The Baer Necessities

Howdy friends,

Writing to you straight from my backyard in Memphis!

This email is being sent out to 110 subscribers along for this crazy journey with me. Welcome to anyone new here!

I hope everyone had an incredible Christmas, Hanukkah, or whatever you celebrate during this time of year. This will be my last email before the new year so Happy New Year too!

If you know someone who might enjoy this email, make sure you forward it to them or share this link. I understand this is a selfish ask so if you have any challenge or problem you need support with, please don't hesitate to reach out.

Before I dive in, if you like these emails (or if you don't which is also okay.... I guess), please consider giving me feedback here!

What I'm Working On:

2020 Annual Review

In the spirit of building in public, I'm sharing my first annual review. It's the longest blog post I've written (~3,000 words) as I broke down the highlights and lowlights from my entire year. In my opinion, it's probably the most important thing I've ever written yet. Subscribers to this email are also the first to see it because I haven't promoted it anywhere yet!

What you will learn in my annual review:

• What went well this year including writing, working in the crypto industry, mountain biking, and spending quality time with family and friends
• What didn't go so well this year including losing one of my roommates and best friends from college, losing my first job due to the pandemic, and my lack of focus due to social media

The review has helped me to reflect on my year and find the 20% of things in my life that are driving 80% of my happiness (or unhappiness).

While I wrote about the past this week, I'm writing about the future next week (2021 and beyond).

What were the highlights/lowlights of your year? If you're interested in doing something similar or already working on your annual review, let me know in the replies to this email!

The Necessities

Listening 🎧

Author and Podcaster: Tim Ferriss on How I Built This

WOW. This is one of my favorite interviewers (Guy Raz) talking with one of my favorite podcast-hosts and author of all time (Tim Ferriss). I don't think I need to give Tim Ferriss or Guy Raz any introduction, especially if you followed any of my previous podcast recommendations. I've heard Tim tell his story on his podcast countless times but learned so many new things about him in this gem of an episode.

You will learn:

• How Tim's exchange year in Japan reshaped his view of the world
• How he landed his first job out of college
• How he started his first company when he knew he was about to be laid off at his first job
• How he unknowingly planted the seeds for his NYT bestseller The 4 Hour Workweek
• How he handled the unexpected fame following the release of his NYT bestseller
• Why he changed his mind on whether he wants to have kids or not
• And sooooo much more

If you like this episode, you will love this episode of Tim Ferriss interviewing Guy Raz a few months back. You can also see my 6 takeaways on that episode that I wrote back in October.

Reading 📚

How to write an introduction from Julian Shapiro

Julian is one of my favorite new online writers that I recently discovered on Twitter. He has so many amazing writing resources on his website including this post on how to write an introduction. I always find the introduction is the toughest, yet most important, aspect of any article. Julian lays out his advice perfectly. Here is what you will learn:

• Choose the right topic to write about
• Write a compelling introduction that makes you want to read further
• Combat skepticism that readers may have
• Get feedback on our intro

Tweets 🐦

These are my favorite tweets from this week (sorry if this list is long but there are so many amazing tweets these days):

• The best way to promote your work
• Commit to things that matter most to you
• Bitcoin on Christmas Day
• 10 thought provoking questions
• A+ consistency with B+ quality always beats A+ quality with B+ consistency
• The Complete Guide to Annual Reviews
• Second-Order Thinking 101
• Thread on the best articles in 2020
• Thread on the best podcasts in 2020
• How Bleacher Report Found Their First Writers in 2006
• Lessons on how to send cold emails
• How to Delegate Tasks

Question I'm Pondering 🤔

What would this task or project look like if it was easy?

Many times, we tend to make things more difficult than they need to be. When writing this email, for example, I tend to spend too much time trying to perfect the details. How could I make this easy? On the flip side, how could I make it really difficult? That's how you know what you need to do and what you need to stop doing.

Picture of the Week 📷

My mom recently discovered my old report cards. As you can see below, I had terrible conduct in first grade but improved over the course of the year. My favorite note from below:

"Jonah is always engaged in the lesson. Of course, he comments on everything. He must learn to be a part of a group."

I like to think I'm better at working in groups now (hopefully)...

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That's it from me today! Feel free to reply to this email, and let me know if you are working on an annual review or your plans for 2021. I'd love to hear about it and help in any way I can!

And lastly.... Happy New Year!!!

Cheers,

Jonah

P.S. - If you liked this email, I'd be so happy if you forwarded it to someone who you think might enjoy it too! Or just share the link below 👇

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