Wednesday May 28, 3:09pm Kreuzberg, Berlin Dear John, It’s been a cold two days filled with rain and I’m sitting here at my friend Volker’s desk in Kreuzberg, Berlin to write this letter to you today. I’ve got two very different topics I wanted to tell you more about and inspire you to think about. **Topic No.1Persons Of Inspiration** The first thing is a task I’ve given myself while re-reading “Psycho Cybernetics.” This task is to make a list of people–living and dead–who represent the type of person that I want to aspire to be. In particular, for each personality trait and accomplishment, I am tasked to find a specific person and research their life. A big goal of this exercise is to find out that many of the people I deem successful were NOT (genetically, socially) pre-disposed to becoming who they became. I’m excited about this and I think you would have a lot of fun with this exercise. Here’s my current breakdown of people who I consider successful in each their own rights and for different reasons altogether and who have, as far as I can tell (No one is an angel!) exhibited the right moral behavior to get there. 1. Entrepreneurial Success - Richard Branson (Serial entrepreneur, socialite, fun person, genius) - Jeff Koons (Art-impresario, multi-millionaire, genius) - Steven Levitt (Genius, curious mind, Richard Feynman of our age) 2. Financial Success (Having created financial empires) - Warren Buffet 3. Creative Success (Having created empires from their imagination) - Jim Henson - Jeff Koons - Walt Disney - Brian Eno 4. Cultural Success (Having influenced culture as a whole and millions of individuals) - Stewart Brand - Buddha - Joseph Beuys Note, for example, that Steve Jobs is not on any of the lists. It’s because he didn’t make it for the following reasons. Surely he is on-par with the financial and entrepreneurial success of Warren Buffet and Richard Branson BUT I am not convinced of the moral soundness of his person. My criteria for my list of aspirational persons of interest include empathy (Did/does this person make the impression of being interested in the emotional well-being of others?), approachability (Did/does this person make the impression one could, given the right circumstances, have a great conversation with them?), relaxedness (How effortless does this person come across?) etc. You should of course have your own list of criteria to filter these people by. My next step with this list is to get to know those better that I only know vaguely right now. For me that’ll be Warren Buffett and Walt Disney about who I barely know anything. That’s my homework for the coming days. - Who are/were they? - What motivated them? - What does their outlook on life look like? - What can I learn from them? - Are/were they happy with their success? - How do/did they use their success and power for the greater good? - What is their legacy? **Topic #2 Working Remote** The second topic today is the fact that I’ve been in Berlin, as you know, for the past 3 weeks and that I am part of the founding team of VA, as you know, which is based in New York. The challenge for me this month has been to be physically and psychologically here (Berlin) while at the same time maintaining my connection abroad with Valerie, Adrian, Lily and Sandip. **_Daily Standup Meeting_** So far, I’ve been able to make almost every scheduled standup meeting with the VA  team by using Google Hangouts video and audio conferencing. **On a technical level…** **Google Hangouts** The experience so far has been good and I would say that Google Hangouts is superior to using Skype, the quality is better and group-calls are easy to set up. So, if you find yourself working from a different location than your team (different time-zone optional) definitely give Google Hangouts a spin. With Google Hangouts I recommend to try 1. to join an ongoing call 2. to create a group-call yourself 3. to switch between video and audio 4. to experiment with headphones and built-in mic and speakers 5. to stand up while video-calling and adjust your laptop accordingly **Slack** Lily introduced Slack the day she joined the team and we have been using it everyday successfully. I am mentioning Slack as part of Standup because we use it to sync up before the meeting every day. If someone can’t make it or will be late, Slack is our channel to let everyone know. **On a personal level…** I love regular check-ins. I think they’re absolutely crucial for team dynamics and morale. But I also think _really_ staying in touch without seeing each other in person is hard. If you look at the 80/20 rule, I suggest that doing remote stand ups with Google Hangout and Slack covers… 50% of what needs to be conveyed. BUT using these tools is still a 100% improvement over using only email. Team communication, nay, communication in general is so important and so multi-faceted, that technology is merely a temporary substitute. Could you stay productive and in-tune as a team for a month while everyone works from different places? Yes, definitely. Could you run an organization consistently with everyone being in different locations and only do in-person meetings once in a while. No, definitely not. – So, that’s it for today! That’s my report of this transcontinental cybernetic communication experiment. I hope you found an inspiration or two and please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below! Sincerely, Alexis PS: I found this article today on BLOOMBERG [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014–05–28/to-make-killing-on-wall-street-start-meditating.html](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014–05–28/to-make-killing-on-wall-street-start-meditating.html) and am now thinking of creating a list of efficient meditations. **Any modalities (Increase focus, reduce stress, reduce anxieties, augment depression) that you would find interesting in particular?**