💪Finkel's Fast Five 120 - May 15, 2020

Welcome to Finkel's Fast Five #120. Thanks for reading and subscribing!

 ONE

 PODCASTS - I love stories like this: When Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, The Blind Side, The Big Short, Liar's Poker and a handful of other mega-selling books, handed in his senior writing thesis at Princeton University, his professor told him he should not pursue a career in writing because he wasn't any good.  Here's another great story: Michael Lewis was making $250,000/year in finance at Solomon Brothers and he quit to pursue writing because he got a $40,000 book advance and he hated his job... Result: he's made more money and had greater success as a writer. I heard these two stories, and about fifty others, listening to Lewis on Tim Ferriss' podcast this week. If you like Lewis' books or the movies based on his books, you'll love this. One of the best listens I've had in a while.

TWO

 BOOKS - With Elon Musk and Tesla in the news just as much as the coronavirus, it occurred to me that I didn't really know a whole lot about the man Musk named his electric car after, Nikola Tesla.   For those who might not know, Tesla is largely credited with inventing radar, robots, radio and dozens of other electrical innovations. He was so far ahead of his time I'm not even sure we've caught up yet (he died in 1943). Shockingly (because of electricity, get it), there have not been that many full-fledged biographies dedicated to one of the most prolific, scientific geniuses we've had. After a little research I settled on Marc Seifer's biography, Wizard, The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla. It's fascinating so far.

THREE

MOVIES - A quirky, unique, dark comedy just came out starring Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, Michael Kenneth Williams, Liam Hemsworth and Vivica Fox and you probably didn't even know about it. I only stumbled on it because a few people I follow on Twitter mentioned it.  The movie is about a low-key drug kingpin named Frog (Vaughn) who has his low-key dealers work as park rangers in Arkansas under the actual park ranger/middle management drug dealer, John Malkovich. Also, the park rangers under Malkovich have to do the real park ranger jobs and have no idea who Frog is. And there's a drug dealer code of ethics used to recruit new rangers/dealers that complicates things. I know... It's really goofy and it's strange... but it's memorable and Vaughn and Malkovich are solid. Here's the trailer if you're curious.

FOUR

 BASKETBALL - My boy and I have logged some serious hours of driveway hoops during this lockdown and one of his favorite new pastimes is to make up "challenges" for me to try. They're basically trick shots and they range from the silly (can you hit a shot while chugging Gatorade?) to the legitimately hard (can you hit a turnaround jumper on a pogo ball?).  This last challenge involving a pogo ball was his latest effort to stump me and on behalf of dads everywhere I threw on my Muggsy Bogues jersey and accepted with vigor. After a little trial and error getting used to jumping on a pogo ball made for 6-year-olds, I was ready for my attempt... And... Well... Take a look at this silky smooth jumper while hopping on a ball.

 FIVE

 A great quote about accepting challenges (of a different variety than trick shots):  “When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not yet ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back. A week is more than enough time for us to decide whether or not to accept our destiny.”  – Paulo Coelho  SUPER, SUPER IMPORTANT NOTE: To make sure you keep getting the FF5, please add [email protected] to your address book or whitelist us.  AND DON'T FORGET TO FORWARD TO A FRIEND: FORWARD TO A FRIEND HERE.   WAS THIS E-MAIL FORWARDED TO YOU? SIGN-UP HERE

BONUS

Many of you enjoyed my Meathead Movie Home Workouts. I combined all four of them into this really cool e-book PDF that you can download for free right here.

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