Taking a week off! 🏖️

+ amazing articles I found online

Hey everyone!

This is a special issue of Marketing Ideas because, after writing 120+ articles without ever skipping a week, I’m taking a week off to spend some time with family & friends.

Not gonna lie - it feels scary. But it’s absurdly energizing. ⚡️

Grand Canyon West

I’ll return next Thursday with our usual programming. The much-loved weekly Q&As will return next week as well.

Here are a few articles I enjoyed reading while on vacation:

1. Why Everything is Becoming a Game - how apps use game mechanics (points, badges, streaks) to hack your brain and keep you hooked.

2. Status as a Service (StaaS) - this looooong essay explains social networks as status games where you “mine” for followers and likes through proof of work.

3. The Great Online Game - shows how people are turning posts into dream jobs, millions of dollars, and entirely new careers. It’s like a playbook for treating the internet like your personal career cheat code.

4. How to Pick a Career (That Actually Fits You) - destroys every myth about “following your passion” and gives you the most honest framework I’ve seen for figuring out what you really want (vs what everyone else wants for you).

5. The days are long but the decades are short - Sam Altman’s 36 brutally honest life lessons. I come back to this once a year and always find something I needed to hear.

One last thing: Congrats to the winners of my 2025 books giveaway: Elena Simkina, Heather Terhart, Laurel Zevitz, Sander Buitelaar, Andy Giefer - your books are on the way! 🎉

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See you next week ✌️