The Sunday Digest: Testing, testing…
Everything we published this week + exciting new offerings for you to try out
February 26, 2021
Happy Sunday!
There's a lot you can learn from the articles our amazing writers published this week. In fact, there's a lot you can try: Superorganizers' Action Item this week revolves around a unique and easily adaptable system for jettisoning goals and and instead pursuing a valued life. Nat Eliason's latest Almanack dispatch is a quick hit of advice to help you manage your crypto wallet. Free Radicals did a deep dive on a new model for supporting underrepresented artists in Hollywood—with practical application for every industry.
That's one of our favorite things about the collection of writing and writers we have here: no matter how diverse the subject matter, we always want you to walk away thinking of how the thoughts in question might work if applied in your own life.
Speaking of giving stuff a shot, we have a few new exciting endeavors that could use your involvement! Take a look below at a new way to consume one of our most popular articles, and a truly singular opportunity to talk to one of our practitioners—and have the conversation published here.
Saying "that's all" sounds a bit deceptive, given the volume of actionable material we've gathered for you here. So instead, we'll just settle for...that's the Digest!
What We Published
This week’s output: 4 articles, 2 podcasts, and a live conversation.
📝 ARTICLES 📝
Who Shaan Puri is Becoming
by Dan Shipper in Superorganizers
The title for this profile comes from a poster that sits above the desk of serial founder and angel investor Shaan Puri. Who am I becoming? It asks. Shaan's system for answering it is fascinating: without spoiling anything here, it takes inspiration from a deck of cards. Like all the best Superorganizers installments, this one isn't just about arranging work and professional time—it's about carving out the time to listen to your heart.
Read 🔒 (10 minutes)
When Should You Take Money Off the Table?
by Nat Eliason in Almanack
It was only a matter of time until Nat graced us with a new piece of crypto wisdom. In this short, actionable peek inside his toolbox, he explains a surprisingly simple strategy for knowing when to hop off a train that isn't exactly announcing a slowdown: visualizing your investments as a good old pile of cash. The Money Pile exercise, it turns out, is applicable beyond crypto, and can be easily woven into your existing review process.
Read 🔒 (4 minutes)
Breaking the Dam, with Sameer Gardezi
Sameer Gardezi's career as a television writer is eyebrow-raising by itself—and that's without mentioning his screenwriting incubator Break the Room, a fund centered on disrupting the often homogeneous launchpad that is the writers' room. As he explains to Sherrell Dorsey, Hollywood's understanding of "diversity" isn't always as multi-dimensional—or genuine—as it needs to be. Sameer's efforts to create stronger systems for finding underrepresented writers are examples that can and should go beyond show business, and reading this conversation is a great place to start.
Read (19 minutes)
Can NFTs Be A New Monetization Model For Creators?
Nathan and Li open their latest passion economy update with by diving into a phenomenon that's taking the sphere by storm: NFTs, a large-scale way to support creators you love. Of course, they're a lot more than just that, so make sure you check out their full take, along with looks at Dispo's massive valuation, the ghost kitchen of YouTuber MrBeast, and much more.
Read 🔒 (12 minutes)
🎧 PODCASTS 🎧
#59 - Goals vs. Virtues & #60 - Comfort with Chaos
Happy Sunday!
There's a lot you can learn from the articles our amazing writers published this week. In fact, there's a lot you can try: Superorganizers' Action Item this week revolves around a unique and easily adaptable system for jettisoning goals and and instead pursuing a valued life. Nat Eliason's latest Almanack dispatch is a quick hit of advice to help you manage your crypto wallet. Free Radicals did a deep dive on a new model for supporting underrepresented artists in Hollywood—with practical application for every industry.
That's one of our favorite things about the collection of writing and writers we have here: no matter how diverse the subject matter, we always want you to walk away thinking of how the thoughts in question might work if applied in your own life.
Speaking of giving stuff a shot, we have a few new exciting endeavors that could use your involvement! Take a look below at a new way to consume one of our most popular articles, and a truly singular opportunity to talk to one of our practitioners—and have the conversation published here.
Saying "that's all" sounds a bit deceptive, given the volume of actionable material we've gathered for you here. So instead, we'll just settle for...that's the Digest!
What We Published
This week’s output: 4 articles, 2 podcasts, and a live conversation.
📝 ARTICLES 📝
Who Shaan Puri is Becoming
by Dan Shipper in Superorganizers
The title for this profile comes from a poster that sits above the desk of serial founder and angel investor Shaan Puri. Who am I becoming? It asks. Shaan's system for answering it is fascinating: without spoiling anything here, it takes inspiration from a deck of cards. Like all the best Superorganizers installments, this one isn't just about arranging work and professional time—it's about carving out the time to listen to your heart.
Read 🔒 (10 minutes)
When Should You Take Money Off the Table?
by Nat Eliason in Almanack
It was only a matter of time until Nat graced us with a new piece of crypto wisdom. In this short, actionable peek inside his toolbox, he explains a surprisingly simple strategy for knowing when to hop off a train that isn't exactly announcing a slowdown: visualizing your investments as a good old pile of cash. The Money Pile exercise, it turns out, is applicable beyond crypto, and can be easily woven into your existing review process.
Read 🔒 (4 minutes)
Breaking the Dam, with Sameer Gardezi
Sameer Gardezi's career as a television writer is eyebrow-raising by itself—and that's without mentioning his screenwriting incubator Break the Room, a fund centered on disrupting the often homogeneous launchpad that is the writers' room. As he explains to Sherrell Dorsey, Hollywood's understanding of "diversity" isn't always as multi-dimensional—or genuine—as it needs to be. Sameer's efforts to create stronger systems for finding underrepresented writers are examples that can and should go beyond show business, and reading this conversation is a great place to start.
Read (19 minutes)
Can NFTs Be A New Monetization Model For Creators?
Nathan and Li open their latest passion economy update with by diving into a phenomenon that's taking the sphere by storm: NFTs, a large-scale way to support creators you love. Of course, they're a lot more than just that, so make sure you check out their full take, along with looks at Dispo's massive valuation, the ghost kitchen of YouTuber MrBeast, and much more.
Read 🔒 (12 minutes)
🎧 PODCASTS 🎧
#59 - Goals vs. Virtues & #60 - Comfort with Chaos
Talk Therapy with Dan Shipper & Nathan Baschez
Dan and Nathan split the difference on their show this week, spending Wednesday's conversation going behind the new Superorganizers piece and Friday's contrasting their approaches to starting an essay. It's the rare and lovely combination of episodes that could make for an excellent double feature: hearing how a piece gets started, then reflecting on a finished one.
Listen to #59 (15 minutes) & #60 (13 minutes)
🗣UP CLOSE & PERSONAL🗣
Want to Ask Jerry something? Now you can.
Now, we're trying something new with Ask Jerry—our newsletter on leadership and radical self-inquiry with Jerry Colonna. We're offering our readers a chance to sit down for a coaching session Jerry, for a session that will be recorded and featured as a conversation in the newsletter.
If you have anything you'd like to bring to Jerry for an upcoming installment of the newsletter, all you have to do is fill out a short survey telling us a little about yourself and what you'd like to talk about.
🔈DEPARTMENT OF EARS🔈
Now Testing: Audio articles
We're tossing around a new idea—offering recorded versions of our articles as a perk for subscribers.
To kick off the experiment, what better article to use as a pilot than Fadeke Adegbuyi's recent hit, Creeping as a Service (CraaS)? If you'd like a free listen, just hit the link below—and make sure to tell us what you think of the feature!
What’s Going On
News you might have caught or missed this week.
- Spotify Announces Major Expansion, New Ad Network
- How NBCU Missed Out on Billions in Gains on Snap and Peloton
- Twitter announces paid Super Follows to let you charge for tweets
- F.C.C. Approves a $50 Monthly High-Speed Internet Subsidy
What We’re Reading
Our favorite writing from beyond Every
American Idle
We've raved about Eugene Wei's writing on TikTok—among other creator-related topics—here before, but his latest piece warrants another mention. As Wei says in the first paragraph, though, "American Idle" is concerned with the network effects creativity to a degree that goes far beyond any one platform. Running through a range of TikTok features—both intentional and organic—that engender creativity between users, Wei lays bare the ways in which the app is the logical next step for a particularly effective brand of viral media: the reaction. "TikTok is a form of assisted evolution," he writes, "in which humans and machine learning algorithms accelerate memetic evolution." In other words: the platform thrives on putting creative people and existing material in close proximity, and letting nature run its course.
More Reads:
- When Death Comes: An Oncology Nurse Finds Solace in Mary Oliver (Lit Hub)
- E-mail is Making Us Miserable (The New Yorker)
- #58 friends > communities (Check Your Pulse)
- How social networks got competitive again (Platformer)
- Narratives, Reflexivity, and Markets (Tanay's Newsletter)
Tweets of the Week
Two of our favorite minds at work:
An Invitation to Every
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Ideas and Apps to
Thrive in the AI Age
The essential toolkit for those shaping the future
"This might be the best value you
can get from an AI subscription."
- Jay S.
Every Content
AI&I Podcast
Cora
Sparkle
Spiral
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What is included in a subscription?
Daily insights from AI pioneers + early access to powerful AI tools
Front-row access to the future of AI
In-depth reviews of new models on release day
Playbooks and guides for putting AI to work
Prompts and use cases for builders
In-depth reviews of new models on release day
Playbooks and guides for putting AI to work
Prompts and use cases for builders
Evan Armstrong
Dan Shipper
Reviews of new AI models on release day
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