Anyways, everyone has their own preferred way of learning that is more effective than other approaches.

Some are more effective when they read the material. Some are more effective when they watch/shadow someone.

It’s not always a “I am most effective when I read the material”.

People can be effective in a range of different approaches. Or like me, the approach that is most effective depends on what it is that I am trying to learn.

But one thing is for sure, I am a very slow reader. So, reading is not an effective approach for me to learn things.

Thankfully, with the advancements in text-to-speech technologies. We now have free text-to-speech offerings that we can use to turn any text into natural speech.

In the past, you would need to fork out several hundred dollars or pay for a premium subscription for such an offering.

If you categorise yourself as a slow reader as well, then I highly recommend you jump on the text-to-speech bandwagon.

For reading websites, pdf files, and epub files; the best free solution is the ReadAloud plugin for Firefox. The plugin is also available for Chrome (I don’t use Chrome, so cannot confirm).

The most important thing when using ReadAloud is to change the voice to ‘ReadAloud Generic Voice’. Otherwise it would default to some non-natural machine-like voice.

For those on macOS and want to use a native app instead. The trick is to go into your System Settings and change the default voice to a ‘Premium’ voice of your choice.

Happy reading listening, everyone!

I grew up using - tinkering - Windows-based PCs and have long been a big fan of Bill Gates before becoming a fan of Steve Jobs.

So as soon as Bill Gates’ memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, was available on Audible I bought it.

This was the very first book written by Bill Gates that I read - listened to - so I didn’t really have much of an idea of what it was going to be like.

The start was a bit slow (and for the Audible version, the reader felt like he was also just warming up and wasn’t in the groove yet). I vaguely remember anything from it. Which means, it wasn’t interesting to me. But, I know there are others who enjoy this extra bit of detail of Bill Gates’ earlier life, which no doubt had an impact on the later events.

For those struggling with the first chapter or two, I recommend you hang in there. Once you get past the first couple of chapters. Things start getting interesting.

We learn about some of the early feats that Bill achieves in programming at a young age of 13.

The relationship struggles he went through, in particular with his parents. Parents, or people, in general were not as liberal back then as they are today in how they viewed what a career should be.

And it wouldn’t be right or complete if Bill didn’t mention his time with Kent Evans. And the impact of Kent’s passing on him.

The meat and potatoes of the book, and undeniably, the most interesting parts were the events that surrounded the inception and early days of Microsoft.

We learn that Microsoft was a long time vision/dream of Bill Gates since his high school years. And if you have read Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, you’ll see quite a bit of parallels between the two.

Their behaviour during their uni days were very similar. They both went to classes that were not part of their studies, but had a outsized influence on their respective companies later on.

For Steve Jobs, it was the design-related classes; while for Bill Gates, it was the business-related classes.

Without these business-related classes, I don’t think Microsoft would have succeeded. As Bill Gates highlighted in his memoir, people didn’t see a need to pay for software and majority used pirated copies of Basic.

Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates is certainly not as colourful a read as Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. But as it is more or less the founding story of Microsoft, arguably one of, if not the most influential company during the personal computer revolution. That changed the whole landscape of personal computing forever.

It is a worthwhile read (or listen). Especially for entrepreneurs or anyone with any desires to start their own business. As it highlights the key aspects needed to create a successful business.

Listen to the sample preview of Source Code: My Beginnings audiobook on Audible.

All thanks to a new report by EY, UK.

“The report highlights the importance of fostering a culture of inclusivity at all levels of UK business and ensuring that managers and leaders have the necessary understanding and support to implement inclusive policies, address poor behaviours, and promote inclusive practices within their teams.”

I have no doubt that a company benefits a lot from having an inclusive company culture.

The issue is with the recommendations shared to create an inclusive company culture (the DE&I initiative).

I will focus on one recommendation:

• Recruitment: implement targeted recruitment strategies that attract diverse candidates and, where needed, offer appropriate support to accurately assess their competences and suitability for a role.

Before I explain why this recommendation is bad. I want to share a short YouTube clip of Steve Jobs sharing his insights on consulting (EY is a consultancy for those not familiar with EY).

Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Consultants. They are a bunch of very smart individuals.

The thing is; as Steve Jobs highlights in the YouTube clip above. Consultants lack firsthand experience of the impact(s) of their recommendations. The consultants are called in to implement and/or do their thing for the client, then disappear. They do not live through their recommendations and often than not, won’t see the results of their recommendations beyond what they get from customer/client feedback.

It’s like a travel agent who has not personally visited a particular country, providing travel recommendations based on their research of reading articles and speaking to others who also may and may not have been to that particular country as well.

Hopefully you get the point.

Now, let’s get back to the recommendation on recruitment.

Implement targeted recruitment strategies that attract diverse candidates and, where needed, offer appropriate support to accurately assess their competences and suitability for a role.

If we map this vague recommendation into what we see in the real world. What we see is people divided into different groups based on things like their gender, race, etc. And each one of these groups are treated slightly differently.

The most common policy I see is the “ratio policy”. In that, the company sets a target ratio the company aims to reach by a specific year.

E.g. Have a 50/50 male to female ratio in management by 2030.

Another common one is setting aside a number of “diversity" spots for people who are from a minority group.

E.g. A company will take on 10 interns this year. But 2 of those spots are set aside for people from a minority backgrounds. So those who do not come from a minority background, have to compete with everyone for 1 spot out of 8 spots.

This is great for creating a team/company composed of a “diverse” range of individuals. However, not only does this not fulfil the goal (of creating an inclusive company culture), it creates a range of issues.

Three key issues I have noticed personally, are:

• A team/company composed of a “diverse” range of individuals is not the same thing as having an inclusive company culture. Quite often, I witnessed the exact opposite. Where employees built alliances based on their backgrounds to push their personal agendas rather than work as a team/company towards the company’s mission.

• Is it fair to people who are not from a minority background to have less opportunities? I have personally been told to not waste my time applying for particular management positions at a past organisation because those positions had been set aside for female colleagues (to help the company reach its gender target ratio).

• With the focus shifted away from capabilities and values alignment, there is a significantly increased chance of hiring a candidate that is not a good fit for the role and company. i.e. a bad cultural fit.

A company’s culture is how the company’s employees act, behave, and what behaviour(s) they tolerate. It is a set of lived values shared by the employees of the company, from top to bottom.

So, what does an inclusive company culture look like? Take a look at this YouTube clip of Steve Jobs and the original Apple Mac team.

In the short YouTube clip, you do NOT hear Steve Jobs or the team mentioning anything remotely related to DE&I, such as ratios, or providing special treatments to particular groups of individuals.

What we hear Steve mention is a “self-managing” team. Focused on the company mission and having the same shared values.

Without any need of “targeted” recruitment, we see there are both male and female members on the Mac team. And everyone looks relaxed and happy, while share a bit of banter amongst themselves.

That, there is what a real inclusive company culture looks like.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion was never mentioned.

I have not seen or personally experienced a single company where diversity, equity, and inclusion was heavily trumpeted and shoved down everyone’s throats turn a toxic workplace into a healthy one.

In fact, it had the opposite effect. It became even more toxic. Like the MeToo movement, opportunists jumped on the opportunity. Amber Turd ring any bells?

Not saying we should do nothing about a toxic workplace. Just saying, DE&I is not the way to go and needs to be abolished for all the harm it’s done.

If someone is toxic, investigate and confirm they are indeed toxic, then get rid of them. Simple as that1.

In this post, I want to share a bit of my journey and shed some light into the highs and lows I’ve experienced thus far in my YouTube journey.

The Beginning

Back in 2022, in one of the Discord servers I was a member of, people kept asking me to show them game replays. It was difficult and a real pain to send videos on Discord. So, I ended up, uploading them to YouTube and then sharing a link to it in the Discord server.

That was the start of my YouTube journey.

Taking YouTube Seriously

After seeing the number of interest in my game play videos, I decided to take things up a notch.

Instead of simply uploading raw game play videos to my personal account. I created a dedicated YouTube channel with proper branding and focus. The videos now go through a bit of post processing before getting published on YouTube.

I also started to promote my YouTube channel via the various social media platforms.

Haters Gonna Hate

This caught me totally off guard.

For some strange reason. People who were previously friendly and receptive of my original video uploads started to attack me. Because I wanted to build a YouTube channel sharing my gameplay videos.

This was the toughest period of my journey.

I didn’t have many subscribers. The only comments I received on my YouTube videos were from haters.

On Discord, people were ridiculing my videos, trashing them in every way imaginable.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

Thankfully, I had a couple of people from before the switch who continued to show me support and encouragement.

The other positive aspect that kept me going was I continued to acquire more subscribers amidst the barrage of hateful comments.

YouTube lowering their requirements to join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to 500 subscribers was the last piece.

Turning Point

I wanted to officially call myself a YouTuber. And my criteria for this was to be a part of the YPP.

So, I set myself a target of 500 subscribers (the number needed to be a part of the YPP).

Before the lower subscriber requirement was rolled out for the region my account was located in. I reached the 1,000 subscriber mark and became a full YPP member.

The Rainbow After the Storm

As the saying goes: “you’ve got to put up with the rain, to see the rainbow”.

In the case of online and social media, you’ve got to deal with a constant raging storm. The things people say online and in social media are on a whole another level.

But once you get past the storm, you’ll find that the number of haters shrinks dramatically. They’re still there, but the number of encouraging and genuine comments far outnumber the hateful comments.

Paying it Forward

1 million views is a drop in the ocean for the big name YouTubers. However, for those just starting out, it can look like an impossible number to reach.

If I can reach it, so can you.

Ignore the naysayers and focus on adapting and improving your content based on genuine feedback.

The real fun is in the journey and not at its destination.

Good luck and have fun!

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

The timeframes were: first day, first week, first month, first quarter, and first year.

In the plan, it highlighted what the new employee should have achieved by each milestone. And if they missed a checkbox in the plan, at the next check-in with their manager, they would discuss why they missed it and we would adjust the plan accordingly.

Since then, I've applied this concept of timeframes to most things I do.

In this post, I want to share how timeframes have changed how I view data - specifically my YouTube analytics data.

Background

I used to just look at the view count, cos, let's face it. We look at the single metric that matters most to us - and in this case, it was the number of views.

An increased number of views generally led to an increase in the number of subscribers. And the easiest lever I could pull to increase the number of views was to push out more videos.

This was exactly what I did, I increased the frequency that I pushed out videos. I got more views and the subscriber count increased.

However, because I was constantly looking at the data.

Whenever a video didn’t perform as well as I had hoped. Or there was a subscriber who unsubscribed. I felt a bit of a panic and a need to immediately rectify it by pushing out another video.

Obviously this was not sustainable.

Data Analysis

After pushing out all the time-sensitive videos. I took some time to do some data analysis.

This was really easy with YouTube. As YouTube provides a very good analytics interface, where all the key and important information is presented to you without any need to manipulate or transform the data.

I looked into:

• when the majority of my viewers watched my videos.

• which videos were viewed the most and least.

• and how viewers found my videos.

With this information, I can apply timeframes to the data to turn the simple data into more meaningful insights.

Applying Timeframes

Due to the nature of social videos. I wasn’t uploading videos on set schedules. Therefore, if I uploaded a video during peak viewing hours, I would get a lot more views within the first hour or so compared to a video I uploaded during off-peak viewing hours.

Knowing this, I no longer panic when I see a video performing badly during off-peak hours. In fact, I no longer panic when a video no longer performs as well as I had hoped.

The reason for this is because I now apply contextual timeframes to my videos.

I look at my videos under the following timeframes: first hour, first 24 hours, first week and first month.

And just like that onboarding plan, I have different expectations and criteria for each timeframe.

The first hour is about discovery and appeal to new viewers.

The first 24 hours is about how well the video appeals to my subscribers.

The first week is about how well the video relates to the topic in general.

The first month is about whether the video is an evergreen video.

Conclusion

Rather than go into panic mode and churn out more videos that would turn away subscribers to increase view count.

Applying timeframes to data, enables you to make more informed decisions.

It is much easier to increase the view count when you have a higher subscriber count. And it is much easier to increase the subscriber count if you don’t need to compensate for the lost subscribers.

Side Note: Having great managers/mentors early in your career is underrated.

When we get asked, or think about what we want. We usually think of goals - more specifically, end goals.

In a way, we do need to know what our goals and end goals are. As they help define what we want in order to reach those goals.

The key difference to understand here is, goals are the end state and/or outcome. While, want is the action and/or thing we desire.

A common example is: we want to be a millionaire.

Having any of the following satisfies that goal:

1. Have X million dollars in cash.

2. Have a share portfolio worth X million dollars.

3. Have a real estate portfolio worth X million dollars.

4. Be the sole owner of a company worth X million dollars.

5. Be the sole trustee of a Trust worth X million dollars.

As you can see, there are many ways to achieve the goal of being a millionaire. However, if we said: we want to have a company worth X million dollars. There is only one path that satisfies this want.

Let’s take a look at another more common example. An example we can all relate to.

I am sick of eating XYZ, I want to eat something else!

If we followed our previous example of wanting to be a millionaire. We can see, we have an infinite number of ways to satisfy our goal - eating anything else besides XYZ fulfils it.

But let’s be honest with ourselves. In this example, we have absolutely no idea what we want.

My recommendation is to figure out what it is that you really want.

A good starting point is to ask the ‘why’ question - why are you sick of eating XYZ?

By answering this question, you will get a clearer idea of what it is that you really want.

Are you sick of eating only veggies every day and want to have some meat? Or craving for something spicy? Miss that oily fast food?

With a clear idea of what you really want. Not only will you save time and energy on running in circles, you will also be much happier; since you are satisfying your real want. Rather than some vague or open goal.

Have a watch of this YouTube video from Salem Shanouha (you don’t need to watch the entire video. Just from the 24:45 mark to the 35:45 mark.):

Hopefully after watching the video, lightbulbs start going off in your head.

For me, I started to make sense of a lot of the interactions that previously made no sense to me.

Obviously, there’re other factors in play and I am not saying these individuals have not developed their cognitive abilities.

But to highlight that the brain shortcuts affects more than just our drawing capabilities, it also affects our ability to read, listen - everything.

Knowing that our brains love to take shortcuts just like how we, ourselves in general, love taking shortcuts. We can make better sense of these seemingly strange human behaviours we encounter.

More importantly, with this new awareness, we are better armed to prevent ourselves from falling into its trap. And have a significantly higher chance of improving our creative skills.

I recommend watching the next 7 minutes of the video where Salem provides strategies to “shut off the left brain”.

Like most terms these days, they have multiple meanings and require appropriate context to interpret properly.

The type of Fire Starter that I am recommending you to become is:

An individual who is flexible in their thinking, promote the importance of sharing ideas, and empower others to open up and speak up.

I highly recommend you to read the article titled Become a Fire-Starter at the Office by Sandi Coyne-Gilbert on the Goodwin University website. If this is the first time you have heard of the term Fire Starter being used in this context.

If you decide to become a Fire Starter, I recommend bringing along another person on the journey, it will make the journey so much easier and enjoyable.

The path of a Fire Starter is not easy. You will face a lot of resistance and a lot of personal attacks. But like the saying goes: with great risks comes great rewards.

Good luck on the journey and remember, the journey is also a part of the experience. Enjoy it all.

Chinese Whispers or sometimes known as the ‘telephone game’ for those that have never heard or played it before; is a game where you get a group of people to form a line. Then designate which person is the front of the line (and naturally the person on the other end is the end of the line). The person at the front of the line will come up with a message and whisper this message to the next person in the line. This repeats until the message reaches the last person in the line, who will then say the message out loud.

The idea behind this is, by the time the message gets to the end of the line, the message would have been altered to a point that it no longer represents the original message.

Here’s a YouTube video of a variation of the Chinese Whispers game, that highlights this.

You’ll see in the video, the facilitator starts the chain by showing the next person he’s starting a motorbike, then going for a ride on it. But, by the time it reaches the end of the line, it’s become a random dance move.

There are two key ideas shown in this video:

1. A message can survive approximately 3 transfers before it becomes noise.

2. The change in the message is usually not due to intentional sabotage.

If something does not feel right. Or is important, always get the information directly from the source. And at max, no more than 2 nodes away from the source.

There are hundreds of lessons we could learn from Ted Lasso. The one I am going to talk about today is from the final episode of Ted Lasso season 3.

Ted decides to head back to America. Coach Beard, as his right hand man, follows him back to America.

They are on the plane. And Coach Beard tells Ted he’s had a change of mind.

You can watch the short clip below:

Ted gives Coach Beard his blessings to remain in the United Kingdom to be with Jane. And proceeds to offer Coach Beard his assistance.

Coach Beard fakes a medical emergency.

A flight attendant rushes over to see what the ruckus is all about.

She calls for the medical staff.

While Coach Beard is carried off the plane by medics. The flight attendant asks Ted if he would also like to get off the plane with his friend.

Ted replies, no.

The flight attendant leaves Ted and heads back to the front of the plane. While we, the audience, hear her call Ted a F’ing Asshole.

As the audience we have the full context and know what really went down. However, for the flight attendant who only has the context of what she saw/overheard herself.

This leads us, the audience, to have a totally different view of Ted as a character versus the flight attendant.

Lesson from this scene is, having full context is very important. Don’t let your personal bias cloud your judgement of someone. Especially not from a single interaction.

And for those in Ted’s shoes. You know who you are. Your character is not defined by how others view you. But by you, yourself, and your actions.

Over the past few months, I have experienced so many instances of being stuck on problems and was prepared to settle with a subpar solution.

Only to realise a day or two later after going for a wander outside. That, there were much easier and trivial solutions to my problem.

And the weird thing is, I’m not wandering around for hours. These solutions come to me within 10 minutes of walking.

So the next time you’re stuck trying to come up with a solution to a problem. Or the solution just “doesn’t feel right”.

Walk on it.

The idea is quite simple: we count down from 5 and take action when we reach 0 (or whatever we choose in place of 0).

We first learn of the timer mind trick from our parents. Who would give us X number of seconds to take action before we forfeit whatever it is that is on the line.

A common example is: you have 10 seconds to get in the car or you’re staying home alone!

This traditional timer works due to the fundamental human desire of the need to be needed.

It’s that feeling that our parents/family want us to go with them, that makes the timer work. Not the actual timer itself.

As Mel points out in her book titled “The 5 Second Rule”, this approach is only really effective if there is a third party involved. Otherwise, we just keep counting onwards until we forget about the timer altogether.

Mel’s 5 Second Rule works by constraining the timer to 5 seconds and counting down instead of up.

By constraining the timer to 5 seconds, we reduce the chance of counting fatigue. Yet, we give ourselves time to prepare for whatever it is we are about to action.

And by counting down rather than counting up, we put our mind into an “active” state (i.e. waking up our brain), since counting down is not the natural way we think when it comes to counting.

The other effect of counting down rather than up is, there is no where to go after you hit 0 (or whatever you choose in place of 0).

Next time you are struggling to get out of bed, get started on a project, or whatever, consider giving the 5 Second Rule from Mel Robbins a try.

Anyways, I have been using this simple idea to help with my decision making for a number of years now and it has worked like a charm.

The idea is very simple.

When you are presented with a decision to make. If it’s not a hell yes! (i.e. an instant yes!) Then it’s an automatic no.

The premise behind this is; if you need a moment to think about the decision, the probability of the decision ending up being a no is so high. You are literally just wasting time to get to no. So why not just short circuit it.

A good example is a marriage proposal.

If you need time to think about it, it’s a no.

So, it made perfect sense that I start the new chapter of Oscar’s Notes with this very idea from Steve Jobs.

The idea of “connecting the dots” is very similar to the well known phrase “everything happens for a reason”. But with one key difference and that is:

Instead of just letting things happen and/or going with the flow. In “connecting the dots”, the actions you take are intentional. You make the conscious decision to take those specific actions.

There are three parts to the idea of “connecting the dots”:

1. We cannot see the future. Therefore, we cannot connect the dots by looking forward.

2. We can only connect the dots by looking backward. Therefore, we have to trust that the dots would somehow connect in the future.

3. Whatever you believe in, you will need to have a strong conviction that the dots will connect down the road. This is what will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. (and this is what makes all the difference.)

Revisiting Steve Jobs’ example that he shared in his Stanford University speech.

Steve Jobs during his uni days had no idea what he was doing and was simply following his heart and attending classes that interested him. But looking back, we can see how attending those classes connected down the road.

If Steve Jobs didn’t follow his heart and gone off the well-worn path, things would most likely have turned out quite differently.

In short, “connecting the dots” is about having blind faith in what you are doing will have a meaningful impact in the future.

So, trust in your gut or whatever, and follow your heart and curiosity to where it may lead you, even when it takes you off the well-worn path.

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