Most end of year cards I saw this year were wrapped in thick, unrecyclable plastic so I ordered recycled paper postcards and got out the watercolours.
If you’d like a treat in your postbox, reply with your postal address before 16 December. Let’s have fun.
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Big Art.
I’ve had a great surprise this week: a bird’s eye view of a new, massive street art being painted and seeing focused artists Fintan Magee and Jason Parker. They’re painting in all kinds of weather, up and down and across in the cherrypicker (effortlessly working at heights) and their iPhones are getting workouts to check their plan. Seeing them write the original grid with numbers on the empty cement wall then filling in each section with such attention to the shading and colours has been so inspiring. Imagine doing a paint by numbers of this size, to this level of detail and with such success. Whoah! Talent!
Great to see they’re supported by Taubmans (I enjoyed reading links to street art and their history) with loads of paint rollers, brushes and sooo much paint.
If you’re in Melbourne, head down Little Bourke Street, just before Spencer, to see this and others painted. Otherwise, here are the photos as it comes to be (I plan to add photos to this link until the art is completed).
Thanks to Juddy Roller & crews for bringing this to be and to Sarah Moran for helping me track down the artists’ names.
Ease.
“Fin uses a combination of human and machine intelligence to provide high quality, on-demand assistance so you can focus on what is most important to you.”Product Hunt newsletter.
Fin could save you time and give you more ease. It’s a great time to try it out as “Fin is waiving the $120 monthly minimum spend for the Product Hunt community — you can signup here to pay per request.”
Once again Cal Newport (author of “Deep Work”) has me captivated. In “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” he shares his observations of the 3 core traits in people he’s interviewed that love doing exceptional work:
(1) Impact Creativity (2) (3) Control
He debunks the passion hypothesis (that you need to follow your passions to find work you love) and courage culture (that you need to be emotionally brave too) and instead highlights people who have developed their experience and skills (career capital) prior to using it for greater autonomy, income, flexibility and more.
These summarised notes are worth a scan if you’re not going to read the book (the Audible version is short & engaging).
It’s a fascinating time as always. I’m curious to see what happens with Facebook’s Messenger for Kids and will be looking on to see what the main character in this street art has in his left hand (will let you know)! Haven’t yet mentioned anything about the Apple Watch 3 – after a couple of months I’m a fan!
That’s all from me for now. As always, shoot me a reply with topics you’d like to read – they add extra spark.
Welcome to a previous issue of Online Highfliers. To get the latest issue delivered to your inbox sign up for the newsletter here.
The subject this time round is YOU. (How fun!)
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It’s about YOU.
What’s on your mind? What could I help you with? Shoot me a reply with:
~ a question
~ a query on a current challenge
~ ideas of topics you’d like to read in future newsletters
Fun 🙂
Deep Work.
Amazingly a month after finishing Cal Newport’s “Deep Work” book the learnings, reminders and productivity tips have continued to (usefully) pop into my mind.
Turns out this book and Kevin Kelly’s are my favourites in the past year.
Did you enjoy them too?
Industries of the Future ~ Alec Ross
Another recent read was Alec Ross’s “Industries of the Future” which went deeper than his TED talk. The main outtake: get your unique life/career/work purpose very clear and start profiling and marketing yourself online.
Get to it!
Here’s a favourite quote:
In case of overwhelm (“more books to read!”)
Any of the books I recommend have quotes on the Good Reads website. If you’re wondering about reading something, type into Google:
“good reads quotes [name of book / author]”
…and then click through to the Good Reads quotes page where you’ll gain a quick overview of the book. These days this helps me decide whether to read a book.
Great to see the ethical aspects of CRISPR and DNA modification highlighted in a SXSW keynote, along with the science explained simply so that more people are aware.
Check out digital advancements via #sxsw this week.
If your LinkedIn profile has changed to the new style this succinct guide will be useful.
Another great Naval Ravikant podcast. He’s the quintessential businessman of today’s times: (highly) digitally aware, mindful, philosophical and successful.
I’ve heard Spring is in the air in London, the snowfalls have slowed in Japan, and we’re continuing an excellent Summer here in Melbourne. Wherever you are, have fun!
Deep Work, Self-Driving Cars, Automation & Great Online Presence
Hi,
Welcome to the 21st edition of this email. Did you know you can read all past editions in our archive?
The subject this time round is Deep Work.
Ready? Let’s focus…
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Deep Work
Hi from Torquay, overlooking the waves rolling in. I’m freshly inspired from listening to Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. These words are interesting:
“In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.”
“To remain valuable in our economy, therefore, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things. This task requires deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.”
Cal’s book is fascinating with quickly actionable tips and this is a great list by Ryan Holiday on how he does deep work. Fascinating.
Things getting too heavy?
“Piaggio recently unveiled the company’s first product, a personal cargo robot named Gita. The bot can carry up to 40 pounds autonomously using maps, or by following a human operating the bot’s path… It’s fast enough to keep up with you on a bike (22MPH), and [has] the “human agility” needed to navigate sidewalks.” via Peter Diamandis
Gita and other helpful-to-humans technology excites me! You too?
Self-driving cars: coming sooner
Recently in conversations I’ve suggested we’ll use self-driving cars sooner than expected, for a couple of reasons:
With so many other things to do, see, read, watch, catch up on (including sleep), car driving will start to be less of interest compared to other things we could do.
As more images of newly designed car interiors (movie cinema, sleeping pod, working space / shared office) appear the idea of the car being a location to do other things than drive will grow on us… quickly.
“the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” Stephen Hawking
I’ve also recently heard the entrancing term the “post-work economy”. Universal Basic Income anyone? What do you think?
These are the best podcasts and audiobooks I’ve found for top performance, emerging technology, and business trends from listening to hundreds of podcasts and a couple of years worth of audiobooks.
Best Podcasts for Top Performance
1. Anatomy of Next
One of the things I love about online content at the moment is greater access to the ‘good news stories’. The Anatomy of Next is a treat. It showcases current, upcoming and longer-term technology and the effects on humanity through storyline and interviews with world experts in genetics, tech, and beyond. What’s rad about it is that it’s dispelling many of the dystopian/destruction future storylines often in Hollywood blockbuster movies (think: Terminator). It’s useful in seeing the future brightly.
A wonderful conversation between James and Gary Vaynerchuk on the realities of working hard and becoming an entrepreneur, hustling and gaining freedom in life.
Tim Ferriss podcasts are interviews with people who are operating at best-in-the-world level. Learn from the best! Enjoy their wise and calm perspectives. Tim is the author of the ‘Four Hour’ books that are really useful for developing your mindset to identify greater productivity, performance and to be globally-aware. Access podcasts through searching for Tim Ferriss in the Podcasts app on your smartphone or head here. These are my favourite interviews with top performers across various professions in suggested listening order:
Bryan Johnson Naval Ravikant Kevin Kelly (#164) – AI, Virtual Reality and The Inevitable Joshua Waitzkin (all episodes) Tara Brach Caroline Paul Maria Popova (especially useful if you do Social Media production) Charles Poliquin Derek Sivers Wim Hof Chris Sacca Ryan Holiday James Altucher Ramit Sethi Pavel Tsatsouline Peter Diamandis Noah Kagan Seth Godin Phil Libin Joshua Skenes Tony Robbins Walter O’Brien BJ Miller Marc Andreessen (#163)
If you’re interested in productivity and gaining increased focus, Tim Ferriss also provides insight beyond his book (which is a great introduction) through these podcasts where he shares his personal experiments and what has worked:
Episode 13: “Productivity” Tricks for the Neurotic, Manic-Depressive, and Crazy (Like Me) Magic of Mindfulness: Complain Less, Appreciate More, and Live a Better Life Episode 6: 6 Formulas for More Output and Less Overwhelm Episode 9:The 9 Habits to Stop Now – the Not-To-Do List Episode 17: The Power of Negative Visualization Lazy: A Manifesto How to Earn Your Freedom How to Practice Poverty and Reduce Fear How to 10X Your Results, One Tiny Tweak at a Time How to Avoid the Busy Trap (And Other Misuses of Your Time)
6. Arianna Huffington
Get up to speed on why 8 hour sleep a day helps productivity.
7. Voices of VR
“VR” stands for Virtual Reality = Next big thing. Get on it: the Voices of VR podcast 🙂
8. The Future of the Internet
This Freakonomics podcast investigates “Is the Internet Being Ruined”. Interesting analysis of the big players such as Facebook and aspects of privacy, as well as potential solutions. Well worth a listen.
9. No Such Thing as a Fish
“The QI researchers (known as ‘elves’) host a weekly podcast to half a million subscribers, where they discuss the most interesting facts they’ve unearthed that week.”
Fascinating, witty and good fun. Really diverse topics, you’re sure to learn something new. This episode (iTunes Ep 127 here) covers objects left on the moon, the earthquake-proof bed, men-only flights and comic sans font.
Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman help creatives, consultants, small business owners, entrepreneurs and freelancers grow their online presence, business and set up their online marketing systems to attract relevant leads by first finding a niche group of customers and deeply researching and analysing their needs.
1 – How Pat Maddox went from 0 subscribers to over $3k MRR in 10 days
EP12 – “I’m shipping ebombs, now what?” – From Pain to Product with Nick Piegari
EP13 – Justin Weiss’s shift from side projects to successful product launches
EP18 – Our Profitable Mess (and how we’re cleaning it up)
EP19 – A Swift Kick in the Ass (The Game of Business)
EP20 – A Swift Kick in the Ass (Accountability)
EP 22 – How to make an offer they can’t refuse (Outreach Masterclass with Kai Davis)
Favourite Audiobooks
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success by Cal Newport. Develop this marketable skill, it’ll be worth it. Exceptional book with practical tips that repeatedly (and usefully) popped into my head weeks after reading. Unique.
Cal’s “Be So Good they Can’t Ignore You” is fabulous too. “He debunks the passion hypothesis (that you need to follow your passions to find work you love) and courage culture (that you need to be emotionally brave too) and instead highlights people who have developed their experience and skills (career capital) prior to using it for greater autonomy, income, flexibility and more.” Although the audiobook is repetitive, its concise length and clearly presented arguments make it well worth the listen.
“The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance” by master Josh Waitzkin is a peaceful, kind offering of clever learning and high performance tools, including insightful stories from Josh’s life in uncovering top human performance. Enjoy this one.
Kevin Kelly’s “The Inevitable” – within 6 hours of listening you’ll be up to date with the 12 tech forces that are shaping our future. I found listening to this at 1.25 speed worked well and the 6 hours took me about 3 week in amongst listening to other media.
“Ready Player One” immerses you in a VR future – great for strategists and future thinkers to better imagine aspects of what could come to be. Have a bit of fun!
Love yourself like your life depends on it by Kamal Ravikant (Kamal’s brother Naval mentioned above) is soothing (well done Kamal!) and basic and strengthening. Kamal and Naval are successful entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley’s investors.
Grit by Angela Duckworth hones in on attributes and activities that can build perseverance.
Pop over here for favourite blockchain and cryptocurrency audiobooks.
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Listening Tips
I download a few at a time to my iPhone so I can listen whether or not I’m connected to the internet.
Oh! And I’m a fan of Jaybird headphones and Apple Airpods so learning can happen quickly, anywhere. Clever earphones have had me learning many more hours a week for a while now.
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Have a favourite? Let us know so this list continues to be alive with useful tips.
It’s a fascinating time as always. I’m curious to see what happens with Facebook’s Messenger for Kids and will be looking on to see what the main character in this street art has in his left hand (will let you know)! Haven’t yet mentioned anything about the Apple Watch 3 – after a couple of months I’m a fan!
“In this new economy, three groups will have a particular advantage: those who can work well and creatively with intelligent machines, those who are the best at what they do, and those with access to capital.” 
