23 Dec 2024 #interview
Interviews are intimidating.
You don’t know what you’re going to be asked. You don’t know if the interviewer will like you. You have to remember what you wrote on your CV.
That makes interviews intimidating for sure. But the ones in a second language are worse.
Are my speaking skills good enough? What if I don’t understand my interviewer’s accent? What if I forget how to say something? Arrggg! I know that feeling.
When I decided to apply to my last full-time job as a software engineer, I really wanted to land the job. I was about to work remotely for American companies for the first time. I had to impress my interviewers not only with my coding skills, but with my language skills too.
Right before the interviews, to calm my nerves and practice my speaking skills, I phoned my language partner and friend. She was kind enough to answer my calls and help me out. We talked about anything.
Those calls helped me switch to thinking in a second language, like pushing a button in my brain.
Eventually, I stopped calling my friend before every interview. But I adapted the method.
Instead of interrupting my friend’s busy schedule, now I watch a short YouTube video of a movie or TV show or any content by native speakers right before an interview in a second language. It gets me into the flow of the language and makes my brain switch the second language on.
And that’s one of the tricks I used for interviews.
As a bonus, here are others:
- Keep a copy of your CV next to you.
- Learn conversation fillers to keep the conversation going.
- Practice answering out loud the most common interview questions. At least be prepared for: “tell me about yourself” and “could you describe one of your past projects?”
- Speak slowly. It will give you time to think.
- If you don’t understand a question, restate what you understood and ask if that’s what the interviewer meant.
Interviewing and hiring are broken. I know. But don’t go unprepared. Prime your brain by listening to or watching native content before showing up.
22 Dec 2024 #misc
Having too much money brings a different set of challenges.
That’s one of the takeaways from this conversation between two millionaires. It’s one episode of the “Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal.” This time Ali sat down with Andrew Wilkinson.
Here’s the link to the YouTube episode if you want to watch it.
Ali Abdaal started medical school, then became a YouTuber, and since then has run an online education business. But I didn’t know about Andrew Wilkinson. Andrew went from barista to billionaire, coming from a middle-class family.
“I’m as Stressed as You Are”
For me, hearing Andrew say he was stressed too was one of the most shocking parts of that conversation — right at the start.
We might believe that money makes life easier. But from that conversation: it just brings a new set of challenges. We have to choose our own money adventure and when to stop.
This reminds me of a past boss.
He was a well-known entrepreneur in my city (and maybe in my whole country). He came from a wealthy family and ran more than a couple of successful businesses. But when he tasted the bat soup in 2020, there was no money to add more time to his countdown timer.
I guess money can’t buy certain things. For everything else, there’s a credit card. I’m stealing that from a TV commercial.
“Be a Financial Prepper”
Be paranoid. Only the paranoids survive.
During the conversation, Andrew shared he’s a prepper. Not in the sense of keeping a basement full of weapons, canned food, and gas masks ready for a zombie apocalypse. But in the sense of having multiple income sources.
“Be unbreakable financially”
In 2024, I had to internalize that lesson thanks to yet another round of layoffs in the software industry. I lost my main income source, a.k.a salary. I had other income sources, but not enough to cover my monthly expenses.
Robert Kiyosaki is right: “Build your asset column” and “Make your assets pay for your luxuries.”
I had to truly live it to learn it. Knowledge is only potential power unless put into practice.
“The best way to feel rich is to have cashflow”
Be the Sushi Master or the Chipotle Founder
Apart from the money lessons, my most important takeaway from this podcast episode is to:
“Design your life around your flow state”
We could choose to be the best sushi master of the world — worth a Netflix documentary — or the Chipotle founder.
One has mastered his craft to the point of perfection. Maybe he’s happy having only one restaurant and serving one smallish crowd. The other took a different route and created a reproducible business with thousands of locations, taking himself out of the equation.
That’s success seen from different perspectives.
Both of them followed what they enjoyed doing. Each followed a different adventure.
It sounds like the story of a businessman who ran into a fisherman taking a nap in a hammock under a palm tree. After a long conversation and giving a business plan for free, the businessman realizes that the entrepreneurial journey he was sharing with the fisherman will end with a nap in a hammock under the same palm tree.
In any case, follow your flow state and delegate things you don’t enjoy.
Towards the end of the conversation, Ali started to ask for advice to expand his own business. It was interesting to hear the business and money insights from a billionaire who came from the middle class. It wasn’t advice for everyone, but I took this last part:
“Sell something boring to a rich person. Don’t sell a complex product to cheap people.”
21 Dec 2024 #misc
“Wait, I’m not working anymore.”
Being laid off feels weird. Moments of relief followed by a “What am I going to do now?”
Some days after being laid off last January, something weird happened. I didn’t realize I had ingrained this “habit.”
Midway through rushing to my laptop to reply to my Teams messages, I suddenly stopped my short commute from the living room to my working corner.
“Wait a second, I’m not working anymore…I don’t have to reply to messages or emails.” Pheeew!
I shared this realization with my family. We all laughed. But there was something behind it.
Stopping my short breaks to reply to messages had become second nature. I was trapped in a mindset. In the wrong mindset. “I could get into trouble if I don’t respond soon.”
That moment of relief lasted a few days. Anxiety knocked at my door: “Somebody here?” I realized I wasn’t receiving another paycheck. Arrrggg! “What am I going to do now?”
I had to go through my accounting software, an Excel spreadsheet, multiple times to make the anxiety go away. “Rational brain help me out here.” I had an emergency fund to cover my expenses for a few months.
Yes, a monthly salary is one of three most harmful addictions. I had already heard that quote. This time I had to live it.
That was a moment of relief followed by a “What am I going to do now?”
20 Dec 2024 #writing
Writing is the superpower to survive in the online world.
All online content starts with writing. A video begins with a script, a course with a series of posts, and a long post with a Tweet or short-form post.
And guess what? Marketing and sales start with writing, too. A landing page, an email sequence, a product description, and an ad.
That’s when copywriting comes into the picture. Copywriting means writing to make readers take action: like and subscribe, download a freebie, and ultimately buy.
This is my 3-step plan to learn enough copywriting to be safely dangerous.
1. Start by writing classics by hand
The #1 exercise I have found to learn to copywrite is copywork.
Copywork means recreating classic ads, sales letters, and good “copy” by hand. Yes, by hand. That’s the whole point. When we handwrite, we’re forced to slow down, read carefully, and pay attention to words and phrases.
I’m not new to this exercise. When I started writing coding tutorials, I copied Seth Godin’s posts. I noticed how he doesn’t use introductions or conclusions in his posts. Instead, the first sentence naturally follows the post title.
The goal of copywork isn’t to transcribe. It’s about noticing the structure, common phrases, and other patterns.
These are 3 posts where you can find samples to copywork:
- Get Better At Copywriting By Handwriting Famous Pieces Of Work! —I’ve been following this post this month. That’s one example per day for 31 days.
- 5 Ad Copywriting Examples to Study, Hand Copy, and Save to Your Copywriting Swipe File
- Gary Halbert Copywriting Examples
I bought a notebook for my copywork and color pens. After I finish transcribing a copy, I use a pen with one color to notice words and phrases. Then, at the margins of the page, I use another pen to notice the overall structure and formulas.
And there’s one online course built around the idea of copywork: CopyHour. That’s 90 days of daily copywork—Even we can handwrite that landing page!
Everywhere I looked, I found references to this course. Definitely, I’m keeping an eye on the next enrollment.
2. Read the Boron Letters
Gary Halbert is one name that keeps popping up in any Google search about copywriting.
He is a legend in the copywriting world. He wrote sales letters and ads for well-known brands, making millions of dollars in sales. Think of him like Hemingway going the sales way.
The thing is, Gary Halbert ended up in jail. From there, he wrote a series of letters to his son, teaching him to make money through copywriting. Those letters became a book: The Boron Letters—named after the Boron Federal Penitentiary where Gary was.
After doing copywork, my next step is reading and studying The Boron Letters.
I picked up The Boron Letters years ago but didn’t finish it. At that time, I thought it was another writing book. I didn’t understand what copywriting was and its goal, and dropped it. I wasn’t ready yet.
All that I remember is the advice from someone in jail to eat a banana a day, exercise, and grow big arms because bullies don’t mess with people with big arms. That’s from the first two letters, by the way.
Since reading three books will put us ahead of 90% of people, here are another two copywriting books: “Writing That Works” and “The Adweek Copywriting Handbook.” Those books are on my to-read list after The Boron Letters.
3. Revisit my landing pages and calls to action
This is the dangerous part. Knowledge is only potential power unless it’s put into practice.
I don’t have that many sales pages yet, but a couple of landing pages for coding courses and freebies in my Gumroad account. I want to revisit those landing pages and the calls to action at the end of my posts.
Originally, I wrote them following what I saw online: “Click here” and “Join my course here.” I had no idea about copywriting and frameworks like Problem/Agitation/Solution.
One trick I’ve learned is to write in terms of benefits, not features. Always write with the reader in mind. That’s the difference between “1GB of storage” vs “carry 100 songs in your pockets wherever you go.”
With that trick in mind, I changed one of my CTAs from a simple “Join my free 7-day email course here” to something along the lines of “Join my free 7-day email course and save years and thousands of dollars’ worth of career mistakes.” And I got my first two subscribers after that change.
If there’s one skill you can master for the future, choose writing online. And don’t worry about ChatGPT or Copilot because they will always output average writing.
19 Dec 2024 #misc
You don’t need to speed a DeLorean to 88mph to time travel. In fact, you’re already doing it.
Every time you go into your head to relive past situations, you’re time traveling. And every time you go into your head to anticipate future situations, you’re time traveling too.
I declare myself guilty of time traveling.
I’ve time traveled to the day when the ex-bosses “who let me go” finally realize how talented and smart I am and beg me to return. That probably will never happen. And I’ve only wasted time and mental energy time traveling.
By reading Choose Yourself by James Altucher, I learned to have a “Daily Practice:” A routine to work on my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self every day. We need to work on all of them to be healthy.
As part of the Daily Practice, James Altucher recommends stopping time traveling.
For some people, it means having moments of silence during the day to breathe and notice their thoughts.
I won’t call it “meditation.” Probably, when you hear that word, the first thing that comes to mind is a Buddhist monk sitting in impossible poses chanting. But it’s simpler than that.
When you notice you’re time traveling, repeat to yourself: “Stop, breathe, and get out of your mind.”
Time traveling only brings resentment. Stop doing it and get back to the present.