the #metoo movement] sounds like a turned-up-to-11 version of feelings many men are experiencing

in

this moment.”

…

If you produce ANY content for the web, this is humbling:

(from Reforge, where I am fortunate to work). The takeaway:

“If you want to get traffic from Google, it's simple — you need to publish pages about the things that people are searching for (i.e., do proper keyword research) and make sure those pages get high-quality links back from other sites (i.e., do some link building).”

…

Not Coke, not Apple… it’s National Geographic.

…

Quote that’s been on my mind: “If you want to be an anomaly you have to act like one.” - Gary Vaynerchuk.

Thanks for reading!

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