Media picks, March 2-13

I. Writing skills

1. Checklist: Is this content valuable?

2. Sales writing: You don't really know your customers, unless… you can finish their sentences (e.g., "Submit" to be replaced with "Start my trial").

II. Maker skills

3. BigThink video (2:39 min): Neil deGrasse Tyson' advice.

4. BigThink video (2:34 min): The Common Character Trait of Geniuses (answer: deep focus).

5. Video (2 min): Richard Branson's top 5 tips for becoming an entrepreneur (2012).

III. Voice

6. Pauses & voice modulations in this video (3:56 min). Would love some of the pauses to be longer though.

IV. People skills

7. The practice: Bless.

Blessing does not mean approving; you can wish people well while also disengaging from them.

Fundamentally, blessing means treating another person as a “thou” not an “it,” not a means to your ends. Think of “thou” as a verb. To bless people is to thou them.

8. Video, first 44 seconds: Richard Branson' advice.

9. Quiz: Feeling cared about (pdf). One of the statements to be rated:

I’ve reflected a lot on my childhood, and I have an accurate, well-rounded understanding of the ways that my parents and other key caregivers related to me – especially as a young child – and how this affected me while growing up.

Media picks, February 23 - March 1

1. Smiling changes your brain.

2. Two Easy Ways to Feel Like You Have More Time. A set of 10+ deep breaths is one of them.

3. Classifications of satire: Horatian vs. Juvenalian vs. Menippean.

4. See deep wants.

When you recognize the deeper wants of others, they feel seen and are less likely to be reactive.

5. "The price of admission" in long-term relationships.

6. Marion Cotillard's Screen Test with Lynn Hirschberg, 2015.