You know someone is influential when...
How do we know if someone has a lot of influence?
How do we know if someone or something provides a lot of value?
Does one necessarily lead to the other?
Here are a few anecdotes from the last few days that got me thinking about these questions.
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The New York Times Best Seller List
This week's Planet Money podcast talked about how to get on The New York Times Best Seller List. It's a closely guarded secret, but many people have tried to figure out the NYT's "formula" and game the system.
Here's a link to the episode if you'd like to listen to it.
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3-2-1 Thursday by James Clear
Clear is a New York Times bestselling author, and he sends out a weekly e-mail newsletter that I find useful and thought-provoking. This week, he included a list of books he recommends that happen to be on sale, so of course I went searching for them in the library catalog. 📚
When the first book showed up with long waiting lists for both the English and Chinese versions, I went to Spotify to search for the audiobook version. The Spotify search results (see image below) included the other 2 books and summaries of the books on the list. 🤯
Here is this week's newsletter if you'd like to read it. (The web version is evergreen so it does not include the list of books that are on sale this week.)
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What is Money?
The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith is an important economics book that most people who have studied economics and business have at least heard of. This week's Freakonomics podcast talked to Pulitzer Prize winner David Lang about turning it into an oratorio.
So many things jumped out in this episode. Here are two:
🥼 David Lang's mother encouraged him to go to medical school after a performance with the Cleveland Orchestra when he was 27 years old. He asked and his parents stopped coming to his performances after that. He earned a PhD in Musical Arts around 32 years old. 🎼 He won the Pulitzer Prize around 51 years old. His father accepted his choice of profession after he won the Pulitzer Prize. 🏆
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (usually shortened to the Wealth of Nations) was published in 1776. The New York Philharmonic and the Aspen Music Festival and School commissioned David Lang to turn it into an oratorio nearly 250 years after it was published. 🤯🤯
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What makes someone or something influential? Is it how much value they have added?
I'd love to hear your thoughts. e-mail me.
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Patricia Cheng
Founder
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