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I put a lot of effort into curating my social media feeds, to discover great content. By great, I mean things that might spark an idea, and have potential to have a big impact on my life.

Below are five things I’ve read, listened to, or watched recently – that I think are really special:

1 – I loved the Joe Rogan Experience #1250 – Johann Hari podcast. Johann Hari is a writer and journalist on the topics of depression, addiction and the war on drugs.

Johann is a brilliant storyteller. You find yourself getting lost in his stories. The whole conversation is captivating. It persuaded me to pick up his book Lost Connections, which I’m reading at the moment.

2 – The Jim Collins — A Rare Interview with a Reclusive Polymath (#361) podcast is a straight up knowledge bomb drop.

I obviously knew who Jim Collins was, from having read Good to Great and Built to Last earlier in my career. They were such great books and helped shape my thinking around what makes a great company.

Tim does a great job of picking Jim’s brain. They cover how he does his research and develops concepts. There’s a ton of stuff around what makes him personally effective too. I particularly liked how he thinks about organising his time and life.

I’m definitely going to go back and re-read Good to Great and Built to Last over the next couple of months.

3 – Digital Minimalism is a new book by Cal Newport. He’s one of my favourite authors and Deep Work is one of my all time favourite books.

He writes about a lot of the type of stuff I write about here – just about 100 times better 😉

It’s a big wake up call for how technology is actually making our lives less connected and ultimately, worse. There are some great strategies and case studies for how to think about technology. Specifically how to use it in a way that truly makes life better. This is a must read for everyone.

4 – Naval Ravikant: The Angel Philosopher on Investing, Making Decisions, Happiness and the Meaning of Life (podcast) is another very dense conversation. It’s packed with smart advice on how to live a good life.

Naval Ravikant is the CEO and co-founder of AngelList. He’s invested in more than 100 companies, including Uber, Twitter, Yammer, and many others. He’s also a very deep thinker and has some really interesting views on life. What makes them so interesting, is that they are often counter-intuitive. In fact, I wrote a whole post on something he talked about, that resonated so deeply with me.

5 – FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened is a documentary about the spectacular failure of the The Fyre Festival.

It ended up being the exact opposite of what it was advertised as – a luxury music experience on a posh private island.

The festival was co-founded by Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre Media Inc, and rapper Ja Rule. How much of a disaster was it? Well, Billy McFarland is now spending six years in jail for fraud.

It almost feels like you’re watching a comedy. Luxury private villas (that never existed) ended up as disaster tents leftover from Hurricane Matthew. But, it’s also quite sad to see what feels like good employees trying to do good work in an impossible situation. They got caught in the spell of Billy McFarland’s charisma and lies.

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