This week’s highlights: Grand narratives, integrated wealth services, and how to master email?
Photo by Abed Ismail on Unsplash
Issue 451
Happy Friday!
I would like to ask you a quick favor. I started Fifteen on Friday 9.5 years ago with not a lot of thought or planning. Today it has grown to about 1,400 subscribers, and you all are passionate bunch. 50% of you open and read Fifteen on Friday each week – a insane, humbling statistic in a world where we are all drowning in emails.
I am trying to think of how to improve this newsletter and would love your feedback! Would you be so kind as to compete the following survey? There are 8 questions, all anonymous, and SurveyMonkey says it should take 3 minutes or less to complete. Thanks so much!
Original Content:
- Stuff Your Stockings with 2021’s Best Books. Here are 10 of my favorite reads from this year that would make a great gift for any readers in your life (including yourself)
Best,
David
Food for Thought
- AOM – The Vaccine Moment, part two. This is the meaning of the ‘culture war’: an ongoing battle over stories, with no sign at all of whether any new grand narrative will rise to replace that of Progress. Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps the days of grand narratives are over. Either way, the battle over stories will not end any time soon.
- Portland – D. B. Cooper: The One that Got Away. 50 years ago this fall, a man jumped from a Northwest Airlines plane with a parachute and $200,000.
- NewYorker – On “Succession,” Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke “I take him as seriously as I take my own life,” he says of his character, Kendall Roy.
- AL – 24 Things You Can Get Rid of Without Ever Missing
- CN – The Forgotten Tale of George Lucas’s Writing Tower
Business
- FWR – Does Your Firm Really Offer Integrated Family Wealth Services? What is the value of “integration” in a family office, why does it matter, and how do we know if it has been achieved?
- II – Everyone Is Talking About Data Science. Here’s How J.P. Morgan Is Putting It Into Practice. J.P. Morgan Asset Management is building machine learning and predictive analytics tools for its fundamental portfolio managers. Just don’t call them quants.
- CNBC – CNBC’s full interview with Galleon Group’s Raj Rajaratnam
- BE – Three Steps to the Future – Benedict Evans’ presentations on technology trends are must reads each year
Culture / Arts/ Tech / Science
- Twitter Thread – How to be really good at email
- Polygon – Lord of the Rings’ Gollum is a singular performance without a sole author. How an unknown stage actor and 18 animators changed film acting
- AutoSport – How the Jeddah F1 race became a one-sitting Netflix drama series – Most insane 2.5 hrs of sporting in years.
- Engadget – Verizon might collect your browsing data even if you previously opted out
Last Week’s Most Popular
- MH – How This All Happened – Credit GR – This is a short story about what happened to the U.S. economy since the end of World War II.
- PP – Why Writing Letters to Your Kids Is the Best Gift You Can Give Them as Adults
- OHE – On Turning Fifty. – A thoughtful reflection
My Book:
When Anything is Possible – Wealth and the Art of Strategic Living
The book is about how we shift from focusing on the things we want to avoid, to the things we want to accomplish with our wealth. Doing so requires a person to articulate 3 key items – Wealth Structure, Wealth Identity and ultimately a Wealth Strategy. The book walks through each of these items in great depth, and guides the reader through a process to develop each.
If you are interested in learning more, visit here and download a free chapter.