10 Ideas For The Interested This Week - For The Interested

10 Ideas For The Interested This Week

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” — Warren Buffett

Sharing something you enjoy is one of the most generous things you can do.

The person you share it with gets to experience the value you received.

The person whose creation you share gets introduced to a new audience.

And you get the satisfaction of making each of those people happy.

It’s a win-win-win.

So, if you enjoy this week’s newsletter please take a moment to forward it to other people you think will dig it.

If they do, they can go here to subscribe to receive next week’s issue.

(Hi, soon-to-be-new-subscribers!)

I appreciate your willingness to spread the word, but don’t just do it for me — do it because the people you send it to will appreciate it.

Thanks.

Now, on to this week’s ideas…

1. UNCONVENTIONAL ADVICE FOR ENTREPRENEURS, LIFE LESSONS, AND THE ONE QUESTION I ASK EVERYBODY

“Successful entrepreneurs are driven by a desire to create and provide value, solve problems for people, and correct inefficiencies in the world. Money’s not a goal — it’s a byproduct of solving a problem.”

In last week’s newsletter I shared a link to a post in which Darius Foroux answered 10 questions a reader sent him.

I loved the format and invited you to send me questions to answer, which led to this post featuring my answers to 10 questions from FTI reader Alyssa Powell (thanks Alyssa!).

I tackle questions about entrepreneurship, dealing with stress, life lessons, social media strategy, and more.

RELATED: 10 practical answers to 10 practical questions.

2. HOW TO GET BETTER AT LEARNING

“You ‘learn’ (or rather, at first, discover) a handful of new strategic ideas (great!). They make sense in your head (awesome!). You can see yourself doing them (brilliant!). Now … at this point you’ve still learned nothing. No change has happened yet, remember. You’ve only discovered something new. Which is different from learning.”

It’s easy to misunderstand what it means to learn something and to confuse the acquisition of knowledge with the action of learning.

Andre Chaperon breaks down how to get better at learning and explains it’s directly tied to behavior change.

He suggests if you don’t apply what you learn, then you haven’t learned it — you’ve just acquired the potential to learn something down the road.

RELATED: A 10-step system to learn anything.

3. THE LIFE CHANGING ADVICE OF 100 INSANELY INTERESTING PEOPLE

“There’s no mythical date in the future when the conditions will be perfect.”

Srinivas Rao has interviewed 700 people over the last decade and from those countless hours of conversations he pulled together this one post.

It features the life changing advice of 100 insanely interesting people including people like Seth Godin, Danielle LaPorte, Ryan Holiday, and James Clear.

RELATED: You should listen to Seth Godin’s new podcast.

4. EIGHT HIGH-LEVEL MUSINGS ABOUT WORKING IN SOCIAL MEDIA

“More than ever we need quality over quantity. Every action brands take online should be about adding value. In order to this, teams need focus, a strategic mindset and permission to not be everything to everyone.”

As someone who works in social media and believes most social media pros are awful, it’s rare I 100% agree with somebody’s observations about the industry — but this is one of those times.

Jessica Smith shares eight high-level musings about the state of working in social media that don’t get discussed nearly enough.

The observations include that leaders must actively participate, consumer behavior is more important than platform best practices, and social media consumption has become increasingly passive.

RELATED: How you answer these four questions determines your social media success.

5. HOW TO REPOSITION YOUR PRODUCT AND CHARGE 8X ITS PRICE

“It’s always 10x more valuable for a business to grow faster than it is for the business to save money.”

Here’s a post that can make you money.

Jason Cohen breaks down how a slight tweak in the sales pitch for your product can enable you to charge more for it.

He points out people will pay more for growth than they will to save money and offers an example of how to shift your sales approach accordingly.

RELATED: Six must-reads about pricing.

6. HOW TO FIND MORE TIME FOR YOUR SIDE PROJECTS

“Just because you have a spare 30 minutes between tasks doesn’t mean you have the mind space or energy to get any project work done in that exact moment. How much quality work are you going to get done in those 30 minutes anyhow?”

It may not seem like you have time to tackle a side project, but you will if you pay close attention to how you currently spend your time.

Creative Live shares advice from time management expert Laura Vanderkam about how to find more time for your side projects.

Her tips include to shift your priorities, disconnect yourself, and most importantly, change your mindset.

RELATED: The “personal kanban” time management system.

7. HOW TO CHOOSE WORDS THAT FRAME OTHER PEOPLE’S OPINIONS

“The major mistake Nixon made was in his framing. By saying the word ‘crook,’ he evoked an image, experience, or knowledge associated with crook in the minds of everyone watching. Even by negating a frame–like Nixon was doing–framing is so influential that the frame first gets activated, then becomes stronger.”

Words matter.

Fast Company uses political rhetoric to show how tiny changes in words can have a big impact on people’s opinions.

It breaks down the concept of framing and demonstrates how big a difference there is between describing something as having a “95% effective rate” as opposed to a “5% failure rate” for example.

RELATED: How to be a better communicator online and off.

8. TO FIX YOUR BACK PAIN, CHANGE THE WAY YOU SIT

“Most people in the U.S. — even children — are sitting in one particular way that’s stressing their backs. You might not realize you’re doing it. But it’s super easy to see in other people.”

There’s a common belief we spend too much time sitting at desks and that’s the root of all sorts of health problems including back pain.

But NPR points to experts who believe the bigger problem may be how we sit and suggests changing the way you sit can heal your back pain.

Most people curve their back into a C-shape as they sit which is bad for their spine. Instead, learn to “straighten out your C.”

RELATED: Why sitting down destroys you.

9. THE END OF THE REAL YOU ONLINE

“The notion of being able to communicate with dozens or hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands or more (!) people in real time speaks directly to the power of the internet. But think about how crazy this is if you’re trying to convey the ‘real’ you to this audience. It just doesn’t work and it never was going to. It was all a lie wrapped in a dream. You weren’t built to scale.”

It’s amazing how much the internet has changed in such a relatively short period of time and the ways we’ve changed along with it.

M.G. Siegler explores one of these changes and suggests it may no longer make sense to share the “real you” online.

He wonders if young people have already figured this out which is why so many of them use closed private accounts, and are more careful about who they let into their online world and what they share.

RELATED: 15 default privacy settings you should change right now.

10. FIVE THINGS TO DO WHEN SOMEBODY CRITICIZES YOUR WORK

“The ability to handle criticism is a prerequisite to success. Because the more you succeed, the more people are exposed to what you do — and not all of those people are going to love it.”

You may not like criticism, but dealing with it doesn’t have to be as hard as it seems.

In this post I recommend five things to do when somebody criticizes your work including to remember you don’t have to listen, pause before you respond, and thank your critic.

RELATED: Kevin Smith on criticism and creation.

WHERE I FOUND THIS STUFF

I discovered some of this week’s ideas from the newsletters of Creative Mornings, Startup Resources and Postanly — they’re awesome and worth your time.

Image via Kalen Emsley.