3 January 2022
This week's additions focus on mindset, strategy, and leadership, with new digests from Founders, TK Kader, and The Daily Stoic. Highlights include Churchill never equated a setback with an ending — and neither should you. Bad GTM strategy — not bad product — is the top SaaS killer
Showing 16 digests for 3 January 2022.
Churchill's life: five lessons in courage, persistence, and leadership
Founders
January 9, 2022
Origin stories
10
Resilience & grit
7
Churchill never equated a setback with an ending — and neither should you.
He saw Germany's threat a decade early and was publicly mocked for it.
His self-belief was so strong it could be transmitted to an entire nation.
Three principles for a scalable SaaS go-to-market strategy
TK Kader
January 9, 2022
Niche selection
9
Growth hacking
6
Closing techniques
5
Bad GTM strategy — not bad product — is the top SaaS killer
Four metrics pinpoint exactly where your funnel is breaking
Fix ICP and messaging before scaling any execution activity
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Six stoic principles for athletes and peak performers
The Daily Stoic
January 9, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Deep work & focus
7
Why trash talk only works when it contains a truth you haven't faced
The urge to quit in endurance sport is almost always a lie
You control only how you play — nothing else
Five rules for communicating effectively with executives
Dr. Grace Lee
January 8, 2022
Communication
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Long-term planning
5
Executives think in decades — match their time horizon to earn trust.
Listing completed tasks signals the wrong mindset; drop the implementer frame.
Rainmaking conversations focus on profit and vision, not problems or credentials.
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Alex Lieberman on stoicism, money, and curating wisdom
The Daily Stoic
January 8, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Founder interviews
7
Communication
6
Selling Morning Brew for $75M didn't reduce Alex's money anxiety at all.
Twitter's validation loops and social comparison quietly erode self-worth.
Stoicism works as a painkiller, not a vitamin — meet people mid-crisis.
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Ambition, deep work, and the slow productivity balance
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
January 6, 2022
Deep work & focus
9
Productivity & habits
7
Work-life balance
6
Struggling to sell? That's feedback your product isn't ready yet.
Slow productivity: extend ambition's timescale, not its intensity.
Ritualized, location-fixed work sessions eliminate the daily negotiation with yourself.
Charles de Gaulle: singleness of purpose and the refusal to accept defeat
Founders
January 5, 2022
Origin stories
10
Resilience & grit
8
Management
5
A decade before WWII, de Gaulle predicted exactly how France would fall.
Exiled with two suitcases, he rebuilt France's legitimacy from nothing in four years.
Total clarity about what you want beats resources, allies, and institutional support.
Why passion follows traction, not the other way around
Y Combinator
January 5, 2022
Motivation
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Passion is a byproduct of traction, not a prerequisite for starting.
Extrinsic motivators — hot tech, investor approval — predict failure, not success.
Revenue as a daily metric chemically rewires your brain to care.
Long-term planning
Podcast
Marc Andreessen: six insights on timing for entrepreneurs
Masters of Scale
January 4, 2022
Long-term planning
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Timing beats funding, hiring, and competition as your biggest risk.
Good ideas that look bad are the only ones worth pursuing.
Open-mindedness declines naturally — founders must actively fight it.
Year-end reflection and goal-setting for bootstrapped founders
Startups For the Rest of Us
January 4, 2022
Goal setting
9
Long-term planning
6
Can't estimate next year's growth? You're either pre-PMF or getting lucky.
What you decide to stop doing matters as much as what you start.
Delaying a full-time hire by iterating through freelancers costs months.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to create an online course that sells consistently
Sunny Lenarduzzi
January 4, 2022
Content marketing
9
Prospecting & outreach
8
Niche selection
7
People pay for transformation, not information or tactics
Pre-sell a live prototype before building the full course
A personal story is your most defensible competitive advantage
Leadership assessment interviews: getting honest feedback from your team
Bill Gallagher
January 3, 2022
Management
8
Communication
6
Polite feedback is useless — you must explicitly ask for the truth
Start with strengths, take them in fully, then probe weaknesses
Ask what others think of you, not just the person in front of you
Seven marketing lessons from 20 years in the industry
Neil Patel
January 3, 2022
Growth hacking
9
Copywriting
8
Branding
7
Start every campaign under $1,000 — then scale what works
Hire people who've solved your exact problem at least twice
Adding one payment option drove an 18% conversion lift
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
How to pre-sell, scope, and staff an early-stage product
Dan Martell
January 3, 2022
MVP & prototyping
9
Business models
7
Bootstrapping
6
Get customers to pay you to build the product before raising capital.
Feedback from non-early-adopters actively misleads your product decisions.
Agency developers' incentives misalign with yours — build in-house early.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Skill vs passion: why lifestyle design beats chasing interest
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
January 3, 2022
Productivity & habits
9
Work-life balance
7
Deep work & focus
6
Chasing job-content changes won't fix career malaise — lifestyle design will
Your existing skill is almost always the fastest lever to the life you want
Unregulated work allocation is the root cause of knowledge-work overload