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Dear <<First Name>>,
Hope you've been well.
I'm happy to be picking up this newsletter again. It's been a while. Fatherhood (now just over 6 months) has been wonderful, and I feel so lucky.
I've also been very fortunate to have stuck with some of my habits, especially working out (115 times since our son's birth) and reading (25 books so far this year). However, I've neglected taking the time to sit down and reflect on the things I've consumed. Hoping to be better about that moving forward and will aim for sending something at least once a month.
One thing I'd like to rave about: my Whoop strap, which has been useful for monitoring my daily strain (how much I've challenged my heart rate), sleep quality, and recovery. I've pushed myself at the gym to achieve a certain level of strain each workout and I've been better about not drinking/eating too late and getting to bed earlier in order to log better sleep sessions. It's a highly gamified experienced that's stuck for me these past 3+ months. Plus, it's the most interesting analytics you'll ever see: of yourself!
I'll probably do a blog post at some point to share more of the Whoop experience.
Consumed
Learn Like an Athlete by David Perell (blog post)
"Athletes train. Musicians train. Performers train. But knowledge workers don’t. Knowledge workers should train like LeBron, and implement strict 'learning plans.' To be sure, intellectual life is different from basketball. Success is harder to measure and the metrics for improvement aren’t quite as clear. Even then, there’s a lot to learn from the way top athletes train. They are clear in their objectives and deliberate in their pursuit of improvement. Knowledge workers should imitate them."
Exhalation: Stories by Ted Chiang (book)
If you're looking for an entertaining and thought-provoking read, check out this short story collection. They read like elevated and more philosophical versions of Black Mirror episodes.
Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by Jason Crawford (blog post)
Fascinating article on why bicycles weren't invented until the late 1800s. I loved reading through all the hypotheses at the start and how these probably weren't the case. Interesting how so many early inventions were imitations of human-powered 4-wheel carriage and it took a while before anyone decided to give 2-wheel invention a try.
Tao of Digital Agency Profitability by Tim O'Neill (LinkedIn blog post)
I must've re-read this article about 5 times. So many good nuggets in there especially if you're an agency owner. There are a lot of things that we've put in place at Barrel that follow this and a bunch of things we still need to be better about. Really well organized and a great effort by Tim and SoDA members.
When a Dating Dare Leads to Months of Soul Searching by Andrew Lee (NYT Modern Love)
"I smiled, expecting something from one of the countless jokes we had shared that day. Instead, she said, 'You’re the first Asian guy I’ve ever gone on a date with. I’m not sure how I feel about that.'
After talking nonstop all day, I was at a loss for words. Because here’s the kicker: Sarah is Asian-American. Her parents immigrated from Taiwan. Mine came from mainland China.
'If things don’t work out,' she said, 'would it hurt your confidence?'"
Created
Customer Journey No. 1: Allbirds – 2 Years & $885.21
I started a new blog and this is the inaugural post, about how I spent a good chunk of money on Allbirds and the extent of the "customer journey" I took in wracking up the purchases. I'm going to try to write one customer journey post every few months.
Lessons from The E-Myth Chief Financial Officer
I recently did a deep-dive into our company finances at Barrel, cleaned up the way we track things, and set up some key performance indicators. It's been a great learning experience and this book was helpful as part of that process.
Reflecting on The 11 Laws of The Fifth Discipline (from Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline)
To reflect on 13 years of being in business, I revisited one of my favorite business books and related some of its core tenets to lessons learned from being in the digital agency space.
Preserving Web Agency Profits with a Discovery Engagement
On the AgencyDocs website, where we sell templates of docs/deliverables used in our agency business, I wrote a blog post about how "discovery" engagements have helped us to mitigate downside risk when taking on client projects.
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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