The Weekly Startup #10

Welkom to your weekly dose of content. We did the hard work for you and made a selection of the content that's actually worth your time. That is if you still want to level up your hustle game and start living life on your own terms.

In today's email:

• What is your time really worth to you? (Calculate it with this tool)

• How do I find out if a book is worth the read?

• Book summaries: (Sapiens, The Lean Startup & Hacking Growth)

• How to get the most value out of a book (how to study it)

• Financial advice (Difficult financial concepts easy explained)

What is your time really worth to you?

You've probably heard the saying "time is money." It's a popular line for a reason — it's true. This tool will help you understand how much money your time is worth to you.

It's extremely useful to know how you value your own time. If you can figure out how much money each extra hour is worth to you, it'll help you make smarter decisions about many subjects, including:

• Whether to take on additional part-time work, and at what rate.

• Whether you should try to scale down your hours at your current job.

• How long you should wait in line for a free item.

• Whether taking a cab is worth the extra cost.

• Whether it's worth it to hire a personal assistant, a laundry service, or other help.

How to read books.

When it comes to reading there are a lot of misconceptions. When I was younger I thought that I needed to read as much as possible. The flex was "I'm reading 50 books a year". Although I struggled a lot with some of them. They just didn't trigger me or make sense. And instead of just dropping it and picking up a next I most often found that I just quit reading for a while.

So basically I'm saying. If the book is a bad fit, just drop it and proceed to the next. Maybe one day you are ready to go back to the previous book, or never at all. Both is fine.

How do I find out if a book is worth the read?

For one, I like to look at the table of contents. If the subjects interest me and I would want to learn about them I start digging in.

Second, do a quick read. Just skim the chapters and read some random parts to see if they fit you. Ray Dalio understood this very well when designing "The Changing World Order". He made some sort of summary of the book by highlighting parts in Bold. The message was simple. Read the bold parts for the core message. If you like it or don't understand, you can read the whole chapter for more information. 

Third, read a summary. A summary gives you a global perception of the content. If you like what you see, and you want to dig deeper, you can then proceed and read the whole book. 

It's this third approach that recently sparked my interest. And so I went on and created summaries already. I'm planning on dropping one every week. And only of the books I consider to be worthy. Books that fit the topic of this newsletter. I'll drop a list of the first summaries I made below. I'll also share summaries created by others.

It's important to remember, a summary is just a summary. If we could fit the whole message of a book into one then the book is probably just poorly written. Don't confuse a summary with the total knowledge you could get out of it. So my main message, use this only to check out if a book is a great fit for you. If a summary provides value, consider how much more the actual book would give you.

Book summaries:

1. The Lean Startup - Essential if you're looking to start a business

2. Hacking Growth - Essential if you're looking for smart ideas to grow your business

3. Sapiens - The most knowledge is found in history

To back the last one up. On the top list of Most Recommended Books Sapiens ranks 1st. So I consider a 30-minute summary a pretty small investment of your time.

https://mostrecommendedbooks.com/top-books

If you want to move ahead and order the books directly, below I'll share links to the books on Amazon. They are affiliate links, you won't be charged more but I earn a modest share of it. For every 5 books sold I can buy a cup of coffee 😛 but I'll take it. I would appreciate it a lot!

• The Lean Startup

• Hacking Growth

• Sapiens

How to get the most out of a book (how to study it)

I'll stay on topic. The other day I watched a video of a famous biography writer explaining his methods of gathering insights from multiple books. I completely forgot who he was, I thought I documented it but can't find it anymore (If it sounds familiar please let me know who it was). I did adopt his workflow tho, and here it is:

1. Take notes on a page you found a valuable insight. I don't like to write in books so I use these little sticky markers. It's also easier to navigate to the points later (picture below).

2. Put your book away, return to it several weeks later.

3. Go over the notes you took and write a little summary/insight about each one on a Flashcard. Write the main topic at the top (for example Side Hustle, Marketing, Personal Development, Mental Model etc.) Then write the main insight or concept down. Add a book title and page number to it.

4. Sort your flashcards on topic. Then, if you need the core insights at a later time, you can pick the box and get all the notes on a specific topic and if you need to re-read a thought you know exactly where to find it.

This approach is particularly handy because writing enables quicker learning. You could do this digitally as well, but writing it down creates a connection in your brain. Worth the effort. And it's a great way to create documentation of your knowledge, so you don't end up like me unable to find a source. 🙈

This is how my books look these days. And the Blanco flashcards I'm going to fill with insights soon. This is also the current place I'm writing this newsletter. So now you know how my office of the day looks.

Financial advice

Since the financial world is filled with difficult concepts, It's good to learn a thing or two once in a while. If found this amazing Twitter account that does a great job of explaining difficult concepts in a pretty easy-to-read thread. Worth the follow. Below the tweet is al link to his website with all threads on it. 

I wanted to share some more but I feel that this is enough info for today. I see you all next week. Stay safe 🙏 

How You Can Help Me. (If you like this mailing)

First of all, thanks a lot for reading. It motivates me to create and find more content going forward.

I want this information to be free for everyone. The world will only be a better place if chances are distributed more evenly. Inequality is already growing too fast. It's up to us to tighten the gap. 

You can help me grow this educational platform I'm building in 3 easy ways (that cost you nothing).

1. Share this newsletter with friends who could benefit.

2. Subscribe to my YouTube channel: (This way I can earn some ad money in the future)

3. Follow me on Medium (I need 100 followers to get paid by Medium for my writing)

Thank you!

You made it to the end. I hoped you liked the insights provided in this mailing. This email is brought to you by Startup Library, a brand of The Growing Investor. I intend to shift my cheezy quote game on Instagram to a more serious game where I share with you the resources I use to keep myself updated and motivated. If you got any suggestions feel free to reply to this mail or send me a DM on Instagram. If you found value for a friend I would appreciate it if you'd share this mail with them and have them sign up as well.

Thanks again and I'll see you next week with new resources to shake your professional world.