Free for ALL Friday (Life Story Magic edition)!
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! You’ll find this week’s links below. But first, I have an update/offer/opportunity …
Life Story Magic — and Mother’s Day
Mother’s Day is a week from Sunday, and readers have asked if I’m doing another round of Life Story Magic promotions, since (look at me, all marketer and sales-y right off) … “it makes the perfect gift!”
The answer is yes — but carefully. Here’s where things stand.
Life Story Magic has grown and improved since we launched in December:
Deeper interviews. I started out thinking 1-hour interviews would be the standard. Instead, my record so far is 3 hours (counting the pre-interview). I’m not promising that — sometimes it’s closer to the original plan — but I keep talking, and so does everyone I interview. I take that as a good sign.
Better tech. The videos, the transcription, the editing — all of it keeps getting better even in a few short months. The technology keeps improving and I keep learning. We’ve also started producing short social-media-style reels from the interviews.
Amazing stories. I believe everybody has a fascinating story, especially when someone takes the time to listen and ask the right questions.
These interviews are private, but speaking broadly, we have people who've built businesses … raised families … left for new countries … swam the English Channel (I didn’t see that one coming!) … created inventions … fought in wars …
I’ve talked with children of Holocaust survivors and interviewed a 97-year-old woman who — counting children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and now great-great-grandchildren — has nearly 100 living direct descendants.
I’ve had the humbling and moving experience of interviewing people who knew that because of medical reasons, they didn’t have long left to live. And, I’m pretty sure I’m going to break the record at some point for “most nonagenarians interviewed at length on video.”
Secret code: ‘UNDERSTANDABLY’
Close to 100 of you took me up on Life Story Magic during the first time around.
I’ve gotten through almost all of them. (If you bought and haven’t scheduled yet — no worries, your order never expires, and I’m here whenever you’re ready.)
If December was our “alpha” stage, we’re somewhere in “beta” now, and we’re growing. But, I’m being very deliberate about the pace.
Since you’re reading Understandably, I know that (a) you appreciate the importance of good stories, and (b) you’re part of the group that has genuinely sustained me from the beginning.
So you get first crack—and a special offer.
Use code UNDERSTANDABLY at checkout for an extra $100 off the already-reduced Mother’s Day sale price of $399 (regular $499) um … let’s say for the next 20 people who take me up on it.
This special pricing — $299 with the code, in case I made that too confusing — won’t last forever. So if you’re interested I hope you’ll check it out.
Thanks for reading, as always — and for being the kind of people who care about stories worth telling.
Free for ALL Friday
With that … It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I’ve found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
How YouTube Took Over the American Classroom
Parents find their kids captive to the video streaming site on their school-issued devices; for one, it was 13,000 YouTube videos in three months
American public schools are awash in YouTube. The Google-owned video platform has become a go-to educational resource for teachers, with students watching videos on topics ranging from photosynthesis to the Pythagorean theorem. But schools’ overreliance on the platform for educational content has created a gateway for students to get sucked into an infinite scroll of videos on school-issued devices. Parents are discovering that their children are watching thousands of videos during school hours—many of them having nothing to do with their lessons.
Link: Wall Street Journal (Multiple reporters)
How AI’s Threat to Entry-Level Jobs Is Turning Gen Z Into ‘Generation Entrepreneur’
As AI erases the bottom rungs of the corporate ladder, some gen Z workers skip the entry level to become their own CEOs
“There is no guaranteed outcome with any job,” said Shola West, 25, a media consultant. “Working for yourself at least allows you some control over your fate.” West is part of a growing cohort of gen Z workers who are bypassing traditional entry-level positions and starting their own businesses instead. As artificial intelligence automates tasks that once belonged to junior employees, young workers are concluding that the corporate ladder they were promised may no longer exist.
Link: The Guardian (Multiple reporters)
How to Prepare for a Longer Life
We asked Times readers to share their best advice for a safe, satisfying and financially comfortable life — no matter how old you are or how long you live
How long will you live? How much money will you need to maintain a comfortable lifestyle? Should you worry about the kids? Should you downsize? What happens if you get sick? Clearly, the questions are on the minds of New York Times readers, who responded enthusiastically to a call to share their best advice for heading into their later years. Below is a sampling of the hundreds of responses to a questionnaire to readers, requesting their stories and best advice to others for meeting their goals. One responder put it succinctly: “Live, laugh and love, but do so within your means.”
Link: New York Times (Multiple reporters)
Homebuyers Are Sitting Out the Key Season for Real Estate Deals
Higher mortgage rates, economic uncertainty and uneven supply are weighing on the market
Would-be buyers such as Nic Parés, a 37-year-old IT worker in the Austin area, are growing increasingly frustrated. He and his wife have been looking to buy their first home together since the start of the year, but after a jump in borrowing costs they’ve had to reduce their budget by about $100,000. They’re now “sitting tight” in their rental while they wait for the market to improve. “There was an enthusiasm and energy coming into the season and then the mortgage picture changed and we had to readjust,” Parés said. “There are properties that probably check all of our boxes of things that we want that we’re now priced out of.”
Link: Wall Street Journal (Multiple reporters)
Trinidad Chambliss Is Making Millions Playing College Football. The NCAA Wants to Stop Him.
The 23-year-old star quarterback talks to Vanity Fair about his landmark legal case, his coaches past and present, and his upcoming season at Ole Miss
Five years ago, his car could have warranted an NCAA investigation, and his agent—just the fact of having one—would have immediately ended Chambliss’s college career. Now, the most shocking thing is that his vehicle is so modest—and that, rather than enter the NFL draft, he is heading into his sixth year of college. He’ll make more money for the upcoming season than he would have in two years as a late second-round pick, where experts projected his selection in this year’s draft would be.
Link: Vanity Fair (Multiple reporters) Backup: https://archive.ph/xBXRS
Bringing the Flatiron Building’s Showpiece Door Back to Life
The revolving door’s inventor built this one over 100 years ago. It was reinstalled this week
At the headquarters of the International Revolving Door Company in Evansville, Ind., tens of thousands of hand-drawn specifications rendered on onion skin paper in the beginning of the 20th century preserve the early history of a once-novel invention: the original 1888 revolving door.
Somewhere, presumably, in those documents are the specs for the original door at the northeast corner of Fifth Avenue and East 22nd Street, at the base of the Flatiron Building, which was installed in the 1910s.
But those specifications are nowhere to be found, said Joshua Kratochvil, the International Revolving Door Company’s eloquent and earnest 34-year-old co-owner — a problem as his company had been tasked with restoring that door in time for springtime installation.
Link: New York Times (Multiple reporters)
I Was a Professional Fairy. The Kids Made the Job Magical – But the Adults Could Be a Nightmare
My special skills included driving a small car filled with helium balloons, memorising children’s names – and tolerating parents’ behaviour
From the age of 16 to 22, I was a children’s entertainer. Most often a fairy, sometimes a witch, ballerina, princess or mermaid – with conspicuous legs underneath her tail. One time, hilariously, a ladybug.
The hourly rate was excellent, the costumes were cute and the tiny customers even cuter. My special skills were memorising every child’s name, preparing hundreds of fairy-bread triangles, vacuuming a party space in full costume, singing while I applied sparkles to the eyelids of my pint-size revellers, and driving a small hatchback car filled with 50 bubblegum-pink helium balloons.
Oh, and the position required a strong tolerance for the behaviour of parents.
Link: The Guardian (Kate Leaver)
And, just in case you got so into Free for ALL Friday that you forgot about Life Story Magic … Don’t forget to use code UNDERSTANDABLY at checkout!