Hi everyone!

A warm welcome to the 100+ of you who've joined since last Tuesday. We're now 1,746 strong & I hope to close off the year with 2,000 subscribers. If you enjoy reading BrainPint, it would make me so happy if you share about this with your friends or tweet about it.

This week I'm sharing about career lessons, sales 101, why being a lazy person can be a good thing & how to buy gifts people actually want. Plus an array of useful tools as usual. Let's dive in.

With gratitude,
Janel

The benefits of laziness: why being a lazy person can be good for you

Anne-Laure explains how laziness can be beneficial. Some standouts:

• Lazy solutions can be smart - I really dislike doing manual & repetitive stuff, so I've tried to streamline a lot of my processes so that I don't have to keep spending hours doing the same things
• Lazy time encourages diffuse thinking -  Our brains have two modes. Diffuse + Focused. We need to oscillate between the two to effectively learn. P.S. Check out Learning How To Learn, a free course that dives into greater detail. 
• Unproductive time helps us manage our stress - Take time to recalibrate, recover & keep those stress levels down.

Create proof points to show evidence of your work
If you're trying to break into a new industry or niche, create proof points for yourself. "Proof points are pieces of evidence that show, not tell, that you've been doing the job unofficially." Your portfolio says a lot more than a paper resume.

12 Career Lessons
Some interesting career lessons that I found via Out of Curiosity. Three lessons that stuck:

• Compete against yourself rather than with others. The trick is not to try to better than everyone but to be better every day than the day before.
• Who you work for is critical so choose your boss well. Work for someone who inspires you. Work with someone who will lift you up and give you opportunities to learn & grow.
  
• Unlearn. Transform. Re-Invent. You're never too cool or too experienced to learn new things.

Social Strikes Back by a16z
A series about how social networks are transforming consumer tech. Read about the power of social, the fastest growing apps & new monetization models.

A Million Dollar Domain Hobby
An interesting story of how someone spotted an opportunity, wrote some scripts and went from beginner to a pro in domain flipping. (Fun fact: I own 11 domains and use ~half of them)

What's a VPN?
Learn what a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is, how it works & what it's used for.

Sales for Beginners: The Best Articles and Expert Resources
A long list of sales resources for anyone who wants to become better at selling. A sales 101 of sorts from the good folks at Morning Brew.

How To Buy Gifts That People Actually Want
Improve your gift-giving game by being aware of common mistakes. It's better to buy something useful than something that "wows" your recipient.

"When people give gifts, they typically want to nail 1 or more of these:

• Surprise (the wow factor)
• Desirability (the clout factor)
• Materiality (the price tag)
• Social responsibility (looking virtuous)
  

But gift receivers are looking for:

• Usefulness (can I do something with it?)
• Versatility (can I do a variety of things with it?)
• Quality (is it well made/going to last?)
• Stuff they've asked for (did I actually say I want this?)

Answer Socrates - Find out what people are asking on Google, for free. This can be used for research, content marketing & SEO. Another free alternative is Answer The Public, but I think Answer Socrates is superior.

Integromat* - Automate the boring & repetitive stuff using this tool that connects between many apps. How do I use this? I send Google Analytics to Slack, send documents uploaded on Slack to a Google Drive folder, back up my email subscriber list and a lot more. Free plan available, with paid plans starting from $9/month. Super affordable compared to Zapier. *aff link

ListenLater.fm - A read-it-later service that turns the articles you send it into a private audio podcast. Listen to articles you don’t have time to read.

Polotno - Free web app to make graphic designs. A hustle-free alternative to canva.com and crello.com. No signups, no ads.

Visualize Value - I recently joined the Visualize Value community and am wowed by the number of creative minds building digital businesses. The content in the Visualize Value vault is also staggering. If you want to learn more about building a brand, design, unlocking leverage on the Internet, and how to build once, and sell twice (productizing yourself), follow Jack.

Brain Drops - A collection of over 2,800 brilliant quotes from 220 non-fiction books in a digital book. Get it for free, and pay it forward with an act of kindness.

Date Night Questions - Fun questions & conversational kickstarters for your next date night, or gatherings between friends.

Are you good at recognizing faces? Do this test to find out.