Tom's Top 3: August 27, 2024
Combine Skills, Embrace Failure, Buy Back Your Time
Hi everyone! Welcome to this week’s installment of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays, where I highlight three pieces of content (Podcasts/Shows/Songs/Articles/etc.) that I found interesting or noteworthy from the prior week.
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Let’s get into it:
[YouTube] Film Courage - Should An Executive Producer Know More About Money Than Story?
What does an executive producer even do? It often feels like more of a vanity title, with celebrities and other rich people getting their names in the credits as some kind of Hollywood quid pro quo.
Honestly, more power to them. Movies require more than one miracle to get made, so if slapping someone’s name in the opening credits gets a project over the finish line, then by all means, slap away.
But all this slapping has done much to obscure the true roles and responsibilities of a “real” executive producer. What distinguishes a good executive producer from one that simply writes a check and disappears?
Stanley Brooks, prolific producer and adjunct professor at the American Film Institute, explains that the executive producer acts as the “referee” between the budget and creative vision. It is the line producer and UPM’s job to manage the day-to-day finances, and the director should focus solely on making the best film possible, without regard to the money. The executive producer sits in-between, with a unique combination of storytelling ability and grasp of film financing.
This is just one insight from a larger interview series with Stanley Brooks. He earned my good graces by giving a shoutout to Liberal Arts education, so I will be exploring some of the other videos in the series.
[YouTube] Mark Manson - Life is a Video Game, These Are the Cheat Codes
Maybe you’ve heard the video game analogy before. Or perhaps you’ve seen the famous TED talk from Mark Rober, where he coined the “Super Mario Effect.” Well, here is a different Mark, the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, explaining how lessons from the gaming world can be applied IRL.
Ironically, I find this video compelling because of all the ways Mark explains life is NOT LIKE a video game.
Life is an Infinite Game, not a Finite Game
Failures lead to character growth, not successes
You are given the character (you) and must to design the quest, not the other way around
We are all just each other’s sidekicks, there is no single hero
Within this framework, Mark argues that the formula for life success is a function of: understanding yourself and leveraging your character traits; focusing on your main goal and not getting distracted by side quests; and embracing failure as a way to level up. Mark’s superpower is his ability to combine psychology and humor, so I hope this video inspires some personal reflection and also provides some laughs.
[Partnership to Save You Money] Instacart+ 🤝 Peacock
Businesspeople often talk about “buying back your time.” The idea is that time is a non-renewable resource (unlike money), so you should seek opportunities to trade money for time when that time can be spent on something more valuable to you.
With my budget, I’ve found that grocery delivery services have been the best time-money tradeoff.
I hate grocery shopping. I get trapped in the vortex of endless aisles and decision fatigue, all to get clotheslined by the bill at the end.
I’d much rather pay a little extra for greater control over my cart and have my groceries delivered to my door. A free Peacock subscription is just icing on the cake. It is the ad tier, but hey, it’s free. The directions say it’s for new Peacock customers, but others have had success with cancelling or letting their subscription lapse before signing up again with the benefit.
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. If you know anyone who would like this newsletter, please consider sharing. I’ll be back next week. ✌️