Background
I often get asked, “how long does it take you to write The Balance each week?” or “where do you find the time to find all of these articles and charts?” and, annoyingly, “do you even have a job?”. What surprises people is when I tell them it requires ~2 hours per week, most of which is spent writing quick summaries, organizing, and formatting. The reason for this is ~99% of the time I spend very little time seeking out charts and articles to share – they are recommended to me. If you curate the right feeds, you can make the internet/news/social media work for you vs. having to work through them. Technology has made it incredibly easy to create customizable, highly-relevant, and informative streams of data delivered to your fingertips with the most up-to-date information.
If I gave you the following proposition, what would you say? Imagine a situation where I offer to be your intern. In the morning, I will pack your inbox with as many high-impact, punchy data points and stories as possible. Throughout the day, I’ll send you periodical updates on things I found interesting, share unique and game-changing perspectives, and recommend some additional resources to check out. Also, on the way to and from work, or during your otherwise dead time, I will share the most interesting things I overheard from one of the best investors/CEOs/leaders in the world when I eavesdropped into their conversation. For these services, I will charge you $0, what would you say? No brainer, right? This is possible for you to do, on your own, right now, for free (for the most part, at least).
In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus. — James Clear
The internet has exponentially improved our individual capacities to learn. There is an infinite amount of information at your fingertips on any topic at any moment. In today’s world, where there’s endless information thrown at you nonstop, there’s just more and more noise being created. The key is to look for signal.
Per Nicholas Nassim Taleb, “The more frequently you look at data, the more noise you are disproportionally likely to get (rather than the valuable part called the signal); hence the higher the noise to signal ratio.”
When you are intentional about your approach in designing the systems that connect you to the internet, you can have signals act as beacons of light for your learning. When I say signals, I’m talking about institutions, individuals, and organizations that have a public presence on the internet. When I say systems, I’m talking about the resources you use to scavenge the web for the highest quality content. For the sake of this discussion, the three I’ve found to be most useful personally are email newsletters, Twitter, and podcasts.
In my experience, the best way to learn about something is read and study intensely, seek out professionals that know the topic deeply, develop frameworks for organizing the information learned by writing or presenting to others, seek out dissenting opinions to challenge your fundamental beliefs or developed biases, and then refine your understanding over time. One of the best ways to streamline this process is to follow people who have already run this program on loop for years over the course of their personal and professional careers. The problem is, many of us often don’t have access to these individuals through our immediate networks.
The great thing about the internet and social media is that you can leverage those tools to connect to folks you otherwise would never have access to. With a simple follow, download, or sign-up form, you can be connected to some of the most brilliant and accomplished minds or organizations on any topic. The internet has made it possible for you to connect with the CEOs, professors, scientists, investors, and public officials leading the most innovative companies, institutions, organizations, and academic bodies at the forefront of the topics you care most about. Given the immense vastness of the internet, you can carve out a ridiculously nuanced or specialized topic and still find a community that is willing to collaborate and share resources online with each other.
More and more of these folks are establishing their online brands by sharing an abundance of content, advice, and strategies – for free! Many professionals, either by themselves or through the organizations they are a part of, have some list of public resources for your consumption – Twitter accounts, email newsletters, or appearances on podcasts.
Newsletters deliver concise, streamlined opinions and facts on the most pertinent stories. Twitter lets you inside their minds and thoughts. Blog posts or long-form essays introduce you to their unique perspectives on the world. Podcasts let you sit in on an intimate conversation. Books distill someone’s life or life’s work into a digestible long-form publication. Documentaries help you visualize and make sense of various events.
The single most high leverage thing that you can do, but so many don’t, is to curate your feeds to be filled with thoughtful, curious, and important information and people. The best part of following thoughtful, clear-thinkers? They often lead you to what they enjoy consuming most or who else they enjoy learning from, which is often the most efficient route to consume the best material on any given topic. Subscribing to the right resources and people can open doors for you in terms of learning, networking, and suggestions to other great resources, among many other benefits.
Following clear-headed thinkers means their recommendations and shared content have been filtered by their high standards. There is an inherent trust that the person I follow or subscribe to has filtered this content and deemed it high quality enough to share. As you design your feeds to have more and more intelligent, clear thinkers on increasingly nuanced topics, the more high quality the stream of consciousness that flows to you is.
I can confidently say that getting active on Twitter again was one of the best decisions I’ve made in the past year or so. I feel that most of the world is plagued by the perpetual game of telephone: data says something, article’s take away says another, talking heads on the news present it in yet another, etc. Twitter is a way to go directly to the horse’s mouth. Additionally, Twitter serves as a filter and recommendation engine based on what the people/organizations I follow do on the service. I see unique vantage points, get direct access to data/analysis from folks that work on it, get to see live reactions, and collect a stream of endless resources depending on what people share, among so much more. But don’t take it from me, let’s see what arguably one of the best tech investors ever says:
“Twitter is the most amazing networking and learning network ever built. In any given field, 50-80% of the top experts are on Twitter and they’re sharing ideas. If you’re not using Twitter, you’re missing out.” — Bill Gurley
Below is my general overview of how I’ve curated my feeds, which helps me compile the information I throw in The Balance every week. This list is not exhaustive by any means and I’ve left an incredible amount of people/organizations off. But, these are the resources I’ve found most helpful. No two people are the same – different interests, different backgrounds, etc. To be clear, just because you follow someone doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything. In fact, I’d recommend that you follow people you disagree with especially on topics that you feel strongly about – it’ll make you better in the long run.
Charlie Munger’s wisdom should serve as a guiding principle here, “I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.”
Curating your feeds to introduce dissenting opinions increases the likelihood that you’ll be exposed to insights, commentary, or resources that will help change your mind or enhance your views later on. The rest of the article is a list of tools, resources, and people that I follow. I’ll end the post with a quote that I love:
“Your actions are a consequence of your thoughts. Your thoughts are a consequence of what you consume. And in the modern age, what you consume is largely a consequence of how you select and refine your social media feed. Choose better inputs. Get better outputs.” — James Clear
NOTE: None of the following lists are in any particular order
NEWSLETTERS
I am too lazy to link all of these handles, so if easier pop over to my Twitter and click on “Following”.
Life Perspective:
Intellectual Curiosity:
CEOs:
Insightful Writing/Tweeting:
Finance/Public Markets/Economy:
Energy/Climate:
Venture/Startups:
Geopolitics:
Sports/Highlights:
NBA:
NFL:
Music:
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