Adventures #40: The Entertainers
An email digest from the desk of me - Howard.
edition 040
Five of this edition's themes in one photo. Click for the video :)
Hi
There’s been a piano in my family home for as long as I can remember.
While I never got past ‘chopsticks’, my mum still plays almost every day.
Back in my (fairly) innocent youth, one tune I remember hearing her play often was ‘The Entertainer’.
However, she didn’t play ‘The Entertainer’ because she wanted to entertain. It was about practice; learning; quiet enjoyment (and a good way to tune out a pair of 6ft+ teenage sons crashing around the house).
But what of the entertainers?
The best ones create magic. They bring us together, and leave us wanting more. Life would be less colourful without them.
Today many of the entertainers are in flux. They’re recalibrating, retooling, or being forced to sit at the sidelines. It’s harder for their colours to shine as brightly.
However, the forcing function we’re all experiencing right now is enabling other entertainers to appear.
We can create our own online group trivia night, happy hour, or canasta party.
And online, educators are becoming more like entertainers. Some savvy entertainers are pivoting into being educators.
This twisting and turning throws up a lot of questions.
How do we show up in this different paradigm?
What could - should - we do differently?
How do we spend our time in this new now?
There are many choices we can make, but here are three to consider:
- Now is a time to learn. Not that online course you thought about six months ago and never committed to (yes, guilty): but learning how to learn; learning about yourself; learning about the others; learning about what matters most.
- Now is a time to entertain. Because that seemingly never-ending stream of big-name, high-gloss content is going to run dry soon. Their productions are suspended. But yours aren’t. And under a deluge of bad, sad news we need elsewhere to go - if only for a minute or an hour.
- Now is a time to find our people. Because, well, you know why.
Here’s the best bit: we can do all three of these simultaneously.
Our incredibly networked world combined with our world's new constraints enables us to learn, laugh, gasp, smile, connect, and collaborate in ways we never could - or would - have done before. New ideas and ways of doing things are showing up every day.
This doesn’t necessarily mean my mum should live stream her piano practice with me on guest vocals(!). We can choose. But the options are there. Now more than ever.
Learning through entertainment.
Entertainment while learning.
Connecting with all the others.
Creating something for just one, two, or three other people.
Doing that thing for ourselves.
We can choose.
Perhaps one upside of constraints is they show us how many choices we can still make.
Thanks for reading, and as always I'd love to hear what's got your attention right now. Just hit reply.
Howard
PS. A choice I’ve made: not to include any pandemic-specific content in this edition as there's more than enough out there already. Instead, I'm focused on some of the adjacent ideas that may help us keep moving forward.
PPS. This intro bit ran longer than normal… but what’s normal, anyway? :)
// CAREER FUEL
Last summer I started writing a book on how to go independent in your career. Then I abruptly stopped due to horrible imposter syndrome.
Impulsive decision; I'm sharing the first section of it with you here. I've set this document to 'comment' mode; feel free to add feedback and ideas.
And if you want to read some more of it, hit reply and I'll send a few pages to you.
> Read more
> The last in my series of free workshops to help you design and deliver online workshops is on Weds 8th April. I've had over 250 people sign up so far - join us
> 5 ways to run better remote workshops and meetings
> A lot of people are feeling the tension right now. As such, I'm recording a few new episodes of my podcast 'The Tension'. Meanwhile, here are all the previous episodes
// CULTURE
This is your brain on central banking, regulatory capture, and financialization.
I can't help thinking there's a big gulf, and thus opportunity, in financial literacy. I'm interested to see efforts in making this topic easy to understand, and perhaps even fun.
> Read more
// INNOVATION
I don't think it was a coincidence a lot of interesting side projects showed up during the collation of this month's digest.
Here are three that have grabbed my attention in the last couple of weeks (and I could have done a whole newsletter on the ones using Zoom...maybe next time)
The retail industry is hurting. Shopping malls are in particular pain.
Yup, maybe we could try building a full VR experience to replicate the local Westfield... or we could do what this plucky eCommerce startup did, and build a mall using Google Sheets.
Clare Boothe Luce once said 'the height of sophistication is simplicity'. This little tool uses a few open data sources and icon packs to deliver an experience that's simultaneously fun, life-affirming, and grounding.
Not a bad thing to have right now.
> An obstacle course for marbles has raised nearly $2m on Kickstarter. Yep. Seriously though, it looks great - and an excellent example of how to run a Kickstarter campaign
> Netflix with group chat. This has become very popular, but I'm not sure it's for me. I just don't have the patience for my 'Gomorrah' re-watching to be interrupted.
// ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The Dollar Bill & The Golf Ball
A tale of vanquished dreams, price gouging, and a lesson for entrepreneurs on how to make things easy and shareable.
Also: Why all the Warby Parker clones are now imploding
// JUKEBOX
Rüfüs Du Sol - live at Joshua Tree
Remember those halcyon days of being outside, with other humans...with music?!
Here's Aussie trio Rüfüs Du Sol performing in the great outdoors at dusk.
> Listen
// FOOTNOTES
Other things I've been up to this month:
- Building out the Fondo braintrust: advice, guidance, and connection for navigating your career. More news on that in next month's edition. (and a big shout out to JRL as always).
- Rediscovering the Best (Worst) of Malcolm Tucker from 'The Thick of It' (for US readers: it's the UK version of 'Veep' - just with more lurid swearing)
- Thinking about ditching Mailchimp to send this digest (hope they're not reading this). Next month's may come to you from Substack...let's see.
> Spread the word: Who are 2 smart and curious people you know who would find this email interesting? I'd be delighted if you could forward it on to them.
This is an email digest from me - Howard. I help people who want to make a difference get where they want to go.
This monthly dispatch collates a few of the things I've found interesting across education, entrepreneurship, and entertainment.
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