This is the Monday Medley, a newsletter that goes out, you guessed it, every Monday. I republish it here for sharing and referencing, but if you'd like to sign up you can do so right here:
Happy Monday!
First up... I'm back on Instagram. TBD if this sticks, but say hi!
Also, I'm working on a course all about Roam, how to use it for personal knowledge management, productivity, a CRM... everything. If you want to join in, you can get early access here. I added the first videos over the weekend, and plan to add more each week. Though if you haven't read my article on Roam, that'd be a good place to go first.
And with that, on to the Medley.
📈 This week's Medley is supported by returning sponsor, Clearscope! My team and I use Clearscope every day to help with optimizing content for SEO, along with others ranging from freelancers to Fortune 500 companies. Even the optimizing experts at Optimizely love Clearscope: “Plain and simple: Clearscope works. We were able to see a 52% increase in organic traffic to content we optimized through Clearscope, simply by following the tool's recommendations.” Check it out by scheduling a demo on their home page.
🙇♂️ Thank you to Kevin Lee of immi for recommending this phenomenal article on Network Effects. There are 6 major decision points in you or your child's life, and none should be taken lightly.
👩🔬 Patrick O'Shaughnessy had a good tweet this week, there's a big difference between building good models and actually following them. This reminds me a lot of the underhand free throw in basketball, which is supposedly more reliable than the overhand throw but looks silly and embarrassing.
🗳 If you've been following the Democratic primaries, here's a fun quiz the Washington Post put together to help you see which of the candidates you most align with.
🙊 Here's a good rule for building strong companies: No Politics. They define politics as "...the simple act of saying different things to different people." And when you reward that kind of behavior, it can degrade corporate culture over time.
🏦 Here's a good way to think about your budgeting, especially as recurring charges and other expenses creep into your credit card statements. The "Zero Budget Portfolio." From the article:
"All you have to do is look at your credit card statement or checkbook, track where your dollars are flowing, then objectively reassess the merits of each expense with a critical eye. Think about how many expenses you routinely pay without ever second-guessing if you could find a less expensive alternative (or eliminate the expense altogether through some creative twist)."
🏡 Here's a bleak look at Zillow: Millennials love it because they'll never own a home. It provides a sort of vicarious life for the student debt saddled generation with dramatically lower rates of home ownership.
🏖 If you want to retire early, starting a business probably isn't the best route. It has high potential wealth, but very low probability of hitting that wealth. This discussion in the fatFIRE subreddit has a great overview of how different professions can provide a more reliable route to early retirement.
☕️ When we opened up the Cup & Leaf Cafe, we were lucky enough to have Eric Mann from Levercraft in Austin (my favorite coffee shop) come by and help us with our coffee setup.
🤓 For our pour over, he introduced us to this great 1-cup pour over machine. It might seem a little pricey, but the quality of coffee it makes (assuming you have good beans) is phenomenal.
💪 And to go with it, we got this grinder. I can't recommend this combo enough. We've had a number of people come in and get our coffee not expecting much from a tea place and be really, really impressed with what this setup lets us make. And it's small, so it's perfect for home!
😷 My sister wrote up a good article on the similarities and differences between the new Coronavirus and the Spanish Flu. So far it doesn't seem as big of a deal based on mortality rates and modern medicine... but it could always mutate.
👟 This Reuters article on the Nike Vaporfly running shoes is wild. The design of the shoe can demonstrably make people run 4-5% faster than normal shoes, and 2-3% quicker than the next-fastest running shoe. Also crazy: "Eight of the 12 fastest men's marathons in history have been run in the last year."
🧈 This is some extremely cool research on the effectiveness of a keto diet for treating Type-2 Diabetes. After 2 years, 55% of participants effectively reversed their diabetes without using diabetes medication or only using metformin.
🐡 This video might make make you cringe a little, but Pufferfish can eat some seriously crazy shit.
🦷 And also a little cringe inducing, this is how braces work.
As always, if you're enjoying the Medley, I'd love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to sign up. I try to make it one of the best emails you get each week, and I hope you're enjoying it.
If you want to support the Medley and my other writing, there are many ways you can do that here.
And should you come across anything interesting this week, send it my way! I love finding new things to read through members of this newsletter.
Have a great week,
Nat