Howdy friends,
I'm writing to you from Otherlands Coffee Bar in Memphis!
It's crazy to think about but today marks the first time I've worked inside a coffeeshop in almost a year. And I got to say - it feels pretty damn good. I miss being surrounded by other people (at least from a distance) while I jam on my work.
It makes me even more excited for our post-pandemic world with live music, packed sporting events, and bars.
As always, please feel free to reply to this email with what you think of the newsletter (good and bad), any ideas, and how I might be able to support you. You can also provide feedback on my Google Form here.
Questions I'm pondering this week: What is a billion-person problem I can start focusing my attention on for the next 10 years? In other words, how could I start working on something with the goal to help 1 billion people? (h/t Peter Diamandis for this question)
Start small: how can I help 10 people through my newsletter? Then 100? Then 1000? And so on...
Just a few things from me:
I'm still writing mini essays everyday! If you're not following me on Twitter, you're missing out... but you can still read EVERY mini essay from this past month HERE. One day, I'll get around to adding my favorite essays to my blog. For now, Twitter is where they live.
Here are my most popular essays from last week:
- The Morning Brew of Institutional Crypto (How a crypto events and podcast company re-positioned themselves as an editorial site. Think Bloomberg meets Morning Brew)
- Skin in the Game (How charging $10 for The Collegiate Blockchain Conference taught me an important lesson)
- Reflections on Decision Making (3 tips on how to think about your decisions)
That's all for me! Here is what you will find in this week's Baer Necessities:
- 🎧 Podcast: Random Show with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose
- 🎧 Podcast: Jason Yanowitz & Michael Ippolito on The Pomp Podcast
- 📖 Book I Want to Read: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
- 📝 Article: Why You Should Share Your Ideas Online
- 7 Favorite Tweets and Tweet Storms of the Week
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🎧 Podcast: Random Show with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose
This episode of the Tim Ferriss Show felt like you were listening to 2 best friends talking shop over coffee or wine. I have so many takeaways, and I might write a blog on it soon. For now, here are the topics they talked about:
- How they are invested in cryptocurrencies
- Red flags they see in crypto over the coming years (highly recommend this part - obviously I'm bullish on crypto but this gave me a good bear case for crypto)
- Investing tips and rebalancing your portfolio
- How Tim views each investment as a lesson on decision-making (even if you're only investing chump change, you can learn something if you pay attention.)
- Lucid dreaming (more on this below!)
- Walks in nature with no technology
- Energy management > time management
Listen to the full episode: Random Show with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose
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🎧 Podcast: Jason Yanowitz & Michael Ippolito on The Pomp Podcast
The narrative in crypto has changed significantly in the last year. Institutional investors have arrived and they are here to stay. It's not just college kids trading from their Robinhood accounts anymore.
In this Pomp Podcast episode, Jason and Michael share their story of building a startup crypto media company: Blockworks. You will learn:
- Why they left their jobs to run the bootstrapped company full-time
- How Blockworks is building a media company with the goal to educate institutional investors looking to allocate money to crypto
- How they helped launch the Pomp Podcast
- Where they see media going in the next few years
- Predictions for crypto in 2021
Give it a listen: Jason Yanowitz & Michael Ippolito on The Pomp Podcast
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📖 Book I Want to Read: Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming
In the previously mentioned Tim Ferriss episode, he talked at length about lucid dreaming (when you are aware that you're dreaming). He read this book in high school and used it to start lucid dreaming himself.
After practicing the techniques taught in this book, was able to lucid dream and practice wrestling against one of the all-time greats. He then used what he learned in his lucid dreams to improve in real life.
I've never considered attempting to lucid dream until now. Now, I really want to try it. It could make my dreams more vivid AND I can control wha thappens in them. Sounds like a neat experiment to try. Apparently, this book is a great place to start. Anyone want to join me? Reply and let me know.
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📝 Article: Why You Should Share Your Ideas Online (Stew Fortier)
This article from Stew Fortier is the perfect guide to why you should start writing online - even if you think you have nothing to say. We all have a voice and can use the internet to leverage our careers to the next level.
Whether you want to go full-time on content creation one day, create your own online course, write a book, or just present yourself as a thought leader in your industry – everyone could learn something from this article.
As for me, I'm just getting started. My main goal right now: learn new things constantly, package my learning and experiences into writing online, and meet cool new people (or reconnect with old friends) along the way. So far, so good.
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🐦 Favorite Tweets & Tweet Storms
- School is an astonishing failure of modern society. (@julian)
- THREAD: Here are 10 insights I've learned over the last 5 years from cofounding and selling business. On startups, investing, marketing, and career advice: (@austin_rief)
- Suggestions for SEO best practices (@kaleighf)
- On a day for the history books, @TheAmandaGorman delivered a poem that more than met the moment (@barackobama)
- Two Questions to Ask When Hiring (@julian)
- Argentinians are Googling Bitcoin at unprecedented rates. (@jasonyanowitz)
- Blockchains are bound to become the rails of finance; they were built to transfer value. (@CamiRusso)
- STOP. Go through who you follow on Twitter and Instagram. If they aren't bringing you joy, making you laugh, challenging you to think differently, or inspiring you to create positive change, hit "unfollow" (@rachelcantor_)
That's it from for today! Time to go watch the rest of the Bills-Chiefs game. For now, enjoy this picture of me and Teddy Baer from the other day.
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