Free Blinkist book summaries:
- “The Gene: An Intimate History” (Siddhartha Mukherjee, 2016)
- “Wenn der Körper nein sagt” (Gabor Maté, 2003)
Seth Godin: “Abstain from abstaining“
Make the effort of coming up with your own point of view and don’t be afraid to tell us what it is, even when you are not 100% sure, because the future is uncertain but we need your contribution. It will help us come to a solution.
The only time you should probably keep quiet is when any outcome is equally good for you. In this case your contribution would probably be not so useful for the rest of us.
Advice To Writers: “Avoid The Big Info Dump“, William Gibson
You don’t need to overwhelm the reader with super-detailed information. You wouldn’t do it in a normal conversation. Plus, withholding a few details here and there will make the reader more curious. It might even prompt him/her to go back and re-read the whole book to solve some of the “enigmas”.
Notes from reading David Perell’s newsletter and essays
Build an audience first: the first step to take if you want to “make it” online (aka make a living) is to build an audience (essay). Why and how do you go about it? To create and audience you have to create and share content (written/audio/video… to post on a blog and or on social media) that resonates with a group of people. By communicating with that group of people you will gradually discover what (product) to offer them, and they will gladly buy it from you because (1) they know, like and trust you and (2) you are offering exactly what they need.
The Wisdom of Imitation: at the beginning just copy your favorite “model”, then you will feel “friction”, a “resistance”. That is your unique style starting to come out. So, by initially imitating, you will speed up the process of finding your own “voice”.
Learning on the internet: there is all sort of content available on the internet if you want to learn something. The risk though, is to get lost. So, there is room for curating the right content tailored to the right audience. You can’t just always leave it to Google… Relying on content curated by an “expert” will save you time and give you better results. So, if you are an expert or very passionate about a topic, there is an opportunity for you to organize the right content and facilitate people’s learning. So develop an audience and start offering them the best curated content for their needs.
Immersion learning: the best way to learn something is to “jump right in” and practice. This is evident in language learning, where the fastest way is to spend time in the country where they speak the language you want to learn. In other fields, where it is safe to do so, this might mean that you should start “doing” as soon as possible, rather than spending a lot of time on the “theory”. If you make mistakes, they will speed up your learning process. Fail fast, to learn fast. There is no substitute for practice. And on the internet speed is key.
Pixar’s Guide to Storytelling: in here they say, among other things, that writing things down it so important because until something is only in your head you cannot see its faults and therefore you cannot fix it. By writing it down you can see it for what it is and start working on it, like a sculptor with a block of marble. You start chipping away at it until it’s “perfect”. Even better if you share with others what you write, as you will get their feedback.
