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Dear <<First Name>>,
I really enjoyed rooting for Tiger Woods this weekend. His comeback is such a great story. A prodigy who was on top of the world as the most famous and accomplished athlete whose life then went into a tailspin through scandal and addiction coupled with years of devastating injuries and surgeries... and now he's back in the winner's circle with the potential to perhaps make a run at Jack Nicklaus's 18 majors.
Excited to see how he does next year. I think reading his bio earlier this year definitely made me more invested in his success.
Consumed
Want to Seem More Likable? Try This. (NYTimes)
"A study published last year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology analyzed getting-to-know-you conversations between platonic conversation partners, along with face-to-face speed-dating conversations, and found that in both settings 'people who ask more questions, particularly follow-up questions, are better liked by their conversation partners.'"
This is always a valuable reminder and it got me thinking about Dale Carnegie's principle of "Become genuinely interested in other people." It's one of the highlights I picked from his classic book a couple years ago – check out the others.
Endure: Mind, Body, and the Curiously Elastic Limits of Human Performance by Alex Hutchinson (book)
It's fascinating how the brain and the rest of the body interact with each other in order to protect the body from being irreparably harmed. Hutchinson sets out to learn from athletes and scientists looking to push the boundaries of human performance, exploring the various mind and body training approaches undertaken to achieve new levels. The Kenyan way of running all out during certain training runs (for marathon runners) rather than the American way of sticking to a pace was really interesting, especially as we understand that when we predetermine a limit, our brain is unlikely to let us smash it, giving Kenyan runners a distinct advantage in the way they run.
How Bosses Waste Their Employees’ Time (WSJ)
Leaders don’t mean to waste their employees’ time. Unfortunately, many of them heap unnecessary work on the people below them in the pecking order—and are downright clueless that they’re doing it.
They give orders without realizing how much work those directives entail. They make offhand comments and don’t consider that their employees may interpret them as commands. And they solicit opinions without realizing that people will bend over backward to tell them what they want to hear—rather than the whole truth, warts and all.
...As part of embracing complaints, leaders might consider a radical (and often uncomfortable) change in how they define star employees.
Research on psychological safety led by Amy Edmondson at the Harvard Business School shows that the best employees for promoting organizational learning are often those who never leave well enough alone, pointing out mistakes and flawed practices. But those who management rates as top performers are often those who silently do what they’re told and what has always been done—and don’t annoy their superiors with complaints and questions about flawed practices.
Created
Most Common Opportunities for Growing E-commerce Businesses
At Barrel, a segment of our clients (and prospective clients who contact us) are growing e-commerce businesses doing anywhere between $500k to $5 million in sales. They are typically run by small teams (usually less than 10 people, often just 2-5 people) and have either been bootstrapped (funded with the founder’s savings plus the profits of the business) or with a small seed investment from friends and family. Drawing from my observations and experience reviewing dozens of such e-commerce businesses over the years, I thought it’d be a useful exercise to share some the most common opportunities we’ve come across and identified for these companies.
Hope you have a great week!
Cheers,
Peter
P.S. You can check out my list of books read right here. My hope is to get a good mix of challenging reads with some that are entertaining, inspiring, and instructive.
If you like what you've read, please share with your friends. They can sign up for the list here. Also, I always welcome recommendations of any kind–books, podcasts, movies, etc.
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