• Living In Beta
  • Posts
  • đź“ť LIB: 82 Years of Marriage & 2024 Predictions

đź“ť LIB: 82 Years of Marriage & 2024 Predictions

Five Interesting Things I Came Across This Week

Author

Fahim Sachedina
January 14, 2024

Sup friends đź‘‹,

Can’t believe we’re already at mid-January - time is flying.

Updated the vision & one-liner for the newsletter - let me know what you think:

Five interesting links to help you live a more intentional life.

Simple, clear, and it conveys exactly what this newsletter is all about.

On a work-focused note, the Optimism Foundation recently gave out $100m to a range of open-source & public goods that have created a positive impact in the world.

We call this Retroactive Public Goods Funding. If you wanna read more about the design and why we’ve done this, i’ve written a quick summary post on LinkedIn.

Let’s get to it 🙂 

#1: Michael Caine on Using Difficulty

Michael Caine, or Alfred from Batman, is a phenomenal actor.

In a 2002 interview, he shared an inspiring story from when he was a young actor during an improv scene. The lesson he learned applies to more than just film, and is a lesson on leaning into obstacles, to come out a better person.

Use the difficulty. If the chair is in front of you and it’s a comedy, fall over it. If it’s a drama, pick it up and smash it! There’s never anything so bad that you can’t use that difficulty. If you can use it to your advantage, you’re ahead because you didn’t let it get you down.

Enjoyed this read by Rex Woodbury.

I don’t like jargon / complex language as much as the next person, so i’ll simplify this next part as much as possible.

  • Cultural wave - the rise of nostalgia —> leading to Abercrombie & Fitch being the highest performing stock in 2023

  • Economic wave - rising consumer spending —> we expected a recession, and consumer spending didn’t stop in 2023

  • Business model wave - old-world SaaS pricing needs to be revisited, replaced with pricing that fairly captures productivity gains (AI tools will help with this)

  • Technological wave - we’ll see the rise of AI-focused apps

The post also includes 24 predictions for 2024, as well as emerging startups to pay attention to in each area.

#3: Lessons from building a $700m pimple brand

Came across a great story grounded in resilience and persistence.

  • Ju Rhyu grew up in Seattle when her parents immigrated from Korea. Her dad was an entrepreneur, so she got the entrepreneurial-bug early

  • She went into brand management, and moved to Seoul, where she found a solution to a skincare issue she had since a young age

  • She met her co-founders four years later, and launched a business to solve this - they generated $1.6m in sales in their first full year

  • They focused on one product and one channel, perfecting a singular playbook, rather than divert their focus

Would encourage reading the full thread - it’s a great story to showcase the best of entrepreneurship.

#4: What you pay attention to, expands

Came across the below text - we need to be hyper-focused around what we’re consuming and where our energy is going. Ultimately, this is a key component to living a more intentional life.

#4: Lessons from 82 years of marriage

This is less life advice, and more just an awesome story of the enduring power of love & living gracefully.

This is the story of Carla (100), and Jack (105) Weingarten, who grew up together in Vienna and have had, what most would say, a rich life filled with love, joy, and happiness.

Some quotes that resonated with me:

“They have a spark of love that’s still there after all these years”

“We all kind of look up to them as a success story and something to strive for because they do love each other so much and really do enjoy each other’s company and waking up next to each other,” said granddaughter Ashton Cohen-Weingarten, 33.

Willie Coronado, one of Carla and Jack’s caregivers, has also picked up a few gems from them. Jack told Coronado, who’s been married for 23 years, that the secret to “living happily ever after” is making sure “that when you go to bed at night with your wife, things are settled. Don’t go to bed upset.”

Back in Carla and Jack’s cozy apartment, Lucille Ball bounced on the TV screen in their living room. While a housekeeper tidied up their bedroom and a caretaker prepared their lunch, Jack began drifting off to sleep as he and his wife held hands. He didn’t let go — and neither did she.

🥹🥹🥹

That’s all for today - feel free to respond and let me know your favourite link 🙂 

Till next week,

Fahim