Hey there,

I'm hitting send early on today’s email as we’re in Winter Park (with the munchkins in ski school for the first time ever). This week I went deeper on a memento-mori with a little bit of “kick” to it:

Khe Hy @khemaridh If you had a year to live, would you read any business books? March 27th 2022 12 Retweets 169 Likes

Let me know what you think by hitting reply.​

We’d like to invite you to join us for a free event with two incredibly talented artists and thinkers, Liz and Mollie. We’ll be discussing Joyful Productivity and how to overcome comparison, avoid burnout and navigate uncertainty with the help of delightful visuals like:​

If you had a year to live (would you read any business books)?

I recently shared Memento Mori with a little zing to it. I asked my Twitter followers:

Let's just say, the responses were... animated.

Here's a visual describing the conundrum:

But before we go any further, you're probably wondering: What's a business book?

As a starting point, we can use these four that I grabbed off my bookshelf. (TBH, as someone who rarely reads non-fiction, they've all been a slog.)

But let's extrapolate more broadly.

A business book could be a memoir (Shoe Dog), a leadership classic (High Output Management), a self-improvement staple (Atomic Habits), a finance how-to (The Little Book that Beats the Market) or a productivity bible (Getting Things Done).

All these books have a simple promise: They'll make you better tomorrow.

They'll either teach you a skill, make you a better investor or improve your odds of succeeding in life.

So let's return to our illustration.

So with a year to live, would you ready any of these books?

The answers were a resounding "Hell No." (It turns out, many just hate the genre of business books.)

But roughly 30% said yes.

A few folks said they'd read books on estate planning.

One person said they'd read Essentialism, to focus on what could be pared down.

Others just loved the genre for its intrinsic value.

(And a bunch of people said they'd be too stoned to read.)

But this question wasn't actually about books. It was a question about striving.

Which brings up a much meatier question: If you had a year to live, would you still strive?

Here are this week's top reads:

// one

I Thought I Was Prepared for Grief. Then I Lost My Dad

7 minutes | The Non-Linear Life
​

A deeply moving article on losing a parent. Knocking on wood, I haven't experienced a loss of this magnitude (but know many of our readers have). What really struck me was the "myth of invisibility" - and that grief can be tangible and physical. (As someone who fears death in all of its forms, these stories bring me a lot of peace.)

→ Read the article​

// two

You're not successful

4 minutes | Jared Dillian
​

Can you be professionally successful and have six-pack abs? I have mixed feelings about this post, but it did make me think. It's about career trade-offs - hobbies, family, the gym and making money. We all have the same 24 hours and are each faced with our prioritization challenges. My issue with this post is that it assumes all trade-offs are zero-sum and it assumes success is monetary. (Here's a personal counter-argument 😉)

→ Read the article​

// three

The rise of the everyday creator

16 minutes | Shopify

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There's a new cohort of creators. They have 9-to-5 jobs and "spend early mornings, evenings, and weekends as influencers on TikTok, personalities on YouTube, streamers on Twitch, writers on Substack, and podcasters broadcasting to your favorite audio feeds." (They probably also don't have kids!) These side projects can expand your relationships, bring in extra income and help make you anti-fragile.

→ Read the post​

​

// four

The time hack everyone should know

8 minutes | MIT Press
​

This article introduces the concept of Social Economizing to make intentional choices (i.e. how much time we spend on our phones). It argues that if we want to change our behavior, we have two choices: omission (carving out "no-phone time" during dinner) or substitution (replacing screen time with an alternative activity like calling a friend).

→ Read the post​

// five

A tragic life

1 minutes | Twitter
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No description required, just a brief video:

Peter Mallouk @PeterMallouk A tragic life… pic.twitter.com/ZqunZD3XGx March 30th 2022 1,665 Retweets 8,040 Likes

// from our community

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I've been a long-time subscriber to Josh Spector's For the Interested newsletter. Each week, Josh sends proven stratgies to help you grow your audience and business based on how others have successfully done so - I always find myself using one of the tips mentioned in RadReads. It's short, actionable, inspiring, and loved by 18,000 subscribers.

Below the fold

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ICYMI

• An in-depth interview with Dickie Bush on my pivot away from Wall Street and how I scaled RadRads (YouTube, 68 mins)

​

LAST WEEK'S MOST READ

• ​How to prioritize (when everything's a priority) (Rad Reads, 1,238 clicks)
• ​The problem with note-taking (More to That, 473 clicks)

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And finally, Norway held a design competition to redesign their passports. (They are very pretty!)

With gratitude,

Khe

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