Rox’s Picks 38

Hi friend,

This week I swam 2.5km to kick off a weeklong fitness challenge with my ultimate frisbee club. We’ll be racking up points against another team here in Toronto. Wish me luck!

I’ve also started putting more time into reading books and long form articles. The goal is to get at least 10 hours of reading and 5-10 hours of writing in each week. 

Over the years, I’ve forgotten how much reading energizes me. In fact I used to be one of those kids who read everything, including the back of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles. 

Last week’s newsletter had a 48% open rate. The top link you clicked on was my article on "Why Asians Aren’t Drowning in Debt (But North Americans Are) “ (Thank you for reading!).

Here’s what I worked on this week:

Read But He Said He Is a Christian. This book, written under the pseudonymous Rebecca K. Tan, is a collection of journal entries. The author is a girl who entered an abusive relationship with a guy who, as the book’s cover suggests, was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

This book taught me how to tell if a relationship is taking over a person’s life, about subtle ways people manipulate each other in relationships, and the mind games abusive partners play to keep the other party in their clutches. I took notes for future relationships — both for me and for my friends’.

Not the most upbeat book, but it reveals a darkly human side of church that we don’t usually see.

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Here’s what I learned, shared, and paid attention to this week:

1. Writing tips from a master — 

Draft No. 4 by John McPhee

By McPhee’s estimation, the first draft of anything takes 4x the amount of time as the next 3 drafts. He says,

In fact, until the first draft exists, the writing has not really begun. Your subconscious can only “work” on the piece of writing, during the 3 B’s of creativity (bed, bath, bus) if a draft has been finished. 

Because of this, we have to learn to enjoy the process of rewriting — finding precise words, getting feedback from others, and adding elements of surprise to your writing style. And delighting in the revision process that happens after that first draft.

Keep these in mind as you work on your first drafts and rewrites for your essays, videos, and podcasts.

2. Fun new tool I bought — 

Timeular

Peter Drucker said, "What gets measured gets managed.” Before you increase how much time you spend reading, writing, or resting, you have to know how much you spend on them now.

Unlike other time-trackers, the Timeular has a physical 8-sided tracker (a.k.a. a d8 to any D&D players out there). You can customize each side of the tracker to any projects or areas you want to track.

I’m currently tracking hours for my reading, writing, planning/review, meetings, and work. I used to hate submitting timesheets and tracking my time. But the physical D8 tracker makes this a lot more fun.

3. How to become a polymath — 

Ron Chernow’s Hamilton & C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity

This is a short summary of what I’ve learned so far from these two books. 

Studying theology is worth doing, whether you’re religious or not. 

By its nature, religion and theology deal with matters we’re not built to understand. In fact, we can never be fully right about anything supernatural. We can only be less wrong.

But that’s part of the intellectual fun.

As C.S. Lewis says, "It is no good asking for a simple religion. After all, real things are not simple. They look simple, but they are not.” Reading Lewis is a masterclass on explaining abstract topics simply. His earthy, secular metaphors come from his time as an atheist before he became a Christian apologist.

Similarly, Alexander Hamilton’s religious practice fed into his intellectual life. According to a close friend, “[Hamilton] was attentive to public worship and in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning. . . . I have often been powerfully affected by the fervor and eloquence of his prayers. He had read many of the polemical writers on religious subjects and he was a zealous believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.’” 

Discussing theology with other people is a test of your intellectual rigour. Studying religion teaches you to think critically and argue intelligently for truth, sans ego. 

Of course, arguments — especially ones about unknowable topics like God —  are useful only if the objective is to get to the truth. Unfortunately, more often than not, people argue just to to be right. Here’s what C.S. Lewis has to say about that:

Pattern your intellectual life after the remarkably well-read, and often-polymathic forefathers of North America, like Alexander Hamilton.

Hamilton taught himself economics, political theory, and military strategy. By 26, he was doling out valued advice to George Washington and the other founding fathers on those 3 fields. 

Curriculum aside, we’d do well to imitate Hamilton’s learning regimen:

• He read widely and published regularly

• He attended salons, started a literary club, and gathered a trusted group around him to critique his work and ideas.

• Most of all, he always used waiting time to study

Before the Kindle, Hamilton took it upon himself to lug heavy tomes around the battlefield.

Before Readwise and Evernote, he scribbled notes and copied quotes in a notebook.

Before Substack, he hand-wrote 31-page treatises to his friends, summarizing what he learned. 

Our challenge?

Instead of using it as a distraction from life, use the internet to stand on the shoulders of autodidact polymaths like C.S. Lewis and Alexander Hamilton. Use our knowledge to develop and publish fresh, foundational ideas to solve the biggest problems we can find today.

4. Why most ecommerce brands are emperors with no clothes —  

Member Brief: The Pivot to Tradition by Web Smith

After writing about profit as THE forgotten, guiding metric for modern businesses, I’ve been paying attention to the rise — and the impending fall of — digitally native vertical brands (DNVB). As Web’s article suggests, many DNVBs ignore that profit-first mentality. As a result, algorithm changes and rising customer acquisition costs (CAQ), particularly for Facebook ads, blindside naïve DNVB startups. 

But these missteps aren’t relegated to new brands. Even developed brands are feeling the sting of higher CAQ.

Established DNVBs like Away, AllBirds, and Glossier are deviating from their digital roots and building a physical presence. As Web says, "Shaken by the costs and slowing progress of v[ertical] commerce, brands are moving to physical retail and wholesaling faster than ever.”

These more mature brands may still rely on Facebook ads for their customer acquisition, but they are far enough along in their business development to have diversified acquisition channels. The problem crouches for new brands that rely on Facebook ads for customer acquisition — and don’t have anything else. 

To read more about how profit and CAC are the secret barriers to entry in the ecommerce startup ecosystem, check out…

• The DtC Industrial Complex by Web Smith

• 10 DTC Ecommerce Trends (2020): Growth in a ‘Post Acquisition’ Future by Aaron Orendorff

• This tweet thread on why the golden age for DNVBs is over by Wilson Hung

Finally, although the fatal weaknesses of building a customer acquisition strategy on paid channels is obvious to me, it’s not to others.

Going forward, I want to see what happens when founders don’t study history, chase “easy” money, and follow trends blindly. I’m trying to analyze and predict which of these buzzy new brands will be exposed as emperors with no clothes.

Most importantly, I’m taking copious notes so that we can leapfrog their mistakes in the future. 😉

That's it for this week!

Stay strong, stay kind, stay human.

Till next week,

Roxine

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Header photo courtesy of @viewfrommyinstax