The Connection Newsletter 34 - Sustainability

The Connection Newsletter 34 - Sustainability

November 19, 2018

Hello!

This is edition #34 of

The Connection

, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.

Last week I hung out with some amazing people in the Growth scene in New York City. Looking forward to more of these events in 2019. Email me if you’re in NYC and interested in Growth or attending.

Make sure to hit "Display Images" above to see puppy pics. 

This week, I started a 3-part series on building what I call a

I’ve been thinking a lot about this as I ask certain questions:

  • How do you pursue your ambitions while being a good husband and father?

  • How do you consistently work towards both without burning out?

  • How much money do you need to be happy?

  • What is the true cost of ambition?

I’m starting to realize that while a sustainable life looks different for everyone, the process to build one is the same.

.

Now, onto some fave articles this week:

…

I can’t get enough of these profiles of women who are making “Part Two” of their Hollywood bigger, badder, and more powerful than the first (off the top of my head this includes Reese Witherspoon, Elizabeth Banks,

, and others).

His [boyfriend Alex Rodriguez] guidance on her work, she said, started with discussions of his investments, mostly owned, versus her licensing deals, which always “felt imbalanced to me,” she said. “How did I help these people make a billion dollars and I came home with this very small fraction of that? Should I not have participated in that since it was my name, my idea, my product?” Her vision now is for artists to develop and finance their ideas independently, then find a profit-sharing distributor. “I should be a partner,” she said. As artists, “we’re not disposable.”

...

The thesis seemed to be that Harley-Davidson needed to deviate from the brand earlier, and make a hard pivot to a new generation of riders. To create a new machine that, as one business professor said, is “so cool nobody knows it’s a Harley.”

Which -- as many ideas do -- sounds like it could work. But have other brands been able to make the same pivot? Which ones?

The company has to look beyond the leather and muscle stuff and really think outside the box if it is to survive. A scooter, or a moped, or some other smaller electric that might not necessarily require a special license endorsement. Or, even if they do, Harley should think about making a lighter-weight electric motorcycle that doesn’t copy the same styling Harley has made for nearly a century.

...

Love Darius’s compelling storytelling style and how he simply and logically explains the power of personal development:

You simply have more chance of career success if you have more skills. Think about it. If you’re a one-trick pony, your opportunities are limited. But if you have multiple skills, you’re simply more valuable. And that’s what career success is ultimately about. It comes down to value. How much value can you give to people or organizations?

...

This profile details the tone of The Skimm (I’m a daily reader) and captures the personality of many VC-backed startups. I take issue with the writer’s patronizing tone and how they take pot shots at the company’s culture. Especially since by the writer’s own admission, The Skimm has gotten more people interested in current events.

With that said, the article’s conclusion brought up a fair point:

A thoughtful, stylish woman I know in her 40s said to me that she hopes the Skimm continues to be

dominant — and that they start to subtly elevate the way they write, just a hair at a time, changing it so slowly that no one even realizes it’s changing. “Imagine what that could do,” she said, “if we started talking to women not

in same the way that we’ve always thought that we had to in order to get their attention.”

...

I love stories of people making their living at their day jobs while devoting every spare second to their passion projects. In this case of Jack Etienne, that devotion is starting to pay off. It was very much a case of right place, right time, catching eSports during its upwards trajectory, but also shows you can wait a LONG time before quitting your job and going all-in.

He spent millions to buy his way into a select group of teams that can compete in the top gaming tournaments, and there’s no guarantee it’ll recoup that cost. Cloud9 and other teams are working together with game developers to secure lucrative distribution rights for online streaming and television. Cloud9 is also working to land valuable marketing deals. There’s also the pressing challenge of making esports easier to watch so people besides hardcore gamers can understand what’s going on.

Thanks for reading! If you’re in the US, hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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