My Favorites From The Year

Today, I’m recapping my favorite things from 2019.

I find a lot of stuff every year… but this is the best of the best.

Btw, if you want to stay up-to-date on my favorites during the year — check out my Goodreads and Pocket.

Here are my favorites this year:

Books

• The Secret Race – Tyler Hamilton
• Beat the Reaper – Josh Bazell
• Being Nixon – Evan Thomas

Movies

• Avicii: True Stories
• Good Boys
• Papillion

Articles

• What Really Happens When You Become an Overnight Millionaire?
  • Lots of insights on staying humble and the challenges of success.
  • “It also means that to trigger the sense of adversity that’s gotten him this far, Rahal has to rough up his life so he doesn’t get too comfortable.
• Satya Nadella email to employees on first day as CEO (2014)
  • I love how he focuses on ditching the past and really unifying the company.
  • “Finally, I truly believe that each of us must find meaning in our work. The best work happens when you know that it’s not just work, but something that will improve other people’s lives.”
• A Balanced Approach to Growth
  • Innovation vs. optimization
• Amazon Prime History
  • Love how risky their team was on doing this…while it seems obvious it was a much bigger bet that they were willing to take.
  •  “I want to draw a moat around our best customers. We’re not going to take our best customers for granted.”

Quotes

• My friend had 25k emails in Gmail. Created filter to delete everything with the word “unsubscribe” in it. He’s now at 100.
• Help yourself. No one is coming to save you.
• Most underrated job in tech companies today: Email Marketer.

Marketing observations of the year

• Sticker Mule 100 Days of Giveaways – (subscribe to Okdork.com/weekly for January giveaways!)
• Facebook Groups – (connect and learn from other SUPER smart people: OkDork Group)
• Weekly Emails. Duh

Bonus Favorite (not mentioned in podcast):

Favorite Mac App: Rocket for emojis = ?