Considerations 6/8/20

Edition #3: Flobility, Organifi, SG Lewis, Kevin Kelly and more

Jun 8

Hello friends! Welcome to another edition of considerations, a thoughtfully curated monthly newsletter focused on creative inputs for multi-disciplinaries.

I hope you are doing well—considering everything going on (Look at that, not even two sentences in and I’ve already written a dad joke. 1+ points). I don’t know about you, but ever since my day job has gone remote, I’ve officially only worn yoga pants for the past two months 😆.

Here are some interesting things I’ve been considering lately:

1. Black Lives Matter

I think Martin Luther King Jr. said it best “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” There’s some great information out there, but I particularly enjoyed Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon) and Tim Cook’s (CEO of Apple) responses.

2. Back to Form: Flobility

Spine Conscious Training | Flobility

I’ve been enjoying these Flobility exercises for the past couple of weeks. It was recommended to me by a health practitioner I met recently. Essential its simple exercises that help realign your posture and reset your movement patterns to a natural alignment. Some of the benefits include “Injury prevention, increased mobility, increased core stability, decompress your joints” and overall more biomechanical control over your body. If you aren’t interested in signing up for their online problem, I’d still recommend checking them out on Instagram (@flobility)—it’s full of good insights.

topics: exercise, posture, physical therapy

3. Drink Your Greens: Organifi Green Juice

Organifi Green Juice - Detox, Immunity & Metabolism Support

I’ve been supplementing with Organifi’s Green Juice for a little over a year now and love it. Just add water and you’ve got your daily dose of greens. I can feel its effects on my energy levels and skin health. It’s tasty too. I’ve tried a number of these types of products, and this has been my favorite so far.

topics: health, energy

4. Happy Birthday KK: A Lifetime of Advice From Kevin Kelly

The Technium: 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

This is a superb article from Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine and author of many books including The Inevitable, a fantastic book on future technology forces. 68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice is an action-packed article of advice he’s learned over the years. I've bookmarked and printing it out on paper. This is something I’ll be revisiting for a while.

topics: life, advice, practice

5. Wow! First Look at Unreal Engine 5

Unreal Engine 5 Revealed! | Next-Gen Real-Time Demo Running on PlayStation 5 - YouTube

You might have already seen this, but daaaang this looks good. First off, I wish this was a real game instead of a tech demo. Second, its amazing to see game design slowly become more and more versatile and closer to something you would see in a feature film. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next generation of console gaming has in store. This video makes me want to dive into the Unreal Engine and learn game design (which is a great sign of a well-crafted video).

topics: design, game development, 3D animation

6. $$$: How to Make Wealth

How to Make Wealth

This is an article from Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator. It’s from 2004, but just as relevant today as it was then. His answer to becoming rich is to start or join a startup. “A startup is a small company that takes on a hard technical problem.”

“Lots of people get rich knowing nothing more than that. You don’t have to know physics to be a good pitcher. But I think it could give you an edge to understand the underlying principles.”

If you are interested in starting your own thing or joining a startup, make sure you have your bases covered. This is a great article to get you started.

topics: wealth, happiness, business, startup,

7. YouTube Sans: How YouTube made their typeface

YouTube Sans: The Making of a Typeface - Library - Google Design

Type design is something I’ve fallen head over heels for in the last few months. This is a great article by Chris Bettig on the creation of YouTube’s typeface. Even if you aren’t interested in type, YouTube Sans is a great case study in the importance of having attention to detail when it comes to your brand (—everything really). They didn’t just build a font. They made something that spoke to the core of what they’re brand stands for.

“We also built in a lot of quirks and personality to reflect our worldview: we ruled out Swiss-type because we wanted it to feel more human; it had to be imperfect, unpredictable, and strong yet rough around the edges; more than a brand ambassador, it also had to be reflective of the community of creators who call our platform home. We called it YouTube Sans.”

Everything we make markets who we are and what we are about.

topics: type design, design, branding, marketing

8. Five Exercises to Level up your Design Skills

5 exercises to level up your design skills - UX Collective

This medium post written by Elaine Tran uses design as the lens, but I think the suggestions in the article can be applied to leveling up any skill.

topics: habits, metrics, personal growth

9. Finding Footing in a Shifting World

Living the Questions: How can I find my footing in a shifting world? - The On Being Project

This is a segment from On Being (which is a great podcast by the way). If you’re struggling with the break-neck speed at which life changes, give this a listen (or two).

“But, in the story of real-life – it’s almost a cliché – the endings are always beginnings, and what feel like endings are middles. And I’m fascinated by how our minds struggle to take that in. Then here we are in this moment, which also happens in the true-life story —it can happen in any day, in any week – that the phone rings, that something transpires in a relationship or in a job or, in this case, in the world, that completely upends our plans and becomes not just a transition but a threshold.”

topics: change, transformation, COVID-19

10. Music Challenge: How well do you know your oldies?

Identifying Generational Gaps in Music

How well do you know music? This is a fun little music test from the fine folks over at [The Pudding](https://pudding.cool/). I did well with recognizing the 1960s and 1970s tunes, and surprisingly did horribly for the 80s questions, and did well on the 90s and early 2000s questions—no surprise since I’m a 90s baby.

topics: music, history, trivia, statistics

11. Nifty App: Readwise

Readwise

If you have a kindle or use the kindle app, this a fantastic reading companion app. I read both physical books and kindle books (there are advantages and disadvantages for each). One nice thing about reading on the kindle is the highlight feature. Just select and drag the sentence you want to highlight and then Amazon stores that information on a personal website archive for you.

Readwise makes highlights even more useful by emailing you a daily random assortment of your highlights. They also have a clever way of sending you highlights of physical books, by analyzing your Goodreads and sending you the most popular kindle highlights from the books you’ve read on paper. Booklovers rejoice!

topics: books, tech, apps

12. MUSIC: SG LEWIS

SG Lewis is my jam.

He's a British artist / electronic producer. I can't keep up with genre anymore, but SG would be somewhere in the electro-soul / mellow beats/singer-songwriter spectrum. My favorite album is Dawn, but I enjoy all of them. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention to don't skip over all of his singles.

Related Artists: HONNE, ODESZA, RKCB

13. PERSON: Nick Kohonas

Nick Kokonas (@nickkokonas) | Twitter

Survival Strategies for Small Restaurants - Bloomberg

Nick Kohonas is the CEO of Tock, a “reservation, table, and event management system used by restaurants, wineries, and pop-ups around the world.” He's also the at Alinea Restaurant / Next / The Aviary / Roister / St. Clair Supper Club Founder. Nick Kokonas thinks differently. I highly recommend his article Survival Strategies for Small Restaurants.

14. Quote:

“That’s been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
— Steve Jobs

15. Shameless Plugs

My Interview with Derek Sivers: How to be More Happy, Creative And Purposeful (RL #16)

This is an episode you don’t want to miss. My conversation with Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby which was the largest seller of independent music online, with $100 million in sales for 150,000 musicians. Derek Sivers is a writer, musician, programmer, and entrepreneur.

The Renaissance Life is a podcast dedicated to the pursuit of creativity, mastery, and a meaningful life.

Well, that's it for this month! I hope you enjoyed the second edition of Considerations.

If you’ve got 5 minutes, I’ve created a 5 question survey so I can learn more about you and what you’re interested in. It’s short and sweet.

Have you discovered any interesting articles, books, music or what-have-yous recently? Email me at josh [at] renaissance life [dot com] and I might feature it (and give props to you of course) in next month’s edition.

If you are into books as much as I am, I’m also creating a monthly newsletter about what I’m reading each month called Bookaholics. The newest edition features some fantastic reads.

Lastly, each month Considerations will have a sister publication called Practices. Where Considerations is about creative inputs, Practices is about creative output.

Considerations is the gasoline. Practices is the match.

Considerations will always be free. But if you are interested in Practices, for only $5 a month or $30 a year, you can receive a thoughtful resource to help improve and change your life.

Also if you convince a friend to sign up too, I’ll give you 50% off. Share Considerations with a friend and if they sign up, send me an email and I’ll send you a discount code.

Thanks for your time.

Be Well. Keep creating.

— Josh,

Renaissance Life

Insta: @Renaissance.Life

Twitter @wiggidywags