personal mission statements, reframing midlife crisis, aliveness

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Cool things curated in our universe

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I love when people publicly share their personal manifestos, values, manuals for "working with me" etc... I'm curating my faves here.

 

Some stand-outs:

 

 

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Chip Conley was the former head of hospitality at Airbnb. He's now the founder of the 

Modern Elder Academy, a midlife wisdom school whose mission is to reframe midlife from a crisis to a calling. I love this! 

 

Highlights from Chip's interview with Tim Ferriss here.

 

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Sriram's post on building something no one else can measure. The gist is this: Since it is near impossible to perfectly measure human behavior, most large teams/products pick a proxy metric which ends up causing unintended consequences. For example, to measure quality journalism, you measure clicks, which results in the creation of click-bait content. To hire and retain the best teachers, you measure test performance, which results in teachers “teaching the test”. When you change what you measure, new opportunities open up. A good example is Zappos. When everyone was optimizing for driving down returns, Zappos optimized to make the return-experience a delight and part of shopping.

 

More insights on choosing your metrics here

 

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If you're feeling stuck in a doom loop, remember that you are alive.

 

 

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Curator spotlight

 

COO at Upstream. Writes about relationships, sobriety and mental health

 

 

Rabbit hole: Sobriety

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Alcohol has been a staple in culture for centuries. Mainstream media depicts drinking as essential to commemorate coming-of-age, celebrate major life events, and have a connection-filled social and love life. 

 

Until recently, that is. 

 

Data shows that younger people are drinking less than generations before. People point to a variety of reasons for this cultural shift: the proliferation of non-alcoholic (NA) beverage options, increased awareness of alcohol’s impact on health, evolving conversations around mental health, among others. 

 

The rise of celebrity-led brands by the likes of Bella Hadid, Katy Perry, Blake Lively, and more, is interesting because there are millions of dollars to be made in alcohol endorsements. These celebrities chose to align with the sober curious movement because either they see that culture is changing, view the NA market as a compelling business opportunity, or have so much conviction in this decision for themselves that they’re willing to be contrary to popular culture.  

 

When the appeal of a behavior as ubiquitous as drinking alcohol is changing in a meaningful way, it’s interesting. 

 

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This We Met at Acme podcast episode with Sarah Levy, about how sobriety can impact dating. Listening to it before I stopped drinking gave me hope for how my relationships might change (and now I can confirm, did change!) 

 

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From commentary around alcohol in the cultural zeitgeist (How Alcohol Lost Its Cool) to hyper-personal anecdotes (My Relationship With Drinking Ended As The World Shut Down) (Falling in Love Without Alcohol) to data-backed explorations of the growing sober-curious movement (NielsenIQ), there’s a growing library of perspectives to explore.

 

If you’re going to read one book on this topic, it would be remiss to not mention Holly Whitaker’s book Quit Like a Woman that has transformed millions of lives with her vulnerability and thorough research.

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The growth of non-alcoholic liquor stores and bars: Spirited Away, Minus Moonshine, Boisson, The New Bar, Sans Bar, Hekate

 

The non-alcoholic beverages themselves: Ghia, Kin, Figlia, Hiyo, Aplos, Seedlip, De Soi, Betty Buzz 

 

Writers: Holly Whitaker, Laura McKowen, Ruby Warrington, Sarah Levy, Marlee Grace, 

What's startupy?

Startupy is your refuge from the noisy Internet. We're building a network of really great people curating and interconnecting the best knowledge on the Internet.

 

If you're a regular reader of this newsletter, consider joining our curator community.

 

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