Every new year comes with new hopes, habits, notes to self and reflections on the passing year.
It's not important what you have covered this year, but what did you discover.
Keeping up with the festive tradition here is a list of the best 5's I have stumbled upon this year.
5 podcasts
1- Big Questions with Cal Fussman:
First stumbled upon him with Tim Ferris (another great Podcast), then was thrilled to find that he started his own podcast. Fussman is a New York Times bestselling author, longtime Esquire writer, corporate consultant.
The format is simple, it's one on one interviews with diverse driven,accomplished and success figures I highly recommend stating with Kobe Bryant episode
2- Leadership & Discipline:
Because motivation is like showering we need to do it everyday in the morning Jocko Willink is a decorated retired Navy SEAL officer, author of the book Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win.
3- The Message:
The first confirmed signal from outer-space has reached us, a team of specialists is trying to decode the message. Documenting the whole process is a Cyphercast podcast host Nicky Tomalin.
The reason why this is not all over the news, is that it's fake. The Message is fictional podcast about a podcast that was described as a sci fi serial. Interesting concept worth discovering.
4- You're not so Smart:
The easiest person you can persuade and manipulate creatively is yourself, as it turns out your brain sometimes takes part in self delusion as well.
you are not so smart is a podcast dedicate to the exploration self delusion. It covers topics like why your memories are not reliable, the idiot brain and naive realism.
5- HBR Ideacast:
Some podcasts are great at capturing the start up life, the silicon valley spirit of positive productivity at work, other podcasts are great at theoretical academic analysis of theory and philosophy of business.
It is very rare (at least for me) to find a podcast that does both greatly. HBR Ideacast is a weekly podcast featuring the leading thinkers in business and management.
5 Youtube Channels.
1- Jablinski Games:
This is Jack Black's gaming channel, as I am writing this now the channel got more than 2.5 Million subscriptions and 13.4 Million views with only 79 seconds of video content.
No Spam, No sponsorships, No Ad campaigns just jack speaking for 79 seconds.
2- Nerdwriter1:
This is a weekly video essay series that visualize and articulate beautiful a wide variety of thoughts and concepts.
The Channel covers diverse topics, From how to understand a Picasso and why did Dylan won the Nobel prize?, to topics like Fidget Spinners and why Apple needs a Samsung.
The Videos are average of 6:00 minutes long which makes them a perfect refresher in the middle of the day.
3- The Hot Ones From First We Feast:
Inbound Marketing in action at it's best.
The Idea is to interview celebrities over while they eat 12 spicy chicken wings. While the concept is extremely simple, the questions are very well researched and the host is extremely competent.
The series of videos gained traction of both celebrities and viewers alike, some of the guests of the show were Natalie Portman, Kevin Hart, Jeff Goldblum & many others.
The show is a great case study for inbound as the whole show is build around promoting and increasing sales of the products of the Hot Ones.
So the viewer not only opt in for the commercial by subscribing and viewing the content.
The celebrities endorsements adds to the mega influence campaign that is the Hot Ones.
Worth watching if not for the content then for the concept.
4- Kurzgesagt:
This Channel creates one animation video per month about scientific concepts and it is beautiful.
The visualization of concepts like aliens under ice, why beautiful things make us happy and time: the future and history of everything.
The channel is also known as in a nutshell as they chunk down scientific concepts into a bite size animated video. In an age where our digital world is overwhelmed by massive quantities of content, such a channel provides a quick intelligent breeze that pays respect to our very short attention span.
5- OnePercentBetter:
"I wish I can read more books" and "I don't have time to read any more", are two statements that I hear very frequently.
One Percent Better provides animated book summaries! featuring the key lessons from success and self-development books in 10 minutes or less.
While a recent article published by Inc. Magazine, says you only need 417 hours a year to read 200 books.The average person spends 608 hours on social media and 1,642 hours on TV.
If these stats are not enough and you still don't have time then I do recommend 1% better.
5 Books
1- Becoming by Michelle Obama:
Only 46 families got to live in the same house that she lived in, and only one family of her heritage and back ground got to be the residence of the White House.
This is a story of existence, resilience, tolerance and acceptance. The book provides an eye on a very rare life in the human experience and an insight into a survival spirit.
2- Educated by Tara Westover:
Born and raised on a mountain in Idaho. her survivalist family didn't believe in schools, collages or any form of education; But Tara did.
This is the story of her ascendance from a young girl raised by her anti- education family to a woman with a PhD from Cambridge University. The story is unbelievable, captivating and above all true.
3- Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke:
The average amount of remotely conscious decisions an adult makes each day equals about 35,000, Annie offers a better mechanism to increase the quality of the decision making process.
The poker champion shares her insights, on what kind of decisions we should be making and what actions we should be taking.
On a side note you can find Annie's google talk and other interviews online.
4- The River of Consciousness by Oliver Sacks:
From "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" to "Hallucinations ", Oliver Sacks's work is a must read.
In this collection of essays the professor of neurology, explores his own evolution on ideas, memory, innovation, and sickness,along with a range of subject matter from Freudian psychoanalysis to Darwinian evolutionary theory.
5- Beasts Made of Night by Tochi Onyebuchi:
In this work of fiction we get introduced to a city, where the sins can be eaten.
When a sin-beast is killed, a tattoo of the beast appears on his skin while the guilt of committing the sin appears on the mind.
The story is captivating and the narrative is unique.
5 Movies
1- A Quiet Place:
Other than dominating the movie theaters by becoming the number 1 movie in USA,
getting recognized by the king of horror himself Stephen King.
A Quiet Place is a great piece of content and storytellers can view this movie, not just as a successful cinematic experience but a great piece of content as well.
2- Searching:
This is a story about David Kim. A father who becomes desperate when his 16-year-old daughter Margot disappears and an immediate police investigation leads nowhere.while the story sounds very familiar we have never seen it implemented that way before. the story is told from the perspective of phones, laptops and Ipads.
This is a classic story retold with digital technology. Innovative and brilliant.
3- Bohemian Rhapsody:
Because Queen.
4- Green Book:
This is a journey of A working-class Italian-American bouncer who becomes the driver of an African-American classical pianist on a tour of venues through the 1960s American South.
The car ride doesn't only reveal the struggle throughout the long road, it also reveals the characters differences, similarities and most importantly their personal stories.
5- Hereditary:
Very unsettling horror movie.
Having said that as a storyteller, content creator and a movie buff, I deeply appreciated the strong visual storytelling aspect of the movie.
The story is engaging, captivating and disturbing. Worth watching.
5 Articles.
1- A Few Principles for Thinking Clearly by Charles Chu
A quote from the article:
"It gets worse. When people are exposed to evidence that contradicts their identities or tribal affiliations, they’ll actually double down and become more confident in whatever they believed. This is why it’s important, when trying to think clearly, to avoid identifying with any particular tribe."
Read More here: https://bit.ly/2NINGlu
2- The (Very) Best Books I Read in 2018 by Ryan Holiday
A quote from the article:
"I know that people are busy, and we don’t always have time to read as much as we like. Nothing wrong with that (though if you want to read more—don’t look for shortcuts—make more time!). What matters is that when you do read, you pick the right books."
Read More here: https://bit.ly/2F3pngB
3- The 10 Biggest Archaeology Stories of 2018 by Owen Jarus, Live Science Contributor
A quote from the article:
"The inscriptions are actually similar to speech bubbles in comic books, because they describe the activities of the characters, who offer explanations of what they are doing,"
Read More here: https://bit.ly/2Ql9aVR
4- Why CRM Projects Fail and How to Make Them More Successful,
by Scott Edinger
A quote from the article:
"CRMs today also serve a lot of masters, from executives in the C-suite, technology, marketing, finance, and, oh yeah, sales. They try to address more objectives than are reasonable for any software system."
Read More here: https://bit.ly/2SZbyU1
5- There Is More to Behavioral Economics Than Biases and Fallacies. By Koen Smets
A quote from the article:
"The proliferation of biases masks the truth that human behavior is fluid and fuzzy. The use of discrete, distinct labels implies a rigor that is simply not there."
Read More here: https://bit.ly/2NIZHa1
That has been a recap of my best lists of fives, Thanks for reading.
Twitter: @Fouad_Khafaga
