Vol. 6; Modern Life Skills

MINDSET OF THE WEEK
Unfair Advantages

The ability to understand you can create advantages for yourself in life is a mindset in and of itself.

I like to think of life as a game. Or that is has game-like characteristics anyways. Life’s more fun when you believe you have control over the moves you make. And that the outcomes of those moves are not pre-determined.

In games, just as in life, there are rules to follow. But rules can be bent, or broken. And advantages can be created.

If I buy Park Place and Boardwalk and get hotels set up before you’ve figured out your strategy, that’s going to create a capital advantage for me. And if I work out a deal with you in the kitchen to secretly team up against Uncle Frank, yet another advantage.

At TKS, one of the last conversations we would have with students in the first year program was the concept of how to create unfair advantages in life. 

We would call them unfair advantages because if you leveraged them, and let the magic that is compounding do its thing, someone from the outside looking in would think you had some unfair advantage. 

“It’s not fair you got referred to that job. Your network is so big.”

“It’s not fair that you know how to code. I never learned.”

These “unfair advantages” are available to all of us. It just takes effort. It requires action.

For example:

• Network: you can choose to send one connection request every day, or not

• Speed: you can choose to go faster, and set shorter deadlines, or not

• Focus: you can choose to say no to one more thing, or not

Take a look at Shane’s list below.

Based on the direction you’re currently headed, or the goal you’re lazer focused on, where does it make the most sense to create an unfair advantage for yourself?

Start now.

LIFE SKILLS
Reframing

Is the glass half full or half empty?

Reframing is a perfect example of just how much of your life is ultimately played out between your ears.

At the end of the day, you can’t control most things in life. But you do control how you respond.

Things are only good or bad if you decide they are.

Here are a couple short stories that help drive home the power you have in reframing your circumstances.

Love that.

And this next one. I think of it a lot when something happens that I’m not initially thrilled about.

For some, this might be a helpful strategy given the election results that have come out of the US. Before you work yourself up into a state of anxiety, take a deep breath, smile and whisper: “we’ll see”.

What a ride.

How you choose to look at things is just that - a choice. If you don’t like the way you’re looking at something, change it. Reframe it.

Like anything, it’s easier with practice. Get started today.

CAREER ADVICE
Hiring at Adidas

Earlier this week, as part of the You Do What!? conversations I’ve been having, I spoke with someone working out of Adidas. Jennifer started working at Adidas 23 years ago, starting as a bilingual receptionist.

She’s currently working as a Compliance & Operations Analyst. I didn’t know what that meant, so I assumed that teenagers likely didn’t either, hence the point of these YDW!? conversations.

In my preparation for the call, I was doing a bit of research on the company (looking at their new shoes) and found this sweet resource I wanted to share with you.

It makes sense for every company that has the resources to put something together like this. Talks about their culture, and how you can succeed throughout the process.

Calling it a course is a stretch. This could also easily be a well formatted google doc for companies that don’t have the same level of resources as the company who missed out on Michael. People don’t forget.

Sidenote: if you haven’t watched Air with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, watch it. It’s the story of how the upstart Nike beat out Adidas to sign Michael Jordan. It changed everything. Here’s the trailer.  

The resource it’s great.

And 95% of the tips in here are transferrable to any opportunity students are pursuing:

• Focus on your results and how your skills and achievements added value to the business or the department.

• Research the role and department.

• Prepare questions for the interviewer.

Things like that. But it’s coming from Adidas, so likely more interesting to young people. More relevant, more interesting.

I’m assuming Adidas is still relevant. This is coming from the guy who made a Monopoly reference earlier in the newsletter, so best to take my advice on what’s still cool, with a grain of salt.

It won’t take students too long to go through it on their own, so if you have the opportunity, maybe work through it as a class discussion.

Have students think of a company they’re interested in, and find a real role that looks interesting. Then turn it into a conversation to talk through the intention of each tip.

Billy - you found the role of Product Designer at Supreme. Based on the research you did about the company and department, what’s an example of a question you would want to ask the interviewer? Why do you think it’s a good idea to ask the company questions during an interview - aren’t they supposed to be asking you the questions?

There’s a full activity in this for sure. Or a great resource for students to work through on their own. Either way, it’s a win.

You can access it for free here.

THIS IS COOL
Modern Life Skills 2025 Calendar

We’re launching a physical habit tracking calendar! Not the pin-up type you have in your kitchen; this ones a little different.

I wrote about this on LinkedIn yesterday. It’s been the single biggest reason I’ve formed the habits that I have this year. Including the habit of shipping this newsletter each week.

This is what it’s going to look like. There’s a square for each day of the year, with each month being it’s own row.

It’s a big boy coming in at 48” x 36”, but that size is one of the reasons it works so well. You can’t not see this thing.

And that’s the point. Here’s what mine looks like 10 months in to 2024.

I made exercise my keystone habit. When I work out, good things tend to follow - I eat better, sleep better, work better.

• Green X = Completed workout

• Red sad face = Missed day

I’ve adapted this annual calendar system slightly from it’s original intention. I found more utility in using it as the world’s most in your face habit tracker.

It was designed to be more of a life planning tool for the big memorable events you plan and look forward to that year. Fyi - this big scale calendar idea is not mine. I didn’t make the 2024 version you see pictured above.

The OG is called the Big A## Calendar. I’m a big fan of the guy who sells it - Jesse Itzler; serial entrepreneur and husband of Spanx founder Sara Blakely.

Weirdly, based off the podcasts I’ve listened to him talk on, I’m confident he’d be supportive of me doing this.

He wants people to live their best lives.

So do I. Normally I’d just tell you to buy his, but it’s going to be a tough sell for me to convince people to drop $150 on a calendar…

So we’re making our own! At a fraction of the cost.

As early supporters of Modern Life Skills I’m going to introduce a system next week that should allow you to earn one for free if you refer a few people to the newsletter.

Stay tuned 👀

RANDOM
Selling a trip to Belize

Very random, but I’m selling a vacation. The family and friends rate is $2k Canadian. I paid a little more than double that for it originally, but now sadly need to let it go.

The tl;dr is that I bought it a charity action a couple years back. My wife and I love Belize and were planning on going this winter.

But we have just learned about a new family trip that we need to be a part of next year, that in combination with a few big weddings coming up - will make it impossible for us to take advantage of this.

**only caveat is the stay needs to be completed before April 2025, and flights aren’t included.

Take a look at some of the pics on their site, and watch this 1 minute promo video. Place is legittt. Small private island. Rooms are right on the water. All inclusive.

Just as it’s starting to get cold here.

We have family friends who manage another resort in Belize, so if you’re looking to extend the trip a bit, happy to help make some connections.

Send me an email if you’re serious about it; [email protected]