2️⃣141: The Art of Gift Giving 🧧

In partnership with

Did you get scammed on Amazon Prime Day this year?

I mean… did you get any great deals for Amazon Prime Day?

I don’t know if you know, but you’re not actually getting the best deals. It feels like you are, because that’s how they want you to feel. But over the past few years, many independent publications have kept track of the shady tactics Amazon employs to make you feel like you’re making a great purchase. The truth is, you’re making a pretty average purchase that was actually cheaper at other moments throughout the years.

There’s a way to combat this: you can stop buying from Amazon. But nobody’s going to do that. I’m writing this email, and I’m not even going to do that. It’s too convenient with guaranteed shipping, subscriptions, and other services Prime offers to make buying with a few clicks feel like a day at Disney.

Something you can do is keep items in your cart and track their prices throughout longer stretches of time to actually find the best deals. It would require not impulse shopping and waiting months at a time to get what you’re thinking of buying. But it could be worth it. There are even tools like camelcamelcamel and keepa to help you do it.

Regardless of how you choose to go about your shopping, eventually you’re going to have to buy gifts for people. I’ve said in this newsletter before there are two things everyone in the world does regardless of who they are:

• Having sex

• Taking a dump

I’m always fascinated by that idea because those are two things everyone has in common, yet 99.999% of people never want to talk about with other people.

Humans, man 🤷

As the world evolves, we can add new things to this list. As you get older you continue to absorb new responsibilities. One of those is being there for your loved ones on their birthdays and other major holidays. This means that for the foreseeable future (decades) there are certain people you’ll have to surprise with multiple gifts each year… year after year after year after year.

It’s a beautiful thing to give a gift. To take a moment to stop from the craziness of the world and tell someone, “I thoughtfully chose this thing to give you because I care about you.”

But that’s not the way most gifts are given these days. It’s more like, “Fuuuuck! It’s their birthday? Tomorrow?!?!? And I haave to get them something??”

(That’s actually my reaction when my mom tells me I need to get a gift for my nieces because it’s the third Sunday of the second month of the year.)

I really do think that giving (and receiving) thoughtful gifts is a beautiful thing — when done correctly. You may think that’s different for everyone, and it is. But I’ve come up with a helpful guide that anyone can follow to make sure every gift you give never feels like an empty gesture or another blue button-down, even though they already have 87 blue button-downs 👔

Rule #1: Set Yourself a Reminder 🗓️

Two, actually.

I probably already lost so many people on this one, but it had to be done. You’re not going to remember every single person’s birthday every year. It’s impossible. Your journey to giving the best gifts starts with giving up on that idea entirely.

Your smartphone is your best friend here:

• Figure out the birthdays for all your friends and family and add them to their contact information on your phone — this way they will always appear on your calendar

• Figure out the people you need to get big gifts for (parents, siblings, significant others, nieces, best friends who live in your same city, that one person who lives far away you remain in contact with regularly, etc.)

• Set two reminders:

  • First reminder is 2 months ahead of time: this will give you time to start thinking about the best gift and possibly order something that takes longer to make/ship

  • Second reminder is 3 weeks ahead of time: by this time you need to know what the gift is and how long it will take to ship on time

If you give yourself reminders ahead of time you’ll never find yourself scrambling for last-minute ideas that cost too much, don’t arrive on time, or aren’t what you really wanted to give.

Rule #2: Not Everyone Needs a Gift 🙅

I wish I could give awesome gifts to every single person I care about every year on their birthday and on Christmas and the third Sunday of the second month of the year. Unfortunately, it’s not financially possible.

Some people need actually big, real objects they can play with (kids), and some people need a gift card to a spa for the weekend (parents, adults with many responsibilities and little time to rest). Some people just need an annual text with a few exclamation marks and some emojis 🥳💥🍾🤮

Don’t overthink this. The most important part of a gift is being thoughtful. Nowadays, reaching out and talking through text or with a call after a long time of not communicating is a very thoughtful thing to do.

When you’re seeing someone in person and just saying HBD (Happy Birthday) isn’t enough, a card works. But do more than just sign your name. Write 2-4 sentences. This doesn’t have to be something you break your head over. You’re not writing love sonnets or declaring them the best 2nd cousins in the history of the world. Just be real and say something that will make them smile.

Here are a few examples of things you can say to your extended family that will feel slightly more than thoughtful than “Happy 40th! With love, Patricio 💖”

• Every time we go to a family gathering your car is the cleanest. Where do you get it washed? No, seriously. Could you please get me in? Is there a referral bonus if you bring in new members? Do you have a guy who comes to your house? You have the cleanest car I’ve ever seen. I wish I could have my car that clean. Keep up the good work. Happy 40th! With love, Patricio 💖

• We don’t see each other that much nowadays, but I’ll always remember that summer when we were kids that they took us to soccer camp in Dorado. We’d play on the swings for like two hours after everyone left before they came to pick us up. Good times. Happy 40th! With love, Patricio 💖

• If at any point during today’s celebration you need me to get you out of a conversation just look at me and blink your eyes like Rihanna. Happy 40th! With love, Patricio 💖

• When you were a kid I didn’t think you would grow up to be a cool adult. But now you’re an adult, and you’re really cool. I’m glad that worked out. Love you, cousin. Happy 20th! Patricio 💖

You think I’m joking, but saying some random shit like this will stick with people longer than just “Happy 40th! With love, Patricio 💖” It also indicates that you thought about what you were going to write for more than five seconds in the car as you rushed to make it to the party.

You might still think writing something like this is too weird. That’s all you then. I get away with it, and people smile. Maybe they think I’m weird after, but they’re still thinking about what I wrote, and they forgot about your card. (Also, they probably already thought I was weird before. This just solidified it.)

Rule #3: Give Them Something They Want, Not Something You Want To Give Them 😬

If you ignore every other rule, don’t ignore this one.

Gift-giving isn’t about how the gift giver feels — it’s about how the person receiving the gift feels. That’s the key to giving a thoughtful gift. Face it, we’ve all been this person at one point or another:

It’s all fun and games in the moment, but then you go back home and look over all these gifts that you’re never going to use or shirts you’re never going to wear. The biggest mistake people make when giving a gift is that they approach it through the lens of who the individual being gifted is to them, not who that person is as a fully-formed independent human.

What do I mean by that?

Let’s use an example, one of those classic ones that feels extremely obvious to me and makes total sense, but people give me feedback on the emails later like, “You honestly lost me at that point, but I kept reading because I love you.”

I grew up playing soccer and was lucky enough to make many friends who didn’t go to my school. These are friends I would mainly see during soccer practice and soccer games. We mostly talked about soccer. AKA, in my eyes, what I knew about them was what I knew through soccer. Maybe we always discussed our favorite players and teams. Maybe if you asked me what we could get them for their birthday my first thought would be, “Well, his favorite team is….”

That might be the way to go. But there’s an even better way. What if this person always talked to you about his favorite team because all you ever talked to him about was yours? What if you never got a chance to actually chill and discuss other things you enjoyed like music, movies, going to the beach, or even school? To them, soccer could be a small part of their lives. To you, all you knew about them was soccer. Which means that when you first think about them, that’s how you frame your approach to understanding them. It’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s not the entire picture. And it’s not the best picture you could use in this scenario.

Maybe they don’t actually give a shit about watching soccer but talk with you about it because you are so enthusiastic about it. Maybe a soccer jersey is the last thing they could ever want.

This is the moment when you start to look at people differently:

Who are they?

What do they post about?

Do they have any stickers on their bookbag that would indicate other interests?

What characteristic do I know about them as a person outside of the one place I always interact with them at?

Maybe you’re sitting there thinking about them, and you noticed that this person is always having to charge their phone. They’re always running out of battery. They live life on the edge. But it affects the people around them because you’ve even had moments when you tried to get in touch and they didn’t answer. Maybe what they really need more than another $120 soccer jersey they might wear three times over the next two years is a portable battery bank. Maybe if they don’t charge their phone you know you can’t rely on them to charge anything, so you get them a solar-powered portable power bank so they never have to worry about remembering to charge. Maybe when you give them this gift you include a card and write a thoughtful note like, “Happy Birthday, charge your damn phone so your girlfriend isn’t calling me asking where you are. Stop getting old loser. With love, Patricio 💖

Was that long story worth it?

Do you understand what I’m trying to say?

Long gone are the days when I would look forward to which DVD or CD my older brother was getting me for Christmas. All it took was $20 bucks to make me the happiest kid in the world. “You mean to tell me Ludacris dropped a new album and I had no idea? And you bought me the album? And you got the DVD with music videos and other background info so we could watch it together?” Those were really the days.

But those days are dead. Now people get all of that same stuff for free in their feeds or for $10 a month. We must adapt with the times.

Next time you’re going to give a gift, stop, ask yourself what you really know about this person, what is something that could be USEFUL in their life, and then go from there to decide what to give them. I promise you they will appreciate that foot massager they’d never buy themselves more than the 40th t-shirt they now have to argue with their wife about why it should get to stay in the closet along with their high school sports jerseys and the rec league basketball t-shirt from 2015.

If you follow these three simple rules you’ll never worry about giving a shitty gift again in your life.

PS

If you’ve ever thought about giving me a gift, all you need to do is click the ad below so you can help me pay for this newsletter service so I can keep sending emails. That would be very thoughtful.

PPS

If you want to be an even better gift-giver, sign up for a premium subscription. Shoutout to all my homies who already are subscribed. Love you, thank you for believing in me.

TV Ads That Perform Like Digital

We have entered a new era of TV advertising where the barriers to entry are lower than ever, and Roku Ads Manager is leading the way.

Growth marketers can access Roku’s audience reach in the US with a self-service ad platform that’s built for performance.

Roku powers 47% of all TV streaming time in the US*, so your brand can run ads alongside premium content and meet your audience where they’re already engaged. *Comscore, 2024

Get started on Roku Ads Manager.