Podcasting has achieved a new level this past year. The number of shows that started to become required listening keeps growing.
Podcasts become an important part of exploring new ideas and learning from a wide variety of resources. I don’t know if its just the form factor but I feel like I get so much out of the episodes.
I wanted to call out a few podcasts that I thought were really special. These were shows that helped me grow or expand in some way.
Homecoming
The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air)
Within the Wires
This Week In Startups
Reply All
Waking Up With Sam Harris
Being Boss
Shop Talk Show
The Tim Ferris Show
You Made It Weird
The James Altucher Show
MegaMaker
Science VS.
VR is going to be a platform that is going to rely heavily on experiences and immersion. If the content is terrible in VR it is going to be magnified because it has taken over your whole world.
There is going to be a new set of experiences and even genres that are going to cultivate from more people getting this tech. One thing that I really want to see is how people handle horror and fear.
Emotions
Have you ever seen a horror movie in the theater and then rewatched it later at home? The effects are different to those experiences. I think that there are some movies that just work better in theatre.
I think there is going to be a new bred of experience that are going to terrify us. The emersion of VR is unlike anything we have experienced yet with technology. I can’t wait to be able to experience a game like resident evil.
Playing through that first game but imagine feeling like you are in the house and you are investigating something. That experience alone is going to be terrifying.
I am going to start a newsletter. A weekly roundup of my articles and recommendations. https://upscri.be/ff16f5
Writing in the morning is like a shower for my brain. It just cleans things out and gets all the junk out of the way so I can easily focus. It is amazing what it does with my mind and my focus. It has made me a better person and has made me
I try to hit either a word count or a timer. This morning I woke up to late and I was not able to get that time in before I started my day.
I try to do something that is called Morning Pages. I just basically write for as long as I possible can and just throw away the content. I store it so I can go back and find ideas and some thoughts.
Routines are important and it is important to find what you need and what works for you.
Last month, I saw someone on Twitter posting an update on their goals. They had it all listed in public and they were making updates to there lists once a month. It was really inspiring and it made me want to mirror that and get my goals down and publish them.
Here is my first crack at some goals for 2017. I will refine these over the next few weeks. But, here we go.
I set out to have a very ambitious year. Each year I sit down with a list of goals and I try to break them down into chunks to and into smaller tasks. 2016 was a year where I wanted to go big. I was very ambitious in all aspects of my life from the personal to the professional.
If you look at it at the surface. i failed in all of my goals. I just went down the list and I missed every single thing that I wanted to do to.
But, I started to drill down a little deeper and there was a ton of things that I learned this year. There was a ton of progress that was done. But, they were technically failures. There is something to gain and something to learn from all of these. You can find little pockets of knowledge and insights if you track these things and monitor what you are doing and what you are missing.
One thing that I learned this year for myself is that I work really well when things are broken down into tiny tasks. I do well when I have tasks in front of me that I can work on. If I have to think about what to work on. I just end up wasting time. I have to plan my week ahead.
I had a really nice conversation with a person who’s opinions that I trust. Lets just say some current world affairs came up and they said something that was really just outlandish. It was one of those things that were so crazy that it would be front page news for at least 3 days.
I didn’t think anything about it and then just moved on to the rest of my day. Then I logged into Facebook for my daily scroll of the news feed. I am bad and just read headlines a lot of the times or maybe whatever is left in.
Change, can sometimes give us the opportunity to check in with ourselves. It can allow us to look at what we are doing and the things that we are trying to accomplish. The world had a major change last mont hand we are still dealing with and see what it means for the next four years.
Lately, I have been thinking about my privacy and my communication more than ever. Making sure that my passwords and my two step authentication are all set up in the places where they need to be.
The goal this year was to read two books a month. I think that I will fall short but I have a great pace of at least one a month. I am up from last year of about 1 book every two months.
The Art of Non-Conformity
Born For This
Crush It!
Seinfeldia
Ego Is the Enemy
So Sad Today
Disrupted
Focus By Leo Babauta
The Obstacle Is the Way
Minimalism By Joshua Fields Millburn
The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck
Walking In This World
The School Of Greatness
Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp
I was listening to a podcast today like I do most nights. It was an interview with Tim Ferris. Over the last few years, I have read and consumed a lot of what Tim has made over the last few years. He was just honestly talking about some of the stuff he has tried and learned over there years.
I was driving and I managed to save an audio note of “I Keep Trying To Be Someone who isn’t me”
I wanted to sit on that thought for a little bit and let that sink in.
I have spent countless hours trying to find that perfect balance of what I want to do and the right people to target. I have not started business and I have no published content because I was afraid that the content would not hold up to this weird standard that I set for myself.
But, I like trying out new technology and seeing how it works with our lives. I like thinking about how advances in technology is going to change the world. I like to make things that make life a little easier for people. I really love to write and tell stories. Lately, I have been really interesting in creating some fiction.
I shouldn't be afraid to talk about the things that are important to me and the things that I want to see in the world.
I read and follow a lot of different types of people. I am not taking there advice and just applying it to myself and my goals. I am trying to force myself to be something that I am not.
I go to sleep every night unsatisfied by what I did the previous day more times than not. I spent every morning writing for as long as I can ever morning. I have written for 2,445 out of the last 2,446. I just missed one day because I had to work that day and it completely threw off my schedule.
It is so important to just show up and keep working at it. You need to make sure you show off your patience. It takes a long time to get good at something. I love writing and have spent a tremendous amount of time writing content that will never see the light of day. But, I keep at because first and forth most I love the craft. I love process of writing. I might not be amazing at it. But, the process is what keeps me showing up. Showing up is 70% of it. Now, I get excited at the blank page.