Tuesday Letter #16 - Habit Building, Public Portfolios and Storytelling
Hey, Happy Tuesday!
To all the new subscribers this week, welcome, and thanks for giving me a chance. I hope this doesn't disappoint.
As always, I hope you enjoy this week's "Tuesday Letter" :)
📜 Quote of the week
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.
I'm rereading this book for the 2nd time now, I just love it so much. This time I am making detailed notes and highlights to publish on my site.
Project Ideas
🆕 This is going to be a new "feature" in this newsletter.
Sometimes, during the week, I come up with ideas for projects. More often then not, I don't have time to work on those projects. Since there is no reason for them to sit in my "Second Brain" unused, I'd like to share them with you. Most of the time, project ideas are programming related focused on making my life easier, or two learn various programming concepts. Would love to have your opinion about the things I share.
📈 This week I thought it would be cool to make a simple web app that would connect to Charles Schwab API and get the Investor's Portfolio and share it online (% only, no actual value).
There is an investing service like Public, which allows its users to do that. I want to build this for other brokerages. Make simple pages with investors' stock portfolios from different brokerages (starting with Charles Schwab and potentially Robinhood). I would approach this by setting up a Python app with Plaid integration, which would allow various financial organizations.
Bootstrapping
👨💻 How to Find Consulting Clients
I loved this article by Chris Achard. Here are some of my highlights:
If you're considering a move into freelancing or consulting - the one question that's probably on your mind is: "How will I find clients?"
-
Start before you're ready If you think you want to do consulting at some point... you need to get to know people. The best way to do that is by finding local meetups in your area.
-
Visual proof that you know what you're talking about Make sure you have something to point to that shows you are an expert in your area (blog, ebook, portfolio, etc.)
-
The mechanics of finding a client Start mentioning that you're looking for clients.
"I'm starting to look for companies who need help with [X] - do you know of anyone I should talk to?"
-
You only need a few Independent consulting sounds big and scary at first but remember - you only really need a few clients to have a really good year.
Cool Stuff
🧮 All-in-one Mathematics Cheat Sheet - PDF document
That's a pretty cool pdf. For people dealing with Math regularly will certainly find it useful. Everyone else can learn a thing or two from this document. There is a whole variety of topics covered, and any math-related interest should be covered.
🌟 So You Want to Learn Physics... - Link
I didn't like Physics in college much, but recently my interest has spiked once more. This resource should give the basics for all the people who are also interested in such a thing. I want to focus on the electrical part of physics.
🎹 How Music Works? Interactive Music Theory Lessons
This won't teach you how to play the guitar or the piano. However, it will show you how much sense good music makes.
I was worried about my web design skills for a long time. In fact, designing web pages is always one of the scariest things for me. This small project shows how simple it is, in fact. Indeed, the author shows how simple it is to make a good looking page with a few lines of CSS.
🐔 Tweet of the week
https://twitter.com/dcancel/status/1270723851723259906
🔥 Don't remember where exactly I saw this, but someone argued that if all the technology and modern life were wiped out and we were left with just people and a bonfire, storytelling would be the first activity that humans take part in. Storytelling is such a crucial part of our lives that it makes sense to master it.