Hello, readers.
If you’ve met me personally, you know that I don’t walk around with a big smile. I don’t go out of my way to greet people in bubbly ways or act crazy excited when I run into someone I know. It’s just not the way I’m wired.
Often we use the terms nice and kind interchangeably but there’s a big difference between being nice and being kind. Being nice is when you are polite to people. Being kind is when you care deeply about people.
So when I came across this quote earlier this week, I knew I had to share it here.
“Manners matter, but at the end of the day, politeness is cold comfort. Politeness is rote memory. It comes from the mind, not the heart. And people can feel that — both the giver and the receiver can sense the shallowness off the interaction. But kindness is all heart. When we are kind, we are sharing the light within us to make another person’s burden a little lighter. Not because it’s the mannerly thing to do. But because it’s a human thing to do. And when we interact with people in this whole-hearted way, it can lift the vibrations of the entire room.” — Dr. Laura Berman
🙏🏼
Sari
caught my attention
What is Amazon, a long but fascinating read. 🛍
Pessimists Archive is a podcast covering reactions to old things when they were new. Yesterday they shared a clip from a news article published in August 2000: "Unless shareholders get rid of Bezos and the buffoons in the boardroom, those clowns may add a new chapter to the books sold by AMZN called Chapter 11. This company is a joke, and so is its leadership." A great reminder that we’ve always resisted innovation. 📚
Wealthy, successful and miserable. When you lack money, it can feel like it’s the only solution. But while money is a resource, it’s not the answer to what to do with your life. Finding meaning, whether as a banker or a janitor, is difficult work.💰
How to be great? Just be good, repeatedly. There is no “magic moment” when you become great, great is not instantaneous, it is earned by being good over and over again. “I have seen impractical and improbable things accomplished. All it took to achieve improbable things was an optimistic attitude and a refusal to give up.” 👈🏽
Strategy needs words. “Strategy is an imaginative act, and narrative is how it thinks, expresses itself, and brings others along. Which is where words come in. Whether expressed as conversation, brief, or presentation, strategy is meaningless and powerless without words. If you can’t put your strategy into words others cannot follow.” I’ve been preaching this forever. ✍🏽
I’m inspired by this request from a disabled woman, and the beautiful responses she received. ✔
It is Your Responsibility to Follow Up “The moral here is the following: whenever you send an email to somebody (especially to somebody busy), imagine that this is what their inbox looks like. Unless you send a follow up, you’re not even trying. And they know it, so unless you follow up, they will probably just ignore you, correctly believing that you do not even want to talk to them so much.” Your highly personal “all important email” is just another row of pixels in their inbox. 📩
Books for the ages: the best books to read at every age, from 1 to 100. 📖
Netflix Hangouts made me laugh; you can now watch Netflix at work by making it look like you’re on a conference call. 🎬
Mark Manson on the Attention Diet: The same way the consumer economy of the 20th century called upon us to invent the nutritional diet, the attention economy of the 21st century will call upon us to invent an attention diet. “Perhaps the same thing is happening in the 21st century, except instead of our bodies becoming weak and lazy, it’s our minds. Social media, sensationalized news, and constant distractions are the McDonald’s and Skittles of our mental health. Precisely as we need nutritional diets for our physical challenges, we need also to develop a culture around mental fitness and nutrition for our mental/emotional challenges.” 🧠
have you heard of?
Everyone dreads getting lab tests done. Everlywell makes at-home lab testing easy, with 30+ at-home kits (from fertility to food sensitivity tests) and easy to understand results. In an industry where consumers rarely have access to their information, let alone are able to understand it, Everlywell empowers consumers to improve their wellbeing and make informed healthcare decisions. This is part of a broader movement towards proactive health - the CDC says that 75% of health care spending goes toward chronic diseases that can be prevented. In a given year, only 13% of Americans go to a doctor for any kind of preventative care, but If we spent more money on prevention, we could save money on treatment and people would live longer, more productive lives. One of the reasons we don’t do more preventative medicine is our system pays based on “procedures” rather than on health. Heart surgery pays more than preventing heart disease, so the current system creates a perverse financial incentive to treat emergencies rather than prevent them. I’m fascinated by the digital health space; if you or someone you know is building a company that shifts the economics towards preventing health problems, I’d love to connect.
overheard on twitter
If you’re wondering who’s behind this newsletter:
My name is Sari Azout. I am a design-thinker, storyteller, and early stage startup investor at Level Ventures. My mission is to bring more humanity and creativity to technology and business.
Want more?
Follow me on Twitter, Medium, and LinkedIn.
Know a founder i should meet?
Drop me a note at sari@level.vc
I always like to hear from readers, so don‘t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback with me. (I read every email and reply only to those requiring a response.)
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Thanks for being here!
Sari