The Monday Read: Life of Learning

I got a new lens last week (Sony E-mount F4 18-105) and I spent a couple of hours on Saturday playing with it

Some of you might remember that I have been taking an online writing course called Ship 30 for 30. That finishes tomorrow and I will be starting Ali Abdaal’s Part-time YouTuber Academy… tomorrow.

I enjoyed the writing course, but it didn’t quite live up to the hype and I would give it a score of 7/10.

So far the onboarding for the YouTube course has been a bit better (but it also costs 3x as much, so I would expect it to be).

Going back to learning, particularly in a very hands on and practical way, has been really interesting. It’s been a bit busy, but definitely worth the time and the money.

Any other good courses out there? I’m particularly interested in video editing, marketing, passing the Financial Planner test here in Japan, and mobility.

Podcast

I was on the Expat FIRE Club podcast, and the episode was just released.

This is possibly my favourite podcast appearance so far, I think the questions and discussion should be useful for a lot of people.

Check it out 🙂

Typeshare

I have continued writing on Typeshare as part of the Ship 30 for 30 online writing course, and have now completed 29 pieces of online writing in 29 days. You can check them out here if you missed them on Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium, or Facebook 😉

YouTube

Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. More videos coming soon once as I am starting Ali Abdaal’s Part-time YouTuber Academy course tomorrow 🙂

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (24,300 posts so far). Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s books

Went back to Buy This, Not That (pretty good) and Bjorn Lomborg’s False Alarm again. The latter is really annoying me.

This week’s links

  1. I love this explanation of luck and risk (YouTube): How To Be Lucky As An Entrepreneur
  2. I didn’t listen to the debate, but this write up on monetary policy is interesting: Audio Debate On Japan’s Inflation, Interest Rates, and Low Growth
  3. Konnichi-value writes about housing in Tokyo: Housing in Tokyo is far Cheaper and More Spacious Than you Think
  4. Interesting question. I’ll be sticking to my current allocation going forward (80-20): Which Asset Class is More Attractive Right Now: Stocks or Bonds?
  5. I think I switched from valuing money to valuing time around the age of 40: How Our Perceptions of Time and Money Change as We Age
  6. This is a great (long) read: The Bill Gurley Chronicles: Part I
  7. Manshons in our building are seeing big price rises too: Vacant Homes and High-Rise Condos: Japan’s Housing Dilemma
  8. Real estate in Japan is different (too much housing?): Planned Obsolescence
  9. Pretty grim reading from Vitaliy: Why non-transitory recession is coming and how to face it as an investor
  10. Very nice write up: Andrè Kostolany: The Great Stock Market Operator Never Heard Of
  11. Really interesting proposed changes to NISA next year (trash the New NISA and replace it with a combined NISA?): 「総合NISA」へ抜本改革案
  12. I like the way Nate thinks about things, and this makes a lot of sense to me: De-Atomization is the Secret to Happiness
  13. I still struggle with this: Professio sano in vitam sanam (on balancing work and life)

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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6 Responses

  1. A proposal for a combined NISA, eh? Well that sounds promising – anything to simplify the concept is good for encouraging adoption IMO. I hate to think how many have not opened an account through either not understanding the options, or delaying indefinitely due to analysis paralysis.

  2. For editing courses:
    My video editing partner and I went through the Full Time Filmmaker Course (a bit costly as well) and also their Course Creator Pro.

    Full Time Filmmaker has Adobe Premiere, Final Cut Pro and Davinci lessons as well as real estate (we got a lot out of that), weddings, and other ways to shoot certain things, etc.
    Course Creator Pro got us started on how to make online courses (we are teaching English) and advertise them.
    This group actually just developed their own course creating platform that includes all features of mailchimp/website building, etc. Seems like a great all in one package but no Japanese language support yet or I would have jumped on it.

    Honestly, for courses, you can find most of the above stuff on YouTube, but it is nice to have an A-Z directory laid out for you and feel a sense of completion going through a course. Nowadays, if we want to learn an editing trick, we just go to YouTube, but courses are great.

    I have bought a bad course before (luckily was cheap), so definitely take into account multiple people’s reviews before making a big purchase!

    1. I’ve seen Full Time Filmmaker around, but the other one is new to me. Thanks for the suggestions!

  3. Not to pick on it specifically, but #1 epitomizes the kind of site/information package that I turn off/close almost immediately on opening. Once I see that it’s video, bye-bye.

    IMO, being forced to watch videos to try to glean content that would be far more aptly presented in print, sucks. Even skipping the yuk-yuk first minute or two (extended intro, and/or a sponsor reference or few, and “don’t forget to click on like or watch my other videos”, a complete waste of time).

    And lose the headphones, please. Picture yourself–present yourself–as you’d want to be seen talking normally to someone in person, rather than a zoom call. Oh, with all your video channel experience, training, and polish, you still need to rely on a headphone mic instead of, e.g., a lavalier? Again, my opinion, but visually, you’re blowing it–big time. It’s a very clear “I’m an amateur (that’s going to waste your time)” signal.