Happy Friday ,
Writing to you from my backyard in Memphis! I'm Jonah Baer and this is the Baer Necessities, where I share what I'm learning, working on, and the unpredictable journey along the way.
Here are a few stats for my newsletter:
- 129 total active subscribers
- Open Rate for the last email: 70%
- Click Rate for the last email: 9%
I'll be honest: my schedule for sending this email has become inconsistent, to say the least. For a while, I was going strong sending the newsletter every Sunday afternoon or early evening. But that's changed in the last couple of months. Today is my first time sending the Baer Necessities on a Friday. Last week I sent on a Wednesday. No rhyme or reason.
However, sending a newsletter on the same day every week makes a ton of sense if nothing else than for predictability. For example, I know that today I'll be getting an email from Tim Ferriss and David Perell, without fail. I know that on Tuesdays around noon I'll receive my weekly Trends email (a paid newsletter on business trends). People (including myself) like predictability in their content consumption.
That's why I wanted to put the ball in your court. What day and time would you prefer to receive the Baer Necessities? Let me know on the Google Form below.
Just one thing from me this week:
- Compound Writing: I joined a long-form writing community called Compound and wrote a thread about why I joined here. TLDR - I joined so I could be in a community to hold me accountable, to improve my writing through giving and receiving feedback, and to meet new writers from across the world. Compound was even recently accepted as a Y-Combinator backed company, which gives them instant credibility in a lot of people's eyes. If you're a writer and interested in joining the Compound community, I'd be happy to talk to you about it. Stay tuned for more longform writing from me soon!
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The Necessities
Here are 5 things I'm enjoying this week. Only the Necessities:
📝 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice:
Kevin Kelly is a fascinating person as a futurist, world traveler, founder of Wired magazine, and someone I've looked up to for a while since hearing him on The Tim Ferriss Show. So when I discovered this blog on his website, I had to give it a read. Here are a few of my favorites bits:
- A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.
- You are what you do. Not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
- When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the worst case scenario.
You can read the full article from Kevin Kelly here. And if you liked this blog, you will love his podcast interview with David Perell on seeing the future.
🎧 The Creator Economy: NFTs and Beyond
If you're interested in NFTs, social tokens, and their effect on the creator economy (i.e. musicians, newsletter writers, YouTubers, podcasters, videogamers, etc.), then this is the podcast episode for you. There's a lot of talk going around about the viability of crypto and blockchain to directly affect the real world, and NFTs are just the start of that. Some people think that NFTs are a bubble, and while there might be some insane valuations for NFTs right now, I think they are here to stay for the longterm. Check out the episode and hear Jesse Walden, Chris Dixon, and Kevin Chou chat about where they see the industry going in the next few years.
Listen to the full episode: The Creator Economy: NFTs and Beyond.
🐦 5 tactics for finding focus in your career, startup, or life
Thread from Sahil Bloom. Here is the TLDR:
- Eliminate Low-Value Decisions
- Sprint Then Rest
- Noise Cancellation
- Sleep Tight
- Train Your Mind
☁️ Lost in Thought
It's always good to understand both the risks and benefits of certain practices. This was a heartbreaking story about how meditation can break you apart. In the past, I've written about meditation and its benefits on your mental health. But while I still believe in the immense benefits of daily 10-minute meditations, this article showed the real psychological risks of meditation (especially silent meditation retreats). It's a long, heartbreaking story so make sure you give yourself ample time (~30 minutes) to read this story.
Read the full article: Lost in Thought
🎸 Best of Live Phish
One of my friends Gabe posed a question on his Instagram story this week: what's the first concert you want to see post-pandemic? Without a second thought, I said Phish. They are arguably my favorite band and I can't wait to see them live again. However, since we can't see them live yet (besides their re-broadcasting of old shows like this one from 1998), this awesome playlist is the next best option!
Listen to the playlist: Best of Live Phish
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Also, here is a fixed link from last week: Why every company needs a Bitcoin strategy
That's all I got for you today!
Let me know if you have any cool articles, podcasts, tweets, or playlists you want to share. I always love getting recs from friends.
Cheers and have a great weekend,
Jonah
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