Becket U curates the best resources in Math, Physics, Computers, Microeconomics, Game Theory, and Persuasion. With this knowledge, you will understand how the world works.
Undiscovered #079: Greatest Artist Who Ever Lived, Make Your Website Beautiful, Life Lesson from Baseball
#079: Greatest Artist Who Ever Lived, Make Your Website Beautiful, Life Lesson from BaseballHi All! We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com. This week we will take a look at why Steve Jobs is the greatest artist who ever lived, the best tool for freewriting, a poignant life lesson from baseball, and more. Let's dive in: Greatest Artist Who Ever LivedNaval Ravikant recently said "Steve Jobs is the greatest artist who ever lived." He then proceeded to link a speech that Steve made in 1983 at the International Design Conference in Aspen. The discussion explored the past, present, and future of tech, offering subtle predictions at products to come. What type of products and ideas? He alludes and essentially describes the iMac, smartphones and wi-fi, ChatGPT, social networks, and more. Viewers comment how watching him speak is like watching Michael Jackson sing or Michael Jordan play basketball. At this point in his career, Steve was seven years into starting Apple with his co-founder Steve Wozniak. The Apple I and Apple II became the first highly successful mass-produced microcomputers, which lead the Apple going public in 1980. Although this is incredibly impressive, it doesn't scratch the surface to what he would eventually accomplish and create. We know in hindsight that most of what Steve mentions here, he brings to life. With Apple currently stuck in a never-ending cycle of uninspiring annual iPhones and failed new product launches, I wonder what direction Steve would be steering the company into today? With shows like Black Mirror, technology has become an almost dystopian topic. How can we return to Steve's vision where technology inspires us to reach beyond known limits, ourselves, while establishing a brighter future? Game Changing Books Recommended by HamptonHampton is a highly-vetted, private membership community designed for founders, entrepreneurs and CEO's of high-growth, tech-enabled startups. It was made by Sam Parr and Joe Speiser in 2022, and was inspired by Sam's early experiences meeting informally with other founders to share advice, support, and solve business challenges. Sam recently shared that community member Pete Sena made a publicly available website containing all the Hampton recommended books that are routinely discussed within the community. The books are separated into four main categories, building & scaling, leadership & teams, personal growth, and founder stories. What I like about the site is its focus. Each category only has five books, so you're able to quickly vet what sounds interesting. Most books may sound familiar, but the one that stood out to me was Unreasonable Hospitality. I've heard of this book before from Isaac French of Live Oak Lake, someone who I believe is one of the best in the world at hospitality. The thesis of the book is that every business can become a hospitality business. Give more than you take, and incredible things will happen. How to Build Incredible Ecommerce AnimationsArtist and programmer @p4nthera_ made this quick mockup of a beautifully interactive ecommerce site:
You'll have to click the tweet to see the full animation, but it's a stunning effect that can quickly make an impression on visitors to the website. But how do you make it? @p4nthera gave two resources for those interested in creating things like this. One is @0xca0a's course which 'teaches front-end devs how to make Awwwards-type websites' with Threejs. The other is @bruno_simon 's threejs-journey.xyz. If you have ever wanted to make stunning websites, this is one of the best places to start. Best Tool for FreewritingFarza Majeed might have just made the best writing tool for freewriting, but "What is freewriting?" you might say. According to Farza, "freewriting is a writing strategy developed in 1973 where you write continuously for a set time without worrying about grammar, spelling, or anything like that. A pure stream of consciousness". Farza recently shared this app idea and it absolutely blew up. I downloaded it thinking it would be something that allows me to take notes or journal, however, the onboarding experience consists of a quick 2-3 minute read where Farza describes how the app is meant for streamlined conscious of thought, and how you are supposed to embrace your mistakes and keep typing away as your thoughts go. Farza has mentioned that its lead to personal breakthroughs for him, like untangling big feelings around shutting down his last company, reflecting on relationships, and figuring out what actually matters to him in the next chapter of his life. It's open-source, free, and an incredible little app that inspires me to share what I'm building. Download it, try freewriting, and see where your stream of consciousness takes you. Life Lesson from BaseballIt's a common phrase among baseball fans to say that "baseball is a lot like life". As a former player, perhaps no other anecdote has stuck with me as I read this tweet from @ClintHurdle13. It describes waiting for the right moment, the right opportunity, and attacking it as soon as you identify it: As a hitting coach, I watched players come back to the dugout after making an out. They'd look at me and ask, "What'd you see?" I'd go through the mechanical stuff - back side collapse, front side energy, head came off the ball. Man, it was wearing me out! Finally, I realized I needed to simplify. So the next time a player came back asking what I saw, I just asked him: "Did you get a good pitch to hit?" That usually stopped the conversation. Because if you don't "get a good pitch to hit," it's hard to get a hit. This works in our lives too. Whatever task I take on, I ask myself: Am I putting myself in position to succeed? Did I eliminate distractions? Did I prepare? Did I practice? Am I ready to produce? In life, your "good pitch to hit" probably isn't the same as mine. That's the beauty of it all. I've swung at some bad pitches in my life... so have you. But one bad swing doesn't always end the at-bat. Hitting is a lot like life. It can be simple, but not easy. Just as Clint says, sometimes we get caught up in life chasing the wrong things. But how long have we spent to understand what is it we actually want? What does that 'good pitch to hit' look like in your life? How can you be ready to take as big of a swing as possible when the opportunity arises? P.S Can you please respond to this email and bring it into your 'primary' inbox? You can say 'Hi!', tell us the last book you read recently, or what your favorite resource was from above. We appreciate any feedback you are able to provide here. What do you want more or less of? Other suggestions? Feel free to reach out to us on Instagram and give us a follow there, tag your friends on our posts, and please forward this newsletter along to anyone else who would enjoy it. Disclaimer: Becket U is an Amazon Associate and purchases through Amazon links may earn a small affiliate commission, but the price is the same for you. We only recommend books we love and think you would love, too. Always wishing you the best, J.B. |
Becket U
Becket U curates the best resources in Math, Physics, Computers, Microeconomics, Game Theory, and Persuasion. With this knowledge, you will understand how the world works.
#080: Work Backwards from Outcome You Want, Art of Storytelling, Failure Modes Hi All! We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com. This week, we will take a look at the power of story and narrative in building businesses of the future, how to prevent common failure modes for projects you are taking on, a prompt for becoming a more ideal parent figure,...
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#077: How to Spread a Message, Creating for Yourself, Naval on Chris Williamson Hi All! We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com. This week, we will take a look at how to effectively spread a message, two interviews from some of the best thinkers alive, and a question that will haunt you as you work this week... Let's dive in: How to Spread a Message...