The Baer Necessities

Howdy friends,

Writing to you from lockdown at the Baer household in Memphis! This is the 5th edition of The Baer Necessities. Thanks to the 90 friends who have subscribed!

We had a COVID scare in my family this week so we're on full quarantine mode right now. Luckily, we're all healthy and doing fine but remember to keep wearing your masks and social distance! Hopefully this is the home stretch.

Why am I writing this weekly newsletter? It's helpful to think of this email like a weekly postcard letting you know I'm still alive and to share what I'm learning and working on.

With that being said, I want to make some improvements to the newsletter in 2021. I'd love to know what you like, what you don't like, and how I could improve!

Please consider spending 2 minutes to give me feedback here!

Give Jonah feedback

What I'm Working On:

I officially completed the Ship 30 for 30 challenge this week, where I wrote 30 essays in 30 days on Twitter! Check out this thread on what I learned from this experience. And here are my five favorite essays from the past month:

• The Power of One Idea
• Everything Doesn't Need to Scale
• Creating Immersive Worlds
• Journalistic Writing vs. Corporate Writing
• The Worst Question to Ask Anyone

Now that I'm finished with two 30-day writing challenges (60 total articles in 64 days!), I'm taking a step back from daily publishing to reflect on this crazy year:

I'm writing my 2020 Annual Review, which will be published before my last newsletter of the year (next Sunday 12/27).

After looking at many different formats for annual reviews, I've decided to keep it simple. Inspired by James Clear's annual review, I'm sharing:

• What went well this year
• What didn't go so well
• What lessons I learned

I started reflecting this weekend and have blocked out 1-2 hours everyday over the four or five days to dive deep into this annual review. I'll admit it's super satisfying and humbling to look back at your year and figure out what's working and what's not working.

If you're interested in doing one yourself, feel free to use the above format. I'd also recommend checking out Chris Guillbeau's full approach.

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Now, throw The Bare Necessities movie soundtrack on, sit back, and dive into The Necessities...

The Necessities

Listening 🎧

• Harley Finkelstein (COO of Shopify) on The Tim Ferriss Show: I know this newsletter is essentially a Tim Ferriss Fan Club but Tim's been on an absolute roll lately with this interviews and I can't not share. Harley is the COO and President of Shopify and you can learn so much from Harley in this episode including: the most formative books of his career, takeaways from law school and what curriculum he would teach to distill the lessons he learned in law school, how re-qualifies for his job at Shopify every year, high levels views of where he sees e-commerce in 2020 during the pandemic, how he and Shopify use coaches for personal and professional growth, and so much more. Let me know if you check it out!
• David Perell - Mastering Twitter to Grow Your Newsletter and Make Money: This interview from the founder of ConvertKit Nathan Barry with David Perell (one of my favorite online writers) is the best podcast I've heard on how to optimize your newsletter. It was especially great for someone like me who is just starting out on his newsletter / content creation journey.

Reading 📚

• Principles by Ray Dalio: This book is the memoir and lessons from the billionaire investor and founder of Bridgewater Associates. Thanks to my sister Leah and her boyfriend Josh for gifting me the book this past week for Hanukkah! In the first half of the book, he details his rags-to-riches story. In parts two and three, he shares his Life Principles and Work Principles. It's been a pleasure reading this while conducting my own annual review and trying to distill my personal lessons and principles from this year.
• The Way to Love by Anthony de Mello: After Naval Ravikant recommended this book as the best place to start in philosophy, I decided to check it out this week. I've only read the sample so far on my Amazon Kindle but it's absolutely incredible. It really makes you think hard about what is going on in your life. Here is one of my favorite quotes so far:

"There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them." - Anthony de Mello, The Way to Love

Tweets I Love 🐦

The most-clicked tweet from last week:

• It will not be roaring 20s until we build this (@RyanfDuffy)

Let's look at my favorite tweets and twitter threads from this week (in no particular order):

• How did you improve your content diet this year? (@polina_marinova)
• Mayor Francis Suarez recruiting tech people to Miami on Twitter (@FrancisSuarez)
• Expect things to start slowly when you start a new project but keep going when you really think you're onto something. (@david_perell)
• How to make a decent income in 2021 (@dr)
• The frontier is the place where the risk takers have arrived... Today, that’s probably DeFi. (@naval) - If you're not familiar with DeFi (decentralized finance), you should start learning about it. I think it will take the country by storm in 2021.
• The best habit I started in 2020 (pimping myself here @JonahBaer)
• How to prepare yourself for crypto taxes (@BanklessHQ)
• Laziness is postponing what you like doing until retirement. (@dvassallo)
• you only get to watch a new digital commodity monetize from scratch once in your lifetime. enjoy it (nic__carter)
• This is how I went from 0 to 2500 followers in 7 months. (@AlexLlullTW)
• Write for one obsessive person (@david_perell)
• New ATH for Bitcoin at $24,000 (@MessariCrypto)
• Each day is a small lifetime (@JamesClear)

Questions I'm Pondering 🤔

What content can I create in 2021 that will still be relevant and valuable 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, or even 20 years from now?

On the flip side, what will I wake up everyday excited to work on next year?

How can I find a niche that I'm excited to learn about and write about everyday?

(shoutout Alec D'Alelio for posing the second question to me)

Picture of the Week 📷

Quarantine projects: my mom and sister are tearing down this iconic wallpaper in my basement bathroom. It may seem irrelevant but I've been staring at this wallpaper in that bathroom for 20+ years. However, it's seen better days and time for a change. Good reminder that all good things eventually come to an end. RIP to a vintage wallpaper 🙃

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That's all I have for you today! If you have a few minutes, I'd love it if you took this survey on The Baer Necessities.

Cheers to making the most of the last 11 days of 2020,

Jonah

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