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- The Connection Newsletter 62 - I am a material girl
The Connection Newsletter 62 - I am a material girl
The Connection Newsletter 62 - I am a material girl
Hello!
This is edition #62 of
The Connection
, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.
Last week was busy!
Working on a few different features at work plus starting to stand up the marketing for our next batch of programs.
I’m still settling into what this new role as product manager means, and the skills it takes to be good at it.
Plus, we were getting ready for my son’s first birthday… and had 80 people coming over to the house 😳
A year ago, I simply would have locked it down. Skipped workouts. Cut sleep. Skipped lunch and grabbed take out for dinner. I would have focused solely on work during the day, set up for the party in the evening, and in general, been cranky about the whole thing.
Instead, last week I worked out 3x and went to Bjj class 2x. Ate healthy everyday. And still got work done.
The difference? I’ve put more in buying back my time. More specifically I:
Use a weekly meal prep service. They cook healthy meals that we pick up on Mondays, so the fridge is always stocked with healthy dinners we microwave and eat.
Hired a trainer. He comes to the house 2x a week. We train for an hour in the gym in my basement. When we’re done, I don’t need to commute anywhere — I just head back upstairs and get right back to work.
Work with a VA to help me with administrative tasks, like proofreading, transcription, and putting together my newsletter.
There are the obvious benefits of buying back time: staying accountable, getting shit done, etc. But there are benefits I didn’t anticipate as well:
My sleep is better.
I don’t beat myself up as much if I’m not “perfectly” productive the entire day.
But most importantly, I’m spending my best energy and time on my family, instead of trying to “squeeze in” quality time between pockets of work.
Okay, onto this week’s articles. Thanks as always for reading:
Make sure to hit "Display Images" above to see puppy pics.
We’re talking about “failing” online publications like Elite Daily, Mic, Bustle, Gawker, etc., while others are debating whether there’s a viable financial future in owning a digital media company. You have to admire someone who believes they’re
that
good of an operator, they can make the business work in times of famine:
“In the past year, the online news outlets BuzzFeed and Vice have cut hundreds of jobs; Defy Media, the owner of a collection of online outlets, shut down; and Gizmodo Media Group, home of Jezebel, Deadspin, and the Onion, sold for less than what Univision paid for most of the sites three years earlier.”
She hates it. She
really
hates it, and put the NYT on blast in a Instagram post. To the NYT’s credit, they responded with a column titled “Wait-what’s Madonna mad about?” IMO, it was an interesting and fair profile. Judge for yourself. Favorite part about the challenges facing Madonna to remain relevant in pop:
“The pop-music world around Madonna has expanded in such shockingly strange new ways in the past couple of years that her precisely executed performance almost seemed too delicate.
Teenagers have always dominated pop, but now that most new music in the United States is streamed, how many times a song is listened to by one person counts much more than how many people listen to a song — and kids simply have more time to stream music than adults.
When I checked the charts after the show, rappers born after President Bill Clinton’s election were in the top slots (Lil Nas X, Lil Skies, Lil Baby, Lil Uzi Vert). Older musicians had to pander to the teenage demographic or even younger; Swift’s new single, “ME!” sounded like a Kidz Bop version of a Taylor Swift single and actually featured her shouting, during the bridge, “Spelling is fun!”
I never really thought about your approach to capitalism can not only create wealth for you, but for millions of people. John Bogle, founder of Vanguard, arguably, did more good than all but a few of the very biggest, smartest American philanthropists.
It’s estimated that Vanguard’s “low-cost index funds, and the imitators they have inspired, may have saved ordinary Main Street Americans a staggering $250 billion, or more, in mutual fund fees over the last forty years.”
How long it took the United States Secret Service to catch an amateur counterfeiter who distributed over $7,000 in fake money (5% of the fake currency in circulation). The catch -- he was only making fake $1 bills.
The most polarizing figure in the NBA isn’t an owner, player, or executive. It’s Rich Paul, Lebron James’s agent and friend. This is the story of his earliest entrepreneurial pursuits, how he befriended Lebron, and became an undeniable force in the game.
A friend once told me, “there is no such thing as jet lag. It’s just another word for weakness.” Interestingly enough, I haven’t experienced jet lag ever since adopting that mentality. However if you
do
suffer from jet lag, Time Shifter might be something for you to check out. It helps you create your own personalized jet lag plans, so you arrive to your destination fresh and at your best.
“The key to quick adaptation is timed light exposure. Surprising to many, light is the most important time cue for resetting your circadian clock. Managing when you see and avoid light is critical to adapting to new time zones quickly. The right light exposure at the right time can significantly accelerate your adaptation. Seeing light at the wrong time will make our jet lag worse.”
(H/t Colin Nagy’s
.)
The granby roll is used in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to get back into a good defensive position after your defense has been compromised. What I like about this progression is that (like any good progression) it breaks down something complex into small movements that get incrementally more difficult. Once you see how progressions make acquiring a specific skill 10x easier, you start to look for progressions everywhere, to acquire any skill, or achieve any goal.
This broke yesterday so the story is still developing and I’m still wrapping my head around the implications, but needless to say, I’m devastated for Taylor Swift.
Heartbreaking to lose control of one’s lifework, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
”When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever.”
Thanks for reading!
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