“Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something, we don’t go from wrong to right, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. We are always in the process of approaching truth without actually ever reaching it“.

This isn’t something I came up with, unfortunately. It comes from the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. Nonetheless, I have fully embraced this approach since a long time. This is what drives me in life: learn new things in order to go back sleeping at night slightly less uneducated and ill-informed.

6 years ago, when I was still playing Poker, I realized that despite having a rather decent level to make money, my biggest issue was my mental (Mostly due to playing long hours, swings, bad hygiene of life etc). Back then, I decided to read a book written by Tommy Angelo, called Elements of Poker. The book helped me tremendously, and until today I vividly remember one of the parts saying that “you don’t become the best, but you become a better version of yourself” and in order to achieve that, you have to work hard and make peace with yourself.  Until today, I still try to do that: becoming a better version of myself.

Another piece that had a massive impact on me is the famous “Stay hungry, stay foolish” speech by Steve Jobs. I am not a fan of the late Steve Jobs, but I have a colossal respect for what he achieved, his vision, guts and how he turned over some desperate situations. This speech hits home, I would like to always stay hungry, stay foolish. I want to learn more, to try new things, to experiment.

During this past year, I have decided to take time and work some of my weak areas. I feel that I learned a lot through my work, but mostly through personal ventures. This process of self-actualization and self-questioning pushed me out of my comfort zone. The current result of this is that I became more level-headed, knowledgeable, but mostly much more open minded and constructive.  However, I feel that I’m far from where I want and need to be: I still have a long way to go. To achieve this, I wasn’t on my own: I had the beauty of Internet helping me.

 

I have decided to create a list of persons/sites that helped me learn and grow. Those are resources I read on an almost daily basis. It does seem to be a lot, but due to the way I work (Pomodoro Technique) and my sleeping schedule; I am able to squeeze in a lot of it during a day.

Note: I’m not going to give links to Reddit, even though it’s a good source. The main reason is that it’s too toxic, and I’d prefer to spare you this. Same goes with Youtube, as the list will be endless. Last but not least, I also decided to not give links pertaining to my other centers of interest, such as Anime & Manga, NBA, Football etc.

 

Communication, Advertisement & PR

• Thomas Bidaux: ICO Partners CEO. A well of knowledge when it comes down to PR Intelligence/Big Data, but also crowd funding. (Also, the official provider of my graphs when I do analytical posts).
• Dear PR: The bio is self-explanatory: A journalist letting the public relations industry know how they can do a better job—one tweet at a time.”
• Thomas Reisenegger: Freelance PR manager who used to work for ICO Partners. He gives a lot of tips & tricks
• Adweek: They describe themselves as “The leading source for news, insight and community for marketers, media and agencies.”. I mostly use it to see what is done in Marketing/advertisement, and what to avoid
• Ogilvy PR: Twitter feed of PR/Influencers agency. They are well known for using the “Twin Peaks” approach in their projects.
• PR Daily: A lot of resources on how to get better at PR/Marketing, but also news from the PR industry.
• SpinSucks: Among my favorites, mostly due to this and this.
• Creapills: a lot of creative content in there (In French sometimes)

 

General knowledge:

• Bill Gates: my model.
• Warren Buffet: my model 2. He doesn’t tweet, but if he does, I’m sure it will be awesome, so I’m still following him.
• Naval Ravikant: CEO & Founder of AngelList. Invested in a lot of unicorns. A lot of things he says are too complicated for me to understand, but that is fine: I get out of my comfort zone and it reminds me how far from my goal I am. This talk on reading, happiness, decision making etc. is mind blowing.
• Mungerisms: an account ran by the folks of Farnam Street. A lot of wise words from Charlie Munger, and other important figures/investors of our time.
• Farnam Street Blog: originally created as a side project by Shane Parrish, it’s nowadays one of the most important blogs when it comes down to mental models, thinking processes or more generally: the art of living. This blog often uses great minds such as Munger, Buffet, Aurelius, Seneca as models/examples.
• TED Talks: You have X mins to kill? Watch a TED Talk.
• Harvard Business Review: My favourite source of content to learn, grow and become better.
• Tech in Asia: A good feed to follow what’s going on in the SEA region in terms of Tech.
• Recode: excellent source regarding tech news. Important: I also appreciate the fight they are putting to defend women in tech.
• VentureBeat: “Tech news that matter” says their bio. I agree… to a certain extent. Just like every site, some of the content won’t be for you.
• The Next Web: Their twitter bio sets the tone quite properly “Your source for opinionated perspectives on tech news for Generation T“. Sometimes I absolutely don’t agree with their takes on certain matters, and that’s probably why I also like this site.
• The Player’s Tribune: created by the baseball legend, Derek Jeter, this website gives a platform to retired and current athletes. As someone who loves long form reads, this is an absolute blast. It’s much different than what we can see nowadays in sports content/reporting (clickbaity articles, tons of ads disrupting your read etc.)
• Forbes Leadership: despite the awful and meddling Ads, Forbes is still a solid source of content. Their “leadership” section is curating content for every aspect of the business and leadership lives.
• Fast Co Leadership: same idea, different content
• Business Insider Strategy: All things business. Their ads are slightly annoying, but that’s the price.
• Internet of shit: funny feed for… well.

Not that I became a Monk or a Zen guru; I’m far from it. But I have a growing interest in the topic of Zen and Stoicism. On top of books or articles, I am following/reading several feeds allowing me to find new content and books:

• Zen Proverbs
• Daily Zen
• Daily Ethic
• Daily Stoic
• Zen Essentials

 

Gaming Industry 

• Gamasutra: Excellent site dealing with all things business and art in the video games industry.
• GamesIndustry.biz: All things business.
• MCV Online: ditto. Slightly focusing on UK.
• Geoff Keighley: Producer of the Games Awards and E3 Coliseum. Worked for various news outlets prior to that. In all honesty, I recently started to read and watch his content again as I changed my mind about what he produces.
• Pocket Gamer Biz: Interested in the mobile gaming industry? Go there.
• Glixel: video games arm of the Rolling Stones site/magazine. A lot of long forms and well-researched content.
• Polygon: I go there only for their long form content as it is stellar. Two examples: Final Fantasy 7: an Oral History and Street Fighter 2: An Oral History. Those two pieces are easily in my top5 favourite articles ever.
• GiantBomb: Quality podcasts, discovered them through a friend – no regrets.
• Develop Online: Content & news around the “development” side of games, rather than marketing.
• SteamSpy: Created by Sergey Galyonkin. This tool gives a lot of insights on each of the games released on STEAM.
• Rami Ismail: Co founder of Vlambeer. He spends a lot of time helping smaller developers, communities. His work to help the others is tremendous. Moreover, he is a vocal supporter of women, diversity and is very level headed.
• NintendoEverything: Welp. The name says it all.
• Serebii.net: One of the biggest Pokémon fan sites. Created almost 20y ago by Joe Merrick.
• Nibellion:  meme master. Aside from that, he does post a lot of content pertaining to newly announced games or trending content. A good source for gaming in all forms.
• VOOK64: Aussie guy reporting Nintendo news.
• Shinobi602: reputable insider in the industry, but also a massive game junkie. His blog is pretty awesome too.
• Wario64: Tweets info about games, trailers, deals, jokes. I thought it was a bot at first.
• Dom’s Playing: Awesome account if you are into data.
• ZhugeEX: Awesome account if you are into data².  Dad jokes. Aside from that, his knowledge and insights on the Chinese market are pure gold.
• Oscar Lemaire: French journalist, writer, analyst. Solid content, plus he just wrote a book about Zelda.
• Alex Aniel: Japanese video games industry connoisseur and writer.
• BlackKite: Journalist focusing on Japanese games.
• Serkan Toto: Analyst focusing on Japanese and Asian market. Very knowledgeable.
• Takashi Mochizuki: Journalist for the WSJ, focuses on Tech/Games in Japan.
• Yuji Nakamura: Journalist for the WSJ, focuses on Tech/Games in Japan/Asia.
• Yoko Taro: Producer of  the NieR series. His interviews are legendary. Despite some weirdness here and there, this gentleman is a pure goldmine.
• Neil Druckmann: Creative director on TLOU, Uncharted 4 and TLOU2. Cool dude.
• Phil Spencer: Head of Xbox. The guy who gets most of the heat from ill-advised fans. I highly appreciate Phil Spencer’s open-minded approach to the gaming industry. Plus, he often engages with fans on the platform.
• Shuhei Yoshida: President of Sony Worldwide Studios. Posts lot of content around Sony games and Japanese games.
• Ed Boon: Co-Creator of Mortal Kombat and Creative director of Injustice. His feed is pretty cool as he engages with fans, reveals stuff, and (sometimes) does snarky/sharp comments.
• Hironobu Sakaguchi: Legend.
• 8-4 play: Localisation. Japanese games. Podcasts. A bunch of awesome persons. They did the localisation for NieR Automata and FE Echoes, and if you played those games you probably know how good these persons are at their jobs.
• John Ricciardi: Co founder of 8-4play. Tweets about the Japanese gaming industry, but also life in Tokyo.
• Connor Krammer: Localisation professional. Did a crazy extensive analysis of Persona 5 localisation.
• Clyde Mandelin: Localisation professional, tons of insights on this crazy interesting and complicated job.
• Kantopia: Fire Emblem fan blog. A lot of Japanese articles are translated here.
• Zelda Universe: cool feed to get content (Fanmade, official etc.)
• Gematsu: Website specialised in Japanese games.
• Japanese3ds: Official Twitter account of  www.japanesenintendo.com  covering Nintendo Switch, 3DS, Wii U and Mobile.
• Nindies: Recently launched twitter account focusing on Indies releasing their games on Switch.
• Game Data Library: Focusing on Japanese gaming industry Data.
• Nintendo VS: Official feed for all things competitive on Nintendo games.
• KazHiraiCEO: Memeology 101. Pretty solid parody account.
• Porygon: ditto

 

Retrogaming & Art

• John Andersen: an archivist! Unearths forgotten content pertaining to Japanese companies. Must follow.
• Ninty Memories: a gold mine of Nintendo artifacts.
• shmuplations: Mostly focuses on retro gaming interviews and their translations. Doesn’t post as often as I’d love to…
• Florent Gorges: One of the biggest Nintendo/Japanese industry connoisseur in France.
• GameHistory.org: Nonprofit preserving the history of video games, one byte at a time.
• Jaz Rignall: Oldschool writer. Tons of cool content from early days of gaming.
• Gaming Historian: my favourite gaming channel.
• Edward Ez: same, but in French.
• VGDensetsu: you dig cool art? Go there, pronto
• Cool Box Art: you dig cool art? Go there, pronto 2
• VGAOfficialArt: you dig cool art? Go there, pronto 3
• VideoGamesArt&Tidbits: you dig cool art? Go there, pronto 4
• 8bit Porn: I know, the name is slightly… well… but it’s SFW, you have my word. PINKY PROMISE.
• On This Day Gaming: for nostalgia (and remembering that we are growing old, quickly)

 

esports

• ESPN Esports: I end up having to disagree with the kind of content they post (lots of rumours, false reports, click baity content), but they are the biggest out there.
• Slingshot Esports: Stories, news and culture from the world of esports.
• Esports Insider: Business news from esports.
• Dot Esports: Solid content overall.
• Twitch esports: for all your streaming needs.
• Paul “Redeye” Chaloner: Legend in the esports industry.  Brings a lot of insight to the table about the organization, production and hosting side of things.
• Scott “SirScoot” Smith: Legend in the esports industry. Well known as someone who works hard to give the players’ more rights and stability.
• Back2Warcraft: yes, WC3 is still alive and kicking in overseas thanks to this small but strong community!

 

I realize that there is a lot of content above and I forced myself to not share ALL the links.

I hope that you liked these, if you feel that I’m missing something, please let me know! Would love to discover some more.

 

Rachid