Each and every Friday — I outline a few of the articles and/or books that I have read over the last week or two that are worth taking a look at.
Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark
How will artificial intelligence affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society, and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology – and there’s nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who’s helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.
How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today’s kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning, or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle?
What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn’t shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues – from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness, and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.
Go here to get a copy of this great book: https://a.co/d/cU3vvpR
Bad Email Subject Lines that Hurt Your Open Rates (17 Examples)
It’s true that bad email subject lines will make subscribers ignore your emails.
Good subject lines get emails opened and eventually lead to sales and conversions.
So how can you be sure to avoid bad subject lines that hurt your email marketing?
Well, just take a look at the terrible ones below and don’t write any bad email subject lines that resemble these boring, spammy, unrelatable, and unclear lines that are in my inbox!
(I’ll save the worst line for last)
Bad Email Subject Lines: Boring Ones
Ok, compare these two subject lines and see which one you would have opened.
Your daily estate sales on EstateSales.org
versus
Shark pulls man off boat, a gator and Twisted Tea, and the troll apartment
Pretty easy choice, right? The top one isn’t the worst email subject line. I mean, I signed up for the emails, so I have an interest in the message. But it does not grab my attention. It’s too general, making it boring.
Now, two more subject lines to compare.
Apple has declared war on email newsletters
versus
Money Matters – invitation
Hey, I’m into money and like getting invited. But what makes the bottom one a bad email subject line is the lack of motivation. Whereas the top line screams ‘read this now’! It’s appealing with power words and tangible dangers to those in the email marketing world.
Go here to finish reading: https://inboxmailers.com/bad-email-subject-lines-that-hurt-your-open-rates-17-examples/
Changing Habits: How to Let Go of Sacred Cows
To change a habit — whether you’re starting a new habit or quitting an old one — you have to let go of something really important to you. This is why most people struggle with habit change — it’s not easy to let go of your sacred cows.
Let’s take a few examples:
- To start exercising and moving more, you have to let go of some of the comfort of sitting and watching/reading things on your devices.
- To start waking up earlier, you have to let go of the thing you like to do that keeps you up late at night (maybe watching TV).
- To give up alcohol, you have to give up a relaxing evening ritual, or a fun social thing you do with friends.
- To start meditating in the morning, you have to let go of the comfort of rushing into doing all of your busywork for the day.
- To lose weight, you have to let go of the ability to eat whatever you feel like whenever you feel like it.
You get the idea. There isn’t change without the loss of something special. That’s why we resist the change — maybe we want the change, but the loss of that sacred cow is really difficult.
Let’s talk about how to let go of something important, in order to create change.
First, ask yourself: do I really want to make this change? Is it a change that just sounds nice, or is it really important to you? Why do you care about it?
Second, ask: what do I have to give up, and am I willing to let go? It’s not easy to give this stuff up. Is the change so important to you that you are willing to let go of what’s been important in the past? For example, when I quit smoking, I realized that the health of my family was more important than the temporary enjoyment, the social aspect of smoking (at the time), or the stress relief that I got from it. I could find other stress relief, other things to enjoy, other ways to socialize.
Third, retrain your brain to remember why this matters, when the urge to do the old thing comes up. For example, if you normally socialize with friends by drinking alcohol … when it comes time to socialize by drinking, you might think an old thought like, “I deserve to have fun with friends on weekends!” You need to come up with a replacement belief, like “Drinking with friends makes me act in unhealthy ways” or “I don’t want to be dependent on alcohol to enjoy my life, I can socialize with a fizzy non-alcoholic drink too.”
The old beliefs will come up in certain situations. You’ll think, “I deserve a break” or “I deserve a treat” or “Life is too short to suffer” or “Just this one time won’t hurt.” Those are fine, but they don’t lead to the change you really care about. So prepare yourself with a new belief — what matters more to you in those situations?
I’ll give you a few examples from my life:
- Meditation is a peaceful break that I deserve.
- Good quality sleep is more important to me than enjoying a few sips of coffee.
- I don’t need to have animals die or suffer to have nutritious, delicious food.
- I care about my body too much to sit here too long.
- I don’t need more food at this party, because overeating makes me feel terrible.
- I don’t like to fritter my life away on my phone.
What change do you want to make that’s more important than your sacred cows?
Andrew Huberman’s Complete 5-Step Human Optimization Protocol
If you’ve been anywhere near the self-improvement world lately, you’ve likely heard of Andrew Huberman.
The uber-popular productivity scientist and Stanford professor turned podcast mogul has taken the internet by storm, with his ongoing research into human optimization.
On his podcast, “The Huberman Lab”, he condenses life’s most complex questions into simple, actionable advice.
Breaking down topics such as how to be happier, more productive, sleep better, gain muscle, lose weight, and everything in between — without needing a college degree to understand.
The kicker is, even his condensed works are often too much to absorb in one sitting. So, being a long-time listener of Andrew, I felt compelled to condense his work even further.
Here’s how to fully optimize your brain, body, and biology — by Andrew Huberman…
Go here to finish reading: https://medium.com/illumination/andrew-hubermans-complete-5-step-human-optimization-protocol-7b6a1cad0f43
Hope you enjoy these articles and books. Have a great rest of your Friday and amazing weekend