If you love what you do, Monday is Friday – if you don't love what you do, Mondays suck. Today we hope to help you get through it with stories about fictitious conversations between genius and developer, another take on a shorter work week, and what it's like when a rockstar instantly turns into a fan while on stage. Music and thoughts to end the newsletter and start your week!

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The New Yorker must have seen one of Soren’s Newsletters – Soren creates concept art by putting together iPhone apps that don't exist. For example, an iMessage naughty photo share tracker or an Instagram unfollow survey. Great concepts and design layouts for fun. The New Yorker did something similar, and contributor Benjamin Flores created a mock iMessage exchange between Elon Musk and his lead software engineer. In the exchange, Flores has Musk sending instructions to the engineer to build the X app. Anyone following the Musk soap opera over the last few years will wonder how far this is from the truth.

The 4-Hour Work Week, made famous by Tim Farris, has spawned many variations and applications that all follow the same general principle. Do the necessary work, and delegate or delete the rest. As small business entrepreneurs, we've tried many of these programs, and only some work for us. We enjoy reading about them and the outcomes achieved, but it's the same euphoric hit we get from reading about the latest diet and exercise program. The excitement comes from the end result and how that will feel – the daily work to get there, not so much.

Similar to the principle that states that 80% of the result is achieved by 20% of the work. In our experience, 80% of the work is building a system that automates as much work as possible. We are still trying to put into both words and systems diagrams what this looks like, but if you love what you do (we do), you want to do as much of the love part as you can, while everything else can and should be automated. Next month will be the 1st anniversary of With A Shout, and the systems we've been taping together must be ready to launch.

Another source for Plan the Work – work the Plan is a site called RadReads, and an article called Planning a 30-hour work week. We have read but not implemented the ideas. Once we do, we will report back on the systems we build.

Matt Healy, the lead singer of 1975, had a moment at Lollapalooza 2023 in Chicago. In the middle of one of the songs, he spotted Tom DeLonge (Blink 182) in the crowd and raced over for a mid-show and "fan hug." Another fan caught the sweet moment on the phone cam, and you can see it below. This is a genuine moment from Healy, who reminds us that rockstars were fans first.

Melodic and Meditative.

Click on the Apple Music image to listen to the song on Apple Music or on the Spotify Image to listen to Spotify.

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Thank you for spending a few minutes with us. Here’s one for the road!

With A Shout newsletter is written by Johnny Christian with the support of a thousand idea bits and the help of many people.

7 minutes of good cheer every day. Become a Fan to get daily posts and updates.

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