Which topics get nailed up online, and how do I land upon them?
Many of the topics that I’m posting upon are areas of interest that are pulling me to continue to dive deeper into them. I’m increasingly approaching these 84 days of posts as ongoing research focused on a few key areas of my life.
I’m very focused as of late on productivity, discipline, and health related topics. I have deliberately avoided relational, familial, professional, entrepreneurial, and legacy related topics as I frankly am building towards those dimensions.
I have touched upon each area, but I have attempted to zero in on a few key topics that are intended to light a fire under the collective ass of everyone interested in consuming this content. For me, this series of posts is about kickstarting some energy and action for everyone in my life – while also being authentic, vitally passionate, and engaging as I do so.
Can you think of anything worse than a boring blog?
I mean at some point, I’ll write about my home office configuration, as a few folks have asked how I have it currently setup. I know for a few of you, that will be a major boredom fest.
A few of you would rather me light the candle about how Tinder works in this day and age and the scene in DFW among others. Racy stuff, right? I can argue it is just as boring as the multiple displays that I have in my home office.
How about the fun stuff I do outside of my ‘working hours’ such as the last weekend retreat? Or what about the last midweek retreat I did on a Wednesday night that was simply incredible, and it resulted in a kickass Thursday the next morning at work.
Well all of this is fair game for me, and the concerns I have historically had about taboo topics or things that may seem overly controversial are increasingly being built out in parallel to the articles you are now able to read. In all cases, I intend to make these posts useful to those of you that are interested in the given topic. This reminds me…
A few years ago when I working at an Israeli-based startup, I found myself working with a couple of awesome guys that were driving the product management for the firm. I remember very distinctly asking one of these guys many times if he had seen a given link or news article that I had flipped to him invariably focused on collaboration, productivity, automation, or business process management.
These were some of the things that we were solving with our ‘dynamic business process management’ offering. Finally, my bud says to me ‘Mark, why do I need to go out and read this stuff when I know you are already going to provide me the curated best of the best nearly every day?’
I thought to myself, ‘YOU ASSHOLE! You are letting me do your job!’
Turns out, he was brilliant.
And he was straight up – honest.
And he is right.
Well, I’m not doing anyone’s job, but my own with this site. However, I am curating legit content, that is many times newly uncovered in the past year or so. I have a backlog of research that I am digging into as I get time.
I have zero time to watch TV, and when I do – it is very, very intentional if it is for entertainment purposes. Many times, it is during football or hockey season.
Even as a soccer fan, I have yet to watch a single match in its entirety. Too much going on, and with the US out – I honestly could care less who ends up winning. I’d rather watch the highlights AFTER watching the highlights involving the Red Sox…
I do find myself watching YouTube a ton in the journey to research things. Or to guiltily find gems from performances involving some of my favorite artists that you have never seen before. Like this one (4 mins in…damn…). Or this one. Or this one (I have a clip from this same performance…). I have spent more than a few nights enjoying content from YouTube. Okay, one more for the record…
Ted Talks are seemingly on all the time around my place. You will see a few write ups getting posted directly from a few YouTube videos in the coming weeks. I recently watched a video over the course of the prior weekend that blew me away given the criticality of the health crisis we have in this country. Back to health as a topic I guess.
Backlog management is something I have hit previously, and when it comes to things I have to dig into across a number of interests – the list continues to grow, and these 84 days continue to present incredible opportunities to share the learning that I have going on at the moment.
The topical research continues unabated, and I’m pumped to be sharing some of the health and wellness related topics in the coming weeks with you.
The real world ‘field reports’ will start to increase in the coming weeks as well. I have been outright challenged by a few of you to post some ‘real stuff’ that I share privately, and I’ll continue to build towards those field reports. There are a few settings that really warrant some deep dives in the spirit of helping you out.
Here’s an example of what you can expect from a ‘field report’ – all you guys that are going out with your girls for some fun, in particular, when grabbing a drink or a meal. STOP sitting opposite of your girl. Most guys (are you one of those?) do sit opposite of their girl… You will stand out, and if you have been doing this historically – do not explain that you read it here. Just do it, and ramp the mystery while holding her while you wait for the order to arrive at your table.
I will never say I have the answers here, although I will unabashedly share some things that I am seeing work in my experience. That last paragraph is real world advice, that works.
You can take it onboard or wait for the next blog post where I outline the screen setup in my home office. 🙂
More to come.
