Modern problems require ancient solutions

Plus: Paul Millerd's quest through the corporate career page dystopia and The Kenny Rogers Problem

:::Issue #28. Why are you receiving this? You’re friends with Cam Houser or you just joined the Minimum Viable Video waitlist. This is where I share uncommon stories of video, entrepreneurship, and the human condition:::

🎟 Welcome Fer, Stefan, Sam, Millan, Omar, Andry, Moley, Mirator, Joao, Holli, Neil, Anna, Bulent, T, Launa, K, Wes, K, AS, D, Marc, S, Ted, Juan, Praveen, Matthew, Julieanne, R, Ale, Alex 🎟 

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Greetings, rulebreakers-

What I’ve been up to:

🚗 Walked outside the other day and noticed my car was missing. I think it’s stolen. But who knows…a pandemic mystery!

🎥 Long days of filming for a project on how to give virtual presentations. Enjoy this moment when I temporarily had a co-star:

✍️ The kickoff call for mentoring the next cohort of David Perell’s Write of Passage. This course changed my life and it was a huge inspiration for Minimum Viable Video—my course on learning video—so I’m pumped at the chance to give back. Can’t wait to go “mad scientist” helping an a group of aspiring online writers ship great ideas.

🌵 Infusing tequila, part 15, UPDATE: last week’s attempt at blueberry-infused tequila wasn’t good, although it wasn’t any worse than my other terrible batches. Next up: maybe using frozen blueberries will do the trick.

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Rulebreaker: Mozart the Intellectual Property Violator

There was a song written in the 1630s that was performed only in the Sistine Chapel. The Vatican kept the composition of the piece secret for 150 years until the 14-year-old Mozart listened to the piece two times, transcribed it from memory, and produced the first unauthorized copy of the song.

Not all rulebreakers are geniuses, but all geniuses are rulebreakers.

In case you’re curious, here’s the song (youtube).

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When do you quit? The Kenny Rogers Problem

If you start something, when do you stop? If it’s not working out, when do you give up on it? If it is working, when do you stop?

Country music legend (RIP) Kenny Rogers’ most famous song is “The Gambler”. It shares the wisdom of a cardshark, who once said:

You've got to know when to hold 'em
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away
And know when to run:

As a guy obsessed with taking action and the value of learning-by-doing, this means I start lots of projects. I’m excellent at starting things.

I’m less good at knowing when to stop.

That’s the Kenny Rogers problem. When do you stop investing your time and energy into something and move on to the next thing?

Readers, how do you know when to give something up?

Curious as to your thoughts.

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Paul Millerd trudged through 99 terrible career pages and found 1 good one

The reason I make content is to find people on my wavelength. (If you’re receiving this newsletter, you’re on my wavelength :)

Someone I consider on my wavelength—or at least I aspire to be on theirs—is Paul Millerd. I made a video for the readers of his Boundless newsletter (Welcome, Boundless readers!) and he was kind enough to feature it in his newsletter. I link to that video below.

Back to Paul.

In his most recent issue, he has been thinking about corporate career pages:

This week I went through more than 100 career pages. It started because I have been writing about how our expectations of work have changed dramatically since I graduated in 2007. When I graduated careers pages were simply a listing of jobs available.

However, somewhere in the last 15 years things started to change. Companies started to market working at their companies and use language like “find your calling” or “do the most important work of your life.” AirBnB’s page tells people that they can “life their best life” at AirBnB.

This is a big shift and has led to a vicious cycle of increasing expectations and bolder language around what the company claims to offer. This is great except I’m not sure that most companies can guarantee that people will live their best life or do the most meaningful work of their careers. Most jobs, well, just aren’t all that exciting.

Someone suggested I walk through the Stripe site and explain why there site is so good. Here are five things they do…

He breaks down why the career pages on most company’s websites are terrible and he explains why Stripe’s career page is the pinnacle.

Read the rest here.

If you’re in to finding meaning inside about outside your work, check him out.

Rulebreaker Strategy: Transfer Your Boss

P.S. Here’s the the video I made for Paul’s audience. It’s a pretty wild take on how to deal with a bad boss, which happens to have an end result of making everyone happier:

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Modern problems require ancient solutions

Drone attacks are a 2020s-style risk.

But it doesn’t mean that it isn’t wise to invest in some nontraditional countermeasures to that risk.

Enter the French military training Eagles to take down drones…

H/T Reddit

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See you in the Zoom grid,
Cam

Web: actionworks.co
Twitter: @cahouser
Waitlist for the next cohort of Minimum Viable Video
For professional grade virtual courses and workshops, email cam@actionworks.co

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Just for fun: Flashback to getting some wonderful people hyped up in a Zoom session…