Great Response to 'Fitness for Ambition', and Created Newsletter Podcast
August 19, 2022
It’s not that you have something to say. It’s that you find out what you have to say.
—Austin Kleon, Author
This edition of Danny Rehr's Blog: The Newsletter is supported by Notion (notion.so).
I’ve been using Notion for the past year. Notion is software that allows me to neatly organize, track and archive information. Additionally, I use Notion to curate knowledge management wikis for mentees - my writing, links to commercial articles, YouTube video uploads, graphics, and topical content the likes of which consumers of Danny Rehr’s Blog would be familiar. The software offers database utility, media, task management and collaborative potential. As such, I am thrilled—THRILLED—that Notion would support this edition of my newsletter.
Learn more about how I will purposefully use Notion in the Supporting the Ambitions of Others section.
Top News
The Newsletter Podcast
Substack makes it easy to upload audio into my newsletters. I will continue to do so; additionally, I have made use of its new podcast feature to compile every audio file into one place. And so…
Introducing the Danny Rehr’s Blog: The Newsletter podcast!
Check it out here, or find the podcast via my WordPress site’s Podcasts page.
I have no plans on making the Danny Rehr’s Blog: The Newsletter podcast available beyond Substack, i.e. it will not be available on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, etc.
Supporting the Ambitions of Others
Promoting Talent
I work with Taye, a local recording artist. He is really talented. Listen to his tracks by searching for Vontaye via Spotify, a carrier of the Danny Rehr’s Blog podcast.
Anyway, I’ve been prompting him to get his music onto our work playlist. Upon successfully getting onto that list, I said I would promote his music to the entire staff.
Collaborative Skill-Building
A small crew of collaborators and I will put heads together for my video project. To organize and produce the video, I plan on using agile project management tools, all of which can be found in Notion.
I’ve been using Notion now for more than a year. It’s my sole source of content management for a few dozen mentees. In fact, I use it personally to manage my blog, house data related to my podcast, and templates I use for YouTube and this newsletter. Check it out at notion.so.
Asked for Support
A former colleague of mine has reached out. “Your media activities are excellent and impressive.” Would I be willing to support his media activities for an upcoming project? Wow!
What I Learned This Week
In support of my upcoming blogpost on mapping strategy, I did a bit of reading about Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton’s balanced scorecard. (Read more about it here.) I also revisited my favorite article from grad school, What Is Strategy?, by Michael E. Porter. (Here’s a link.)
Working With Others
Fitness for Ambition, my most recent blogpost that published on August 15, featured 2 book cover graphics. Best Job Ever! (link to purchase) and The Unfair Advantage (link to purchase) are both recommended reads.
Sadly, both HarperCollins Publishers and IDEO eventually approved my requests, but after August 15. Nonetheless, I’m grateful to both companies.
It so happens I’m able to use IDEO’s graphic in my upcoming blogpost. Here it is in isolation. Find it in its original context on IDEO’s Design Thinking webpage.
Other News & Updates
Across the ‘Net: Twitter
The above August 14 Tweet is from Ash Ali, co-author of The Unfair Advantage. In response to the release of my post, Fitness for Ambition, he wrote, “Look forward to reading it.”
I had promoted his and Hasan Kubba’s book on Twitter. I’m not a star-struck kind of person. Still, how awesome is it to have that kind of connection. It’s inspiring, too, at this early stage of my blog’s existence. If they read this, thanks to you both Ash and Hasan.
Across the ‘Net: LinkedIn
Speaking of which, I was flattered to have received a “Share” of Fitness for Ambition’s publication on LinkedIn by Best Job Ever! author, Chris Bray. He said, “What an honor to have a piece of my work mentioned in a blog post. Thanks Danny Rehr. This is a must read!”
New Blogpost in DRAFT
My next post will be titled Mapping Strategy. It will be a look at the complexity and importance of business strategy. My MBA has a Strategy concentration. This topic is a lot of fun for me.
Upcoming Quotes and/or Graphics
Mapping strategy is depicting complex intentionality.
I view planning, intentionality and strategy in the following way:
Planning = We could, if
Intentionality = We should, because
Strategy = We will, given...