10 Ideas For The Interested This Week - For The Interested

10 Ideas For The Interested This Week

“You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.” — Anthony Bourdain

It’s interesting to watch the world react to the death of an artist.

Each one gets attention, but some resonate more than others.

The artists whose deaths strike us hardest are not the most famous or talented — they’re the most authentic.

Creators whose art was rooted in an ethos that never wavered, no matter how high their career soared.

Irreplaceables whose body of work could only have been created by them.

Prince. Robin Williams. David Bowie.

And now, Anthony Bourdain.

Appreciate his work, celebrate his life, and honor his memory.

But most importantly, be inspired by his authenticity to create art that reflects your own.

Now, on to this week’s ideas…

1. CAREER ADVICE FOR THE INTERESTED

“This post features the best career advice I’ve found after consuming thousands of articles and videos about how to grow your career.”

This may be one of the most valuable posts I’ve ever created.

I went through all the ideas I’ve written and shared in this newsletter and compiled the best career advice I’ve found into this single post.

It features summaries and links to 22 different articles and videos including advice on how to choose a career, how to get a job you want, how to advance your career, how to build a creative career and more.

RELATED: My five favorite productivity tips of the year in 140 words or less.

2. HOW TO CONVINCE THE UNCONVINCED

“The place where you’re in trouble is not that you’re not explaining the thing right, it’s that you’re not getting enrollment before you explain it. And gaining enrollment is the hardest part of teaching anything.”

If you’re struggling to convince somebody of something, chances are it’s because you haven’t gotten them on the same page with what the goal is in the first place.

In this five-minute video, Seth Godin breaks down how to convince the unconvinced and suggests the key is to look at what the person is afraid of first.

RELATED: Seth Godin on what marketers don’t understand about critical mass.

3. 20 IDEAS ON THE CRAFT AND PROCESS OF WRITING

“Great artists are also writers. You may be a painter, photographer, or dancer, but writing is finding your center, whether journaling or writing long-form essays. It’s not about having a popular blog that can become monetized; it’s about having a platform to think. It’s a conscious effort to find your center, to stretch a sore soul.”

This should keep you busy for a while.

Creative Mornings has pulled together a list of 20 ideas on the craft, process, and impact of writing that includes observations about writing from people like Ira Glass, Roxanne Gay, Virginia Wolfe and even the U.S. government (seriously).

They tackle everything from grammar and writing as thinking, to professional blogging and the psychological benefits of writing.

RELATED: How do I know if my writing is any good?

4. HOW TO UNLEARN

“Doubt each old thing you know. Require current evidence. Make it prove itself to be true today. Otherwise, let it go.”

There’s no shortage of advice out there to help you learn new things, but what if it’s just as important to unlearn what you once believed?

Derek Sivers breaks down the importance of unlearning and suggests in a world changing as rapidly as ours is, it’s crucial to let go of things you once believed were true and adapt to new realities.

RELATED: A 10-Step system to learn anything.

5. WHY YOU SHOULD INCORPORATE PLAY INTO YOUR WORK

“Imagine if you took the mindset when you play games and applied it to your real life? Imagine how much better things would be.”

If you grew up playing video games (or if you play them now), what’s the first thing you do when you fail and your character in the game dies?

Probably just start over and try again.

In this 30-minute Creative Mornings talk, Gary Ware explains why you should incorporate play into your work and offers examples of how being more playful can increase your productivity and creativity.

RELATED: How to use game theory to win a negotiation.

6. OFFER A RUSH DISCOUNT INSTEAD OF CHARGING A RUSH FEE

“I’m initiating a discount for speed. We’ll agree on the deadlines. I’ll go as fast as I can. And if you get me everything I need in the time frame I need it to meet those deadlines, you get the work for 10% off.”

As someone who works with clients and enjoys working quickly, I loved this concept.

Josh Bernoff explains why he now offers clients a rush discount to incentivize them to make quicker decisions and limit the internal politics on their own end which enables him to do better and faster work.

RELATED: Price the client, not the job.

7. NINE DAILY PRACTICES TO INCREASE YOUR ATTENTION SPAN

“I’m trying to not stare at my phone while I’m in line for coffee. I’m trying to wait a few minutes before I turn on a podcast in the car, or get ready in silence instead of listening to music.”

If you feel like your attention span isn’t what it used to be, here are some simple ways you can start to build it back up.

The Financial Diet shares nine daily practices to increase your attention span including to use your phone’s Do Not Disturb functionality, check email and social media in bulk, and rely less on your GPS.

RELATED: How I stopped checking my phone and started using it with intention.

8. FOUR WAYS TO BECOME A MORE PRODUCTIVE LEARNER

“Focus the majority of your information consumption on a single topic for several months. Rather than letting the headline tides pull you along, pick a topic and focus your reading and viewing on that topic.”

We’re consuming more information than ever before and yet, we’re not actually learning more.

That’s why Harvard Business Review believes we’ve become less productive learners and offers four ways to become a more productive learner.

The suggestions include to cycle between information feasting and fasting, put what you learn into frameworks, and focus on a single topic for several months.

RELATED: What we should have learned in school but never did.

9. 15 DEFAULT PRIVACY SETTINGS YOU SHOULD CHANGE RIGHT NOW

“You’re not reading all those updated data policies flooding your inbox. You probably haven’t even looked for your privacy settings. And that’s exactly what Facebook, Google and other tech giants are counting on.”

When you use social media platforms or purchase things online, you should never assume the privacy settings of those platforms are designed with your best interests in mind.

Luckily, the Washington Post has put together this list of 15 default privacy settings you should change right now including to block Facebook’s facial recognition, Google’s tracking of your search history, and Apple’s iPhone ad tracking capability.

RELATED: 12 things everyone should understand about tech.

10. PEOPLE WHO SAY SOMETHING’S A “BAD INFLUENCE” RARELY UNDERSTAND ITS INFLUENCE

“They called it violent, degrading, and profane. And in some cases it was. But that’s not all it was. It was also educational, entrepreneurial, and inspiring.”

If you’re not following the For The Interested Facebook page yet, you might want to do so because I’ve started to share a series of mini-posts there which won’t all make it into this newsletter.

In this one, I discuss the danger of writing something off as a bad influence and explain how people who thought early hip hop was going to ruin the world failed to understand a huge part of hip hop’s actual influence.

RELATED: Why we’ve got no protest music.

WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF

I discovered some of this week’s ideas from the newsletters of Creative Mornings and Scott Monty — they’re awesome and worth your time.

Image via Jenny Mortsell.