Format

• Hey Friends | Editor’s Letter

• Sponsor

• Thought of the Week: Xavier Dagba

• Mission | What I’m Working On

• Life Design | Tips, Tools & Time Hacks

• Commerce & Capital

• Trending Now

  • 🎙 Podcasts, Music & Social Audio

  • 🌍 Social Media

  • 📚 Books

  • 📰 Articles

Hey Friends | Editor’s Letter

Let’s give ourselves some props: someway, somehow, despite a historic maelstrom that featured a coronavirus pandemic, a worldwide economic recession, civil unrest on an international scale, and the outbreak of wars in several globally significant regions — we held it together over the last four years.

We were collectively called upon to make difficult, sobering decisions in leadership of our families. To think strategically about where best to allocate our personal investments and resources. To figure out how to make capital-efficient bets in the public and private markets. And, importantly, to seriously level up our personal development: our intellectual, physical, mental and spiritual health.

Many of us failed these assignments — and are still floundering.

But a still great many of us were reborn, like phoenixes rising from the ashes, morphing and evolving into stronger, more agile, adaptable versions of ourselves.

The saying that you don’t know how strong you can be until you have no choice comes to mind.

We’re all armouring up, trying to survive, and where we can, thrive. We are keenly aware that society has unfortunately entered a cynical phase of corruption, cronyism, violent nationalism, political unrest and criminality.

Conversely - there has never been a time of better opportunity for financial arbitrage, value creation, profit, partnership and prosperity.

A new earth is on the horizon, believe it or not. Keep your eyes wide open, practice gratitude, and keep your eyes peeled for opportunities of empowerment and enrichment not only of yourself and your family, but also to improve the lives of the people in the communities you inhabit — online and offline.

Onward and Upward,

Moshe Modeira

Editor-In-Chief

Sponsor

Thought of the Week: Xavier Dagba

In a world of snake-oil salesmen and fake gurus schilling the next supposed wonder-cure for whatever ails us — I have found Xavier Dagba to be an absolute breath of fresh air.

It’s no question that many of us find ourselves on a new journey of learning, discovery, mental health recovery, psychic growth and spirituality.

When it comes to getting help from those who have experience in this area, I have discovered over the last three years that there are a breed of people like Xavier — the healers, lightworkers and guides — who have chosen to live their lives as spiritual translators and conduits.

These people are living, walking metaphorical mirrors, reflecting back to us the dark depths of our human souls. I am in absolute, jaw-dropped awe the entire time I am in one of Xavier’s sessions. It wasn’t until experiencing Xavier that I truly understood the appeal of being guided.

I suppose the anti-authoritarian aspect of my personality has always made me prone to being wary of gurus and sherpas and really just about anyone selling themselves as a conduit or messenger with supposed special ability to see the metaphysical and the spiritual — realms outside of my self-perceived locus of control.

I have no dog in this fight other than to genuinely inform and share. I will never promote any educator, personality or influencer here that I haven’t spent a reasonable time trying to discern their credibility and intentions.

For some time now, my daily personal development efforts have become anchored around 6 pillars: journaling, meditation, reading, writing, stretching and strength training.

We’ll have plenty of time to delve into the other four over the life of this newsletter, but those first two - journaling and meditation. Personally, these are the areas that blow me away the most about Xavier’s platform.

Both journaling and meditation are oft-touted as can’t-miss gateways to self-discipline nirvana, but truth be told — many more of us struggle with execution than is often spoken of.

Xavier is especially adept at guiding program participants via the use of various prompts — sharp clarifying questions that allows them to easily drop into the flow — of composing a journal, or meditating with intention for 10 - 20 minutes.

Mission | What I’m Working On

Spending the better part of the last quarter century as a salesman and marketer has been an amazing experience that I am forever grateful for. I have been in the business of selling glitz and glamour and prestige, creating memorable experiences and launching products that people love.

But often the stories about the times when things don’t go right — the losses, the missteps, the miscalculations, the blunders — get swept under the rug in order to make room for the stories of triumph and victory.

So allow me to be candid and personal here and share a story about some personal challenges that I am facing, and new pathways and frontiers that I am investigating.

First off, career transitions are difficult.

There are inflection points in your life, hinge moments and transformative phases that indelibly impact you, demarcating clear before-and-after states that underline your evolution, your personal journey of learning and upleveling.

This past December, I made the decision to sunset the digital marketing and brand strategy firm I had helmed since 2015, New Copy Media. It was a decision my partners and I had discussed for at least six months before summoning up the courage to close shop and focus on our new projects.

The world of sales and marketing has changed drastically in the last five years alone, with workflows and operations greatly impacted by the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic, the introduction of new information technologies, and, importantly, the anticipated arrival of AI and automation.

I know in my bones that the time is now for me to get definitive about my personal vision and values as a publisher and creator — and focus on creating a suite of digital products and evergreen content that can truly help people make informed business and life-design decisions.

Focusing on the brand of Moshe is unchartered territory for me. I have prioritized the needs of customers, clients and colleagues over my own needs for most of my adult life.

My current objectives heading into Q2 are focused around publishing this weekly newsletter, hosting educational video essays / video interviews on Youtube, launching a marketing automation SaaS product called HeroPage (I will share more about HeroPage in the next newsletter) — and providing coaching / consulting to founders, creators, brands and businesses who are seeking fresh, innovative ways to gain market mindshare, productize their services and build loyal communities.

Life Design | Tips, Tools & Time Hacks

To answer a question I have gotten more times than I can count as an agency director over the last decade — here is my definitive list of respectable URL domains that you should be purchasing for your startup, brand, product, initiative or event.

Until further notice, these are the most acceptable choices in 2024:

Dot.com

Dot.co

Dot.xyz

Dot.io

Dot.shop

Dot.store

Dot.org

That’s it.

Don’t waste your time trying to build traffic and turn any other URL domains into online destinations.

In the long run, it’s just not winning strategy.

Business is hard, time flies. If you can’t get your business name or brand paired with one of these top-level domains (as they literally are called) — change your business or brand name to one that is available.

It’s that important. There is no time. Get to it.

Btw, for my Canadian clients, colleagues and collaborators, that burning age old question that comes up in all the meetings - should I get the Dot.ca?

The answer is it depends.

If you are a hyper-local business with no plans of ever leaving the province or country, grab the dot.ca but by all means move mountains to also acquire as many of the top level domains that match with your brand. As well, if you’re hosting an event, a temporary, ephemeral experience like a pop-up or a bazaar or a concert or conference, a dot.ca is appropriate.

In all other circumstances, if you have any aims of building a scalable brand with global appeal selling and marketing and shipping to global audiences, for GDs sakes — focus on acquiring top level domains.

This also comes up more than I think it should: Dot.co.

100% a legitimate URL domain, one of the most used in the world, one of the most sensible choices to select if you cannot acquire the dot.com, but is always treated with incredulity and doubt when presented in brand meetings.

My suspicion is that because it is a single letter different from dot.com, dot.co suffers from being mistaken as a mistake; in many instances, when suggested, dot.co is erroneously thought to be a typo or clerical error.

The truth is we should all be using dot.co a lot more for product and brand launches.

Commerce & Capital

Trending Now

🎙 Podcasts, Music & Social Audio

Elon Musk x Don Lemon: Longtime CNN anchor Don Lemon views himself as the ultimate avatar of the “Liberal Left” taking on a supposed enemy of the state — but ends up looking like a self-righteous boob who seeks continuously to entrap Elon Musk instead of speaking to him like a human being with different political views. Elon has many moments where he is able to powerfully underscore the cognitively dissonant thinking dominating liberal thought today — but also can be indignant, childish, contemptuous and frankly dangerously insensitive to the complex racial history of the country he calls home.

🌍 Social Media

This is the greatest time to create a startup in 30 years - Greg Isenberg on X: Among the greatest posts in the history of Twitter / X — and one of the biggest ICYMI posts on all of social media in 2024. Author, agency director and investor Greg Isenberg gives us all the lay of the land on what the modern startup looks like in 2024 and beyond. Bookmark it immediately.

how to make a killer thumbnail (for the 2024 algorithm) - Aprilynne Alter on Youtube: With so many of us now jumping into the video content game, how your video stands out is becoming a large part of the equation. YouTube video thumbnails are virtually sales billboards optimized to capture your attention within seconds. This is one of the best tutorials you will ever find on the matter, and will also open your eyes to how competitive the content game is getting. Another one you’re going to want to reference for a long time.

📚 Books

The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran. A guide to achieving better results in business and personal life projects by focusing on 12-week cycles instead of the usual annual goal-setting.

People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present by Dara Horn. Author and academic Dara Horn explores the exploitation of Jewish history, particularly the fascination with famous Jewish people now dead (Anne Frank, Albert Einstein) in contrast with the still societally rampant lack of respect and appreciation for the lives and culture of the living Jewish community.

Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within by David Goggins. Goggins takes us inside his “Mental Lab” where he developed the philosophy, psychology and strategies that underpin his very public quest for mental and physical greatness that we have witnessed, mouths agape, for over a decade now.

📰 Articles

Marking the Web’s 35th birthday: An Open Letter by Tim Berners-Lee. The oft-forgotten inventor of the modern internet pens a poignant letter calling for an “overturn” of the current profit-centric online world and a move towards an online ecosystem that emphasizes “creativity, collaboration and compassion.”

We would love to hear your thoughts! Leave your comments below. See y’all next week 🙏

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