Tom's Top 3: June 18, 2024
Three People Who Seemingly Have Life Figured Out
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] Sahil Bloom - Feeling Lost? Here’s 7 Questions You Should Ask Yourself
Sahil is a productivity influencer, sharing his thoughts through his YouTube channel and newsletter, “The Curiosity Chronicle.” I admire Sahil’s go-getter attitude and commitment to building a life around what matters most to him. If you aren’t turned away by the cringeworthy thumbnail (I understand these things work — hey, I clicked on it — but they’ve become trite and annoying), Sahil presents some great, thought-provoking questions.
I’m not much of a journaler, but I collect journaling prompts. I’ll be adding three of the seven questions to the collection:
If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse?
If someone observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are?
Am I allowing more information to get in the way of more actions?
The first two questions are different flavors of the same concept: compound interest. Ultimately, our lives are just a series of small decisions stacked on top of each other to string together a day/month/year. Our actions reveal our priorities; our words don’t. Over the long run, if we want to craft the life we desire, we must be intentional with our actions to make sure we are living in alignment with our values.
If you read my launch post, you know that I sometimes struggle with analysis paralysis, so the last question is important for me to continually check in on. Sahil hammers this home with the terrifying analogy of the rocking horse — always moving, never going anywhere. Cultivate a bias for action.
[Podcast] Grit - #195 CEO Salesforce AI, Clara Shih: Above the Clouds
Clara has the type of resume that makes you reconsider all of your life choices. Stanford grad, Marshall Scholar, Co-founder and CEO at Hearsay. She replaced the legendary Sheryl Sandberg on the board of directors at Starbucks… at the age of 29. Now, Clara is back at Salesforce (at least we have one thing in common).
This podcast was surprisingly candid, and I really appreciated the honesty and vulnerability that Clara showed throughout the interview. Clara spoke openly about her struggles as an entrepreneur and how she anguished over the decision to leave her company after dealing with burnout.
One aspect of the interview that caught my attention was Clara’s strategy for keeping up with the ever-changing world of AI. She has a list of podcasts and research terms that she keeps track of, and she feeds the transcripts into Claude to generate short summaries of each. After reading the summaries, she will choose the top three to share with her team and dig deeper. With the endless deluge of information coming our way, using AI to create a content filter is a cool idea that I plan on trying out.
[YouTube] TIFF Originals - RICHARD LINKLATER | 3 Books Every Film Lover Should Read
Hit Man, a (somewhat) true story about an average joe living a double life as a undercover hired gun, hit #1 on Netflix’s Top Global Movies list with 13.7 million views this week. I stumbled upon this short clip of the film’s director, Richard Linklater, and figured there was no better time to share.
I think I can quote every line from School of Rock (not embarrassed), so when Richard Linklater lists his three favorite books on cinema, I listen. In many cases, you can learn more about someone you admire by learning about who they admire.
I’ll list the books here in case you want to check them out:
Sculpting in Time by Andrey Tarkovsky
Notes on the Cinematography by Robert Bresson
Elia Kazan: A Life Paperback by Elia Kazan
That wraps up this edition of Tom’s Top 3 Tuesdays. I’ll be back next week. ✌️