Learn: Ageism, the booger test, weird book titles 

Read: 3 mins

Greetings from Austin,

After last week’s 100th newsletter, I mentioned this form to start gathering testimonials, butttt didn’t really think anyone would do it. Then 10+ did, and I couldn’t be more appreciative! For real, thank you.

I’m in the process of moving this newsletter over to Beehiiv and will be calling it “Making Connections.” It will be the same weekly email and content. Just more clear that it’s about connecting ideas/examples/people. Plus way cleaner. Stay tuned the next few weeks and you’ll see the upgrades. 

Okay, now let's connect some dots. 

👴 Too Old? 

Maybe you’ve seen it by now, but Jelly Roll won “new artist” of the year this week at the 2023 CMAs at 39 years old. 

Immediately when I saw his acceptance speech video clip, I knew it would make great content (great message about not giving up + unreal delivery). 

So I clipped it, cut out the beginning, added subtitles, and then thought about how I could add an additional angle to make it unique.

I had only a few minutes before a call, so didn’t have much time to mess with it. But I remembered I wrote about “Entrepreneurs in their 40s” in a past newsletter. 

So I just copied that list and tweeted this, which now has 20k views. (and several thousand more across LinkedIn, IG, tt, etc.)

Learnings:

• Get right to the point (cut the beginning fluff)
• Make it easy to consume (added subtitles)
• Make it unique (added the other late bloomers I already wrote)

With this type of content, it’s better to be timely than perfect. It also helps to have an ongoing library of content to combine. 

📚 Weird Book Titles

Some of the MOST impactful books I've read were also the ones I was MOST resistant to read because I was turned off by the title. 

Specifically, The 4-hour Workweek, The Pathless Path, and now I just finished The Surrender Experiment. 

All amazing books. Someone should coin a phrase around not judging a book by the title or something. (More here.)

👃 The Booger Test

Lori Gottlieb is a therapist and bestselling author of the amazing book Maybe You Should Talk to Someone. 

I love her distinction on the difference between idiot vs wise compassion.

Idiot compassion is what we usually do with friends when we blindly support them. We might say, “You're right, they're wrong,” even if that’s not true.  

Wise compassion, on the other hand, helps the person see something they've been unable to see. It reveals their blind spots or helps them make different choices. 

BIG difference.

Here's an example of what I like to call the “Booger Test.” Say your friend has a booger hanging out of their nose, do you tell them immediately? Or not say anything because it's kinda awkward?

If YOU had some boogies hanging out, wouldn't you want to know immediately?

Whether it’s boogies in their nose, food in their teeth, or an honest truth, you can clearly see… Real friends give wise compassion. It’s a gift. 

In good health, 

Mitchell aka “the boogie monster”