I used to listen to her all the time when I would go snowboarding. On the chairlift and ripping down the mountain, I would shout, "Jolene... Jolene.... Jolene, JOLEEEEEENE!" Read her book too. She was a strong woman who didn't take shit fr…

An American hero.

RIP Dolly Parton

I don’t know how it happened… Okay, that’s a lie, yes I do: I ate too many calories, too often. God, humans are really bad at counting calories. I thought I was hovering around maintenance, but nope! The love-handles started to appear, fee…

It snuck up on me

I got fat

I saw this post online and had to share it: We stop creating new memories. As adults, we start sleepwalking through life. Same route. Same office. Same conversations. Same glowing screens. Your brain stops recording and starts compressing.…

We stop creating new memories

Do regular bloodwork if you can. I uncovered my clinical hypothyroidism (last reading: TSH 7.44). I use a service called Rythm Health. Over the last year I noticed my energy levels starting to plummet… My TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone)…

Found out about my hypothyroidism

Get regular bloodwork

1. Good coffee makes life worth living 2. There are no rules 3. Find a life partner 4. Work out, lift heavy 5. Nobody knows what they are doing 6. Read more books 7. Keep up with your friends 8. Use social media less 9. Take photos for mem…

Here’s 36 random thoughts I scribbled down literally right now

It’s my 36th bday

My theory is that Apple will become more of a software company than a hardware company. We're already seeing mass penetration of Apple software products like iMessage, Apple Notes, FaceTime, Photos, and Safari among Gen Z users who are mob…

and they've lost the plot

Apple is losing itself

Let me preface by saying that what I say here only applies to software companies. Hardware companies NEED to be in person at least for the foreseeable future. It's rah-rah to be all in on in-person, and I really do like in-person, but the…

I'm more bullish on remote work than ever.

now i'm the contrarian

stop shooting yourself in the foot. every time i run into a hard problem, and my back is up against the wall, i notice an inclination to want to “think my way out.” turns out, that it doesn’t just work that way. we can characterize this as…

the biggest tragedy of your career (and life) can be avoided if you get out of your own way

overthinking is killing you

I often find myself mulling over what it really means to be “nice” versus “kind,” and the distinction has a quiet, almost poetic depth to it. Imagine you’re at a small dinner party. Being nice is like that courteous smile you flash at ever…

Don't be nice. Be kind.

assumptions get us into trouble. “i assumed you would understand.” “i just assumed it would get resolved.” “i assume that they would like it.” i bet you’ve said things like this before. in and out of business. every time this happens, it s…

stop assuming things

experimenting with a productivity hack: setting a 5-minute timer to focus on only one thing it's simple: set a timer & tackle only one task for 5 mins. anyone can do anything for 5 mins sounds really silly but my adhd can get the best of m…

5-minute work hack

“Slow is smooth, smooth is fast” is a phrase used by the SEAL teams. When faced with a chaotic situation or project, the instinct might be to say, “Let’s all put our heads down and sprint for a week straight to push through.” But sprinting…

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

I made two simple changes in 2024: 1) Eat 200 grams of protein per day 2) Lift as heavy as I can; life to failure Completely transformed my life... When I aim to eat 200 grams of protein, I by default am forced to cut out certain swaths of…

tl;dr is more protein & lifting heavy

I made two simple changes in 2024:

Being able to gracefully take feedback is a superpower. Some people get offended. Others get mad, sad. You can’t always control the way someone delivers feedback but you can control your reaction to it. Next time someone yells at you or gi…

Taking feedback

Self-confidence is inversely proportional to you being offended. The less confident you are, the more likely you are to be offended by others.

Self-Confidence

I recently learned that a friend, a father figure of sorts, was diagnosed with stage IV stomach cancer. He is someone whom I grew up with and looked up to. A wicked guitar player, independent, trusting. He's young too, maybe 65. He and his…

Remember death

Memento Mori

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang: People with really high expectations have very low resilience

(a short video)

In August I tweeted, “weight loss will solve 50% of your problems” and upon further reflection, I stand by my tweet. Okay, now hold on a second—let met caveat this entire post so that you don’t think I’m a monster with malicious intent. I…

Weight loss will solve 50% of your problems (repost)

You think to yourself, "I'm not qualified for this!"… but why? Why exactly are you thinking that... is there some deeper-level insecurity? Are you nervous that you'll be caught? Caught for what? Not being qualified? Well, you got yourself…

Imposter syndrome is for amateurs

Classic Feynman

Not Knowing Things

(about my morning routine)

I was wrong

On living deliberately

Think less

A short message from Bryan Johnson

Fix your terrible posture (5 habits)

No matter your situation, good sleep makes life so much better. This is because you feel invincible when your body is firing on all cylinders. At the end of the day, we’re all just

Some (re)realizations

Which do you pursue?

Projects vs jobs

Many of us have fallen into the trap of letting others think for us, letting the media think for us, our friends. And for good reason—it’s tribal, baked in our genes. We have a dee

Thinking for yourself

It won't solve all of your problems, but it will solve many of them

Weight loss will solve 50% of your problems

my thoughts from a quick trip

Notes on Prague & Budapest

Co-signing this message from Casey Neistat

What we learned living in Airbnbs for a year

a few notes on why I love this platform and the people in it

I love the Substack community

absurd & amazing

Cooper's Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake

"You can be rich, happy, both, and neither."

A note on shifting to being a producer of things

Consumer to Creator

For the month of September

Books I'm currently reading

Have you lost your way?

Walking the path

Burn the bridges behind you

Forget your optionality

The spaces you occupy stir your attitudes and dispositions

Spaces shape you

It's time for something new

Your morning routine is a waste of time

Start here

My goal for this newsletter

The Money game? The Fame game? The Sex game? The Power game? The Status game? You might ask yourself the following: “What game am I playing?” “Why am I playing this game? “Is this 

What game are you playing?

Unclench

Figure it out

What you don't want to do

A friendly reminder that we don't know anything

Nobody knows what they're doing

Write a haiku about whatever inspires you

Make a Haiku (updated)

Or anything for that matter

Nobody wants to read your sh*t

A very brief practical guide

How to breathe

Ask yourself

What's real?

Building new things daily using AI tools

Daily Build

I'm talking about AI

intelligence != consciousness

Model: Claude 2 from Anthropic Prompt: “Write a beautiful and conflicted haiku about life in the 2020s.” Output: Bright screens fill our eyes Yet longing for human touch Disconnect

Haiku from Claude

How to deal with it

Blockage

I was named after this funky looking tree

Joshua Tree notes, & the end of Nomad Year

For Kindle users...

Reading hack

That's from Paul Graham

"The more labels you apply to yourself, the stupider you become."

Aka "Spartan" routine

One Meal A Day (OMAD)

It helps no one

Stop fetishizing the passage of time

Mega-post of notes from an old blog

My Journey in Southeast Asia (2014 repost)

Am I in Texas or California?

Austin notes

Bulleted list of the pros and cons for each

Ways to start a startup

It's like sex but better

Jhana, blissful ecstasy

An excerpt from the "All-In Podcast"

David Sacks on the "middle management" problem in startups

Welcome to my latest obsession

軽トラ Japanese mini trucks

The best way to make maps on the internet

My new favorite product: Felt

Riffing on a tweet

Slow mornings

Spoiler: It's charming

Charleston notes

Eclectic playlist full of cool songs that I like

Follow my Spotify playlist for good tunes

January 2023

Books I'm reading

A note from a conversation with my mother

On not forcing things

Let's shift our focus from 2022 to 2023

Tech is coming back this year

Hey everyone. Here are some notes of what I’m pondering and exploring. Please feel free to forward this along to friends. Values at a startup Over the last year, Tech has had many 

Monday notes—January 16, 2023

Cute, quiet, cozy month during the holidays

Vermont notes

Use it wisely...

Energy is finite

Thoughts and observations after living here for a month

New York notes

You have permission to think

Thinking is working

Lex Fridman recently tweeted: For me, it's never okay to betray a friend. Not for any amount of money, power, sex, or fame. Great lifelong friendships is one of the most awesome as

With vulnerability comes betrayal

Three reasons why I've incorporated fasting into my life

How and why I fast

Spotify Unwrapped

My top songs for 2022

Brief thoughts on staying here for a week

Cleveland notes

How to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness

The courage to be disliked

In the movie Soul, the main character Joe discovers that after he finally “made it” as a professional jazz musician, it wasn’t as good as he thought it would be. Getting to the end

Just start jazzing

Some thoughts after living here for two months

Montana notes

Game Theory is the science of strategic thinking. It's a mathematical theory found in economics that is applied to a variety of situations in nearly every field. It’s sort of like 

Cooperation and game theory

We should practice happiness, which is a daily act of choosing to be happy. These choices start to compound, creating a kind of equanimity, a calmness, a long term happiness… dare 

Practicing happiness

It's a moral imperative that we venture into the unknown

Reaching for the stars

Here’s what I’ve been exploring

September notes

The Hindu concept of nondualism

Advaita Vedanta

The "self" is an illusion

The myth of Narcissus

I wrote about DALL-E the other day. Thought it would be fun to do an ongoing series of emails that shows you what the AI comes up with. Let’s have some fun. ✌️ Prompt: pixel pictur

DALL-E experiments: part II

I was reading this article from the New York Post titled, Malcolm Gladwell slams working from home: ‘What have you reduced your life to?’ He says: “It’s not in your best interest t

Malcom Gladwell is wrong about WFH

Is it just me or has anyone noticed the increase in performative LinkedIn and Twitter posts? I don't have the raw data on it but it seems like all of a sudden everyone is trying to

The creator economy, crypto, & machine learning

I got access

DALL-E 2

Virtues > Principles > Values

Virtues-fit

An excerpt from Book Ten of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

To my soul

It's good to take a pause and dig into new topics that you haven't yet discovered or gone down the rabbit hole on. (For me right now it’s nuclear energy.) Creative thinking doesn't

Explore the random, weird, and absurd

My advice is to keep your workflows simple. Give up the war on trying to optimize your productivity stack. Go back to the basics. Use simple apps. Most people in the productivity m

Simplify your workflows

I'm reading “Kitchen Confidential” from Anthony Bourdain and he talks about how vitally important line cooks are in the kitchen. They repeatedly do the same thing over and over and

You, the craftsman

Sam Harris has a meditation app called Waking Up. I use it almost everyday and he's given me new techniques for deepening my practice. There's a feature on the app where it message

Writing

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022