Weekend Reads and Listens: Trying to Stay Grounded
I hope you all had a great weekend. Recently, I've learned the significance of disconnecting and staying grounded during family time. Nowadays, it's challenging to switch off our “to-do” mode, especially in the information age. As a result, we often end up taking on multiple unimportant tasks and trying to stay connected at all times.
However, focusing on these unimportant tasks often leads to irritation when interrupted. While writing this newsletter, which I could easily do when everyone is asleep, I am getting interrupted. This is why I started putting my phone in airplane mode. It has been working really well for me, even at the aquarium (as pictured).
Another strategy I have found helpful is to listen to music instead of calling someone and talking about nothing while driving.
Learning to ground myself is going to be a long-term process. If you are struggling with the same issue, know that you are not alone. If, however, you want to disassociate like I do, see below for some exciting reads and listens to help you do just that. 😂
Reads 🤓
- Annual Letter: Everyone hates this guy but I am a fan- what can I say? He talks about some investment themes that I find interesting and of course ZIRP and its effects in the capital markets. I recommend the read.
- Relationship Liquidity: Kyle Harris eloquently discussed people as a marketplace. How you use your network as currency and be a conduit to leverage forward momentum in yourself and your networks careers.
- Difficulty Ratio: In the SaaS world the amount you can charge per the length and cost of the sales cycle matters. You need to collect $50-$100k if it takes 3-months to sell into a customer.
- Look Back at Q4 Software Earnings: This is a really good piece on how the best software companies on the planet are thinking about their forward looking projections. You will see their is a lack of confidence in their consensus “beats”. TL;DR- lets expect some budget contraction.
Listens 🎙
Great listen from legendary collegiate coach Paul Assainte. He discusses how to get the most out of your team, the importance of practice, and how to foster winning mindsets in the era of snowflakes.
Howard Lindzon speaks to the Founder and CEO of Manscaped- the DTC mens grooming company. Very interesting thoughts on white spaces and category creation. I love how Howard runs a podcast.
Tools 🛠
Instapaper: An incredible tool to curate all of your content reads in one place. Very useful so I can reference them later.
Jasper.AI: My first generative AI purchase outside of ChatGPT. You might notice how much better my writing is thanks to this tool.
I hope everyone is able to stay grounded and continue to learn and grow every day. Progression is key!
Have a great week everyone,
David Paul 🤙🏽