Curiosity Chronicle

The Boot Up Sequence is a fixed set of actions and environmental cues that mentally and physically mark the start of your work session. While it can be used for any work session, I find it particularly impactful and valuable in priming for a deep work session (daily focused work on the "most important thing").The Boot Up Sequence is built around the five senses: Touch, Taste, Sight, Sound, and Smell. Engaging each of these allows you to quickly and consistently enter your flow.If you aren't able to execute your full, ideal Boot Up Sequence, simply aim to nail 3 out of the 5 senses of the sequence. My experience suggests that 3 out of 5 is achievable under a variety of circumstances, and it's enough to create the mental and physical entryway into your flow.

A parable is broadly defined as a succinct story that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. My view is that these parables have a sort of “Lindy effect” signaling, whereby their survival and re-telling across the generations is a signal of their usefulness and value.The Parable of the Farmer and the Horse is about cultivating a "maybe" mindset. The villagers constantly tell the farmer that he has had good or bad luck, but he simply replies with "maybe" each time.Two powerful lessons: (1) Life is cyclical—the seeds of destruction are sewn during creation and the seeds of creation are sewn during destruction; and (2) Dispel the narratives—allow events to simply flow with and past you as they are, not as you want them to be.

One of the most significant obstacles we face on our journey to progress is intimidation at what the progress will require. Sometimes the notion of needing to commit to a string of actions is enough to stop us from taking the first action."Any success takes one in a row. Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more. Over and over until the end, then it’s one in a row again." - Matthew McConaugheySo the next time you find yourself struggling with the intimidation of the future, change the narrative: Just focus on executing one-in-a-row. Do one thing well, then another, then another. Then do it again.

The Surfer Mentality: When a surfer gets up on a wave, they enjoy the present moment, even though they know with certainty that the wave will eventually end. They fully enjoy THIS wave, with the wisdom and awareness that there are always more waves coming.5 ideas of applications of this mentality: (1) enjoy your next wave and embrace the present moment, (2) be strategic about your positioning in between waves, (3) pass on more waves rather than jumping at the first one that comes your way, (4) always get in the water and stop sitting on the shore, and (5) roll with the punches that life deals you.Follow-up book recommendation: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life. Audiobook is highly recommended.

In my discussions for the Life Lessons from 1,000 Years, one of my 90-year-old participants shared a piece of poignent wisdom on lies: "The most damning lie is the lie you tell to yourself."I began reflecting on what lies I've been telling myself, as well as ways to reframe them to fight back.Here are the 10 most dangerous lies we tell ourselves (and reframes that will help change the internal narrative).

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was known for his prolific, almost otherworldly productivity. His secret: He never confused the urgent with the important.The Eisenhower Matrix is a 2x2 visualization tool that forces you to differentiate between the urgent and the important in order to prioritize and manage your time more effectively.The Goal: Manage urgent and important tasks, spend most of your time on the not urgent and important tasks, and spend less time on the not important tasks.

The Oxford Languages English dictionary defines luck as "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions."But all you need to do is perform a simple search of the phrase "quotes on luck" to reveal a great many perspectives that differ from this definition. Maybe there is more to luck than meets the eye. Perhaps it's possible, as these quotes suggest, to manufacture luck.This episode covers the most valuable framework I've encountered for thinking about luck: The 4 Types of Luck. The 4 types of luck are (1) Blind Luck, (2) Luck from Motion, (3) Luck from Awareness, and (4) Luck from Uniqueness.

Every year on my birthday (January 5), I like to conduct some interesting exercise that will push me to grow in a new way. This year, I asked a number of 90-year-olds a simple question: "If you could speak your 32-year-old self, what advice would you give?"The responses were...incredible. They range from fun, playful, and witty to deeply moving. I'd encourage you to read through them with your loved ones and reflect on those that hit you the hardest.

In 1666, a young Cambridge University student left campus in the midst of a plague ravaging Europe and moved home to his small village. In the year that followed, he would make major discovering in mathematics, physics, and more. The young man was Sir Isaac Newton, and 1966 became known as his miracle year.This story is not about discovering gravity or inventing calculus—it's about the amazing possibilities of one year. It's about the incredible potential energy held within—waiting to be released.This piece contains 23 actionable ideas for making 2023 your miracle year—segmented into categories across work, health, money, and personal.

This annual planning process has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest achievements. I hope that it will spark you to conduct your own before year-end. You can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template at the link in the newsletter.

While somewhat arbitrary, the end of the calendar year does present us all with a valuable opportunity to reflect on the year that was, and plan for the year that will be. It's easy to glaze over the former and focus on the latter, but failure to reflect will eventually manifest as a failure to grow.It's easy to glaze over the former and focus on the latter, but failure to reflect will eventually manifest as a failure to grow.I started conducting a Personal Annual Review 10 years ago as I was nearing the end of my college years. It has been an immensely helpful exercise to which I would credit many of my greatest areas of progress.This episode shares the template for my Personal Annual Review. I hope that it will spark you to conduct your own before year-end, as I'm highly confident you will gain the same value that I have from the exercise.Here are the 7 simple questions that may change your life...Note: You can download a beautiful (and free!) printable PDF of the template at the link on my website.

Today at a Glance:There is one tool that has been used with near perfect consistency by history's greatest men and women. From artists and inventors to entrepreneurs and athletes, they have all understood the immense power of this one, simple tool: the walk.There is a tremendous body of research to support the mental and physical benefits of walking. Improved creativity, improved cardio health, improved memory retention, and many more benefits have all been found in recent, peer-reviewed research.The four types of walks to consider implementing: (1) Active walks, (2) Passive "tech free" walks, (3) Morning sunlight walks, and (4) Break walks. Start small and build the habit over time!

Today at a Glance:The Learning Pyramid indicates that teaching is a much more effective driver of retention than reading or lecture. The goal should be to move rapidly to teaching in order to cement new learning.Richard Feynman developed a learning framework grounded in teaching and iteration that was highly effective for him during his illustrious academic career.The Three-Step Learning Model: (1) Read & Research to build a base, (2) Teach to cement learnings and highlight knowledge gaps, and (3) Assess & Iterate to fill the gaps.

Today at a Glance:Humans have a tendency to manufacture complexity. We make progress in our lives—personally or professionally—and decide that the best way to celebrate that progress is to sprinkle on a new bit of chaos.We can all laugh at this tendency to complicate life, but we should also find ways to simplify it.Here are 50+ short, timeless insights for simplifying your world—"hacks" for your life, careers, relationships, health, money, and more.

Today at a Glance:When compared to our ancestors, our lives appear to be filled with significantly more attention-grabbing pulls in a variety of directions. Our attention is more divided than ever.Attention residue is the idea that there is a cognitive cost to shifting your attention from one task to another. When our attention is shifted, there is a "residue" that remains in the brain and impairs our cognitive performance on the new task.To fight back: (1) Work in deep focus blocks, (2) take regular walks or breathers between higher value tasks, and (3) batch processing times for messages. Implement these three strategies and you will immediately see a difference in your work quality and efficiency.

Today at a Glance:The highest performers embrace software updates. They treat their minds like a code base that requires consistent updates and resets to improve upon the old.There are a variety of baseline rules for life that are deeply ingrained into our minds and in dire need of an update. Many of these rules are culturally ingrained, meaning they have been repeated and passed down with no regard for their continued accuracy, or the quality of their underlying assumptions.Today's piece shares 8 rules that have been commonly repeated, but that we should probably start breaking.

Today at a Glance:Becoming a father has changed a lot of things about my life. My relationship with time—specifically my awareness of the passing of time—has fundamentally morphed.The Paradox of Time: We are aware of the incredible value of our time but constantly take actions that are disrespectful of that value. We know how important our time is, yet we ignore its passage and engage in low value activities that pull us away from the things that really matter.Our time is finite, but we often fail to recognize it until it's too late. Asking the hard questions and doing the simple math that they require is how you can bring awareness to the surface and rethink your priorities and tradeoffs.

Episode at a GlanceAncient culture was marked by an embrace of friction. Modern culture is marked by an avoidance of friction.In our obsessive quest to reduce friction, we may be eliminating some of the moments, experiences, and texture that made us uniquely human.My Prediction: In a world of steadily decreasing friction, it will be those who are willing to embrace friction that will thrive. To become one, start by finding small ways to choose the hard way even as the easy way stares you in the face.

Today at a GlanceA high performer is a person who consistently executes their craft at a top-1% level over an extended period of time.I'm very fortunate to be able to spend time with many such people during the normal course of my "work"—from CEOs to athletes to investors to artists. This means I have a front row seat for direct observation of what makes these people tick.This piece lays out 12 non-obvious traits of high performers, including the ability to modulate intensity, focus on questions, embrace healthy paranoia, and more.

Today at a Glance:I spent most of my life as the “busy” guy. If anyone asked how I was doing, I would always respond with some variation of “so busy!” or “good, but really busy!” I was actually busy, but it also became part of my identity—a weird brag I developed to try to signal my value and improve my own self-worth.In the modern era, everyone seems really busy. We say we are busy as a status signal and for self-protection—we feel we are busy due to over-connectedness, obsessive optimization, and failures of prioritization.Busyness has a whole host of negative effects on our lives. We work more but actually get less done on the things that really matter. What's more, busyness negatively impacts our physical and mental health, as well as our enjoyment of daily life.Escaping the Busy Trap involves three key steps: (1) reframe the goal to focus on output per unit input, (2) prioritize what truly matters, and (3) embrace boredom and free time.

Today at a Glance:Whether we admit it or not, we spend a good portion of our lives protecting ourselves from reality. But there are times when our rose-colored glasses hold us back. In certain situations, when we fail to see the world as it is, we make sub-optimal decisions and miss out on critical growth and learning opportunities.Today's piece shares the "harsh truths" I've observed as life changing in their importance to our decision-making and progress.This piece is not intended to be dark or morbid. It's intended to make you think—to hopefully question some underlying (yet flawed) assumptions and spark active discussion with those around you.

Today at a Glance:The most successful people in the world achieve compounding success through incredible focus on a small number of projects and opportunities.You have a personal flywheel. Before it gets spinning, saying yes will help you identify the actions that will get it moving. Once it gets spinning, saying no will help you ruthlessly prioritize the actions that accelerate its pace.Use the 2-list strategy for establishing core priorities: Make a list of 25 priorities, circle the top 3-5 items on the list, mark everything else as the avoid-at-all-costs items.One helpful razor for saying no: If you don't want to do something RIGHT NOW, it's probably a no.

Today at a Glance:Warren Buffett is the most famous investor of all time. He is a treasure trove of frameworks, ideas, and insights, most of which apply well-beyond investing.Today's piece shares 8 of my favorite frameworks from the so-called Oracle of Omaha, including their application to your business, career, and life.

A “razor” is a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making.Humans are wired to take shortcuts in our decision-making. These shortcuts can lead us astray—but when used appropriately, the shortcuts can be extremely valuable.Today's piece shares a long list of powerful decision-making razors to help you make better decisions, faster than ever before.

Today at a Glance:Studying the daily routines of people you admire is a worthy pursuit. You can learn a lot about a person's priorities by breaking down their typical day. You may also learn something that will dramatically improve your own systems, habits, and processes.Benjamin Franklin was one of the most prolific entrepreneurs, thinkers, and leaders in history. I expected his daily routine to be a reflection of his incredible output: long, unrelenting, and complex. But the beauty of this schedule is in its pristine simplicity: two core questions and six blocks of time.The 6 core principles to apply: (1) Establish a fixed sleep schedule, (2) Create Clarity Questions, (3) Become a polymath, (4) Work in sprints. (5) Create order, and (6) Make time to unwind.

Episode at a glance:Incentives are a powerful and ubiquitous force. "Show me the incentive and I will show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger. Thoughtfully-designed incentives are likely to create wonderful outcomes. Poorly-designed incentives are likely to create terrible outcomes.Goodhart's Law says that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Because of Goodhart's Law, incentive systems often suffer from unintended consequences.Poorly-designed incentives typically exhibit the McNamara Fallacy (what can't be measured isn't important), a narrow focus (missing the forest for the trees), or an obsession with vanity metrics (what looks impressive versus what actually matters).The 6 principles to consider in crafting thoughtful incentives: (1) Objectives, (2) Metrics, (3) Anti-Metrics, (4) Stakes & Effects, (5) Skin in the Game, and (6) Clarity & Fluidity.

Episode at a glance:What do you think you're in the top 0.1% of the world at? This question from a friend sparked me to think deeply about my own answer. I would encourage everyone to think about the question for themselves.My response: I legitimately enjoy being wrong. My father once told me that the most important thing wasn't being right; rather, it was finding the truth. From that point forward, I began embracing new information as “software updates" to improve upon the old.One result of this practice has been the logging of a long list of "truths" that I now believe are anything but. In today's piece, I share a portion of that list: 23 lies you've been told about careers, business, life, and more.Read the full post

Hank is a 95-year-old man who asked to spend a day at Harvard for his 90th birthday. He arrived early, sat in the front row, took notes, and asked questions. He learns with no end in mind. He learns because he loves learning.The forced structure of our formal education years often saps the innate curiosity and excitement for learning. New knowledge is crammed into closed containers in our brains--it's not allowed to mingle and network in a way that sparks new thinking pathways.5 core habits of highly-effective lifelong learners: stimulate dynamically, build learning circles, build a learning engine, consistently ask why, and read daily.

Episode at a glanceRead the full postThe letter to your future self is a 10x unlock for life. The process of writing a letter forces deep reflection on the present and thoughtful rumination on the future.Use a baseline time horizon of 5 years in the future, but adjust as you see fit. A basic letter structure to follow: (1) Reflections on the Present, (2) Changes to Make, (3) Goals for the Future, and (4) Fun & Crazy Predictions.I handwrite the letters and store them in a cabinet, but if you’re looking for a more technology-enabled solution, there are tools like FutureMe that should do the trick.

Welcome to the 1,070 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 100,000 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Thank you to all the subscribers that have joined me on this journey. 100,000 is an amazing milestone—but to be honest, I feel like we’re still at the starting line. Let’s go!Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Flatfile!Personally, I have spent enough time in spreadsheets to get my excel PHD. This also means I’ve spent enough time pounding my face into my keyboard in frustration while trying to import spreadsheets.Data onboarding is a MASSIVE headache. Flatfile fixes this.Flatfile is an unmatched toolkit for data import that is helping teams save precious time to focus on the business tasks that matter. Instead of staring at cell D47 and wondering how a missing comma just caused you to miss your lunch break, Flatfile does the work for you and sends you on your way. With over $44 million in funding and blue chip clients like Square, Zuora, and Clickup, Flatfile is making serious waves. To level up your data onboarding and improve your customer experience, schedule a risk-free demo of Flatfile today!Today at a Glance:Our minds tend to overcomplicate the process required to achieve forward progress. We incorrectly assume that it requires herculean effort or intensity.The reality? Giant leaps forward are simply the macro output of tens, hundreds, or thousands of tiny daily steps.The Seinfeld Calendar Framework: (1) Hang a big calendar on the wall; (2) Use a big red marker to put an X over every day that you complete your daily habit; and (3) Don’t break the chain of Xs!The 30-for-30 Challenge: Choose the arena, commit to 30 days of 30 minutes per day, create pressure loops by stating your intentions publicly, and use a calendar or tool to track your daily execution.If you’re interested in being a part of a 30-for-30 Challenge community, fill out the form here to get exclusive first access when it’s launched.The 30-for-30 ChallengeI spend a lot of time thinking about progress.I find happiness and fulfillment in progression—in the feeling of being one step further down the path from where I was yesterday.I’m not quite sure where that path is headed, but I am sure that the only way I want to progress along it is forward.Over time, I’ve observed that our minds tend to overcomplicate the process required to achieve this forward progression. We incorrectly assume that it requires herculean effort or intensity.The reality? Giant leaps forward are simply the macro output of tens, hundreds, or thousands of tiny daily steps.My goal with my writing is always the same: take the complex and make it simple. So today, I’d like to share my simple, tactical approach for making forward progress.Seinfeld’s SecretJerry Seinfeld is an absolute legend—an inspiring figure to study for creatives and non-creatives alike.He is considered one of the top comedians of all time and has amassed a reported financial fortune of nearly $1 billion. He earned a total of $100,000 for the entire first season of Seinfeld. By season 9, he was earning over $1 million per episode.Jerry Seinfeld is impressive in many ways, but perhaps most impressive is the fact that he has exhibited such tremendous creative consistency over the years. As he is quick to point out in a number of interviews, this was not some gift he was simply born with.It was—at least partially—engineered.An up-and-coming comedian named Brad Isaac had a famous interaction with Jerry Seinfeld that revealed his strategy for hacking consistency and growth:He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.“After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”I call this the Seinfeld Calendar Framework:Hang a big calendar on the wall.Use a big red marker to put an X over every day that you complete your daily [insert habit]. The habit should be simple and manageable to complete.Don’t break the chain of Xs!Importantly, it was not about the writing or jokes being high quality—it was about the consistency of the daily practice.The beauty in this system was in its sheer simplicity. It emphasized a manageable daily practice that would compound effectively.Seinfeld knew: With daily practice comes long-term prowess.30-for-30 ChallengeAfter reading about Seinfeld’s calendar hack, I adapted it to create my own improvement approach.I call it the 30-for-30 Challenge: 30 days, 30 minutes per day.The mechanics are simple:Choose your arena f

Welcome to the 675 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 98,027 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Trends!Trends is my personal cheat code for generating new business and content ideas.It’s a premium newsletter from The Hustle that deconstructs the secret sauce of interesting businesses, side hustles, and emerging opportunities—and gives you the playbook to pounce on them. Even better, membership provides instant access to an exclusive community of 15,000+ entrepreneurs who are building the future.I learn something new from every single issue—it has become a core part of my content and learning engine. A true must-read. I can’t recommend it highly enough.Use the link below to join—no commitment, no catch, cancel anytime!Today at a Glance:Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that undermine the quality of an argument.Combatting them relies first and foremost on establishing a level of awareness—both academically and practically.The Logical Fallacy Guide covers 20 common logical fallacies: Ad Hominem, Texas Sharpshooter, Sunk Cost Fallacy, Bandwagon Fallacy, Straw Man, Appeal to Authority, Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc, Personal Incredulity, False Dilemma, Burden of Proof, Red Herring, No True Scotsman, Hasty Generalization, Non-Sequitur, Tu Quoque, Slippery Slope, Begging the Question, Loaded Question, Equivocation, and Fallacy Fallacy.The Logical Fallacy GuideIf you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know that I like to say that humans are fascinating creatures.We possess the capacity to accomplish some complex feat of technology and engineering, and subsequently fall victim to the most obviously flawed base logic.Logical fallacies—errors in reasoning that undermine the quality of an argument—are classic examples of this fact.The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines fallacy as a false or misleading idea. A logical fallacy, therefore, can simply be thought of as logic based on a false or misleading idea.Unfortunately, unless you went to law school—or took a robust philosophy course load in college—you’ve likely been minimally exposed to them in a formal context.Accordingly, we frequently fall victim to logical fallacies—our own emotional, psychological, and intellectual blindspots create the cracks and we fall right into them.There is no such thing as a perfect logician, but we can all strive to cover our blindspots and craft better arguments. Similar to the study of cognitive biases—which I’ve written about recently here and here—the first step in avoiding logical fallacies is developing an awareness of them.In that vein, today’s piece will cover 20 common logical fallacies to learn, identify, and avoid.Without further ado, let’s dive in…Ad HominemLatin phrase for "to the person”—an ad hominem attack is an attack of the individual rather than the argument.Instead of addressing the argument—its structure, logic, and merits—the offender attempts to refute the opposition on the basis of personal characteristics.It may be overt—openly attacking the person’s character or personality—or covert—subtly doing the same—but it always focuses on the person, not the argument.Often referred to as “mud-slinging” in political circles, if you’ve ever watched a political debate or political campaign ads, you’re already familiar with this one. It’s all-too-common on Twitter and other online discourse, as well.ExampleCandidate 1: “…and this is why I believe we need to implement a much more aggressive set of climate change regulations.”Candidate 2: “I’m sorry, but are we really expected to believe anything coming from a known liar who cheated on his college entrance exams to get to this position?”The offender (Candidate 2) has attacked Candidate 1 the individual, rather than the argument itself.The Texas SharpshooterThe name of this fallacy is based on a fable:A Texan fires a gun multiple times at a barn wall. He then walks over to the bullet-riddled wall and paints a target around the closest cluster of bullet holes to create the appearance of impressive marksmanship.Think of this as cherry-picking—selecting and highlighting evidence that supports the conclusion and systematically ignoring evidence that may refute it.Example“Tara is a really impressive and successful restauranteur. Her restaurant on Park Avenue is always full and gets really high ratings on Yelp.”This may be true, but it ignores the fact that Tara’s five other restaurant openings have failed. The cherry-picked data—the successful Park Avenue restaurant—is used to draw a broad conclusion about Tara’s quality as a restauranteur that may be inaccurate.Sunk Cost FallacyA favorite of behavioral economics.Sunk costs are the economic costs already invested in an activity that cannot be recovered. Money spent on non-refundable flights and hotels, time invested in a project, or energy put towards a relationship all qualify as sunk costs.The fal

Welcome to the 853 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 96,549 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by The Hustle!See why 2m+ professionals start their day with The Hustle newsletter.Anyone can regurgitate the news, few can make it interesting and entertaining. The Hustle does just that. Be the most interesting person in the room from reading The Hustle each day. While their Monday - Friday coverage is 5 star, their Sunday Deep Dives are epic. Ever wondered how all-you-can-eat-buffets make money? Or what happened to the 250K American Airlines lifetime pass? It’s free, it’s fun, and it’s ad free!Today at a Glance:There’s no such thing as an overnight success. Extraordinary success is simply the byproduct of a large volume of ordinary actions. The quality of our daily habits governs the ultimate quality of our long-term outcomes.I frequently write and speak about the good habits—the ones that positively contribute to your desired outcomes. But what about the bad habits? Just as we want to identify what will propel us forward, isn’t it at least as important to know that which is holding us back?Today’s piece covers 20 bad habits that are holding you back from reaching your potential. All of these are bad habits I have—or currently am—struggling with, so you definitely aren’t alone in this fight.Bad Habits Holding You BackI’m mildly obsessed with the myth of the overnight success.There’s a story I love about Spanish painter Pablo Picasso that captures the essence of the myth very well:Picasso was walking through the market one day when a woman approached him.She pulled out a piece of paper and said, “Mr. Picasso, I am a fan of your work. Please, could you do a little drawing for me?”Picasso smiled and quickly drew a small, but beautiful piece of art on the paper. He handed it back to her.“That will be one million dollars.”“But Mr. Picasso,” the woman protested, “It only took you thirty seconds to draw this little masterpiece.”Picasso smiled, “On the contrary, it took me thirty years to draw that masterpiece in thirty seconds.”The lesson: extraordinary success is simply the byproduct of a large volume of ordinary actions.The quality of our daily habits governs the ultimate quality of our long-term outcomes.I frequently write and speak about the good habits—the ones that positively contribute to your desired outcomes.But what about the bad habits?Just as we want to identify that which will propel us forward, isn’t it at least as important to know that which is holding us back?In that vein, today’s piece will cover 18 bad habits that are holding you back from reaching your potential. All of these are bad habits I have—or currently am—struggling with, so you definitely aren’t alone in this fight!These are designed to be short, punchy insights—I would encourage you to skip any that don’t apply and think deeply about those that specifically resonate with you.Without further ado, let’s dive right in…Focusing on the UrgentIt's easy to jump from one urgent task to the next.But when you focus on the short-term urgent, you lose sight of the long-term important.Spend most of your time focused on long-term important tasks—the compounders.Delegate or delete the rest.Saying Yes to EverythingConfession: I've always had a tough time saying no. I'd take on too much and then grind my way through—or even worse, under-deliver vs. expectations.The ability to say no is a superpower of successful people. Be deliberate about what you spend your time on—and who you spend it with.My rule of thumb: You should spend your 20s saying yes and your 30s and beyond saying no. Your 20s are a time to say yes to almost everything. Saying yes puts you into new and uncomfortable situations that expand your luck surface area. Your 30s and beyond are a time to say no to almost everything. Saying no allows you to focus & build leverage.Glorifying the Wrong ThingsWhat I used to glorify:No sleep100-hour workweeksBusy schedulesFancy titles and credentialsWhat I now glorify:Sleeping 8 hoursRegular physical activityUnstructured schedulesWorking in short sprintsSpending time with family and friendsThe realization: Freedom and control over your time is the one true status symbol. Success and wealth is meaningless if it doesn’t provide that freedom and control.Comparison TrapsThroughout your life and career, it's tempting to compare yourself and your progress to those around you.It’s borderline impossible to avoid:This person made X dollars last yearThat person got Forbes 30 Under 30So and so raised $100m for their startupThey just got a vacation home and new carIt's natural, but dangerous—comparison is like gas on your “more” fire—it tears away the enjoyment of the present and tells you that it’s not enough.Learn to turn it off.Focus on what you can control. When you notice yourself falling into the trap, reset and focus on yourself.Pr

Welcome to the 1,719 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 94,548 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Morning Brew!There's a reason why over 4 million people read Morning Brew—the free daily email that covers the latest from Wall Street to Silicon Valley. Unlike traditional news, Morning Brew will keep you informed AND entertained.Morning Brew is one of my consistent daily reads. I know you’ll love it as much as I do!The Beauty of Enough“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”My son was born one week ago—it feels like one of those fabled weeks where decades happen.I spent the first three decades of my life trying to find the meaning and purpose of all of this—then one week, it all came into view.On Monday morning, I was with him in bed and had this profound sensation: For the first time in my life, I have enough.I’ve always been extremely driven—I’ve always been in this constant cycle of wanting more.But I feel…different.Really, what more could I want?This profound feeling prompted today’s piece—on our perpetual desire for more, and more importantly, on the beauty of enough.My hope is for you to come away from it feeling empowered to think clearly and deeply about finding your “enough” amidst the constant search for more.The Fisherman & The BankerThere’s a beautiful parable that I think about quite often…A wealthy investment banker goes on vacation to a tropical fishing village. As he walks along the docks one afternoon, he comes upon a small, run-down fishing boat with several large fish on its deck."How long did it take you to catch those fish?" he asks.The fisherman looks up from his work and smiles at his new visitor."Only a little while."The investment banker is caught off guard by this response. He likes the fisherman and wants to help."Why don't you fish for longer so you can catch more fish?"The fisherman shrugs and explains to his new friend that he has all he needs."Each day, I sleep late, fish a little, and spend time with my children and beautiful wife. In the evening, I go into town, drink wine, play the guitar, and sing and laugh with my friends."The investment banker is puzzled. He wants to help his new friend, who he recognizes is clearly confused. The investment banker has helped many businesses and has an MBA and other fancy credentials to his name. So he lays out a plan for the fisherman..."First, you spend more time fishing, so you can catch and sell more fish. You use the proceeds to buy a bigger boat, which allows you to catch and sell even more fish. Then you buy a fleet of boats. You hire a team. Vertically integrate! As CEO of a large, growing enterprise, you could move to the big city. You would take your company public and make millions!"The fisherman looks confused, but smiles."And then what?" he asks.The investment banker laughs at the silly question."Well, then you could retire to a quiet town! You could sleep late, fish a little, and spend time with your children and beautiful wife. In the evening, you could go into town, drink wine, play the guitar, and sing and laugh with your friends."The fisherman smiles broadly, thanks his new friend for the advice, and wanders off slowly into the warm afternoon sun.More vs. EnoughThis parable illustrates the importance of perspective.The story isn’t about the fisherman or the banker being “right”—it’s about personally identifying what success and purpose looks like to you, and then building a life that meets that definition.Fundamentally, it’s about a dichotomy that rules our lives: More vs. Enough.The Hedonic TreadmillHedonic adaptation is the tendency of humans to revert to a happiness baseline shortly after new positive or negative events.It (probably) developed as a survival mechanism of sorts—in the wild, you needed to stay on an even keel in order to survive to reproductive age. After a big hunt and kill, the thrill of the victory had to wear off quickly so that you didn’t let your guard down and get eaten by a lion. That seems…good.But in the modern age, hedonic adaptation has a darker side.It becomes a treadmill—the Hedonic Treadmill—a perpetual motion machine that keeps us running in search of the next thing.We create this magical universe in our minds where that one next thing will be exactly what makes us permanently, sustainably happier.The harsh reality? We get to that next thing, appreciate it for a moment, and then turn our gaze to the next, next thing, with no marked improvement in our happiness.You’ve undoubtedly seen this general dynamic play out:We can finally buy the second home in Florida we’ve always dreamed of. Two weeks later, we’re complaining about maintaining it and thinking that a third home in Sedona sounds nice.We buy that fancy car—we ride around smiling broadly with the music blasting, and then see someone in the newer model and start

Welcome to the most important new member of the curiosity tribe who joined us since Friday—my son, Roman Reddy Bloom.I spent the first 30 years of my life trying to find the meaning and purpose of all of this. Then one day, it was staring right back at me. My new best friend.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by LEX!What they do: make it easy to invest in real estate!Pop quiz: What asset class has created more millionaires than any other? Answer: Real estate.LEX has a really cool angle for investing in real estate. LEX does an “IPO” for a building, so you can directly invest in marquee commercial real estate. You can build a portfolio of buildings you want to invest in. Each building has a ticker, just like stocks. As a shareholder, you can get paid dividends flowing from the rent paid by the tenants. You can also earn tax advantaged passive income and trade without lockups.Check out LEX’s live assets in New York City and upcoming IPO in Seattle.Sign up for free here and get a $50 bonus when you deposit at least $500.Today at a Glance:Anti-goals are the things we DON'T want to happen—either as final outcomes or along the way. Establishing them allows you to win the battle AND the war.If traditional goals are the rudders that set your direction, think of anti-goals as the map that tells you where the rapids are. Awareness keeps you on smooth waters.The generalized process involves four steps: (1) Choose Your Arena, (2) Establish Traditional Goals, (3) Invert the Problem, and (4) Establish Anti-Goals. Test it out by establishing anti-goals when planning for new projects, designing your life, or creating self-improvement plans.The Ultimate Goal Setting ToolI love writing this newsletter.There are plenty of reasons, but at the top of the list is the fact that I get to take you all on a journey with me. Not a physical journey—though it would be fun to do a Curiosity Chronicle retreat someday!—but a learning journey.I’m able to share new insights and perspectives in *real time*.This isn’t some academic newsletter where I lecture you on truths and personal wisdom—this is simply me sharing ideas, frameworks, and models that I am battle-testing on my own journey.I am not a teacher—I am a student, learning alongside all of you.In that vein, today’s piece will share a new learning: the power of Anti-Goals.An Introduction to Anti-GoalsAt the start of 2022, I shared a piece called The Goal Setting Guide—a breakdown of my framework for setting—and smashing—goals.Shortly after I shared the piece, however, I came across the intriguing concept of “anti-goals” from my friend Andrew Wilkinson. I began to wonder if my goal setting framework was in need of a refresh.I like to personally battle-test new concepts before I share them publicly, so I started establishing “Anti-Goals” for all new projects.Everything changed.It quickly became a staple for:Planning for new projectsDesigning my lifeCreating self-improvement plansSo with sufficient battle-testing behind me, I'd like to share how to leverage anti-goals to level up your goal setting process.The concept is grounded in inversion—a foundational mental model that says that complex problems are often easier solved backwards vs. forwards.Inversion was made famous by one quote from Charlie Munger:All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there.With traditional goals, we envision the optimal outcome. We then build systems that will—hopefully—lead to that outcome.This is important and necessary—but it’s incomplete. Anti-goals leverage inversion to complete the picture.Anti-goals are the things we DON'T want to happen—either as final outcomes or along the way.I think of anti-goals as being about avoiding the Pyrrhic victory—a term coined after King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who suffered devastating losses while defeating the Roman army in battle in 279 B.C.E.The term is now commonly used to refer to a victory that takes such a terrible toll on the victor that it might has well have been a defeat.My friend Shaan Puri, another proponent of anti-goals, elaborates:What if your dream was to be a musician. And guess what - you did it! But while you’re touring the world, you gain weight, get addicted to drugs, your marriage is in shambles, and your kids don’t recognize you....you won the battle but lost the war.Anti-goals allow you to win the battle AND the war!The Anti-Goal FrameworkOk, so how do you leverage anti-goals in your goal setting process?The generalized version involves four steps:Choose Your ArenaEstablish Traditional GoalsInvert the ProblemEstablish Anti-GoalsLet’s walk through each step:Choose Your ArenaThe arena is the "project" you’re going to be working on.A few broad categories to consider:PersonalWorkHealthYour arena should be a specific project under a larger category. It’s the place where you’re looking for achievement, progress, or growth.Establish Traditional GoalsThese are your standard goals—the desired outcomes from the chosen arena. This should b

Welcome to the 1,044 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 91,634 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT: Hyper startup accelerator is open for applications!If you're thinking about joining an accelerator or raising capital for your startup, Hyper is a new accelerator backed by the biggest venture capital firms in tech.A few reasons I’m a huge fan:More competitive terms than competitors ($300k for 5%).Hyper is the sister company of Product Hunt—companies get unique access to Product Hunt, the team, and launch support.World-class advisors including Sequoia’s Alfred Lin, Ryan Hoover, Deena Shakir, Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg, and a lot more.Small batches make for a far more personalized experience.Efficient 4 week long program.Participants get time with me on how to scale your storytelling!This is an amazing opportunity for startups all around the world. Apply for the program here.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Air!If you’re still using Google Drive and Dropbox to store your files, you’re going to want to listen up. While those tools are fine for people who just need to store everything, they fall terribly flat when it comes to creative collaboration and scalability on images and videos.Walk with me…let’s talk about Air. Air has built a solution—a platform that allows marketers and creatives to collaborate seamlessly across the entire content library of a business. All the work happens directly in the visual asset. The end result? Businesses can 10x the power of their content to become storytelling machines.Air is the “holy s*** why didn’t this already exist?!” solution for marketing and creative collaboration. My startup portfolio loves it and you will too. Get a demo today and level up your content.Today at a Glance:Public speaking is scary. So scary that a number of surveys and studies have found that people rank public speaking ahead of death on a list of their greatest fears.It’s also one of the most critical skill sets for your career and life. Confident, powerful public speaking—whether informal or formal—will accelerate your personal and professional life.Strategies for more confident public speaking: avoid memorization, study the best, strike a power pose, practice relentlessly, find the anxiety killers, play the lava game, slow down to 0.75x, engage the audience, implement a storytelling structure, move with purpose, never self-sabotage, and cut the fear.The Power Speaking Guide"There are two types of speakers: those that are nervous and those that are liars." — Mark TwainOk, so public speaking is scary.How scary?Well, a number of surveys and studies have found that people rank public speaking ahead of death on a list of their greatest fears…THAT scary.Unfortunately, public speaking is also one of the most critical skill sets for your career and life. Confident, powerful public speaking—whether informal or formal—will accelerate your personal and professional endeavors. It sits in the all-important top-right quadrant of the Scary vs. Beneficial 2x2 grid.So we can’t just hide from it. We need a set of strategies to increase our confidence and level up our speaking game.In today’s piece, I’ll propose 12 such strategies. Some of the strategies will appear non-obvious or even counter-intuitive—but trust me, they work.Without further ado, let’s dive in…Avoid MemorizationWhen we’re nervous for a speech, toast, presentation, or talk, our bias is to memorize the content word-for-word.We memorize in a valiant effort to avoid screwing up.Ironically, memorization often has the opposite effect.Imagine you are driving to a friend’s new house. You look up the directions before leaving—they seem simple enough, so you just memorize them. On the way, there’s a bit or roadwork that forces you to make a slight detour. Suddenly, you’re completely lost. You memorized the directions from A to B, but the slight twist has taken you off course and you have no clue how to get back on track. You only memorized the directions for one specific scenario (going directly from point A to point B), but the situation became more dynamic.For most people, the same general principle applies to public speaking.When you memorize material, one tiny slip-up can throw you off. You only know the material in one fixed direction, so you're unable to adapt. All it takes is a glitch in the slides, an off-track question from the audience, or a slight stumble in your opener and all of your preparation is out the window.Furthermore, rote memorization can make you appear distant to the audience.Instead of memorizing:Focus on a few key moments. Perfect the opening line, transitions, and closing. When you nail these, you create momentum—with the audience and yourself. It instills a confidence you can build on. Manufacture these small "wins" that compound.Create “lego blocks” that you can piece together. Hone small chunks of stories and ideas

Welcome to the 404 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 89,181 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by LEX!What they do: make it easy to invest in real estatePop quiz…What asset class has created more millionaires than any other? Answer: Real estate.Today’s sponsor, LEX, has a really cool angle for investing in real estate. LEX does an “IPO” for a building, so you can directly invest in marquee commercial real estate. You can build a portfolio of buildings you want to invest in. Each building has a ticker, just like stocks. As a shareholder, you can get paid dividends flowing from the rent paid by the tenants. You can also earn tax advantaged passive income and trade without lockups.Check out LEX’s live assets in New York City and upcoming IPO in Seattle.Sign up for free here and get a $50 bonus when you deposit at least $500.Today at a Glance:Cognitive biases and logical fallacies are systematic errors in thinking and reasoning that negatively impact decision-making quality, logic, and outcomes.Combatting them relies first and foremost on establishing a level of awareness—both academically and practically.Part I of this series covered Fundamental Attribution Error, Naïve Realism, the Curse of Knowledge, Availability Bias, and Survivorship Bias.Today’s Part II covers Loss Aversion, the Spotlight Effect, Heaven’s Reward Fallacy, Confirmation Bias, and Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.Dangerous Mental ErrorsA few weeks ago, I shared Part I of a multi-part series on cognitive biases and logical fallacies.In the opening to the piece, I commented on the fascinating dichotomy of our species:We possess the capacity to accomplish some complex feat of technology and engineering, and subsequently fall victim to the most obviously flawed base logic. For a hyper-intelligent species, our thinking and decision-making patterns can be pretty fractured.To be sure, many of these fractures were—for much of human history—features, not bugs. It’s logical to surmise that they were hardwired into our DNA because they made it incrementally more likely that we would survive to reproductive age.But the facts on the ground have changed—we live in a Digital Age—and our thinking and reasoning pathways have not had enough time to “catch up” to those new realities.So, we have to force it—we have to fight back and regain control over the quality of our decision-making and logic.In today’s Part II of the multi-part series, I’ll cover five common cognitive biases and logical fallacies that negatively impact decision-making quality, logic, and outcomes. To really bring it to life, for each one, I’ll provide a definition, example, and perspectives on how to fight back.Without further ado, let’s dive in…Loss AversionDefinitionThe pain of losing something is more powerful than the pleasure of winning it.Loss aversion was first identified by famed behavioral scientists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who found that humans had a tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains.Accordingly, people were typically willing to take actions to avoid losses that they wouldn’t have taken to seek gains. Economists had previously assumed humans were rational actors—that $100 in losses would drive the same amount of pain as $100 in gains would create pleasure. Wrong. Humans are enigmatic creatures!ExampleInvestors—professional and amateur alike—provide some of the most clear, trackable examples of loss aversion. The pain and fear of realizing a loss often leads investors to hold onto losing positions much longer than they should.The media contributes to this bias—dunking on investors who cut ties with losing positions rather than celebrating the fact that they may have exhibited clear, rational thinking.How to Fight BackAvoid emotional connection to your possessions—whether they are investments, material items, or money. Attempt to distance your emotions from the decision-making process where possible.Ask questions:Am I being objective and rational in this decision?Am I too connected emotionally to make a rational decision?If you are too connected to a given decision, you may need to outsource it to an objective third-party.The Spotlight EffectDefinitionHumans significantly overestimate the degree to which other people are noticing or observing our appearance or actions.It causes a lot of social anxiety—it keeps people from being themselves due to an irrational fear of judgement.We incorrectly assume that others are thinking about us. The reality: Everyone is just thinking about themselves.ExampleImagine you go to a dinner party. You’re nervous about the party, because you know there will be a lot of smart attendees and you won’t know anyone there.During the cocktail hour, you’re in a small group discussion and say something incorrect about the current state of domestic economic affairs. Your error is pointed out politely a

Welcome to the 1,146 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 88,500 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Quick Announcement: Audience Building Course is back May 3-6!It's a live cohort-based course designed to help you build a high-leverage audience. Results from prior cohorts were awesome—hundreds of thousands of new followers and subscribers and countless new monetization opportunities created.Only 25 spots remaining—you can grab your seat here.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by LMNT!LMNT is my healthy alternative to sugary sports drinks.I work out a lot and pay close attention to what I put in my body (other than the occasional whiskey). That means that I reject all the standard sports drinks and their sugar-filled formulas.LMNT is a tasty solution—an electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don't. That means a science-backed electrolyte ratio with no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, or any other junk.Get your free LMNT Sample pack below (you only cover the cost of shipping). You’re going to love it.Today at a Glance:An intellectual sparring partner is a friend, colleague, or acquaintance whose combination of background, competency, and personality makes them well-suited to strengthen the quality of your reasoning and decision-making via active, grounded discussion and debate.To identify one, look for a combination of a different background from your own, clarity and depth of thinking, and a kind but direct personality.Establish structure with regular “sparring sessions”—1 hour on a fixed weekly or monthly cadence, with clear topics and desired outcomes to guide the discussion.Intellectual Sparring PartnersOver the weekend, I posted a thread on Twitter on the topic of ideas I can’t stop thinking about.It was intentionally broad—a running list of some of the most interesting concepts, frameworks, paradoxes, and mental models that have been percolating in my mind over the last several months.If you’ve been following along for a while, by now you’ve realized that my posts are rarely intended to give you “the answer”—they’re intended to make you think. I want to give you the tools, but leave it up to you to create your own maps of how to use them.If I can spark new curiosity about a topic—and that curiosity leads to active thinking, learning, discussion, and personal or professional growth—I’ve done my job.One idea from the list—Intellectual Sparring Partners—seemed to spark a lot of interest, discussion, and follow-up questions.Interestingly, when my friend Alex Lieberman asked me which of the ideas on the list has had the biggest impact on my life to date, intellectual sparring partners was my answer.Why?Well, one intellectual sparring partner—and one “sparring session”—completely changed my life.So in today’s piece, I’d like to shine a spotlight on this idea:What is an Intellectual Sparring Partner?The sparring session that changed my life.How can you find one?The makeup of a great “sparring session”.With that context in mind, let’s dive right in…IntroductionI’ve been fortunate to meet and interact with many top performers in my life.One common trait I’ve observed: they all legitimately enjoy being wrong. They embrace new information that forces them to change their viewpoints—their open mindsets allow them to accumulate and compound knowledge at an accelerated rate.This innate desire to be wrong—to get closer to the truth—leads them to seek out people who are willing and able to push their thinking in new directions and to greater depths.These people are their intellectual sparring partners…Let’s check Sahil’s Dictionary for a definition:Intellectual Sparring Partner (Noun): A friend, colleague, or acquaintance whose combination of background, competency, and personality makes them well-suited to strengthen the quality of your reasoning and decision-making via active, grounded discussion and debate.Put simply, an intellectual sparring partner is a person who is willing and able to question, critique, and pressure test your thinking.Friends come easy—intellectual sparring partners are harder to find, but are incredibly important and valuable.A Personal StoryTo bring this concept to life, I’ll share a quick personal story…In early 2021, I was completely lost. From the outside looking in, everything was fine—I had built a large following on Twitter, I had a good job, etc. But on the inside, I felt like I was wandering around with a blindfold on.I had decided to leave my stable job in private equity—and the wonderful group of colleagues that came with it—to pursue something new, but had run into a series of rejections along the way.In May 2021, at my point of peak uncertainty, I sat down for a meal with Shaan Puri, the host of the My First Million podcast and one of my go-to intellectual sparring partners.The conversation went something like this:Shaan: So, tell me how you’re thinking a

Welcome to the 840 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 86,375 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Quick Announcement: Audience Building Course is back May 3-6!It's a live cohort-based course designed to help you build a high-leverage audience. Results from prior cohorts were awesome—hundreds of thousands of new followers and subscribers and countless new monetization opportunities created.50 spots remaining—you can grab your seat here.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by LEX!What asset class has created more millionaires than any other? Real estate. The problem is that it’s an asset class that has previously been inaccessible to most investors. LEX has changed that with a unique new way to invest in real estate.LEX does an “IPO” for a building, so you can build a portfolio of buildings you want to invest in. Each building has a ticker, just like stocks. Any US investor can open a LEX account, browse opportunities in various asset classes such as multifamily and office buildings, and buy shares of individual buildings.I’m a huge fan of the platform—you will be too! Get a $50 bonus when you deposit $500 by using the link below.It’s Later Than You ThinkYou work and work for years and years, you're always on the goYou never take a minute off, too busy makin' doughSomeday you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaireImagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chairEnjoy yourself, it's later than you thinkEnjoy yourself, while you're still in the pinkThe years go by, as quickly as a winkEnjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think- Guy Lombardo, Enjoy Yourself, It’s Later Than You ThinkA few weeks ago, I posted a thread on Twitter on harsh truths of life.Contrary to what you may believe, this piece was not intended to be dark or morbid. It was intended to make you think—to hopefully question some underlying (yet flawed) assumptions and spark active discussion with those around you.Today’s newsletter has the same intention.It’s more emotion-inducing than most of my work—I teared up several times during the writing!—but also arguably the most important piece I will ever write.My hope is for you to come away from it feeling cleansed, refreshed, and empowered to think clearly and deeply about your time and how you choose to spend it.With that context in mind, let’s dive right in…The Harsh TruthHarsh Truth: You’ll only see your loved ones a few more times.A Personal StoryI’ll start with a personal story.In May 2021, I had a conversation with a new friend that changed my life.We were having a chat—over a few whiskeys, of course—about living in California. He had grown up there and his entire family had settled there, so I was lamenting that it was so far away from my parents and sister in Boston.My friend asked how often I saw them and how old my parents were...I replied that I saw them about once per year, and that they were in their mid-60s. He looked me square in the face and plainly said:"Ok, so you'll see them 15 more times in your life."Gut punch.It sounds insensitive—but it's just real. It’s just…math. If the average life expectancy is ~80 years, my parents are in their mid-60s, and I see them one time per year, the math—however depressing—says I will see them 15 more times before they are gone.Our time together is finite, but we fail to recognize it until it's too late.Time is cruel. You’ll love it with all of your being, you may even pray for more of it, but the reality is that time doesn’t care about you.Your relationship with time is the ultimate unrequited love.The morning after this conversation, I woke up and had a very candid conversation with my wife about what we wanted in life. A few days later, we listed our brand new house in California on the market. Thanks to a blazing hot housing market, we sold our house within days, packed up our things, and shipped off to the East Coast to be closer to our parents.It’s been almost a year, and it was the best decision I've ever made.I'll never regret these tiny moments—of doing nothing in particular—that we'll get to spend together in the years ahead. I’ll never regret the moments my parents get to spend with my son once he is born.I’ll never regret any of this.Visualizing TimeWhen I first shared this story on Twitter, the response was pretty overwhelming. It seemed I wasn’t alone in having this painful, yet powerful, realization.Tim Urban—one of my favorite writers (and an upcoming guest on my podcast!)—wrote about this phenomenon in a recent New York Times op-ed.In classic Tim Urban fashion, he produced a simple visualizations to capture the sentiment of the entire piece.Quoting from the article:What it boils down to is this: My life, in the best-case scenario, will consist of around 20 years of in-person parent time. The first 19 happened over the course of my first 19 years. The final year is spread out over the rest of my life. When I

Welcome to the 4,178 (!!!) new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 84,638 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by LMNT!LMNT is my healthy alternative to sugary sports drinks.I work out a lot and pay close attention to what I put in my body (other than the occasional whiskey). That means that I reject all the standard sports drinks and their sugar-filled formulas.LMNT is a tasty solution—an electrolyte drink mix with everything you need and nothing you don't. That means a science-backed electrolyte ratio with no sugar, no coloring, no artificial ingredients, or any other junk.Get your free LMNT Sample pack below (you only cover the cost of shipping). You’re going to love it.Today at a Glance:Cognitive biases are systematic errors in thinking that negatively impact decision-making quality and outcomes.Combatting them relies first and foremost on establishing a level of awareness of the biases—both academically and practically.Today’s deep dive covers five common cognitive biases that derail decision-making: Fundamental Attribution Error, Naïve Realism, the Curse of Knowledge, Availability Bias, and Survivorship Bias.Dangerous Mental ErrorsHumans are fascinating creatures.We possess the capacity to accomplish some complex feat of technology and engineering, and subsequently fall victim to the most obviously flawed base logic. For a hyper-intelligent species, our thinking and decision-making patterns can be pretty fractured.Many of these fractures fall into the category of cognitive biases—systematic errors in thinking that negatively impact decision-making quality and outcomes.Importantly, these are typically subconscious, automatic errors. We are wired to take shortcuts in our decision-making—to be more efficient and effective in the wild—but shortcuts are a double-edged sword. Speed and efficiency can be great, but when we systematically misinterpret the data, signal, and information from the world around us, it dramatically impacts the consistency and rationality of our decisions.Fortunately, we can fight back and regain—at least a modicum of—control over the quality of our decision-making.In today’s piece, I’ll cover five common cognitive biases that derail decision-making. For each, I’ll provide a definition, example, and perspectives on how to fight back.This will be Part I of a multi-part series on cognitive biases and logical fallacies—as it’s a topic that deeply impacts all of our careers and lives. Developing an awareness of these errors—and a plan to combat them—will give you a legitimate competitive advantage in all of your pursuits.Let’s dive in…Fundamental Attribution ErrorDefinitionFundamental Attribution Error is the human tendency to hold others accountable while giving ourselves a break.It says that humans tend to:Attribute someone else's actions to their character—and not to their situation or context.Attribute our actions to our situation and context—and not to our character.In short: We cut ourselves a break, but hold others accountable.Why do we do this? Well, as with many of the biases we will cover, it likely developed as a heuristic—a problem-solving or decision-making shortcut—in this case for simplifying the process and judgement around new human relationships.From an evolutionary perspective, quickly attributing negative actions to character—rather than situation or context—may have kept you alive, as you’d be more likely to avoid that individual in future interactions to play it safe.But in a modern context, it can create real problems—a failure to recognize or empathize with the context and situational factors impacting others is at the core of many societal and organizational issues.ExampleThe workplace is a common breeding ground for Fundamental Attribution Error.It’s easy to form perspectives on the character of colleagues and bosses based on small pieces of incomplete information.If a colleague arrives late for work, they’re just lazy, right?This is clearly a flawed line of thinking, as there are numerous factors that could have contributed to your colleague’s lateness.The reality is that, in these instances, you are using limited information to create an overall picture of an individual. You’re seeing one square of a map and believing you know the map in its entirety.How to Fight BackYou’ll never completely eliminate Fundamental Attribution Error, but you can limit its impact.The first step is always awareness—keep it in mind, particularly as you build a body of experiences with new colleagues or acquaintances. This is when it’s most likely to strike.Force yourself to slow down and evaluate the potential circumstances or situational factors that may be influencing an individual’s actions or behaviors.You won’t always have the time to do so—shortcuts are often necessary and helpful—but with longer-term or important relationships, it’s worth the extra effort.

Welcome to the 979 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 80,207 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Write of Passage!Fun Fact: This newsletter would not exist if not for David Perell.When we first met, David explained his concept of the Personal Monopoly and convinced me to go all in on building mine. One year later, here we are.The Internet unfairly rewards people who have a unique set of skills, experiences, and ideas. When that combination is so unique that it can’t be replicated, you create a Personal Monopoly.David Perell has become the go-to guy for writing online, and has helped thousands of students create their own personal monopolies. He’s created a free guide to help people uncover their strengths, clearly communicate their value, and start building their reputation online with a free lesson from his Write of Passage course.This is a life cheat code. I highly recommend checking it out!Today at a Glance:Type I Procrastination is common and generally not very harmful. We procrastinate on doing the laundry, taking out the trash, or replying to our emails. Type II Procrastination is equally common, but much more damning. Type II tasks tend to be the long-term important projects—the true growth creators. When we procrastinate on these projects, we fail to make progress.The Anti-Procrastination System involves five core steps: (1) Awareness, (2) Deconstruction, (3) Plan Creation, (4) Stake Creation, and (5) Action.The system is equally applicable for both Type I and II, but given its deliberate structure, it’s likely better to walk through for the first time in the context of Type II Procrastination.How to Stop ProcrastinatingConfession: I’ve spent most of my life as a chronic procrastinator.I’ve also spent most of my life justifying that chronic procrastination. “It’s just how I work,” I’d say to myself after yet another stress-inducing last-minute sprint to complete a project. The pressure of an imminent deadline was what I needed to thrive.Scientifically, I wasn't wildly off…The Yerkes-Dodson Law—originally developed by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dodson in 1908—says stress and performance are positively correlated…up to a point, after which more stress reduces performance.But there are two core issues here:It’s very difficult to honestly review where you sit on the curve. Are you really at optimal stress, or have you gone past that point on the curve?If procrastination is the only way you’re able to create optimal stress, you only work on the urgent tasks—very rarely the long-term important tasks. As you’ll recall from my piece on The Ultimate Productivity Tool, this is a recipe for stalled progress.What I realized: A modest amount of stress, pressure, and arousal is good—but relying on procrastination to create it is bad. Procrastination is a growth limiter—it restricts our potential.It became clear to me that I needed to develop a system to fight back.In today’s piece, I’d like to share that system with all of you.The Anti-Procrastination SystemI categorize procrastination-prone tasks into two types:Type I: Small & BoringType II: Big & ScaryType I Procrastination is common and generally not very harmful. We procrastinate on doing the laundry, taking out the trash, or replying to our emails.Type II Procrastination is equally common, but much more damning. Type II tasks tend to be the long-term important projects—the true growth creators. When we procrastinate on these projects, we fail to make progress—we stall. The Anti-Procrastination System involves five core steps:AwarenessDeconstructionPlan CreationStake CreationActionThe structure is sequential, but its practice is often dynamic & iterative.Note: The system is equally applicable for both Type I and II, but given its deliberate structure, it’s likely better to walk through for the first time in the context of Type II Procrastination.Let's walk through each of the steps...AwarenessAs with most mental hurdles, the first step is becoming aware of the problem.Procrastination is defined as the action of postponing or delaying something. Ancient Greek philosophers called it Akrasia—acting against your better judgement. We procrastinate when it's easier to delegate a task to our future self.Don’t beat yourself up about it. The proclivity to procrastinate is literally hardwired into our DNA. We value immediate rewards, even if we know that it isn’t what’s best for us in the long-term.To develop awareness, schedule a daily assessment of your day-to-day actions. Start by identifying the important long-term projects in your life.Then ask a few questions:Am I proud of the actions I am taking on these big projects?Am I doing what I should be doing?If the answers are “no”—that’s great.You're now aware of your procrastination and can proceed to the next step...DeconstructionThe driver of Type II Procrastination i

Welcome to the 1,002 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 78,225 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Veridas!Do you struggle with verifying the identity of your customers?Gone are the days of needing to ask customers over the phone to verify 3 pieces of information to prove their identity, and wasting your support rep's time. Veridas’ voice biometric authentication will confirm a person's identity simply by hearing them speak. No language requirements, no special phrase, just 3 seconds of chatter. In fact, 100 companies around the world already trust Veridas thanks to its simplicity, accuracy (+99.9%), and speed (150 milliseconds).Veridas is offering a special 15% discount for all Curiosity Chronicle subscribers that book a live demo in the next 30 days. Sign up at the link below to take advantage of the offer!Today at a Glance:Whether you’re just starting—or building—your career, you’ve undoubtedly faced new challenges that no textbook or classroom could have prepared you for. Early career years can be quite painful and anxiety-inducing. You face a completely new world with no map—no guide to help you navigate the uncharted terrain.Today’s piece provides that guide—a simple set of core principles that you can turn to and rely on as you start and build your career.If you prefer a printable, evergreen format that you can refer to in future, I turned this into a beautiful e-book, which you can buy here. It includes several additional principles and visualizations not in the newsletter version.The Career Success GuideWhether you’re just starting—or building—your career, you’ve undoubtedly faced new challenges that no textbook or classroom could have prepared you for.Early career years can be quite painful and anxiety-inducing. You face a completely new world with no map—no guide to help you navigate the uncharted terrain…So today, I’d like to provide that guide—a simple set of core principles that you can turn to and rely on as you start and build your career.All of the principles contained herein were developed and earned through my own experience, generally through failures or missteps. My hope is that by providing this in writing, you can avoid those same mistakes and accelerate your path.If you prefer a printable, evergreen format that you can refer to in future, I turned this into a beautiful e-book, which you can buy here. It also includes several additional principles and visualizations not in the newsletter version.With that context in mind, let’s dive right in: The Career Success Guide—10 principles to help you navigate the challenges of your early career…Build a Personal Board of AdvisorsThe general logic here is simple.If you treat your career lifecycle as a company...You start as a high-growth startupYou grow into a bigger businessYou IPO and are a public companyAt each phase, you're faced with a variety of difficult and new decisions and challenges.Traditionally, people have turned to "mentorship" to navigate the uncharted waters they encounter at each stage. But "mentorship" feels very formal. It carries a connotation of a fixed cadence and time commitment. From the mentor's perspective, it feels like a big commitment.Furthermore, having one formal mentor often falls short from a utility standpoint. Your mentor may not have encountered the challenge you're facing—they may not have a "map" that you can leverage to navigate the terrain. They may not be available when you need to make an important decision.Instead, build a Personal Board of Advisors. Companies have boards—ideally comprised of individuals from varying backgrounds and arenas. The board isn't involved in the day-to-day, but provides advice on strategy, key decisions, and challenges.Your Personal Board of Advisors is a group of 5-10 individuals.Important features:Unbiased (not family)Diverse experiences and backgroundsWilling to provide raw feedbackOver time, you can add and subtract from your board. The members don't need to know each other or that they are on your board. Informality is a feature, not a bug.As you encounter challenges, key decisions, or inflection points in your career, these are the people that you can reliably turn to for grounded perspectives, feedback, and advice.Swallow the Frog for Your BossThe “frog” is a difficult or annoying task your boss doesn’t want to do. But their frog is your opportunity!It presents one of the single greatest hacks to getting ahead early in your career:Observe your boss.Figure out what they hate doing.Teach yourself to do it.Take it off their plate (i.e. swallow the frog!).Swallowing the frog for your boss is a clear way to add value, put up a win, and build momentum.Create a Decentralized Growth TribeHaving a decentralized friend group to learn from and grow with is a legitimate competitive advantage.The features of a decentralized friend group:Unconnected to ot

Welcome to the 1,202 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 76,887 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Rows!After spending 7+ years in traditional finance, I had Chronic Excel Fatigue–the result of countless hours spent wrestling with the dated, legacy technology that hasn’t been updated since 2006!Fortunately, I discovered Rows—spreadsheets, reimagined. Rows is a truly magical product experience. It allows you to seamlessly pull data on stocks, crypto and more, and instantly integrate with services like Stripe, Google Analytics, Twitter, Salesforce, Instagram, Facebook and public databases like Crunchbase and LinkedIn.Rows is one of the most insane new product experiences I have had in recent memory. I use Rows for everything from managing my Startup Portfolio, social analytics, fund investing, and LPs to tracking household budgets and personal finance. I may never open Excel again.For your next spreadsheet, give Rows a try. You won’t be disappointed. Join thousands of teams that have stepped up their spreadsheet game with Rows.Today at a Glance:It has become in vogue to bash the traditional education system and the learning models it reinforces in our youth. I’m certainly guilty of it. In a broad sense, it’s always quite easy to criticize the incumbent—but much more difficult to propose a viable alternative, particularly one that works at scale.Traditional learning models fall short in two respects: (1) they endorse compartmentalized knowledge and (2) they create forced, linear progressions.The ultimate meta-goal of learning is for knowledge to compound over time. We want to learn in such a way that new knowledge builds on top of existing foundations—ideally in an accelerating, non-linear manner.Networked Learning is a way to return to our roots and allow knowledge to freely interact and compound. There are many ways to engage it, including: (1) Explore vs. Tour, (2) Analogize Constantly, (3) Paired Learning, (4) Read Broadly & Quit More, and (5) Slow Down Learning.The New Way to Learn“Traditional learning models are dead.”If you’ve been scrolling Twitter or attending any group events over the last five years, you’ve probably heard some variation of the above statement countless times.It has become in vogue to bash the traditional education system and the learning models it reinforces in our youth. I’m certainly guilty of it. In a broad sense, it’s always quite easy to criticize the incumbent—but much more difficult to propose a viable alternative, particularly one that works at scale.In today’s piece, I’d like to lay the foundation for an alternative, better learning model: Networked Learning. Let’s begin with the traditional model and its deficiencies before diving into the details of the new way and how to use it.Note: I say *foundation* because my thinking on the topic remains a work-in-progress. I believe I have identified a truly better way for children and adults to learn—and clear methods to use it—but the challenge of deploying it at scale remains.The Traditional ModelI graduated from my public high school thinking I hated most subjects.It was odd—I was a pretty interested kid, but I drifted from class to class, doing the bare minimum to deliver an adequate report card to my discerning parents and clear the academic hurdles required by Stanford Athletic Department’s admissions team.Reflecting on it with the benefit of hindsight—and a bit of maturity—what I actually hated was the learning model the traditional education system forced upon me: A learning model grounded in linear, compartmentalized learning. A learning model that praised rote memorization of facts.Unfortunately, this learning model is drilled into us for so many years that the bad habits stick with us throughout our life. As a result, few find a way to learn more effectively in adulthood.Stick with me today and I’ll help you break the vicious cycle…Let's start with a quick breakdown of the traditional model and why it's broken.Problem #1: CompartmentalizedTraditional education asks you to create containers in your mind.I imagine them like little houses. You have your history house, your English house, your science house, your math house, etc. Each house is discrete and closed off to the rest of the houses and world.Let’s say you have a history test on Monday. On Sunday night, you sit down with a coffee and cram some new abstract information about Genghis Khan into your designated history house. You remember it for the test on Monday and manage to ace it. Your teacher, parents, and friends pat you on the back and say "great job!”—but by the following Monday, you've forgotten it.“Oh well,” you say, “I didn’t need to know about Genghis Khan anyway…”This process repeats for every subject. Knowledge is crammed and trapped into its designated house.The problem? Trapped knowledge is basically useless. It's insula