Ideas Gems: Issue 2 - Ideas Nook

Happy Valentine’s Day! Welcome to the second Ideas Gems newsletter in the series. In this newsletter, we will provide insightful updates on world events, business highlights, productivity tips, tech tips, personal finance tips, and book recommendations in a digestible format. Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents

World Events

What Went Right In the World Recently?

Jon Stewart Returns Back to The Daily Show

On Monday night, Feb 12th, Jon Stewart returned back as host and Executive producer of his popular late night comedy show, The Daily Show. The Daily Show is the Comedy Central’s news satire that Jon turned into a cultural phenomenon that resonated with America. He left the show in August 2015. Stewart is returning back on Mondays through the Presidential election.

“Why am I back?” he said. “I have committed a lot of crimes. From what I understand, talk show hosts are granted immunity — it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but take it up with the founders.”

The last regular host of The Daily Show, Comedian Trevor Noah, stepped down from the show in December 2022.

See the highlights here.

Australia Introduces Workers’ ‘Right to Disconnect’

Australian workers may soon win the right to disconnect after work! Australia’s Senate on Thursday, February 8th, passed a bill that would give workers the right to ignore calls and messages outside working hours without fear of repercussion. It will now return to the House of Representatives for final approval.

This means Australians can spend more time at the beach after work than responding to emails or doing overtime as is the norm elsewhere.

Australia follows in the footsteps of European nations such as France, which in 2017 introduced the right of workers to disconnect from employers while off duty, a move later emulated by Germany, Italy and Belgium. The European Parliament has also called for a law across the European Union that would alleviate the pressure on workers to answer communications off the clock.

The US is running quite behind in comparison but hopefully, this right will come to the US soon.

Business

Berkshire Hathaway topped $600,000 a share last week, aiming at $1 trillion market value

Warren Buffet is considered the best investor in the world. We should try to learn from the investment strategies of elite investors like Buffet.

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A, NYSE:BRK-B) is now valued at more than $860 billion, a record high. Berkshire, the parent company of Geico, Dairy Queen, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, and numerous other insurers, consumer companies and industrial firms, has performed well thanks in particular to a boom in its insurance business. Buffet’s conglomerate only needs to climb about 16% from current levels to top $1 trillion.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is by far the largest position in the Berkshire mix, accounting for nearly half of the portfolio’s assets. Buffet portrays himself as tech-shy but Berkshire has profited from the success of the iPhone, Apple’s many subscription services and potentially the new Vision Pro headset.

Berkshire also has a small stake in Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN). Berkshire also has a tiny position in cloud software firm Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW).

The rest of the portfolio is dominated by classic consumer plays such as Buffett’s beloved Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) and Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ:KHC), oil giants Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) and big financial firms Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and American Express (NYSE:AXP).

Berkshire’s AmEx stake, which makes up more than 8.5% of the portfolio, is another key factor behind Berkshire’s success. AmEx shares are trading near a record high, as wealthy consumers continue to spend with their credit and debit cards. In addition, Berkshire owns smaller stakes in Visa (NYSE:V) and Mastercard (NYSE:MA), which are also trading near all-time highs, as well as a small position in Capital One (NYSE:COF).

Productivity Tips

In the book Deep Work, Cal Newport, defines deep work as professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that pushes your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skills, and are hard to replicate.

Cal states that deep work is necessary to get every last drop of value out of your current intellectual capacity.

He states that the reason knowledge workers are losing their familiarity with deep work is due to network tools or distractions such as email, texts, social media, infotainment sites like Reddit, Buzzfeed, etc.

Deep work is a skill that has great value today. There are two reasons for this.

The first has to do with learning. We have an information economy that’s dependent on complex systems that change rapidly. This includes computer languages, Artificial Intelligence, digital analytics, etc. To remain valuable in our economy, you must master the art of quickly learning complicated things that require deep work. If you don’t cultivate this ability, you’re likely to fall behind as technology advances.

The second reason that deep work is valuable is because the impacts of the digital network revolution reach a huge and limitless audience that greatly magnifies your reward. But if your output is mediocre, then you’re in trouble as the audience will find a better alternative. To succeed you have to produce the absolute best stuff you’re capable of producing – a task that requires depth.

Cal identifies how to become a winner in the new economy. He identifies two groups that are poised to thrive:

Those who can work creatively with intelligent machines; and
Those who are stars in their field

Then Cal questions the secret to landing in these lucrative sectors of the widening digital divide. He argues that the following two core abilities are crucial.

Two Core Abilities for Thriving in the New Economy

The ability to quickly master hard things.
The ability to produce at an elite level, in terms of both quality and speed.

Intelligent machines are complicated and hard to master. To join a group of people who can work well with these machines requires that you hone your ability to master hard things. In essence, Cal says if you can’t learn, you can’t thrive. And because these technologies change rapidly this process of mastering hard things never ends. You must be able to do it quickly, again and again.

This ability to learn hard things quickly not only is necessary for working well with intelligent machines; it also plays a key role in the attempt to become a superstar in just about any field. In summary: If you can’t learn, you can’t thrive.

The second core ability is to produce at an elite level. If you want to become a superstar, mastering the relevant skills is necessary. You must then transform that potential the ability to produce at an elite level into results that people value. This means in order to join the ranks of winners in our economy: If you don’t produce, you won’t thrive – no matter how skilled or talented you are.

Cal states the two core abilities depend on your ability to perform deep work. If you don’t master this foundational skill, you’ll struggle to learn hard things or produce at an elite level.

Tech Tips

Keyboard Shortcuts

Learn keyboard shortcuts as they can greatly increase your productivity. If you’re working on a PC, you can use the following shortcuts:

Task	Short Cut
Copy	Ctrl+C
Paste	Ctrl+V
Cut	Ctrl+X
Undo	Ctrl+Z
Select All	Ctrl+A
Print	Ctrl+P
Find	Ctrl+F
Save	Ctrl+S
Save a URL Shortcut	Ctrl+D
View History	Ctrl+H
Locking Your Computer Screen	Ctrl+Alt+Delete

For Mac, you can press the command ley and the other specified key at the same time:

Task	Short Cut
Copy	Command+C
Paste	Command+V
Cut	Command+X
Undo	Command+Z
Select All	Command+A
Undo	Command+Z
Zoom	Command + to increase or Command – to decrease
Reset Zoom	Command+0
Print	Command+P
Minimize all windows	Command+Option+M
Spotlight Search Bar to find items on your Mac	Command+Space Bar
Screenshot	Shift+Command+4
Scroll to the top	Shft+Space Bar

Use a Password Manager

This is a no-brainer but many people still don’t seem to know this. Hackers are getting advanced at breaking passwords. We cannot create random passwords or remember them. Start using one very strong password to protect the machine-generated passwords. 1Password is strongly recommended as a password manager.

Use To-Do Apps

These are a few recommended productivity apps that can simplify your life and have a free version that you can start with:

Todoist – It is a task manager and to-do list app used by over 30 million people and teams.
Grammarly – It is a cloud-based typing assistant that reviews grammar and spell check among other things. It helps you write with confidence and can be useful for business emails and writing, social media posts, etc.

Personal Finance Tips

In his book Money Master the Game: 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom, Tony Robbins, a well-known entrepreneur, author, life coach, and speaker outlines seven actions that must be taken to live a comfortable and secure life financially, personally, and professionally:

Make the decision to become an investor, not just a consumer
Know the rules of investing so you can become an insider
Make the game winnable – by figuring out what your real numbers are
Make your most important decision – how to allocate your investments
Create your own guaranteed lifetime income plan
Start investing today like the very best investors in the world
Get started and enjoy the future – it’s going to be a great place

Tony says:

If you follow the 7 simple steps – the steps which have been distilled from the world’s most successful financial players – you and your family will win this game. And you can win big! But to win, you have to know the rules and learn the best strategies from those who have already mastered the game. This is your opportunity to stop being the chess piece and become the chess player in the game of money.

In this article, we will cover Step 1 of Tony’s steps. The rest will be covered in the future articles in this series.

Step 1: Make the Decision to Become An Investor, Not Just a Consumer

Let us begin our journey to financial freedom by tapping into the power that can create real wealth for anyone. We’re not about to earn our way to wealth. That’s a mistake millions of Americans make by thinking that if we work harder, smarter, and longer, we’ll achieve our financial dreams, but our paycheck alone isn’t the answer.

Burton Malkiel, author of the classic finance book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, says the biggest misstep most of us make from the start is that the majority of investors fail to take full advantage of the incredible power of compounding which multiplies the power of growth times growth. Albert Einstein once called compound interest the most important invention in all of human history.

Our earned income will never bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Because earned income can never compare to the power of compounding. You have to move from just working for money to a world where money works for you.

You need to make the most important financial decision of your life, which is what portion of your paycheck you will pay yourself before you spend a single dollar on your day-to-day expenses. Experts recommend to plan to save at least a minimum of 15%. Make these savings automatic. Have your human resources department send a specific percentage of your paycheck directly into your retirement account and if you’re already contributing then increase the amount to the percentage you’ve chosen. If you’re self-employed, then send the amount to a retirement account with a financial investment fund like Schwab.com or tdameritrade.com.

Knowledge is not power – it’s potential power. Execution is mastery. Execution will trump knowledge every day of the week.

Book Recommendations

We will highly recommend the two books we have mentioned in this newsletter. These books will have you covered from productive tips to becoming wealthy.

Deep Work

buy here on amazon

MONEY Master the Game