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- ADAPT #27 - Weird-looking things
ADAPT #27 - Weird-looking things
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By Gus Balbontin
Yew!
I promise to provoke you in less than 5 min once a week so that you can stay adaptable and on top of your game!
Ok, we are back to the structure this week
Let’s get into it!
Today:
Awe: I used to be a cartographer
Deal Flow: AI notetaker for your meetings
Action: Weird-looking things
Personal: Career Ownership Workshop finale
Trend: How do the Taiwanese do democracy?
Read time: 3 min 42 sec
AWE
Back in the day, I used to be a cartographer - well not quite - I learnt the basics of making maps with software (I wasn’t a professional cartographer!).
During that time of diving and learning about maps I realised that the way we project a 3D sphere into a 2D plane distorts our understanding of the size of certain landmasses (or countries).
Eg: we all have seen “Greenland” and think it’s a huge landmass above Canada.
Greenland certainly looks bigger than Europe, than Brazil, than Australia!
Ok… turns out Greenland fits almost 3 times in Australia.
And Russia? You know how we think Russia is massive?
Ok, it is big.
But, not as big as the normal maps suggest.
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/961ac703-e155-474b-9578-df23823c66aa/maps.png?t=1710900979)
Check the pics and see the massive difference once you drag the countries into the equator giving a better idea of true size.
The further north (Greenland/Russia) or south the more deformed.
Check this: www.thetruesize.com you can drag and drop countries on the equator and compare them to get a sense of their real size :-)
DEAL FLOW
I’ve been playing a little bit with this tool: www.read.ai
Very clever how it spreads, the info it provides, the way it analyses virtual meetings.
Worth a look and maybe exploring others, even if it is just to see how far AI has evolved when it comes to analysing human language, deducing sentiment, etc etc.
They are worth $30m, and raised $10m just in seed (they diluted 30% which is interesting!).
Go play!
ACTION
This month learn to use a new tool and then tell me about it!
Years ago when I was into knife making (cos why not) I also made the sheaths.
So I learnt to work with leather.
To sew leather you use a “stitching pony” - whaaaaaat?
Yep! A weird-as looking tool that is hard to guess what it is from looking at it, it needs a little explanation.
My favourite bit is that it comes with an an extra device used to open the clamp - have a look at the pic, hard to explain!
![](https://media.beehiiv.com/cdn-cgi/image/fit=scale-down,format=auto,onerror=redirect,quality=80/uploads/asset/file/6c2a15d2-fa53-49c8-b574-7d7bfc80d862/knifemaking.jpeg?t=1710896755)
My “stitching pony”
Anyway - here is your challenge:
Go to Bunnings - walk into the tool section - find the weirdest looking thing - buy it - learn!
PERSONAL
We are almost at the end of our Career Ownership Workshop (where I coach people to help them build their Career Portfolios).
And the amazing cohort of 9 humans who decided to take ownership of their careers are now setting off to integrate the challenges and lessons we have learnt over the last 4 weeks or so.
This is personal for me because it is something I have never done before formally.
I have given lots of support and mentorship relating to career, but have never decoded how I build my own Portfolio Career and how to teach others to do the same.
I’ll share some of the feedback and insights but suffice to say it was awesome to see these rad humans puzzled, excited, energised, conflicted, clear, unclear and everything in between.
Congrats to all 9 of them for getting through it!!
I am sure you have all, already, significantly reduced your career risk and increased your potential career returns!!
[Psss! NOTE from Gus’ team:
Hey you! interested in joining the next Career Ownership Cohort?
We still haven’t defined when it will happen, or even the price (this one was $1000 but we promised Cohort 1 members that we would increase the prices for the second one…).
But you can JOIN THE WAITING LIST CLICKING HERE and once we define all the details, we’ll let you know first and give you priority to sign up!]
TREND
Everyone seems to be on top of blockchains, AI, 3D printing, etc etc but there is a trend we are often reminded of, but regularly ignore:
Direct Democracy.
I don’t know when, if, how or why even, but it feels very much like the democratic system is regularly struggling and will one day be replaced or evolved.
Direct Democracy is a super broad term but you get my vibe.
I know we have no better holistic alternative at this stage, but Taiwan for example is fairly active in this trend.
Check: https://www.democracy.community/stories/how-taiwan-got-one-worlds-best-direct-democracy-laws
I wonder what AI will do to democracy - will we one day do away with voting and just ask an AI to appoint the most representative person for the job?
Or just run our societies more efficiently and effectively by doing away with the majority of gov?
There are AI tools already that assess inside a company if a person is a flight risk or who is ready for a promotion (they’ve been around for a few years https://www.spiceworks.com/hr/hr-strategy/articles/how-ai-identifies-flight-risk-and-helps-retain-highvalue-employees/)
I am sure we will continue to extrapolate AI and enhance/augment the democratic system with it.
Anyway - pay attention to the slow deterioration of democracy and the inevitable evolution of the system is the trend ;-)
See you next Thursday!
Love
Gus
My recommendations:
You CANNOT miss this online event series we are organising at Neu21.
Join my business partner and friend, Eduardo Nofuentes at “Culture Can’t Be Fixed”.
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