Big Dave's

Five maybe six years ago, I got my semi-annual car wash off 14th street. Not sure why I picked this car wash spot but I remember being wowed by all the services they provided: ultra-lounge, drinks, breakfast food, and car detail. The business is still thriving today [http://www.autospabistro.…

Compounding Content

I’ll never forget the gas stop on the way down to Florida for Spring Break. My older brother and I couldn’t believe we were seeing such a star, waiting for our line at Burger King. I must of been 7 or 8 years old. MTV was at peak,…

My New, Old Writing Tool

[https://www.jonbirdsong.com/content/images/wordpress/2019/10/Typewriter-1.png] Every now and then, an old tool can ignite a lost art. For me, a 1957 Olympia SM3 typewriter did exactly that. I came across the typewriter on a recent trip back to New Jersey and re-found it in…

The Power of One Article

The value from one tidbit [https://www.jonbirdsong.com/2018/05/20/tidbits/] of information can go a long way. Netflix’s new documentary, Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates [https://www.netflix.com/title/80184771]gives the world a look into how Bill Gates thinks about problems and…

In the Flow

Getting in your flow is priceless. Seriously, it really is unpurchasable. A writer’s flow happens when every agonizing word to their essay or story fits perfect. Entrepreneurs are in the flow when they can’t go to sleep because what they are building is working and bringing tangible value…

The Athletic and Sports Journalism

After a few years of sporadically clicking on headlines from the gated content site theAthletic [https://theathletic.com/], I’ve crossed the chasm as a consumer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm].  The final straw was an article published last week in Bloomberg [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/…

Rhetoric from Churchill

I read some time ago that everyone should keep a book of writings that speak to them. Recording key phrases and words has been a fun exercise for many years. As I plod through a few books on Winston Churchill, his prose and vocabulary have me jotting down several lines…

6 Months of Homework For Life

On January 17th this year, I started a daily habit called Homework for Life. I learned this tool from the book Storyworthy [https://www.amazon.com/Storyworthy-Engage-Persuade-through-Storytelling/dp/1608685489] ,written about earlier here. [https://www.jonbirdsong.com/2019/01/31/a-podcast-about-micro-transformations/] Homework for Life is the act of writing a…