⌛️ No time to waste.

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Livin La Vida Luna

I need to start using reverse psychology on this girl. Whenever I ask her to "look at the camera" she looks in any other direction.

There’s this idea that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.

So this week, I’ve decided to audit who is shaping my thoughts.

I’m going to skip the back and forth in-person relationships (family, friends, business associates) and jump directly into who I consider “optional” input-only relationships.

These are the people I’ve sought out to learn from. And I do so mainly through 3 different mediums: Podcasts, YouTube, and Email Newsletters.

Between the time spent driving and working out, I listen to podcasts for a total of 8-10 hours per week. I spend 2-4 hours per week watching YouTube and another 1 hour per week reading newsletters.

🎙 Podcasts

• The Tim Ferriss Show - Some refer to TF as the Oprah of Podcasting. His guests range from A-list celebrities like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lebron James, and Ed Norton to niche domain experts like Cal Newport, Mr. Money Mustache, and Brené Brown. Tim started out as the “Guinea Pig of Human Optimization”, but recently transitioned into someone much more introspective. I’ve been following his work ever since reading his first book, The Four Hour Workweek, back in ~2010.
• Noah Kagan Presents - Noah is a serial entrepreneur and marketing expert. He was #30 at Facebook and #4 at Mint.com. Zuck fired him and he ended up quitting Mint before his RSU’s vested in order to start his own company called, AppSumo, which is basically Groupon for SaaS products. Noah is the Walmart version of TF. Although that sounds like an insult, I mean it as a compliment. His guests are of the lesser-known variety, but still quite interesting. His podcast episodes are typically short and to the point. There’s little to no warm-up period and even less cool-down. It’s just straight fire from beginning to end.
• My First Million - Hosts, Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, are two “tech bros” that recently exited their respective startups. I love listening to this podcast because the bulk of the content is one of my favorite past-times: talking about pie in the sky business ideas and judging established businesses without much factual context. My favorite episodes are the ones with recurring guests, Steph Smith and Andrew Wilkinson.
• All-In Podcast - A heavy-hitting group of billionaires and centi-millionaires that discuss the prior week’s biggest issues. They discuss politics, economics, business, and more. I probably really like this show because there’s a brown guy on it and they’re all self-proclaimed degenerate gamblers. Two of them have their own jets. Oh, and the intro/outro music is as catchy as the song from Friends.
• BiggerPockets - I don’t listen to this podcast much anymore but it’s probably the most important podcast on the list in terms of the impact it’s made on my life. I probably wouldn’t be where I am today (professionally) if I didn’t binge listen to the first ~200 episodes back in 2016/17.

📧 Email Newsletters

• Morning Brew - I typically read the Morning Brew newsletter as I’m drinking my… ☕️ morning brew. This is headline skimming at its finest.
• James Clear - Author of Atomic Habits, James Clear, sends his 3-2-1 Newsletter every Thursday. 3-2-1 stands for 3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question. This is a bite-sized email. The content can be read in a minute or two. However, I like to read through it, mark it as unread, then read through it again when I have more time to reflect on the message James is trying to get across.
• Creator Hooks - This newsletter identifies YouTube Videos that outperform their channel’s average. For example, let’s say there’s a video with 100,000 views, but the creator’s channel only has 5,000 subscribers. Creator Hooks would codify the title in order for other creators to easily apply it in their respective niches.
• 5 Tweet Tuesday - There are 500 million tweets per day. Most suck. Shaan spends all week scrolling Twitter, so we don't have to. He shares a mix of hilarious, insightful, and shocking tweets.
• S.T.U.P.I.D Friday - Copywriting Expert, Neville Medhora, sends out a weekly email in the following format: Swipe File, Thought, Uplifting, Picture, Interesting, Drawing. I took Neville's Copywriting Course back in 2021 and (i think) it helped me become a better storyteller/writer.

▶️ YouTube Channels

• Ali Abdaal - Ali is a former Doctor turned YouTuber. He’s from England so his accent is super soothing. The production value of his videos is what I aspire to. I absolutely LOVE how transparent he is about everything from his business to his personal life. He’s also the founder of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy course I took in 2021.
• Ryan Dossey - If you’re looking to source off-market real estate deals, Ryan Dossey is the only person you need to follow. His channel is full of free information that can help you build a lead-generating machine.
• Alex Hormozi - IDK where this guy came from, but he absolutely flooded my timeline on all platforms over the past 6 months. I’m still getting to know what he’s about, but early signs point to him sticking around and gaining mind share.