103 Bits of Advice, Designing Your Life, Jonathan Blake, NBA Playoffs

At a glance:

• ☁️ Thinking: 103 Bit of Advice
• 📕 Reading: Designing Your Life
• 🎧 Listening: Homeward Bound by Jonathan Blake
• 📹 Watching: NBA Playoffs

Hi makers,

Last week I interviewed photographer and video creator Vuhlandes. We discussed making people uncomfortable with your work, why living in Detroit inspires him so much, and why no one owes you anything. Listen here!

Here are some cool things I found this week:

☁️ Thinking: 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known by Kevin Kelly

103 useful pieces of advice by Kevin Kelly. Here are the five I keep thinking about:

• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
• Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
• Speak confidently as if you are right, but listen carefully as if you are wrong.
• You are as big as the things that make you angry.
• Rather than steering your life to avoid surprises, aim directly for them.

Read the other 98 here.

📕 Reading: Designing Your Life

I’ve been enjoying Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans lately.

The premise is simple: approach your life as a problem that design can solve. They list 5 mindsets you need to develop in order to design your life:

1. Curiosity
2. Bias to Action
3. Reframe Problems
4. Know It’s a Process
5. Ask for Help

So far they’ve given practical exercises to walkthrough help define which direction you should move. Highly recommended for the person looking to clarity a messy or distracted headspace.

🎵 Listening: Homeward Bound by Jonathan Blake

Last night Jayne and I took her cousin the Village Vanguard to see Jonathan Blake. I had never heard his music, but was excited to visit the legendary venue.

The band blew us away and I’ve been listening again all morning. This was my favorite track of the night:

📹 Watching: NBA Playoffs

This time of year always causes me to stay up late watching tons of basketball. As a Lakers fan, this season was pure pain but luckily, the playoffs have been really fun to watch despite them not making it.

Two big thoughts so far:

1. Giannis is officially the best player in the world
2. My sleeper pick is the Grizzlies in the West

Here’s a clip of Giannis torching the Boston Celtics which will always make me happy:

That’s all I have for this edition! See you next week with a new podcast. Have a great week and find some time to make something cool!

-Alex