I don’t limit my knowledge source to a specific country or group of people. However, in the last couple of years, I got so much wisdom & inspiration from a handful of people. When I look at them, I found a very interesting commonality: They are all Canadian
Let me start with my very first Canadian: Shane Perrish. I discovered Farnam Street in early 2017 with his podcast with Naval. After that, I became an avid reader of his blog and followed anything related to him. I enrolled in the “Art of Reading and Decision by Design” courses. And The Great Mental Models Series are phenomenal work. Everything they do with Farnam Streets helps people like me learn from people who already figured it out. Also, paying forward to the Farnam Street crowd, I am actively participating in their learning community.
Chamath Phalihatpiya. I tried to write something about him in this blog and following all his SPACs activities as much as I can since early this year. A couple of months ago, I tried to reach out to his firm Social Capital to help them make a better investment decision through my companies and expertise. I had a couple of meetings with his partner. I really believe in his mission. But, the most important thing in my case I like his simple, clear statements. Those really resonate with me.
Neil Pasricha. I read his “You are Awesome” book and started my daily blog literally a year ago. Before his very first book, he wrote 1000 consecutive days his blog to find “Awesomeness” in his life and share his experience. Later I read all his books and try to understand him well. Now, I’m a huge fan of his 3books podcast. Almost every book (Guests are sharing their top 3 the most formative books in their life) mentioned that podcasts I either purchased or added my own wish list. I dream myself to be a guest one day on his podcast. The problem is my most formative books were already mentioned, so he should not hurry up to invite me till I found new formative books:)
Andrew Wilkinson. His early career with his design agency is pretty much similar to how I started MobileAction. Later he stayed in that business as a cash generator and either invest or acquired related business he wanted to grow. He started Tiny Capital( Berkshire Hathaway for Tech companies). I picked a different route, raised capital, and scale my agency business as a SaaS company. I think he and I can be a good friend. We have so many common experiences as far as I think that way. Lately, with Wecommerce (start, buy, and invest in the world’s top Shopify businesses), it is definitely something I am thinking a lot for the same model for the App Store ecosystem.
These four Canadians are really has a huge impact on my last couple of years. I didn’t meet any of them in person. We exchanged a couple of tweets and emails with some of them. Still, Canada is a compelling spot for me. Maybe their European values and North American drive something else. I love my Canadians and love to explore opportunities in Canada near future.