Weekly Roundup #11 — A+ Employees, Building Chatbots, Superior Email and More
Impactful things I read, used, and created this past week.
“I challenge you to make your life a masterpiece. I challenge you to join the ranks of those people who live what they teach, who walk their talk.” — Tony Robbins
What I read
“It took 600 Apple engineers fewer than two years to develop, debug, and deploy iOS 10. Contrast that with 10,000 engineers at Microsoft that took more than five years to develop, debut, and ultimately retract Vista.”
I built my first chatbot this week. And it only took me ten minutes. Sure it’s completely useless and only sends cat and dog gifs, but there’s something pretty cool about building things and putting them out into the wild.
“For all the productivity and success advice I’ve read, shaped and marketed for dozens of authors in the last decade, I’ve never really seen someone come out and say: Find yourself a spouse who complements and supports you and makes you better. Instead, we’re supposed to believe that relationships tie people down, that they are the death knell for creativity and ambition.”
Satya Nadella is doing some pretty incredible things. He has people actually excited about Microsoft and Windows again. So when I heard they were buying LinkedIn for a ridiculous amount of money, I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Now it seems there was much more behind that purchase than originally met the eye.
I’m sure you saw this. I feel that I can relate rather well since I work from home and have two kids around the same age as his. About six months ago I was on a sales call with a doctor and a couple of his staff members. My daughter, then 18 months, knocked on my office door and said, “daddy! daddy! daddy! Show you something!” It immediately won the hearts of the office staff and the deal closed. We are often so protected that we fail to realize how many similarities we all share.
An incredible list by Benjamin P. Hardy over on the Thrive Global blog. I bet you find at least five things here that’ll open your mind and make you want to try something new/different.
This article is about approaching common problems from different angles. After reading I immiately sent this to my two brothers in college.
What I used
I have a hard time deciding which I like better — email in the browser or on the desktop. My latest attempt at next level productivity is the Spark Mail app for Apple devices. It’s free, fast, smart, and beautiful. I use a few of Readdle’s apps and I am always impressed by their clean design and product stability.
What I wrote
Another story in my TL;DR series. This one is about a bracelet that I wear to help me break bad habits and build healthy new ones. I learned about this method from none other than Tony Robbins and Tim Ferriss.
