Take a Break and...Reflect

Reflect, Refresh, Reinvent

Hey, there. Did you miss us? We missed you.

For the past three months, Kindred Media has been “taking a break” from our daily newsletter. Our time away was not merely a break, but a period of introspection. To truly serve our community, we wanted to step back, assess our content, and re-align it with your evolving interests and the dynamic world around us.

We hope that you’ve had the same opportunity to unplug and that you’re entering 2024 ready to tackle the many opportunities that will come your way over the next twelve months.

In this renewed edition, you'll find everything you love about our daily Kindred newsletter (a roundup of awesome content and insights) that will come to you in a new, weekly format.

This brings us to the first core thematic we’d like to highlight in 2024: If you haven’t already guessed, it’s Reflection.

At present, the world appears to be in a state of chaos. During these tumultuous times, it is more important than ever to step back and assess how we can serve our communities, using our individual essence to find solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

But how do you find your essence? And how can you leverage it for the greater good? The answer is deceptively simple: You have to do the work. (You can also take some tips from LionTree’s Year-End Letter — more on that below)

That work starts now — but just before you begin, we invite you to Take a Break with us, and let us share some things that we’ve been reflecting on over the past few weeks.

Thank you for being a part of our Kindred community. We can’t wait to do this work with you.

We’re always looking to improve and we want your feedback! Simply reply to this email with any comments. Only have nice things to say? Forward to a friend! Growing our community is the greatest compliment of all.

LionTree as told by Dall-E

At LionTree

Over the last several years, it’s become a tradition at LionTree to write a year-end letter that is shared with our employees, our clients, and our friends. While typically written by LionTree CEO Aryeh B. Bourkoff, this year our letter encompasses insights and reflections written by several of our LionTree leaders, who explore everything from industries like sports and music to the flow of our internal and external worlds:

  • LionTree 2023 Year-End Letter

    • Love + Trust = Flow: “In times of crisis, when the instinct is to retreat to one’s corner, to protect what we call ours and fight for our share, the organization that is built upon a foundation of love and trust — an organization that flows — is going to stand apart.”

    • The Universe in a Song: “The lines between profit and purpose are being blurred. Power dynamics are shifting between the gatekeepers and the masses. AI is super-charging all of it, while the social media megaphone typically makes it harder to hear the music above the noise. It may seem a chaotic backdrop, but chaos and opportunity ride in tandem. The challenge for all of us is how to stay both useful and relevant amidst all that change.”

    • Through Conflicts Comes Reinvention: “We’d note that by far the most difficult conversations of 2024 and beyond may be those one does not endeavor to have. We don’t think there should ever be a missed opportunity for unity, leadership, and reinvention. It’s time to start having real conversations again, even if they’re not as easy as hitting ‘send.’”

    • The Journey: “At the end of the day, we live to experience an ever-unfolding narrative, a symphony of growth and evolution. Every pit we encounter is a test — an opportunity to learn and grow, even when the lessons are not immediately apparent. Every challenge we conquer will be a testament to our resilience and adaptability. And every relationship we nurture serves as proof of the forward motion of our journey.”

    • The Harmony of Dissonance: “The concept of harmony in dissonance may seem paradoxical. But we would also argue that it reflects a profound truth — that certain types of tension and contrast, when managed with insight, patience, and humility, can contain the seeds of breakthrough possibilities.”

In the News

  • Why it’ll be hard to tell if AI ever becomes conscious [Technology Reivew]

  • From ‘Barbenheimer’ to Taylor Swift, here are the most important films of 2023 and why they worked [CNBC]

  • The Self-Doubting Superpower: America Shouldn’t Give Up on the World It Made [Foreign Affairs]

  • The Best Teams That Money Could Buy [NYT]

On Our Radar

Kindred Quiz

In what year was Artificial Intelligence founded as an academic discipline?
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Kinsight

❝

“The greatest journey is the one of self-discovery.”

Lao Tzu

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