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- Never Fully Read 14th edition
Never Fully Read 14th edition
Lying is the primary cause of your suffering.
☕️ Morning Coffee:
“Remember, everything is solve-able, and if you can’t see a solution, it only means you haven’t worked it out yet.”
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🤖Tech News:
“Facemoji is building a plug-and-play tech platform to help game and app developers put avatar systems into their apps with the startup’s SDK. Facemoji has raised a $3 million seed round led by Play Ventures, with participation from Twitter and Roosh Ventures, alongside some angel investors.”
“Pets continue to be big business, and Alpha Paw is the latest to draw investor attention. The Austin-based company raised $8 million in Series A funding, led by Nordic Eye, after bootstrapping for the past three years. CEO Ramon van Meer took over the company in 2018 via an acquisition and is working with his 11-year-old son, Victor. At the time, Alpha Paw was a small company developing pet ramps for dogs that had trouble jumping up or down from sofas. It was relaunched in 2019 in the pet wellness area.”
“Microsoft announced today that it has acquired Ally.io, a software service that helps companies measure their progress against OKRs (objectives and key results), a common way that management measures both individual and company progress. The two firms did not share the purchase price.”
“Medley was co-founded by Edith Cooper and Jordan Taylor, a mother-daughter duo who believe that the personal and professional development of people are inextricably linked. The platform launched back in July of 2020 with the goal of facilitating small group discussions led by a professional development coach. These groups were matched with the express intention of fostering diversity and inclusion, with different age groups, genders, ethnicities and backgrounds represented in each group.”
“PideDirecto, a Mexico-based company, is developing a platform that enables local businesses in Latin America to sell directly to their consumers and deliver orders in less than 30 minutes. We started PideDirecto, to enable local businesses to scale their direct-to-consumer sales channels,” Fawzi said. “We build the online storefronts for the brands and operate logistics for businesses, like pharmacies, local retailers, restaurants and CPG brands. Think of us as Shopify with 30-minute deliveries.”
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📈 Trends Of The Week:
Biltong Is the Latest Snack SPAC
“Biltong is a South African air-dried meat snack that Julia once described as “beef jerky but better” (it’s also healthier for you). We first reported on it last year -- it now has 27m+ views on TikTok.
Opportunities in this growing space include:
Starting a challenger brand. There is still plenty of room for competitors in the biltong market, which grew 500% in the US in 2019.
Targeting the growing market of vegans and vegetarians with “plantong.” Vegan jerky is already coining it on Amazon -- this mushroom version brings in ~$40k/mo., according to Jungle Scout.
Creating a DIY biltong kit. Leverage the booming DIY trend to service the ~12k redditors trying to make their own biltong at home.
Targeting a niche market, like runners or cyclists (sure beats this Nude GU).”
Mobility Is the New Flexibility
“Mobility, the ability of a joint to move through a full range of motion without discomfort, is the new darling of the fitness world. It’s distinct from flexibility, which is the ability of a muscle to lengthen fully.
The concept is big on TikTok, where #mobility has 421m+ views, and #mobilitychallenge has 41m+. Individual joints are also popular:
#hipmobility: 76m+ views
#shouldermobility: 19m+
#anklemobility: 6.5m”
There’s New Buzz Around Beekeeping
“Urban and backyard beekeeping have been gaining popularity in recent years as bee populations have come under threat.
The hobby saw renewed interest in 2020 (when searches for “how to keep bees” reached an all-time high) as worldwide lockdowns inspired cooped-up city slickers to reconnect with nature.
There is still opportunity for entrepreneurs to step in and help novice beekeepers, who didn’t get the coaching and mentoring they needed, thanks to social distancing.
You could provide apicultural newbies with:
Another interesting niche gaining traction is mead, or honey wine, which is believed to be the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage.”
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🧠 Quotes that make you think:
“A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost.” Nassim Nicholas Taleb
“Today, we turn to one person to provide what an entire village once did: a sense of grounding, meaning, and continuity. At the same time, we expect our committed relationships to be romantic as well as emotionally and sexually fulfilling. Is it any wonder that so many relationships crumble under the weight of it all?” Esther Perel
“The quality of your life ultimately depends on the quality of your relationships.” Esther Perel
“I learned to always take on things I’d never done before. Growth and comfort do not coexist.” Virginia Rometty, CEO of IBM
“If you’re not making some notable mistakes along the way, you’re certainly not taking enough business and career chances.” Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and co-founder of Ellevest
“If you are committed to creating value and if you aren’t afraid of hard times, obstacles become utterly unimportant. A nuisance perhaps, but with no real power. The world respects creation; people will get out of your way." Candice Carpenter Olson – Co-CEO of Fullbridge
Amateurs work till they get it right. Masters work until they can’t get it wrong.
“History never repeats itself but it rhymes” Mark Twain
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⛓ Mental Model Of The Week:
Law of Diminishing Returns:
“The law of diminishing marginal returns is a theory in economics that predicts that after some optimal level of capacity is reached, adding an additional factor of production will actually result in smaller increases in output.
For example, a factory employs workers to manufacture its products, and, at some point, the company operates at an optimal level. With all other production factors constant, adding additional workers beyond this optimal level will result in less efficient operations. “
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🎤 Podcasts I listened to:
“Jacqueline Gold has been the CEO of AnnSummers for over thirty years, and we think after listening to this you’ll understand why she’s an inspiration to people everywhere. Taking over AnnSummers in 1987, she is now one of the richest people in the UK, and is worth over £400 million.
At the beginning of her CEO journey, no one saw what she saw, that women might be interested in sex. Taking over a company run by and for men, AnnSummers and the sex industry was transformed by empowering a new audience, women. Female empowerment remains at the heart of everything she does…”
“Diana Chapman is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and a co-author of the book The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Her passion is to help organizational leaders and their teams eliminate drama in the workplace and beyond. She has worked with more than 1,000 CEOs and is a well-respected facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), working with their forums and chapters worldwide.”
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📚 Book I'm Reading:
The Core Principles of Radical Honesty:
Lying is the primary cause of suffering
Living honestly is the antidote to lying and the root of its power is in distinguishing noticing from thinking.
You can only notice in the moment. And you can only notice three categories of things: sensations, thoughts, and your external surroundings.
Sharing honestly what you notice frees you from the suffering caused by attachment to lying, withholding, phoniness, and ideals.
Sharing honestly what you notice also deepens love, connection, understanding and forgiveness (eventually).
Radical Honesty is a living, walking, talking out-loud meditation that moves you from reactivity to being a creator of your own life.
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⏰ Timeless Insight:
The universe is change. life is opinion
-Marcus Aurelius , meditations, 4.3-4b