Hey Career Hackers!

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly 6, where I go into 6 things I’m pumped on this week.

It’s a lovely morning as I write this from up in Montreal, Quebec, sipping my morning SUTRA, and expressing gratitude for the work I get to do day in and day out. Be sure to check out my Insta Story to see more from this beautiful city!

Max

1. This Week’s Podcast – Ryan Bonnici, CMO of software reviews site, G2Crowd

Ryan has a unique path to rarified air. He started as a flight attendant while still in college as a way to pay the bills and see the world at a young age. He met an executive of Microsoft on a flight one day which launched him into a career in Marketing for some of the worlds largest and fastest growing companies. Now he’s the CMO at G2Crowd, a software reviews site that just raised $50 million in venture funding and seems to be the next big time in B2B tech. His story is fun, but also methodical in his ascension into Marketing leadership.

Learn how to optimize “stepping stone” jobs for future career opportunities.

Listen to the podcast now!

2. Quote of the week

“Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die.” – Unknown

I know, it’s a bit dark, but I heard this line used when speaking to someone about starting a company. Over the past decade, more and more people from outside of my tech circles have come to me with “ideas”.

They’d say something like, “Hey Max, I have this idea. Don’t tell anyone. It’s top secret. I don’t want anyone to steal it and do it. I just bought the domain name and got a logo designed and it only cost me $2500.”

Then nothing else happens. They don’t do anything real, because people love to romanticize about starting a company, and being on the cover of Forbes, and making a ton of money. Most of the time they don’t realize, until they sit, and really think about how much work actually goes into it. How much money you’ll need, or regulatory issues you’ll have to fight, or even growth or balance in the marketplace if you decide to build a Yelp competitor, for example. You wasted your $2500.

“Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die” exemplifies this romantification and then having to do the actual work for the next decade or more. staring at a 99% failure rate and potentially no income for that time frame.

I have some advice here, but you’ll have to check out the Career Hacking book and podcast for low hanging fruit ways to actually start businesses.

3. What i’m thinking about

What it costs to build your ideal lifestyle. I usually write this section but the legend, Tim Ferriss, summed it up so perfectly that I’ll just link to his article here, https://tim.blog/lifestyle-costing/.

4. new product i’m into

I just got into drinking this water or soda alternative called hint. We will be having the CEO, Kara Goldin, (who is an Arizona State alum) on the podcast in the next few weeks so I tried the product and now I’m hooked. The Watermelon one is my favorite. La Croix used to be my go-to water/soda alternative, now I find myself stocking the fridge with both.

5. what I’m listening to

It’s mostly tropical, chill, or normal house music, but this is my 2018 playlist. My favorite three songs to start the summer off right are Wonder – Adventure Club, One More Day – Afrojack, Breathe (BRKLYN remix) – Mako.

I have a playlist on Spotify for 2017 and 2016 as well. It’s just a list of songs that I add to over the year. Follow me on Spotify or check out the 2018 tunes here! I also have a killer R&B playlist from mostly 90s and early 2000s tunes. Check it out if you’re into that sort of thing.

6. what i’m reading this week

The number one skill I wanted to work on this year was my communication. My communication as a leader, boss, colleague, friend, family member, significant other and general fellow human. It’s probably the most important life skill is to be able to effectively communicate with others.

The book I’m reading right now is called Triggered: Transmuting Upsets Into Love. It’s basically a handbook for living consciously in your relationships and understanding what things make you feel a certain way and why. It’s almost like self reflective therapy without needing another person. Understanding what makes you, or someone else feel triggered, allows you to dig down to find the deeper reason. Only once you have that, can you begin to communicate effectively.

And as always, please let me know your requests and suggestions on Instagram. What do you want more or less of? Let me know. Just send a Insta message to @hackitmax and put #TheWeekly6 in there so I can find it. See here for past Weekly 6 Editions.

Have friends or colleagues that would enjoy this weekly email? Feel free to share along!

Have a wonderful weekend, all!

Max