Niall Doherty's Blog, page 192

December 29, 2018

The Classified Method

This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.

I call this the Classified Method because it involves finding clients via the modern-day equivalent of newspaper classified ads.


That is: online job boards.


The biggest and most popular online job board for freelancers is Upwork.com.


Here’s what I recommend you do on Upwork.com to find your first clients:



Create a profile and get it approved
Search for high-quality jobs that interest you
Apply for those jobs (aim for at least 20)

Yes, that is really simplifying things, but it’s all you really need to get started.


And to help speed up this process I recommend you check out two guides I wrote about Upwork:



How To Find The Best Jobs On Upwork (5 Flags Method)

That guide will help you ensure you’re not wasting your time applying for crappy jobs, because there are a lot of crappy jobs posted on Upwork and you have to filter heavily to get to the good stuff.



4 Proven Upwork Proposal Templates To Save You Time And Win More Jobs

That one will help you craft really good proposals really fast, so you can apply for more jobs on Upwork and thereby have a better chance of getting hired.


Upwork Tip

One additional tip I’ll give you for Upwork before we wrap up.


When you’re creating and sending pitches, as much as possible, include a relevant sample of your work.


If you put yourself in a client’s shoes for a minute, and imagine you’re hiring a freelancer off Upwork, what would be your biggest concern, your biggest fear?


Your biggest fear would be that you’ll hire someone who proves to be incompetent and fails to deliver the work.


As a freelancer, you can TELL clients that you can do great work for them, but it’s much more powerful to actually SHOW them.


And you do that with samples of your work.


So:



If you’re applying for a writing job on Upwork, include a relevant writing sample in your pitch.
If you’re applying for a graphic design job, include a relevant piece of graphic design work you’ve done.
If you’re applying for a web design job, include a link to a website you’ve built.

Now of course, if you don’t already have those samples created, you’re probably not going to be able to create them along with doing everything else we’ve talked about this weekend, but that’s something you should be creating and adding to your arsenal going forward.


So that’s the third method in our step-by-step plan to find your first clients: Set up a profile on Upwork.com and apply for at least 20 jobs on there.


That is the Classified Method.


This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.

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Published on December 29, 2018 17:35

The Door-To-Door Method

This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.

To show you how this method works, let me tell you about Karl.


Karl is a freelance writer. He spent a few hours doing the Door-To-Door Method and shared his results with me:



As you can see there, after just a few hours of using this method, Karl had landed two paying gigs and had a lead on several more.


You can do the same thing this weekend.


Here’s how you do it.


First, sit down and make a list of at least 50 people you know and who know you.


You’re going to make that list, and then you’re going to spend a couple of hours reaching out to those people individually. You’re going to tell them what service you’re offering and ask if they have a need for that service or can put you in touch with someone who does.


I call this the Door-To-Door Method because you’re doing the technological equivalent of going around your neighborhood and knocking on doors to try drum up business.


Kinda like Jack Nicholson in The Shining…



But, you know, without trying to murder anyone.


So again, there are two key parts to this method:



Making the list
Reaching out

There are some very important nuances to both of those, so let’s run through them quickly.


Making The List

Ideally, the people on your list should:



Like and trust you.

Because it’s much easier to sell your services to, or recruit help from, people who already like and trust you. So only reach out to people who you’re already on good terms with.



Be people you are in frequent contact with.

You don’t want to be reaching out to people you haven’t been in contact with for several months or even years. If you do that, they’re likely to think to themselves, “Oh, I see how it is. You only contact me when you need a favor.”


If you’re not very good at keeping in touch with people, then I recommend you get good at it. Because as a friend of mine likes to say, business is a game of relationships. The person with the best relationships, with the most high-quality relationships, has a massive advantage.



Be business owners (or be able to connect you with business owners).

Your ideal clients will usually be business owners, for the simple reason that they are going to be much more professional, and they’re going to understand the concept of Return On Investment, which means they’ll usually be willing to pay a fair rate for your services.


The alternative is to work for a hobbyist, and hobbyists usually don’t have much skin in the game, they usually don’t have much of a budget, and they’re usually very disorganized.


So aim to connect with business owners as much as possible. You’re a professional, and you want to work with other professionals.


Reaching Out

Once you’ve made a list of 50+ people who fit those criteria, it’s time to start reaching out.


Mostly you’ll want to do this by email (or something like Facebook messenger) so you can get through the entire list in a few hours.


Here’s an email template that you can use to help ensure you get the best response.


Subject: Quick question



Hello Phileas,


I hope all’s well with you.


Any chance you could do me a small favor?


The past few months I’ve been working and studying hard to become a web designer. I’m at the point now where I feel confident in taking on some clients and providing a great service.


Here’s where you come in:


Can you think of anyone who might require help building a website? And if so, would you be willing to connect me with them?


Of course, if you ever need help with that kind of thing yourself, I’d be happy to lend a hand

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Published on December 29, 2018 17:28

The Billboard Method

This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.

Before I show you how this works, you need to know about Molly.


Molly is a young lady from the UK I met through a mutual friend last year when I was spending a couple of weeks in Chiang Mai in Thailand.



We went out for a group dinner – photographed above – and Molly was a friend of a friend who came along and we ended up sitting next to each other. (She’s third from the right in the photo, and I’m on the far right there with the big mad head on me.)


During that dinner Molly told me that just a year earlier she was stranded in rural India with no online business and only £17 left in her bank account.


And then she used the Billboard Method.


A few days later she had over £1000 in her bank account.


When I met her in Thailand, only twelve months later, she was still going strong. She had become fully location independent, thanks to her thriving online business.


So what is this Billboard Method that Molly used to break through and earn £1000 in less than a week?

Well, I call it the Billboard Method because the basic idea is that you put up a nice billboard advertising your availability for online freelance work, and you display it in a public place where lots of people are likely to see it.


Now clearly putting up a traditional billboard…


Like this

…clearly that is not realistic. 1


What we’re talking about here is the online equivalent of a traditional billboard.


Which is, as you can probably guess: social media.


Places like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram, with all their traffic, are the online equivalent of busy streets and highways.


And your posts on there are like billboards.


And that’s what Molly used to find her first clients and earn more than £1000 online in less than a week… it was all down to a single post on social media.


In her case, it was Facebook, and she kindly shared with me a screenshot of that post:


Find Freelance Clients: Molly Facebook post


Now I don’t recommend you copy that word for word, but here a few things from it that are worth emulating:



Molly included a nice photo of herself, making it much more personable and attention-grabbing.
The post was friendly and informal. Even though she only had £17 left in her bank account, she didn’t come across desperate or looking for a favor. Instead she came across as a friendly freelancer offering her services to folks on Facebook.
The post was short and sweet. She stated what service she had to offer, noted that her prices were competitive, and told anyone interested to get in touch.

That’s it.


So the first thing you’re going to do as part of our step-by-step plan to find your first clients is post something similar to Molly on whichever social network you’re most active on.


Post it up there, then wait and see who expresses interest in working with you.


That is the Billboard Method and it’s something you can do in 20 minutes or less, including the time required to take a nice friendly photo of yourself.


This is one of many ways to get clients for your freelance business. See the full list here.

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Published on December 29, 2018 16:57

December 18, 2018

DtR Weekly #9














DtR Weekly
Lots of remote jobs + $500k freelance gigs





















by Niall Doherty








Hey there,


Hope you’re doing well. Here are a few online business bits and pieces to finish out the year…


Freelance Hacking = Big Money
According to this article, freelance hackers are being paid as much as $500,000 per year to test the defenses of companies like Tesla. Of course, it takes decades to get to that level of income, but if ethical hacking sounds interesting to you here’s a highly rated $11 course on Udemy to get you started.


Make Friends With People Who Get Paid
My favorite part of this article: “Just as you should emulate successful people in your early days, you should also befriend as many people who actually get paid as you can. […] Befriending people gives you access to information which narrows the mistakes you can make and helps you avoid obvious blunders.”


Find A Remote Job
Taylor from RemoteLikeMe.com is sharing links to loads remote job boards via her mailing list in the lead up to Christmas. Here are a few that seem especially juicy so far:



Borderless Jobs (Facebook page)
Remote 4 Me (aggregates 20+ remote job boards)
Work From Home (Facebook group)

Top 100
Speaking of remote jobs, Forbes has put together this list of the top 100 companies you can work for remotely, which includes big names like Amazon, Dell and Xerox. Number one on the list is VIPKID, who will pay you $14-22/hour to teach English online.


Someone Would Probably Pay You To Do This
Keep an eye out for articles like this: 23 Restaurant Marketing Tips & The Instagram Ads That Will Make You Drool. Any time you see something like that, you should be thinking… hmm, I wonder if I could find someone willing to pay me to implement those tips for their business.


Thanks for reading.


I’m taking a break from these emails until January. Happy holidays to ya, and I’ll see you in 2019.


– Niall Doherty




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Published on December 18, 2018 05:37

December 15, 2018

Momentos






These are my Momentos, vignettes I write daily and publish twice a month. They’re incredibly self-indulgent and I’m surprised anyone reads them. There’s one for every day since February 27, 2013.

Full archive here






1

Off a call with an old friend there, his online business has exploded the past 18 months or so. Talking 10x revenue, up to $40k/month now. Asked if he’d be down for an interview but he’d rather his competition doesn’t know what he’s doing. Understandable. Has me buzzing though, wondering if I should take a similar path.


2

Well fuck, it’s 24 hours later and I’m rethinking my entire business. Had a plan for the new year but it’s complex and not all that exciting to me. Whereas my friend’s approach is much simpler and more appealing. Not easy, by any means, and it would likely take several months to see any significant return, but I’m having a hard time convincing myself it wouldn’t work.


3

I’ve now talked with three trusted friends and savvy business owners and can’t find a good reason not to do this. So I’m doing it. Will have to quit the daily Facebook Live videos though, take a short break from YouTubing, might have to let a few other things drop as well. Focus, focus, focus. Can’t make this happen without prolonged, laser-like focus.


4

Almost nine in the evening, sitting at a street side food truck, waiting to be served pad thai by a chap with an impressive mustache. Today was a good day. Eased into it, couple of hours of client work, lots of planning for the new project, nice chat with a friend I hadn’t met yet, gifted a free pass at the coworking, and quality time with my favorite lady.


5

Napoleon Hill, the mad yoke, once said that “in every adversity lies the seed of an equal or greater opportunity” I reckon the reverse is also true: In every opportunity lies the seed of an equal or greater adversity. In other words, every gift can be a curse. For example, I love to help people, but sometimes I jump in to help so readily that I deprive them of the opportunity to help themselves.


6

Off a three-hour coaching call and I can walk a minute down the street, cough up $9, and promptly enjoy an hour-long massage at one of the best rated places in town. Mind has been racing lately with the new thing, finding it hard to sleep, so having this kind of service on my doorstep is a godsend.


7

“The first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ’em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models. You may have noticed students who just try to remember and pound back what is remembered. Well, they fail in school and in life.” – Charlie Munger


8

On a visa run to Myanmar, get stuck beside a Canadian lady, super loud and enthusiastic about everything. I’m really not in the mood, so I try to be short with her so she’ll stop talking to me. I fail miserably. Even though there’s zero negative consequence to this lady thinking I’m rude – I’m actually far more likely to get what I want if she does – I can’t stop myself responding pleasantly to her conversation.


9

The inner walls of the White Temple might be more spectacular than anything you see outside, and that’s saying something. To the east, as you enter, are scenes of death and destruction… and superheroes and cartoon characters, the world coming to an end while we’re distracted by pop culture. The west wall is peaceful, a meditating Buddha representing self-awareness, compassion, restraint.


10

My wheels have been spinning like mad the past ten days, diving deep on this new project, planning, researching, strategizing. Sleep hasn’t been great, hard to shut down at night, and I wake up mid-thought while it’s still dark out. But that’s okay. Feeling like I’m making good progress. Going to ride this giddy wave as long as I can.


11

I’d spent several months in Chiang Mai before, but the big difference now is I’m with my lady. That solves the biggest frustration I had here in the past: the dating scene. With that no longer a factor I’m appreciating the place a lot more. Warm weather, good food, super low cost of living, all the essentials within walking distance here in the Nimman area…


12

The problem I’m trying to solve: there are so many different ways of making money online that it’s all very confusing and fragmented. Given that, it’s very difficult for a newbie to make a smart decision on how/where to get started. Without a clear view of the online business landscape, how are they supposed to know how best to enter into it?


13

It’s like a big jigsaw, except you’ve lost the box so you’re not sure what the final image is supposed to look like, and each piece is invisible until you snap it into place. Trickier still: the pieces are such that, even when you put one in its proper place, you can’t quite tell if you’ve reached the edge. That might be as far as you can go in that direction. Or there might be plenty more beyond.


14

I haven’t felt this engaged working on something since three years ago when I was building my course. I was putting in serious hours back then, working on it day and night, focused like a tiger on the hunt. This is similar. So many things I considered important a month ago have fallen by the wayside. I sleep less than six hours and find myself tap dancing back to work.


15

Woke up before five again, but that’s okay. Packed my laptop and en route to a 24-hour cafe down the street. I like being out early in the morning, watching the world rub the sleep out of its eyes. I walk past a flock of pigeons pecking at crumbs, a lady frying up some churros, a security guard scooting to work. These are the happiest days of my life.


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Published on December 15, 2018 20:22

December 10, 2018

DtR Weekly #8














DtR Weekly
Super Mario, bluffing clients, and how to retire in 5 years





















by Niall Doherty








Hey there,


Writing to you from a nice coworking space (Hub 53) in Chiang Mai, Thailand.


​​I pay about $0.60 per hour I spend here, which includes all the coffee I can drink

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Published on December 10, 2018 21:33

December 4, 2018

DtR Weekly #7














DtR Weekly
Momentos, pirates and unicycles





















by Niall Doherty








Hey there,


I hope your week is going well. Here are a few things you might be interested in…


November Finance Report
Last month I earned $5,100 and spent $2,972 while spending time in Gran Canaria, Malaga and Chiang Mai. Full details in my latest finance report, including how I saved more than $1,000 on flights from Amsterdam to Bali.


31 logical fallacies in 8 minutes
A nice Irish lady runs through a whole bunch of logical fallacies in this video. You’ll learn, among other things, that pirates don’t prevent global warming.


The Friendship That Made Google Huge
Fascinating long read about two “Level 11” programmers at Google, and how they code together. If you don’t have time to read the whole thing, skip to the section beginning, “In his book…” (Thanks to Dave for sharing.)


Momentos
My latest batch of vignettes, with mentions of lanterns, massage, and the Westboro Baptist Church.


How To Argue Honestly
My latest YouTube video is about “steelmanning” and complements this article I wrote about how to argue honestly.


Are conferences worth your time and money?
In this podcast episode, Mark and Gael from Authority Hacker discuss the pros and cons of attending conferences. Their general rule: Online courses are better value for money until you reach about $4000/month in revenue. Beyond that, it will likely be worth your time to attend the occasional conference.


RTW Unicycle
My buddy Jacob Sokol recently interviewed a lady who is attempting to unicycle around the entire world. Humans are feckin brilliant all the same, aren’t they?


Thanks for reading.


– Niall Doherty




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Let's Do This!



I’ll first send a confirmation email to make sure it’s you

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Published on December 04, 2018 07:51

December 3, 2018

Momentos: November 16th – November 30th, 2018














MOMENTOS
November 16th – November 30th, 2018





















by Niall Doherty








16

We should be wary of certainty. It’s a big messy, complex world we live in, and we barely understand our own simple minds, can barely get ourselves to eat right and exercise regularly. We can never be 100% sure of anything, because there’s always more to learn, always alternative explanations and different perspectives to consider.


17

A one-hour massage costs €8 and leaves me floating. It’s an interesting thing, massage. You pay a stranger to touch your body, sometimes intimately, for pleasure and relaxation. But if that stranger crosses an imaginary line and touches your genitals, well then, that’s something other than massage, isn’t it?


18

Down the rabbit hole this morning, looking up examples of straw-manning and steel-manning. There’s a video of Jordan Peterson being interviewed by Cathy Newman where she straw-mans the shit out of him, twisting and misrepresenting pretty much everything he says. Peterson, in return, delivers a masterclass on how to handle that kind of thing.






Sunday Market in Chiang Mai. Popular as ever.


Posted by Disrupting the Rabblement on Sunday, November 18, 2018



19

Close to feeling like my best self again, after the last few weeks of back pain and other ailments and no schedule and trying to get settled here in Chiang Mai. Today was like a fresh start, with a set schedule, solid deep work sessions, fasting since breakfast, an hour of reading, a stint on the elliptical, bed before ten. Damn it feels good to be a youngster.


20

Met up with a student of my course today in Chiang Mai. Quite the story he has. Home-schooled in the US by super-religious parents – we’re talking Westboro level – kicked out of the house when he was 19 for losing his faith, now 25 and a self-taught web developer enjoying life in Thailand.


21

Fascinating stuff in this book. I’ve long believed there’s a thin line between good and evil, and that we’d all most likely make the “bad” decisions we see others make if we had their same biology, their same history. And it’s easy for one bad decision to become ten. So yeah, this book is affirming all that. Which either makes me smart, or simply susceptible to the same biases the authors describe.






Lights in the sky last night in Chiang Mai. This is the annual Yi Peng festival, which coincides with another festival…


Posted by Niall Doherty on Thursday, November 22, 2018



22

Found a quieter spot here, amidst all the madness. They’ve had to cancel a bunch of flights at the airport. Look up and it’s easy see why. A thousand soft lights floating in the sky. More are constantly being released by people all around. And I’m standing here enjoying the spectacle. The full white moon with all its yellow disciples. And a million smiles down below.


23

Enjoying the group coaching more than I thought I would. Essentially it’s like having a big deep chat with some cool people every two weeks, trying to help them level up or get unstuck. Each session brings new insights, or reminds me of some useful tool or concept I’d forgotten about. Going to try do more of this in 2019, less freelancing.


24

Not happy with my video this week. The topic didn’t test well on Facebook Live but I ran with it anyway, and then I tried to pack way too much in there, resulting in me up until 3am last night trying to get it finished on schedule. Weekend is now shook. Might be worth it if I was happy with how the video itself turned out, but I’m not.






Had a bit of a meetup here in Chiang Mai on Saturday.


Posted by Niall Doherty on Monday, November 26, 2018



25

The problem with the world today is that people think there’s only one problem with the world today. And usually that problem is “out there.” We think to ourselves, “If only those people knew what I know, believed what I believe, understood what I understand, then we’d all be better off.” This is, of course, completely delusional.


26

Recognized myself running into the upper limit problem again today. Been feeling out of sorts lately and I know what I should do to get back on track: a bit of meditation, some free writing, a touch of gratitude, a little planning. Easy stuff. And yet I resist doing those things. Almost like there’s a part of me that enjoys the suffering, the uncertainty, the sadness.


27

Been sitting here trying to write this for several minutes, nothing coming to mind. Well, that’s not true. Plenty of ideas have come to mind, but they all seem shit. They’re not, of course. They just seem that way. Been going through a phase of negativity lately. Hard to shake. Recognizing the negative thoughts as irrational doesn’t always help.


Lunch in Chaing Mai. Cost about $1.22.

Lunch in Chaing Mai. Cost about $1.22.


28

A pattern I’ve noticed when feeling a bit sluggish, going through a downswing: I’m more drawn to things that give me a sense of control, or a sense of comfort. For example, the YouTube channel Rationality Rules. Full of great, thoughtful content, but stuff I’m already predisposed to agree with. Watching those videos makes me feel better, more certain.


29

Regular working folks take vacation. I burn out and spend a week or two feeling lazy and unmotivated. Nah, not really. Just feeling sorry for myself this week, been my least productive for a long while. Definitely needed the rest, and I can take some. The trick is to know which plates to keep spinning, and which to let drop.


30

Closing my course tonight. Not many people have signed up before the deadline, and that’s fine. If anything it confirms that I’m doing the right thing, that it’s time to move on. Been thinking how I spent 3.5 years doing my no-fly RTW trip, and I’ve spent the 3.5 years since that ended building and running this course. Now, on to the next adventure.


Hub 53: My coworking space in Chiang Mai.

Hub 53: My coworking space in Chiang Mai.




Previous Momentos




In the comments below, let me know which of the above Momentos is your favorite. Which can you relate to?


Like these Momentos?

The mission here at Disrupting the Rabblement is to help a million people live free and think deep. Publishing these Momentos every two weeks is one way I try to do that. If you'd like to support my mission and grab some perks, become a patron and send me the price of a coffee each month.


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Let's Do This!



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Published on December 03, 2018 02:59

Straw Man vs. Steel Man














Straw Man vs. Steel Man
How To Argue. Honestly.



























by Niall Doherty Updated: December 3, 2018









“More often than not, two people arguing passionately about something are actually arguing about two different things.” – Paul Graham



A straw man argument is a commonly used debating trick.


Here’s a simple example:








Billy: Which do you prefer: cats or dogs?
John: I prefer dogs.
Billy: Ah, I see. So you hate cats.








With that last point, Billy has misrepresented John’s view.


John only said he prefers dogs to cats. That doesn’t mean he hates cats.


But Billy has essentially put those words – “I hate cats” – in John’s mouth.


Billy has built a straw man: an oversimplified, parodied, or distorted view of John’s position.


Now Billy can go ahead and attack that straw man by saying something like this…








Billy: You know who also hated cats? Hitler and Stalin. So clearly you’d have to be one cruel, heartless son-of-a-bitch to hate cats.







Sure, that’s a silly example.


But it’s useful for understanding the basic structure of a straw man argument:



First you build up a flimsy version of an opponent’s view.
Then you attack that view, and knock it down easily.

It’s like picking a fight with someone, but instead of physically confronting that person, you build a scarecrow that looks kinda like them, then go all kung-fu on that scarecrow, rip it to pieces, and go around afterwards telling folks that you beat up the actual person. 1


And somehow, many folks will actually believe you did

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Published on December 03, 2018 02:38

November 26, 2018

DtR Weekly #6














DtR Weekly
Course closure, straw men, and homeopathy





















by Niall Doherty








Hey there,


First thing to mention this week: I’m closing the doors on my premium course – Freedom Business Builder – this Friday at midnight Irish time.


It’s a comprehensive course to help you build an online freelance business, and since launching almost three years ago it has helped hundreds of people do just that.


And listen, I’m not going to bullshit you: as explained in a FB Live video a few weeks back, I’m winding down the course because it doesn’t make financial sense for me to keep it open. 


So this week is your last chance to join.


If you want to build an online business and are tired of all the scams and get-rich-quick schemes out there, give my course a look. I offer a 30-day money-back guarantee so you’ve nothing to lose by trying it out.


If you have any questions about it, hit reply and let me know. I’ll tell you straight if FBB isn’t a good fit for you (or not).


Now, on to a few bits and pieces to help you live free and think deep…


Straw Man Arguments 
My latest YouTube video is all about straw man arguments, with examples featuring Donald Trump, Jordan Peterson, Barack Obama, Ronald McDonald, and my terrible, terrible attempts at accents. (I’m very sorry.)


“Are you dense?”
How would you respond to an airport gate agent saying that to you? The default response would be to fire back at them, fight fire with fire. But that’s unlikely to improve the situation. Shane Parrish took a different approach, and it worked out well.


Book Recommendation
I’m currently reading and very much enjoying Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me). Great book for understanding how we err in our thinking, how beliefs are formed, and how they might be changed.


Homeopathy
Here’s a 13-minute video debunking homeopathy from my new favorite YouTube channel, Rationality Rules. Key takeaways from that: respect the placebo effect, and don’t put too much stock in “personal experience.”


Digital Nomading In Africa
A digital nomad friend of mine who has lived and traveled quite a bit in Africa is putting together some helpful info for others looking to do the same. If you’re interested, here’s a quick survey to help him figure out what topics to focus on.


Islam A Religion Of Peace?
I asked that question on Facebook yesterday. The comments have been quite civil so far. Anything to add?


Thanks for reading.


– Niall Doherty


P.S. You can now read these weekly emails on my website. See here.




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Let's Do This!



I’ll first send a confirmation email to make sure it’s you

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Published on November 26, 2018 23:27