June edition — Portfolio of small bets, happiness and rat, distraction-free phone, doodle for 2021

Shivam Dewan
A generalist
Published in
3 min readJul 4, 2021

Food for the mind: Curated reads, listen, stories, reflections, thought experiments.

Every month, I come across so many nice articles, podcasts, stories. I also happen to make stuff, write, daydream, so I thought why not try sharing these curated links and interesting stuff I consume and create. This is just an experiment, for now, pls feel free to reply to this email or comment if you find this interesting or have some suggestion ✌️

🎧 Listen

Daniel’s story from leaving his 500k comfortable job at Amazon to his path of full control over his time (and financial freedom, of course) is so inspiring. I like his idea of — “Don’t build a product. Build a portfolio of small bets.” He’s tinkering with so many things right now, with huge upsides and little to no downside. Have a listen 👇

📺 Watch (4 mins)

A few days back only I was talking with a friend that we feel like living in a never ending loop. You know when they keep hamsters in cages? There’s this wheel they keep inside for the hamster to run on so that they get to move despite being stuck in one place. If you currently feel like that 😂 like stuck in a loop of your routine, then do watch this 4mins video and reflect :)

📖 Read

When I look at my teenage, there were so many things I wished I knew or someone has told me. “If were back in high school and someone asked about my plans, I’d say that my first priority was to learn what the options were. You don’t need to be in a rush to choose your life’s work. What you need to do is discover what you like. You have to work on stuff you like if you want to be good at what you do.”
This piece is still relevant at any age whatsoever, highly recommend reading this.

What You'll Wish You'd Known

Phone addiction is real! Constant notification, social media anxiety, small talks so on and so forth. The scary part is we aren’t aware of our addiction. Deep work or flow state can never happen in such a lifestyle. I tried some ways Jake shared below, and my screen time is down by 60%!! I find it so much easier to immerse in everyday things, feels more relaxed in general.

Read on how to rely less on your phone

✍️ Doodle

No words needed :)

“A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.” (Aldous Huxley)

🌞 Until next time

Have a great week,
Shivam

Originally published at https://ageneralist.substack.com.

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