Issue #14

Happy New Year friends 👋🏽,

Welcome back to Thought Caffeine, a weekly newsletter where I share my favourite discoveries during the week.

I spent New Year's in a family villa with some of my good friends. It's a property that I've known and loved for the past 12 years, overlooking the Indian ocean, which lends a view that I wouldn't want to trade with anything in the world.

🧐Quotes I’ve been pondering about

One of my favourite marketer, author, and speaker Rory Sutherland, who's also the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather – my favourite branding company in the world – once said: 

“For a business to be truly customer-focused, it needs to ignore what people say. Instead it needs to concentrate on what people feel.”

I’ve been an evangelist of Rory’s work ever since I watched his TED Talk on Youtube. The genius man aura he evokes is very alluring and engaging, making it difficult not to fall in love with his ideas and worldview.

"If we allow the world to be run by logical people, we will only discover logical things. But in real life, most things aren’t logical – they are psycho-logical."

His life’s work focuses around explaining the oddities of human behaviour, how it has been exploited for fiscal purposes, and what we can do to become better marketers and human beings.

"Logical ideas often fail because logic demands universally applicable laws but humans, unlike atoms, are not consistent enough in their behaviour for such laws to hold very broadly."

I'm planning to publish a long-form essay on Rory Sutherland's philosophy and ethos this year. Connect with Rory's work here.

🥅 Plans for 2021

I’m taking my accountability game up a notch this year by sharing my personal projects and monthly goals for 2021. I will report back through this newsletter on a quarterly basis. I'm a happy man if I am able to accomplish more than 8/12 of the goals.

💡 Project Q

One of my most exciting projects for 2021. My grandfather, a renowned cardiologist in his time, is launching a foundation this year to commemorate and immortalise his legacy.

Along with a few other sub-projects, I am hoping to partner his foundation with this project, which involves prep programs for Indonesian doctors seeking medical opportunities abroad.

As an Indonesian medical graduate who would later certify as an American physician (and then cardiologist), my grandfather struggled with exams and certifications. He repeats that he considers himself extremely lucky, growing up in rural Java, to have been given a chance to practice medicine in America. 

I’ve always wanted to follow his path, and I yearn for others to do so too. This project is still very early in its infancy, but I intend to plan and execute with the fervour my grandfather had when he first set his eyes on his America. If you have ideas or are interested in working together with me, please reach out.

📸 Photo of the Week

I just realised now that my friends and I didn't take a proper picture together, so I'm sharing my New Year's view instead 🌊

📖 Quote of the Week

“Thinking harder” is not a recipe for creativity. More effort won’t necessarily lead to better ideas. Instead, creativity tends to arise in states of relaxation which are preceded by a long period of focused thinking."

From The 3 B's of Creativity (Article) by David Perell. Resurfaced via Readwise.

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Hope you have a blessed new year! 🍾

John