welp, age is officially off the table as an excuse for not going after what i want.

—

it’s been a weird year. my most difficult. & my most rewarding.

if you make it to the end, i’ll explain the above.

28 reminders for 28 years

29 reminders for 29 years

30 reminders for 30 years

1. make sure you’re not taking the wrong things too seriously, and the right things not seriously enough.

2. you don’t need to keep score.

provided you’ve surrounded yourself with good people (2%ers), you can be unreasonably generous with them and trust it’ll come back around.

no need to keep score.

3. problem solving is kissing cousins with problem seeking.

i see problem, i want to fix problem.

even when it’s not a problem.

4. the secret to life is enjoying the passage of time.

if you’re able to enjoy the passage of time, you’re doing it right.

if you’re not, figure out how to enjoy this moment, not the one in the distant future when you finally have ____.

5. there are two types of people:

a. those who have been humbled.

b. & those who are about to be.

i’m certainly not done being humbled, many a more humble pies in my future. but i’m less afraid now that i know there’s no way around it. and there’s beauty in being humbled.

a bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.

• robin sharma

6. coulds > shoulds.

i have a habit of shoulding all over myself.

instead of looking at a to do list and treating everything as a “should”, i try to view them as “coulds” — each an invitation, not an obligation.

7. everyone wants a community but nobody wants to be a villager.

have boundaries, but don’t lose sight of what matters most.

the cost of community is a bit of sacrifice. it’s a tax worth paying.

8. if you want to live an adventurous life, uncertainty is your friend, not a foe.

there’s no adventure without uncertainty.

they’re bed fellows. a life lived exclusively with certainty is not much of a life at all.

i dislike uncertainty, but i dislike “the safe route” even more.

9. group dinners are a scam to separate you from your money and the person you actually wanted to spend time with.

but 1 on 1 dinners are money well spent.

10. less scheduled calls. more spontaneous calls.

for calls i’ve started sending people my number and saying call me whenever.

most don’t call. and the calls that do happen are more fun.

11. the 80% rule.

marines are trained to make a decision as soon as they hit 80% complete information.

most of us want to hold out until we hit 99% — by then it’s too late.

apparently, the more elite units like the green berets have a similar rule, except their tolerance of imperfect information is even higher. they aim for just 70%.

which brings us to collin powells’ 40-70 rule — you need between 40 and 70 per cent of the total information to make a decision. with less than 40 per cent, you will likely make a poor choice, and with more than 70 per cent, you will end up taking too long, and the decision will be made for you.

act before you’re ready.

12. there’s magic in friction. just be intentional about it.

there are lots of places i don’t want to add friction in my life. but we’ve over-indexed on frictionless and as a result our lives feel devoid of meaning and connection.

skip the mobile order, talk with your barista.

13. calm is downstream of trust.

without trust you’ll be stuck in a constant state of vigilance.

14. imperfection is our end state. skip the bullshit & embrace it.

oliver burkeman, author of 4,000 weeks, spent 14 years writing a weekly column on productivity cheekily titled ‘this column will change your life’. he tried every productivity system under the sun. it was his job.

you’d think after all that, he’d have ascended to productivity nirvana and might be able to pass down a few tips for us mere mortals.

except that’s not what happened. he’s come out the other end with the sobering news that none of these systems or tools will save us. we’re hopelessly stuck in our finite, mortal bodies.

perfection is not one productivity tool away. it’s unattainable.

shokunin — the japanese concept that in any task, you will never attain perfection, but the attempt is itself worthy.

so we might as well accept it now and get living. not spend 14 years trying every productivity tool only to come to the same conclusion.

the smart man does first what the dumb man does last.

15. don’t eat so many protein bars.

eat food. not too much. mostly plants.

• michael pollan

food ≠ industrially produced edible substances.

16. regrets of action will teach you. regrets of inaction will haunt you.

one generates results & information.

the other generates regret that will haunt you to your deathbed.

do the thing.

17. body brain > big brain.

the body brain (intuitive intelligence) is better suited for answering many of life’s biggest questions than our “big brains”. yet we rarely drop below the neck and give the body brain a shot at making the call. all we know is the big brain.

i’ve noticed i can either think thoughts or feel sensations.

but not both at the same time. one overrides the other.

spending more time experiencing sensations strikes me as the better way to live.

18. meet your heroes so you see they’re bozos just like you.

in the last year i’ve met a lot of people i once looked up to.

turns out they’re bozos like the rest of us. they’ve just committed & compounded one skillset to the point that it’s of note and presented that narrow sliver of themselves to the world.

we assume the rest of them is just as put together. it’s not.

if anything, their deficiencies cut even deeper because they’ve over-indexed on that one thing.

everybody adds up to the same number.

• ben from acquired

19. don’t fuck up the compounding.

take it from me, someone who switches apartments and cities every 2-3 months, i treasure optionality more than most.

but optionality is not always a good thing.

it often comes at the cost of compounding.

& the best things in life come from compounding: health, relationships, skills, etc.

so choose a direction and commit to it for 6 months. the direction is less important than the act of committing (see 80% rule).

20. your curiosity is your future self whispering directions to you.

put some respect on your curiosity. it’s far more intelligent than we give it credit for.

“have more faith in your curiosity”

• tom morgan on dialectic

21. what you’re doing matters less than who you’re doing it with.

this month i went full-time on a business i’ve been building with my sister.

it’s either my best decision or my worst. ask me in 5 years and i might have an answer.

22. embrace (or at least entertain) the woo. it’s more fun.

what’s a more interesting world? one in which there’s mystery and we don’t have it all figured out, or the one in which every little thing can be explained by mathematical formula?

i prefer the world with mystery.

also it’s more forgiving.

23. a problem shared is a problem halved.

talk to humans.

share your wins.

and especially your struggles.

never suffer alone.

24. the stakes are lower than you think.

c/o

i do this silly thing where i perpetually hallucinate high-stakes.

drafting an IG caption feels on par with brain surgery. except it’s really not.

hallucinating high-stakes kills any potential for that sense of aliveness we all crave.

25. stop trying to save people.

most don’t want to be saved.

and even if they did want that, you’re foolish to think you’re capable of it.

26. orient towards expansion.

years ago i started treating saturdays as “serendipity satruday’s”.

no agenda, just following my every whim. it’s harder than it sounds. at least for me.

now, instead of trying to ignore my running to do list and constant brain chatter, i defer to my body brain to decide what to do.

given the choice between 2 tasks, choose the one that feels more expansive.

it sounds abstract af, but wow is it a better way to live if you can remember to trust it.

27. resistance is a result of thinking you have a 100% hit rate on knowing what’s best.

the best investors in the world have roughly a 50% hit rate on choosing the right investments. they’re wrong half the time.

assume you have a similar hit rate on predicting what’s best for yourself.

once you accept that you don’t always know what’s best, you can drop the resistance.

sometimes life has to save you from what you want to give you what you need.

28. we think we’re searching for the meaning of life, but really we’re seeking a feeling of aliveness.

aliveness is downstream of awe — something children experience in abundance, but we lose with age. find ways to cultivate it.

creating things is one way. whether it’s writing an essay or making a sketch — you’re never quite sure where it’ll end and in that gap between where you start and where you end is surprise (sometimes even awe) at what comes unfolding out of you.

29. start each day by first giving up on it.

this is some of the best advice i got from a mentor.

and it flies in the face of everything i’ve “trained” myself for up until this point.

these days i don’t get out of bed until i’ve verbally given up on the day. crazy, i know.

once you’ve accepted that you will not get everything done, you can just get on living.

30. just do your best, in this moment.

there will always be a gap between what we aspire to and what we’re capable of in this moment.

the best any of us can do is… our best.

over time you’ll get better and close that gap, but the goal posts will keep moving.

so you can either be perpetually disappointed in yourself or accept that your best is your best.

shrink your scope for where you try to do your best. not across a lifetime, just in this moment. then the next.

if you’ve done your best and you know it, falling short hurts less.

doing your best at what you’re best at for the good of others is what makes you really happy in life.

• charles handy

30 for 30. thanks for reading.

so, about that thing…

12 months ago i turned into a 77 year old man.

i didn’t know what was wrong with me, only that my 77 year old dad was running circles around me and each time i tried to complete a sentence my brain turned into the dreaded beachball of death.

on top of that, my immune system had the fragility of a tulip.

after 10 months & many monies spent on tests and supplements, i got an answer: toxic mold.

from one of my sublets of course. lol. in fact, i tested 5/5 for all the types of mold.

high score.

as someone who’s built their identity on their intelligence and their value on their output, having both stripped from me took me for a doozy.

it hasn’t all been bad. there have been moments of levity and joy, but if you looked at my IG feed you’d probably think i was living my best life. not quite.

“don’t be fooled, the other 98% of my life is boring.”

was what my IG bio said at one point — that has never been truer.

at times it’s been isolating, shitty, all the above. but also it’s deepened me in ways that i’m only just starting to try to articulate.

suffering pulls you (kicking and screaming) into parts of yourself you would not otherwise venture down into.

“a descent into the deeper layers of the self” as arthur brooks describes it.

last month i cried, like really cried, for the first time in a long time after reading a text from my mom. it was beautiful.

anyway, i’m making progress. hoping to put this behind me soon, but if not, guess there are just more lessons for it to teach me.

the point is not to try harder; it's to resist life less.

• anne lamott

bless this mess.

til next time,

-t

a weird thing happened just as i was about to graduate college.

every adult issued me the same warning:

watch out, time really speeds up once you graduate.

i kicked this for a bit trying to figure out why.

eventually, i landed on a hypothesis. it’s the semesters, stupid.

they split the year into discrete blocks with clear starts and ends — a scaffold on which to hang the memories that make up a year.

without them, you end up with time soup.

fast forward to december 2020: NYE was rapidly approaching and i had zero prospects for the totally rad and extremely lit NYE everyone tells me is critical to starting the year off right.

rather than plunk down $95 for some cursed NYE bash, i decided to try something different.

a self-guided retreat.

following an airbnb research expedition, i found the perfect venue: a llama ranch in lebec, ca run by reformed amish folks.

i haven’t looked back since.

in fact, i’ve doubled down, adding the fourth of july to my opt-out circuit (another holiday that’ll make you feel like an absolute thumb if you don’t have a booze-filled agenda locked in.)

it just so happens, those two holidays perfectly split the year in two.

the best part?

no one is going to bother you because they assume you’re 3 sheets to the wind and incapable of responding to email.

HOW TO USE THIS: i recommend splitting your review up into two sessions. feel free to bounce around as you like. that said, question #2 is worth knocking out early as it sets you up for everything to follow.

1. rate each, out of 10 (no 7s allowed):

   1. health

   2. family

   3. friends

   4. romance

   5. career

   6. creativity

   7. how i show up for others

   8. relationship with self (self-worth, mental health, spirituality)

2. next, need a refresher on everything you did over the last 12 months. i guarantee there’s more than you remember.

   1. open your photos app and review the last year, starting jan 1st, 2025. alternatively you can do this with your calendar. it’s faster, but misses a lot and not as fun.

      1. have something handy so you can note the peak positive moments (energy givers) and peak negative experiences (energy drainers).

3. 80/20 analysis | reference the above notes and answer:

   1. what 20% of activities + people created 80% of your positive emotions?

   2. what 20% of activities + people created 80% of your negative emotions?

4. what are you most proud of from the last year?

5. what aspects of your life felt aligned this year?

   1. when did you feel the most alive?

6. what’s one word that defined your 2025?

   1. jot down any that come to mind, then narrow down to 1.

7. what are 3 lessons you’re done learning? (via grace clarke)

1. word of the year: if you only do one thing, do this.

   1. take all your goals and intentions for the year and roll them into just one word.

      1. extra credit: create an evidence doc for your word (gives it superpowers).

2. more of | less of: in 2 columns, write a list of the things (people, activities, projects) you want more of in your life. then list the things you want less of.

3. what’s one emotion you’d like to feel more of in 2026?

4. describe your perfect tuesday, 5 years from today.

   1. TIPS: detail is key. start from the moment you wake to when you go to bed. include sensory details (see, hear, smell). write in first person.

   2. [BONUS]: write your dream to-do list for today.

5. misogi challenge: a once-a-year challenge that feels slightly unreasonable, forces real preparation, and creates a clear before-and-after line in your life. here are the rules: (via jesse itzler)

   1. you should have a 50/50 chance of success.

   2. it should scare you a bit.

   3. you’re doing it for you, not anyone else.

      1. examples: climb a major mountain, do a silent retreat, learn an instrument (capped off with a recital)

i have some feline tendencies i should tell you about.

apparently, when a cat is sick it'll find a quiet corner where it won't be disturbed and suffer in silence until... it dies.

i’m still very much alive, but as are those feline tendencies.

so when i started doing these reviews 5 years ago, it was very much a solo job. me, my journal, and solitude.

but over the years, i’ve come to see that involving friends just works better:

• it’s more fun.

• explaining your answers aloud reinforces the learnings.

• most importantly, they call you on your blind spots. then support you.

case in point: i knew i needed to cut my pot intake (3rd year this has come up). but… i was going to do some half-measure shit: a pot tax, venmoing a friend $25 each time i used. that same friend (ty luke) asked me the question i didn't want to answer. did i hate him for a second? you bet. but it was the right question. so now we’re closing that door entirely: no pots in 2026. unlikely i would have made that call on my own.

include friends. the question is when.

i answer solo first (usually ahead of the retreat to give them time to marinate), then review with a friend. i like to make an event out of it, get a resi and debrief properly.

but that’s just my way. if you want to go full multiplayer from the jump, do the review with a gaggle of friends like scott (see below).

questions i trimmed off the essentials that still hit. 

reflection:

1. if you were struck by lightning and suddenly awoke as your fully enlightened self, what behaviors would you look back on with horror?

2. for the hardos: review your goals from 2025.

   1. rate your effort, then rate your success (you know the rules, no 7s)

3. if you were the main character of the movie that is your life, and you had an audience, what would the audience be screaming at you to do? (via sahil bloom)

   1. if you’ve signed away your life to the AI overlords, this is a fun question to ask it since it knows you better than you’d think. just make sure to tell it to be brutally honest.

year ahead:

1. if you’re the goal-setting type, list your goals for 2026.

2. sprints | re: the above, yearly goals don’t work for me. it’s too long a timeline. too many opportunities to say “i’ll start next week.”

   1. instead, focus exclusively on the first 3 months.

      1. with your goals in mind from #6 — create month-long initiatives that’ll move you towards those goals.

      2. each month gets just one initiative.

      3. having a singular initiative brings peace of mind. you’ll wake up with a clear purpose: improve 1% on this one thing.

         1. examples:

            1. month one: improve typing speed

            2. month two: refine storytelling

            3. month three: post a video each day

         2. why this works:

            

3. moodboard: arts and crafts time!

   1. on a blank piece of paper sketch out a handful of symbols that reflect what you want out of the year (referencing your perfect tuesday + word of the year is a good starting point). once you have your sketches, photograph them and drop them into canva to remove the background and organize them into a 1080x1920 canvas.

   2. set as your phone background

4. dream groupchat (via grace clarke)

   1. choose 3-5 people you admire (dead or alive.. or imaginary if you wanna appoint winnie the pooh). if you’re struggling, reference the life pillars from your reflection to come up with folks for each bucket (career, body, mind, etc)

   2. then drop them into GPT with the following prompt:

      1. this thread will be used to simulate a group chat with my personal board of directors. it includes the following people: [list their names]. i have chosen them for their perspectives, expertise, values, and because i believe they will help make my life better and provide thoughtful counsel through specific challenges. for each question or challenge i present, please provide a detailed reply from each person’s perspective. use all available knowledge of their expertise, how they think, and specific quotes or principles they are known for. each response should include their advice, action items based on their perspective, an explanation of why they are suggesting this approach.

   3. next time you’re struggling with a decision, consult the groupchat.

venue:

• i like to find a quirky airbnb in the middle of nowhere. my rule of thumb for airbnbs: only 4.97 stars and above.

• i recommend booking it for 2 nights. gives you enough time to get settled and a full day to review.

• pro-tip: it’s no secret that i’m a bit of a sauna slut. unfortunately airbnb doesn’t have an easy way to filter for them. but, if you plug “airbnbs with saunas in [location]” into google the first result will be a hidden airbnb page listing all the airbnbs in that area with a sauna.

timing:

• i usually book my airbnb for new years eve - jan 2nd (2 nights)

• but if you wanna have your NYE bash and eat your retreat cake too, this year the calendar gods smiled upon you. jan 2nd - jan 4th is friday-sunday so you’ll be able to unplug without anxiety.

what to pack:

• your journal(s)

  • a pen (i also pack a red and green one to add variation and emphasis)

• ingredients for a ‘lil treat’ meal

  • i usually go with filet mignon, but goldfish are just as good

• a book and or podcast

• coffee + tea

• a bit of mezcal, whiskey, or wine for reflective evenings if that tickles your fancy

• candle or incense

• optional: a friend

format:

• day 0: arrival

  • arrive before dark, ideally

  • get settled & turn phone on airplane mode (if you want music, download ahead of time. here’s my retreat playlist)

  • treat meal

  • do a little review if you feel called to

  • early to bed (luxuriate in not having to stay up till midnight for that damn ball drop thing)

• day 1: retreat

  • morning: part 1 (reflection)

  • afternoon: sauna, walk, eat, relax

  • evening: part 2 (year ahead)

• day 2: re-entry

  • review your notes and wrap up any loose ends

  • pack out

  • turn phone off airplane mode

what not to bring:

• work laptop

• expectations that you’ll have it all figured out

• guilt about last year’s goals you didn’t hit

last year

i had a wedding on new years day so my plans got blendered.

but we persevered.

ahead of new years, my friend matt & i ventured into the backcountry of mount hood’s national forest to this lil yurt situ.

though i typically conduct my retreats solo, i’ve made a few exceptions and so long as your companion isn’t a bozo, it’s not a bad call.

this year

we’re going full chris mccandless and posting up at this bus in the middle of the woods.

cost:

airbnbs aren’t free, unfortunately.

but with a little work & flexibility, you can find a reasonably priced one.

this year’s was $252 for 2 nights. last year it was $148 for the yurt (split with a friend) so it came out to $74/per person, not bad.

plus, you’re only doing this once or twice a year, so why not treat yourself?

happy NYE, see you in 2026.

-t

p.s. if you’re the visual type, here’s a video i made a few years back on the opt-out framework.

but i’ve come to an unnerving realization.

there’s a real possibility we have just 2 summers left.

i won’t try to convince you of it or explain how it’ll go down—but if you’d like to fall down that rabbit hole, these will get you started: AI 20271 and mo gawdat interview2

there’s this thing called p(doom)

amongst techbros it’s shorthand for “probability of doom” — basically the odds we develop advanced AI and it goes really, really bad.

here’s what some leading minds3 think:

• elon musk: 10-20%

• daniel kokotajlo (early hire at openAI): 70%

• marc andresseen swears it’s 0%. but i’m not about to bet my life on that chucklefuck.

for the sake of this essay, let’s take a conservative estimate of 1%.

..tiny odds when playing the lotto.

but if i tell you there's a 1 in 100 chance the flight you're about to board is going to go all boeing supermax on you — those same odds feel very different.

the truth is we’re notoriously bad at understanding probabilities.

i studied them in college (econ major) and honestly, i still don’t understand them.

but all this probability talk aside, one thing is 100% certain — there will come a day when you have just 2 summers left.

the only uncertainty is when.

the last time principle

this floored me the first time i heard it.

on a quiet morning, i queued up what was supposed to be a relaxing meditation with sam harris. then he drops this on me:

“there will be a last time for everything.”

a last time you…

• hug your mom

• sleep in your childhood bedroom

• stay up till 3am laughing with your best friend

yet none of these final moments announce themselves.

they pass quietly, unnoticed. but looking back, you'd trade anything for one more.

reminding yourself “this might be the last time i do this” doesn’t have to be grim.

sometimes it's the only thing that cuts through the noise, allowing you to savor your morning cup of joe (might be your last) instead of mindlessly gulping it down mid-doom-scroll.

nostalgia’s dirty little secret

we never recognize the good times while we’re in them.

nostalgia is a slippery lil bastard that only allows us to enjoy the moment once it’s firmly in the rearview mirror and we have the certainty of knowing that things turned out okay.

nostalgia = memory - anxiety.

someday you’ll look back on today and wish you enjoyed this moment more.

these are indeed the good ol’ days.

here’s where things get lighter

you’ve been handed a hypothetical deadline — 2 summers.

that sense of existential dread you’re feeling?

it’s an opportunity for existential clarity.

deadlines clarify, not constrain.

they bring a sense of urgency.

& urgency reveals your true priorities.

a permission slip to drop the trivial, invest in meaning, and get living before life proves to you it’s too short.

as oliver burkeman illustrated in his book, four thousand weeks

the average human lifespan is absurdly, terrifyingly short (four thousand weeks). but that’s not a reason to despair — it’s a reason to choose more intentionally.

finitude is not a flaw, but a feature.

what makes today precious is the very fact that you can’t get it back.

living like it’s your last week

is pretty terrible advice.

you’d crash out — maxxing your credit cards and burning bridges.

but living like you have 2 summers left?

that’s the sweet spot.

enough time to work on something meaningful, repair relationships, and experience life’s joys.

which leads us to…

the most important moment of your life — the next 2 seconds.

not 2 hours from now when you sit at dinner with friends.

not 2 years ago on that trip with your college buddies.

but the next 2 seconds.

i can already hear the hecklers:

wait, but shouldn’t you just be focused on the present?

i hear you, except my brain doesn’t work that way.

tell me to "be present" and my mind splits into three parts: one trying to be present, one analyzing if i'm present enough, one planning dinner.

so instead i focus on enjoying the next 2 seconds.

one, two.

far enough ahead that my brain thinks we’re being proactive, but soon enough that there’s not a moment to overthink.

so here we are

with 2 summers (possibly) left on the clock.

time to get ruthless.

not about what you're going to do with them — but what you're going to stop doing.

ask yourself: if i knew i had 2 summers left, would i spend another minute worrying about ___[insert trivial bullshit]___?

2 summers left

maybe it'll be AI.

maybe it'll be a rogue vending machine exacting its revenge on you for trying to shake loose that kit-kat bar you paid for.

the cause doesn't matter — it's the clarity that counts.

do less, but do it better.

& just try to enjoy the next 2 seconds.

-t

that’s where i was headed — fast.

…

most of us drift through life lounging in what i call the steam room of indecision.

it’s kinda a vibe—warm, cozy, and full of fog.

but it’s silently strangling your potential.

wrapped in a comforting haze, we tell ourselves that the path forward is unclear.

except, that’s a lie.

you already know what you need to do.

my wake up call

arrived courtesy of the shower drain.

peering down, i noticed an alarming whirlpool of hairs.

way too many hairs.

wait, aren’t i too young for this?

& my grandfather had a great head of hair. that’s how it works, right??

(it’s not)

→ queue existential crisis

i never worked out.

didn’t like it.

or more accurately—i was intimidated by the entire concept.

but deep down, i knew eventually i’d have to face the dragon colloquially known as “the gym”.

faced with this mound of swirling hairs, i had two options:

1. pretend it wasn’t happening and get real innovative with my hairstyles.

2. ask my barber for the zero shave.

but being bald has a catch..

you have to be fit.

non-negotiable.

what you’re avoiding most is usually the exact thing you need most.

we’re world-class avoiders.

that’s why we love the steam room.

it allows us to be blissfully “unaware” of what we need to do.

luckily, there’s a cheat code to escaping the steam room — the when will i list.

it’s unlocked many of the things i’m most proud of today:

• when will i.. start writing publicly? → this substack

• when will i.. become someone who take bold action? → evidence doc & the year of living boldly

• when will i.. give this content thing a proper go? → the 100 day challenge

• when will i.. become a great storyteller? → joining toastmasters

• when will i.. quit nicotine (okay, i had a few cheeky cigs in new york after 13 months of no nico—nobody’s perfect!)

right now, your brain is flooded with vague anxieties.

anxiety sucks.

and it’s hard to pin down because,

anxiety is just unfocused fear.

— arthur brooks

& you haven’t yet named those fears because:

i don’t know what i think until i write it down.

— joan didion

putting thoughts on paper is a small act of magic.

it transforms vague anxieties into actionable steps.

once named, you have clarity.

clarity gives direction.

direction creates momentum.

but clarity without action? that’s purgatory.

and purgatory sucks.

the hidden cost of doing nothing

everyone has regrets (admit it or not).

and most regrets?

they’re regrets of inaction.

daniel pink, author of ‘the power of regret’ ran a massive survey on the topic.

he estimates the number of people who regret never leaving that job vs. regret leaving a job is 50 to 1.

but back to my shower drain situ — the cost of inaction was brutally clear:

fat, bald and ugly.

yours might be worse… waking up in midlife next to the wrong partner, in the cockpit of a porsche 911, asking, how’d i get here?

this is your anti-vision board.

a grim forecast of what happens if you don’t act(ion).

awareness → action

the gap between your awareness and action should be razor thin.

— sahil bloom

so how do you close the gap?

a. create your ‘when will i’ list

this brings awareness.

1. set a timer: 5 minutes — pen meets paper, don’t stop.

2. be brutally honest — list everything you’ve been avoiding, especially the scary stuff.

3. embrace the discomfort — the uneasiness you feel? it’s a signpost you’re moving towards something important.

4. create a notes doc — boil the above list down to a concise list of when will i’s and add it to your notes app for easy access.

if you don’t have a ton there, don’t worry.

these thoughts take a while to percolate up.

but when they do, you’ll need a place to store them. that’s where your when will i list comes in—capturing those errant thoughts that you’d normally dismiss.

over time, this list will become your compass forward.

b. stack rank your list

this brings action.

1. pick the highest impact item.

2. identify one small step you can do in the next 5 minutes to take a meaningful step forwards.

3. now do it.

your best life is waiting, it’s just on the other side of a bit of discomfort.

see you on the other side.

-t

the next day i heard it again, walking down 7th ave.

the same few words, repeated in hushed tones all over new york.

hey you, ya you — you’re poor. you should make more money.

yo wtf.

confused (and a bit self-conscious) i searched high and low for the culprit, but came up empty-handed.

yet, the voice persisted.

it was the city itself, whispering to me at every turn.

in a place where it costs $50 just to step outside your ($4k/mo) apartment, i suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise.

back in 2008, paul graham wrote about this phenomenon: cities and ambition — each city whispers quietly in your ear, pushing a different insecurity (cambridge — you’re not smart enough, DC — you’re not powerful enough, LA — you’re not famous enough).

today, amidst this tariff nonsense, bleak economic outlook and AI overlords looming on the horizon—new york’s flavor of whisper is beginning to sound more like a dull roar.

scarcity brain

as a child of an immigrant, i know it well.

although i was fortunate enough to never have to wonder where my next (polish) meal would come from, scarcity brain runs deep in my psyche.

it’s probably why i obsessively try to maximize every facet of my life.

and to be fair, it’s not without its upsides.

my friends, for one, benefit greatly when i inevitably assume the role of travel dom, architecting the perfect itinerary for my beloved travel subs.

but it has diminishing returns and i often wish i could do without.

arriving in new york, i felt scarcity brain rearing its ugly little head once again.

i had to nip it in the bud.

but how?

language reveals a lot about a culture

the germans have a word that (surprisingly) doesn’t exist in english:

schadenfreude

pleasure derived from another's misfortune.

we all know people who thrive on this.

and unless you’re an absolute saint, you’ve been that person at some point.

i certainly have.

but schadenfreude has a long lost cousin that doesn’t get much airtime.

i first heard it waiting for my uber at jfk.

mitfreude

it’s the inverse of schadenfreude.

pleasure derived from another’s good fortune.

immediately, i jotted it down.

it gets at the essence of what joy arbitrage aspires to.

there’s one question i’ve asked just about everyone i’ve spoken with in the last 5 years…

what’s your word of the year?

take all your goals and intentions for the year, roll them up into one word — that’s your word of the year.

it’s still my favorite question, but recently, i’ve added a new layer:

the monthly manifesto.

once your word of the year is set, chunk it down into smaller parts.

but don’t plan it all at once.

instead, choose your word for the upcoming month just before it begins.

as it happened, i was entering a new month — march.

and just like that… i had my word for the month:

january was jumpstart january.

february was frieze february.

march would be mitfreude march.

what exactly is mitfreude march?

two things.

the first: create more value than i capture.

scarcity brain screams at you to capture all the value you can, because it believes we live in a zero-sum world.

for me to get mine, someone needs to take the hit and it’s not gonna be me.

it’s an ugly outlook.

but many of us slip into it given the right (or rather, wrong) conditions. considering our current climate, i suspect we’ll see more of it.

fortunately, i have friends who live by the opposite principle—my pal kish is one. he is a prolific connector, always asking how he can help, never what he’ll get out of it.

for march, i decided to embrace the kish approach: create as much value for others, regardless of personal benefit.

the second: find joy in the happiness of total strangers.

what gets measured, gets managed.

also, i have a brain that likes to see number go up.

so naturally, i created a points system:

• +2 points for a happy dog

• +2 points for every smile i spot

• +3 points for a couple holding hands

• +5 points for an affectionate elderly couple

• +7 points for a smile exchanged with a stranger

→ the list goes on, a mother playing with their child, etc.

each time i spot a moment of joy, i tally it up:

happy pup?

“plus twooo” (matthew mcconaughey voice a la “greenliggght”)

now, i don’t actually keep a total of the points scored across the day, but if you’re the type to enjoy that type of accounting, go for it.

the point is to attune yourself to the little moments of joy unfolding all around you—and score a lil win as you take part in their good fortune.

it’s april now, and i have a new word for the month, but mitfreude points has stuck—at least for the time being.

you don’t necessarily need to change your circumstances; often, it’s enough to simply adjust your attention.

this city won’t stop whispering, no matter how high you climb in the economic ladder (if anything, it’ll intensify).

so, while you dutifully set about improving your economic standing, you might as well work on enhancing your psychological one as well.

hope you have a lovely day, full of joy—whether your own or the kind you draft off others.

til next time,

-t

i’ve never been a big birthday guy.

though i am a proponent of the ‘birthday month’.

30 opportunities to have the ~perfect day~.

vs. piling all that pressure onto just one day (wedding vibes).

no, thank you.

but without further ado…

1. ALWAYS send a follow-up. after seeing a friend, attending a party, even after a mids date. it shows consideration and leaves a pleasant aftertaste for all involved. takes 5 seconds, compounds over a lifetime.

2. whatever you do, do it with style.

3. pack 2 sleeping masks — you’ll be so relieved when you can’t find one and know you have a backup. applies to anything important — two is one and one is none.

4. send that cold email.

5. buy postcards each time you visit a museum. they make for great thank you notes.

6. you already know what you need to do. you just haven’t confronted it because to do so would create discomfort. keep a “when will i ____” list and all of a sudden the path forward will be clear, though it might not be easy or comfortable.

7. add less. subtract more. but we’re wired to only think in terms of addition (add ozempic rather than subtract junk food).

8. “no” is like a scalpel — it’s precise. “yes” is a blunt force object — you don’t know what you’re giving up when you say yes. but you have a pretty good idea of the trade-off when you say “no”.

9. excitement and nervousness are so closely linked that your body can’t tell the difference. the only difference is the label. next time you feel nervous, call it excitement instead.

10. never worry alone. a problem shared is a problem halved.

11. earnestness is cool. be unapologetic about your nerdiness. this MF loves trains so much it got him a deal with gucci. consider that permission to fly your freak flag.

12. no group dinners with more than 3 people unless it’s an absolute fuck yes.

13. there’s no such thing as “when”. only now.

14. each time you think of someone, shoot them the briefest text, “just thought of you, hope you’re well.”

15. find the people you love (2%ers), then do life with them

16. optimize for generosity. no one on their deathbed regrets being too kind.

17. being kind vs. being nice are two very different things. the kind friend tells you that you’ve got something stuck in your teeth. the nice friend pretends its not there and leaves you looking like a bozo all day.

18. the path to greatness requires you climb cringe mountain. most won’t.

19. worrying about the future is really you saying i don’t trust future me will be able to handle it — jason liu

20. your brain only understands one language, action — erwin mcmanus

21. every moment of growth feels like a loss at first.

22. environment trumps willpower 10/10. design your life accordingly.

23. there’s no such thing as being “on time”. you’re either late or you’re early — kevin kelly

24. good decisions compound quietly; poor ones compound dramatically.

25. if you don’t choose your struggle, one will be assigned to you. the mind needs a problem to chew on—if you don’t feed it something meaningful, it’ll scavenge—latching onto trivial anxieties, imagined crises, and pointless distractions.

26. walk until your day becomes interesting — rolf potts

27. burnout isn’t about doing too much—it’s about doing the wrong things.

28. when faced with two options — take the route that makes for a better story.

29. tomorrow is overrated. today is underrated.

til next time.

-t

after 9 months of planning, we had done it.

our biggest lobster club yet. 60 artists, all wrangled together for one show.

if you’re not in awe of that feat, well, you’ve never dealt with an artist before.

point being, we bet the farm — financially, emotionally, and in pure hours invested.

to my surprise, we pulled it off.

but…

here’s the kicker

after it was all said and done, i was left with a hollow feeling where satisfaction should have been.

evolution couldn’t care less

as far as evolution was concerned, contentment was a design flaw.

those with the contentment gene didn’t last long on the savannah.

yo, a berry bush! let’s just vibe for a sec and do our gratitude pages.

they turned to lion chow.

evolution favored the anxious overachievers—the ones who stayed on edge, always looking to what’s next.

and now, thousands of years later, we’re stuck with their wiring.

but i don’t want to be a yogi

after recommending a book on spirituality to a friend, he hit me with a deadpan,

i don’t want to be a yogi, i want to be CEO.

turns out some folks actually like their unhinged drive, contentment be damned.

in their defense,

most successful people are just a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.

- andrew wilkinson

but here’s the thing: when you don’t savor your wins, you’re leaving a lot more than contentment on the table.

you’re sacrificing confidence.

confidence is one of those elusive traits we all want, but few understand.

so i’m gunna let you in on a little secret.

the single best way to build confidence is with your notes app.

let me break it down:

confidence is built by action.

the brain understands one language — action.

— erwin mcmanus

not by scheming scenarios. but by pure action.

but action alone isn’t enough.

because our brains are slippery lil fellas when it comes to positive experiences.

see, in order for a positive experience to be “installed” in your brain, requires that you hold it in your awareness for a moment, roughly 10-20 seconds.

the same is not true of negative experiences. those MFs get installed instantly.

as a result,

our brains are like velcro for bad experiences and like teflon for good ones.

— rick hanson

in the notes app essay i describe a two-step process for building confidence:

1. at the top title it: “i am [insert desired trait]”

   1. example: “i am bold.”

      1. throughout the day be on the lookout for tiny opportunities to take action that back up that claim. a few from my doc:

         

      2. each action is like a vote for the type of person you’d like to be.

2. then, immediately after taking action, bust out your notes app and document it. this takes about 20 seconds.

turns out, the 20 seconds it takes to update your evidence doc is just long enough to install it in your brain — bookmarking the action you just took so that your brain can reference it in the future when faced with a challenge.

it’s one more vote for “look, we’re competent.”

but our default is to move on to the next thing without a moment’s notice. as a result, most votes go unaccounted for.

no good.

we live in a perpetual cycle of:

work → win → scroll → work

it should be:

work → win → savor → work

the goal is to, for just a moment, sit in the feeling of “look how far we’ve come”.

not too long, just long enough for it to get installed.

here’s how in 3 steps: M.A.P.

adapted & tadz-ified from rick hanson’s HEAL model.

1. MARK THE MOMENT (recognize positive experiences)

   1. throughout your day be a detective for delight.

   2. noticing that something good is occurring or could be — not huge wins, but tiny ones. ordinary experiences that feel good.

      1. examples: you’ve just finished a workout, sent a challenging email, shared a smile with a stranger.

      2. now, before racing to the next thing, take a moment to notice: “hey i finished that. and now i’m feeling something useful".

         1. these experiences happen to us dozens of times each day, but they almost all go to waste because we overlook them.

2. ABSORD THE FEELING (sit with it)

   1. take half a breath. let a few second tick by.

   2. while you’re doing this, neurons are firing together & wiring together, installing the experience.

   3. the longer you're able to sit with it, the better. but even half a breath’s pause is enough.

3. PRESERVE THE MEMORY (encode it in your body)

   1. our deepest learning happens on a somatic level (in your body).

   2. what does it feel like to have successfully handled that tricky email? or to have shared a smile with a stranger?

   3. our goal is emotional learning → the more you feel it in your body, the deeper the learning.

to put it succinctly:

step 1: have it

• we’re plenty good at this, we have dozens of (small) good experiences every day.

step 2: enjoy it

• we’re really bad at this — constantly forgetting to install them because we’ve already moved on to working for the next win.

every self-help book, maybe ever

has included the same tip:

take a deep breath.

and yet, it’s never clicked for me.

even though i know from experience (and science) that it does wonders.

i think that’s finally changed.

each time i notice something good is occurring, i note it and use it as a trigger to take a trophy breath™️.

it’s simple.

4-4-4+

• 4 seconds in

• 4 second hold

• 4+ second exhale (longer the better)

this does a few things:

1. makes you pause for that 10-20 second install time.

2. the long exhale tells your nervous system “this is important. store this.”

3. it hijacks your negativity bias — repeatedly doing it trains your brain to look for and value wins.

when to use trophy breathes™️

don’t save them for the mega-wins. if you’re only doing it then, you’ve already lost.

there were tons of tiny wins along the way you missed.

it’s the small stuff you want to soak up:

• post-run high

• post-sauna glow

• seeing a sunset

• the sun hitting you just right

• every time you dock a citibike & live to ride another day

• after you’ve accomplished the elusive “perfect bite” of a tasty salad you made

basically anytime something remotely good happens, the smaller the better.

i’ve talked about the tyranny of the to do list before.

my antidote to it is to keep a done list — aka, a reverse to do list. a running list of everything you’ve accomplished that day.

each time i add another item to the done list… TROPHY BREATH.

takes 5 minutes a day. builds confidence for years.

give it a go for a week and let me know how it goes.

bonus round:

tell a friend about your win.

if they’re not happy for you, maybe they’re not 2%ers and you should find new friends.

but most will be genuinely happy for you and that act of sharing the win accomplishes the same ends as a trophy breath.

plus, they might even get a little joy from it themselves. joy arbitrage.

til next time,

-t

with this mans:

well, it wasn’t my date—it was my sister’s. i was just tagging along.

his name is caleb, and to this day, we still exchange 20 minute whatsapp voicememos.

a few weeks back, he asked me a question that kinda pissed me off.

i had been going on and on about something, spinning up a drama.

and he simply responds, “what if it’s just okay?”

ummm, wutt?

eventually, i calmed down. and i thought about what caleb had said.

then—something unexpected.

relief.

here’s the thing:

i create stories. constantly.

but so do you.

humans are storytelling creatures. it’s how we make sense of the world.

if you want to convince someone of something—don’t tell them the facts—tell them a really good story.

the bible? a bunch of stories.

not a ton of statistical facts in that thing.

and yet, it’s the most influential book of all time.

but here’s where we run into trouble—because we’ve been hearing stories since the beginning of time, we’ve come to believe that life is supposed to follow those same story arcs.

this turns our life into a fairy tale—but not in a good way.

the fairy tale life

in the early 2000s, kurt vonnegut gave a talk on this exact topic.

i wasn’t present for the convo, but derek sivers was, and now i’m shamelessly ripping his illustrations.

to kick things off, vonnegut gave the example of a classic arc:

1. the cinderella story:

next, we visit:

2. the common disaster story:

   

but…

3. here’s what life really looks like:

kinda boring.

so what do we do?

we punch up the script. add some drama.

which is precisely how i ended up venting to caleb about the barista who had the nerve to spell my name wrong.

the antidote

simple. ask yourself:

what - if - it’s - just - okay?

kidding.

while the prompt is helpful, it’s not that simple.

if you haven’t figured it out already, life is full of bullshit—it’s inevitable.

so what’s to be done?

1. accept that bullshit will happen—and allocate a bullshit budget.

2. thoughtfully curate your bullshit.

in other words—choose challenges that will make for a good story.

a good story to whom?

you.

tadz’s law

have you heard of parkinson’s law?

it says:

work expands to fill the time available.

meetings are a perfect example — if you have an hour blocked, you’ll find a way to fill it. if the same meeting were just 20 minutes, you’d drill down on the essentials and save everyone 40 minutes.

i believe the same is true of problems.

tadz’s law:

problems expand to fill the headspace available.

we don’t experience problems in a vacuum; we experience them in context.

what’s a mild inconvenience to one person (say, a single mom) might feel like an existential crisis to another.

for a trustafarian, the molasses-slow wifi at the tulum villa isn’t just an annoyance; it’s a vacation-ruining catastrophe. the experience is genuinely agonizing because, in their hierarchy of suffering, that’s the peak.

but for a single mom working two jobs? slow wifi isn’t even in the top 50.

pain vs. suffering

a few years back there was this clip floating around of joe rogan talking about getting canceled.

he claimed one thing got him through it… the gym.

i know, i know. bro science.

but as he explained it, it sorta made sense.

see, his workouts weren’t the lackadaisical 30-minute ellipticals i’m known to enjoy.

no, they were brutal. full of pain. but it was the pain he signed up for.

and because he was voluntarily subjecting himself to that level of pain, the discomfort of cancellation barely registered.

because here’s the thing: while his workouts were painful, they weren’t suffering.

pain is inevitable. suffering is optional.

— haruki murakami

pain is what happens to you.

suffering is the meaning you attach to it.

the trustafarian would need to do some serious mental gymnastics to assign meaning to the slow wifi.

whereas, the single mother easily assigns meaning to being pooped all over in the name of love.

how do you find a problem worth struggling for?

choosing the right problem is critical—because it’ll minimize the suffering you endure.

the pain will be there no matter what, but with the right meaning attached, it’ll be worth it.

ask yourself:

if failure were guaranteed no matter what i do, how would i spend my time in a way that still gives me energy?

if nothing comes to mind, your job is to go out and find it. that’s a problem worth struggling for. this essay might help.

because if you don’t choose your struggle, one will be assigned to you. the mind needs a problem to chew on—if you don’t feed it something meaningful, it’ll scavenge—latching onto trivial anxieties, imagined crises, and pointless distractions.

choose wisely.

till next time,

-t

*here’s part 1: culture, media, fashion & work*

a note on formatting: under each category, you’ll find the top 3 trends. in the bonus round section, you’ll find the odds and ends that didn’t make it. let’s dive in.

I. FOOD

1. food as the next frontier of luxury

food has become an emblem of understated luxury—an intersection of art, media, and culture.

predictions:

• any luxury brand worth its salt won’t host an event without hiring a gohar1 or a salud salud2 to integrate a food dimension.

• more pop-up dining experiences in increasingly rogue settings. return of dinner and a show. narrative-driven dining (ex. LEGO dinner3). the portlandia skit about knowing the name of your chicken, but for real.

• craft fermentation (pickles, yogurt, miso, kimchi, etc) goes highbrow.

2. the poop economy

this is the dark horse no one is talking about. if i’m being honest, i thought this was just a weird thing my family talked about, but then i got outside confirmation:

what explains the rise of the slavic doll diet?

@danicolexxBuckwheat and avocado is so good #foodtok #slavicgirl #diet #whatiate #slavicdoll

Tiktok failed to load.

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fermentation fever?

the fiber boom?

all roads lead to the poop economy.

predictions:

• high-end gut reset retreats.

• continued boom in gut health products: fermented foods, probiotics, and fiber-laced products (similar to the wave of protein-packed snacks we’re seeing).

• poop discourse becomes less taboo.

3. bluebottle steak

just as the coffee industry evolved from folgers to bluebottle, we’ll see the same happen with meat—you’ll know the name of the cow, what it ate, and how often it was massaged, etc. (h/t )

predictions:

• talking about your sourcing pedigree goes from weird flex to flex.

• batch numbers + QR codes allowing you to trace your food’s supply chain.

• whole foods’ reputation will continue to tank until it’s considered just another kroger.

• bougie butchers & $60/lb steaks.

II. TRAVEL

in 2025, travelers are seeking transformation.

1. rise of the misogi

with traditional rites of passage all but gone, folks are coming up with their own. endurance events like marathons, hyrox, and 29029 everesting are surging in popularity—they promise transformation, a sense of accomplishment, plus a medal to flaunt.

enter the misogi, an annual challenge popularized by jesse itzler. here are the rules:

1. you should have a 50/50 chance of success.

2. it should scare you a bit.

3. you’re doing it for you, not anyone else.

the question is why do any of this? because we’re facing a crisis of meaning.

prediction: the rise of challenger vacations — organized for you, includes hotel and itinerary, you just show up and compete.

2. the sabbatical boom

professors have had it right all along — we work best when it’s seasonal. sprint, rest, sprint. AI efficiency improvements will make this possible.

predictions:

• the rise of transformation retreats — though they might not explicitly make the claim, the promise will be implicit: come and you’ll experience a transformation of some form (creative, spiritual, or physical).

• annual sabbaticals become the next wave of startup perks.

3. the fixer

we’re sick of finding ourselves at the same handful of wine bars as everyone else from east LA, east london, and east williamsburg.

we want the inside track. the friend in-town experience.

as AI displaces email jobs, more folks will move into hospitality. one of the areas we’ll see the most growth: the fixer. if you’ve never hired a fixer, it’s like hiring a friend in a new city. i did it in india after getting scammed and it saved my trip, and maybe much more.

predictions:

• airbnb expands their experiences offering to include a more bespoke option or an uber for fixers enters the market.

• travelers ditch hotels and airbnb in favor of subletting a real apartment (see: listings project, myplace, kiki) while the ultra-wealthy opt for services like paris’ highstay.

III. HEALTH

1. the purity spiral

sure, maybe you’ve seen the headlines about microplastics being found in everyone’s balls4 (even your dog’s), but humans are dumb and require repeat exposure for an idea to set in. 2025 is the year we really start freaking out about what we’ve been putting on and in our bodies.

predictions:

• an alo yoga-type phenomenon, but this one will exclusively use natural fibers.

• UPFs (ultra-processed foods) seen as the new tobacco... bc they are: after the gov moved to regulated tobacco companies in the 1960s, they diversified—buying up food companies and running the same addictive playbook, but on children’s cereal.5

2. the future of socializing…

“..is being healthy together” — nachson mimran, co-founder of alpina gstaad

situated somewhere between a chapel and the pub lies the sauna.

there are plenty of other ways to be “healthy together”, but few have the same history and rituals of the sauna. plus, it’s the perfect no-phone zone—one of the few times in my day that i am not strapped to a device (see part 1: offline chic).

predictions:

• sauna clubs and social hours seen as a real alternative to going out.

  • examples: sauna culture in east london & othership social hours.

  • also, you’ll be hearing the word aufguss a lot more.

• proliferation of community saunas in backyards & repurposed spaces, akin to the DIY punk movement.

3. holistic hedonism

we’re burnt out on wellness. the pendulum is swinging back: cigs, stims, & butter.

those who aren’t quite ready to rip darts again will take a more holistic approach to wellness: less bryan johnson, more ayuverdia — the practices actually work and cost next to nothing.

IV. TECH

1. year of the robot

it’s about to get weird. you can buy one of these robots (below) for $3k. $16k gets you a full-on humanoid.

but the real shift will be agentic AI. right now, chatGPT only talks, whereas AI agents act—like a GPS giving you a route vs. a self-driving car taking you there. an army of digital employees are coming and you’ll either be their boss or their competition.

• prediction: we won’t see mass lay-offs (hopefully), but we will see a lot of hiring freezes as execs push employees to find new ways to leverage AI before adding to headcount.

2. your digital psychic

right now we think of AI in the chat interface sense. that’ll change in 2025. more voice, but more importantly, it’ll start to pre-empt our desires — a bit like how the tiktok algo knows what you want before you do.

predictions:

• curated feeds and personal podcasts tailored to your learning goals and interests. eleven labs and perplexity are already doing this.

• echo chamber upgrade: we split even further into micro-bubbles of tailor-made content. shared cultural reference points diminish, making broad social cohesion a challenge.

• the unassisted: those who resist AI assistance to preserve human spontaneity and prevent their faculties from atrophying (already happening to me with writing).

3. voice as interface

J.A.R.V.I.S6 but real life.

the last major interface paradigm shift was the release of the iphone in 2007. before the iphone, smartphones existed, but it convinced billions that the touch screen was a viable interface. next interface is voice.

predictions:

• openAI releases hardware. likely voice first.

• amazon’s massive investment and infamous losses in the echo ecosystem will prove shrewd.

V. CREATIVE

1. the imperfect life

in 2025 we’re hungry for honest representations (& proof of humanity). see part 1: endearingly unhinged.

more apartamento, less arch digest.

closely related: lo def. it just feels more real.

• more unexpected crops, motion blur, grain — even more film and camcorders.

• example: any fcukers music video

2. read or rot

we’re brainrotted out. enough 15 second tiktoks. give me something i can sink my teeth into. we’re even willing to go so far as read again (part 1: the substack surge).

prediction: longform yt creators will be an early hire at savvy companies.

3. 80s aesthetic

if you visit r/80sdesign and sort posts by: top posts, all time — you’ll see the top 7 were posted within the last 6 months (the subreddit started 10 years ago).

+ BONUS ROUND +

I. TRAVEL:

a. debauchery at sea:

long derided as a snooz, cruises are about to have a moment. i recently heard a story about a “gay cruise” and boy did it sound debaucherous.

prediction: niche cruises around specific interests. think: bryan johnson cruise — no alcohol, no late nights—just relentless self-optimization at sea.

II. FOOD

a. reservation culture out:

walk-ins are in.

or just make your own damn food (arguably the higher-status move in 2025).

b. single-serving indulgences:

tiny martinis, mini cinnabons, etc.

prediction: the ninja creami will explode in popularity as word gets out that you can body an entire pint of ice cream with it for only 150 kcals (and 30g protein).

c. the sandwich renaissance:

to be fair, when have sandwiches ever not been in? that said, with the rise of populism & nostalgia we’ll be reaching for the sammie in 2025.

reach prediction: two trends converge (sandwiches & eastern european food7), leading to the long overdue hard-launch of the open-faced sandwich in the US market. iykyk.

III. HEALTH

a. friendship as a service:

both paying for friends8 and services like ’s matchmaking experiments. just got my matches:

b. of boys and men:

discourse around men’s struggles loses its conservative connotation and is addressed as an issue.

signal: of boys and men listed on obama’s summer reading list.

c. cool sex > hot sex:

this one was thanks to our (female) anonymous tipster. more than just a great name, the philosophy9 makes sense and surprisingly is backed up by pornhub’s trend report: searches for “mindful sex” up 72%10.

d. IFS:

internal family systems—don’t worry, has nothing to do with families—will be the next topic du jour in pop psychology.

IV. TECH

a. VCs & tech bros do the impossible:

..become even more insufferable. emboldened by trump win and AI wave (though we may see many a tech bro get simultaneously humbled by AI as that job market gets squeezed).

b. BTC:

hits $250k as US adds it to the treasury within the next few years — (h/t ).

V. CREATIVE

a. attitudinal energy:

no more of this “we’re for everyone” speak. we’re looking for brands with a strong point of view—one that speaks to our individuality, making us feel seen and empowered.

closing thoughts

this was all very fun, but if you’re trying to predict the future, you’re far better off identifying what won’t change, rather than what will.

famously, this was the approach bezos took with amazon. rather than predict the changing appetite of consumers, he inverted it — asking, “what won’t change?”

• will customers ever want slower shipping?

• worse customer service?

• less selection?

the answer was no across the board. so all he had to do was deliver on those promises.

but that’s kinda boring.

-t

footnotes:

*here’s last year’s report if you’re curious.*

a note on formatting: under each category, you’ll find the top 3 trends. in the appendix you’ll find the odds and ends that didn’t make it. let’s dive in.

I. CULTURE

1. gatekeeping is back

tiktok clout chasers ruined our fav hidden gems and everyone started dressing as dupes of their fav celeb.

we crave the thrill of discovery—the kind that requires effort and feels earned. the harder we work for something, the more we value it (see: IKEA effect).

prediction: a boom in private communities (discord, slack, whatsapp), while cozy web activity—especially within paywalled spaces—gains even more traction.

2. friction as status

scarcity is increasingly scarce. friction adds a level of intentionality, but more importantly, can be leveraged for status.

much like having a tan communicates that you’re wealthy enough to lounge about in the sun doing nothing, voluntarily adding friction to your life signals the same.

predictions: making your own yogurt = big flex in 2025.

3. the nostalgia to tradwives pipeline

our nostalgia for “simpler times” is a natural reaction to uncertainty. we’ve seen it before: in the 1980s, cold war anxieties sparked an obsession with the 1950s, romanticizing an idealized past as an escape from present fears.

this observation from nails it:

nostalgia is just a form of self-manipulation. all nostalgia is, is the memory of something without the anxiety you experienced while you lived that memory.

nostalgia = memory - anxiety.

for some, that’s a return to traditional values and aesthetics — roleplaying stability. even david beckham has leaned into this, transforming himself into a quasi-trad-wife influencer with his country farm and rustic pursuits.

predictions:

• revival of traditional crafts and the institutions that teach them. example: john c. folk school (iykyk).

  • got my eyes on beekeeping and crocheting.

• see appendix section: the og influencer returns.

• homesteading content boom (books, shows, etc).

• tractor supply co stock continues to rip.

II. MEDIA

1. offline chic

busted old iphones as subtle status symbols: communicates—i have the luxury of not needing to be shackled to my phone.

more predictions:

• no-phone zones as premium spaces: more clubs, cafes and events banning phones to foster presence. the urban equivalent of being “off the grid” during a hike.

• human touch as a luxury: from artisanal goods to personalized recommendations, anything made or curated by hand will reign supreme.

  • see: popularity of perfectly imperfect and substack recommendations.

• the best tech will feel invisible. tools that recede into the background while enhancing real life. example: partiful’s use of SMS rather than forcing another app install on you.

• employers start gifting BRICK devices to new employees… and they actually use them.

2. endearingly unhinged

we’re hungry for unhingedness. or authenticity, whatever you want to call it.

the 2024 “podcast election” highlighted our loneliness and the parasocial relationships that fill the void.

• more than 1 in 10 americans today have no close friends.1

• for many, joe rogan isn’t just a podcaster. he’s a best friend. there by their side during their most intimate moments. podcasts like his are “an on-demand loneliness killing service” -

being a lil unhinged (read: taking creative risks) is the fastest way to signal that your comms are not being directed by a committee (see: harris campaign), nor is it some AI-generated slop. in other words, it feels real.

3. the substack surge

being on substack rn (notes especially) feels a bit like being early to tiktok. bullish on the platform. here’s why:

“rely on nothing you can’t take with you” - the new rules of media via

after cold hard cash, an email address is the most valuable thing you can collect on the internet. burned by the algo, creators are wisening up to this. enter: substack, the most frictionless way to collect emails.

it’s relatively nascent

recently i was at a happy hour with a bunch of kids who work at vayner media. 4 out of 5 i spoke with didn’t know what substack was. gary tf you doing?

private communities are exploding

substack naturally lends itself to creating a private community amongst your readership.

signal: ’s global travel intel chatroom and ’s paywalled subscriber chats.

prediction: substack achieves brandonym status—newsletters are now just ‘substacks,’ no matter the platform.

III. FASHION

1. heirlooms

durability is the new decadence. heirlooms are in. fast fashion is firmly out.

durability has become a coveted luxury as we learn to value the imperfections, character, and authenticity that come with age. patina as proof of a life well-lived.

signal: the popularity of estate sales, capsule wardrobes, and the growing momentum around “buy it for life” products.

related: the japanese concept of kintsugi—repairing broken pottery by mending cracks with gold, silver, or platinum, making them a feature, not a flaw.

2. the end of trends

with the explosion of micro-trends, monolithic trends have become a thing of the past.

this is freeing. you can pick & choose which styles to adopt, blending eras, and no one can trend-check you. as far as they know, you’re on trend, you’re just on some shit they don’t know about.

3. swagged out gramps

aging is cool. or at least the by-products of it are: authenticity and character.

this builds upon the heirloom trend — it’s about the confidence that comes with having been around the block. the youths can feel it:

part of why [older fashion icons] feel so reassuring is that, like all cool older people, they seem comfortably past all that, as though they've already seen the trends, chased the goods and graduated into freedom.” as carina chocano observes — via idle gaze

signal: loewe campaigns, coastal grandmother, and grandpa-core.

IV. WORK

1. the 90-10 rule

AI will usher in an era where we get 90% of the output quality, with 10% of the effort. it’s already close. this is both incredible and frightening. (h/t )

• though we’re not exposed to the true cost of compute (your $20 openAI subscription is heavily subsidized), there will be a time somewhere between now and when money no longer matters, that money will matter more than ever because it’ll translate to more compute, which will translate to dollars.

2. work hard [PERIOD] play hard

WFH blurred the line between work and play to a point where many actually want to go back to the office.

predictions:

• normalization of the 4-day workweek (a friend successfully lobbied the 300+ person company she worked for to adopt this).

• resurgence of rituals around the workday: ditching WFH, distinct start and stop routines.

• hustle porn 2.0 — short sprints of intentional, highly effective AI-aided efforts will be glorified rather than bozos pulling 80-hour work weeks.

3. sorry harvard MBAs

23% of harvard business school MBA grads are still looking for a job 3 months after graduation. woof.

a lot of middle management jobs are going to disappear due to AI, but new careers will emerge (imagine telling someone in 2008 you just signed a $100 million deal to play video games all day long).

new careers:

• sleep architects

• mental fitness coaches

• sabbatical consultants

• financial advisors — just these advise you on how best to spend your money.

& of course: craftspeople. eventually, we’ll live in a world of abundance, but human touch will always command a premium.

+ APPENDIX +

I. CULTURE:

a. jesus: the og influencer returns

church attendance gunna be way up: a symptom of loneliness, crisis of meaning, and the above trad trends.

“in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. there is no such thing as not worshiping. everybody worships. the only choice we get is what to worship.”

— david foster wallace

folks gunna worship something. would you prefer it be jesus or huberman?

b. anime:

crazy stat: 42% of gen z watch anime weekly versus 25% who watch the NFL2

c. socialism:

woke is out, socialism is in. will surge amidst AI fears and disruption.

d. the other significant others

traditional markers of stability—house, marriage, religion—feel like relics for many. as traditional milestones drift out of reach, we’ll see the rise of “minorstones” like pet anniversaries as well as new relationship dynamics.

• “roommates for life” no longer just a sitcom trope.

• platonic best friend as life partner.

• more family meals, just with your chosen family.

  • aka — more dinner parties (searches for “dinner parties” on pinterest is up 6,000%)

II. MEDIA

a. distro is everything

enabled by AI advancements in code and the AI agents, the “how” has become easier than ever, what’s left is the “why” and distribution – both of which creators are uniquely positioned to address.

signal: sam kolder launching diem — an AI tool to organize & search your content.

prediction: the celeb CPG phenomenon, but software and creators.

b. co-creation

savvy brands will invite their audiences in as co-conspirators in building the brand lore.

signal: loewe tomato meme → turned bag, stone island campaign featuring peggy guo and other notable fans of the brand.

III. FASHION

a. after GORP

GORP in the technical, stand in the shower to test your gear, sense is out. so what’s next?

after GORP, we’re all already in the mountains, but now that everyone’s in the mountains, some of us are looking around a corner and seeing who else is up there. and we see the shepherd: he’s more comfortable. not trying to climb anything. - simon mer via Magasin

prediction: less goretex, more natty fibers.

b. accessories

in 2024 we established our capsules, 2025 will be about the items around the clothes: hats, jewelry, shawls, etc. (h/t )

c. edgy ralph lauren

preppy, but with a twist.

d. jolie laide

good news for the unconventionally attractive… this is the year of jolie laide (french for “pretty-ugly”).

see: rat boy phenomenon.

e. bottega as the ‘it’ brand for the fellas

IV. MISCELLANEOUS

a. multiple passports

my toxic trait? “letting it slip” that i have dual citizenship on every first date.

more services like citizen x that offer an alternative to the tadz-marriage route & promise to “help you diversify your passport portfolio and secure a safe future for you and your loved ones.” kinda bleak.

b. water tasting menus and sommeliers

if you’re already into wine or coffee this is just the next logical step. what’s at the core of both? water.

signal: colette’s water bar (way ahead of it’s time).

c. birding

“birding is counterculture. birding is punk." — mcgolrick bird club

for the folks across the pond: flock together

d. art: fuzzy figuration

you’ll be seeing a lot more of this “fuzzy figuration” style — it has a dreamy, melancholic quality to it. (h/t the yearbook committee)

e. polish aesthetic

okay, you’ve made it to the end, so we can have some fun...

yes, i’m a polish passport holder and entirely biased, but i noticed an emerging trend:

• after gorp: shepard aesthetic (poland’s got shepards in spades — see above)

• eastern european cuisine on the rise

• slavic doll diet phenomenon

enter: polish aesthetic

alright, thanks for humoring me.

get part 2 (travel, creative, food, health, & tech)

BONUS:

credit:

*if you wanna skip straight to the 2025 template, scroll halfway down*

it was december 2020 and i had an existential crisis on my hands.

NYE was rapidly approaching.

and i had zero prospects for the totally rad and extremely lit NYE everyone tells me is critical to starting the year off right.

the group chat was sounding off with everyone’s plans

• santa teresa

• monolink in tulum

• a few NYE “bashes”

meanwhile, i’m scrambling.

moments before i pulled the trigger on a cursed $95 NYE party, i recalled an idea i first had two and a half years before.

rewind to 2018 - i had just graduated — leaving the warm joey pouch that is the US university system.

but before entering the real world, i bought myself some time (on credit with 0% apr).

a trip to asia.

4 weeks to figure out what i was going to do with my life.

but all i could think about was the ominous warning i heard from just about every adult.

after you graduate, time really speeds up.

when pressed, none of these old sages offered much of an explanation for why.

only that it happens, and you better strap in.

one hungover morning following a night out in shanghai (where we received the ‘hot girl in vegas’ treatment — free drinks, no covers, fought over by rival high roller tables, etc — all because we were white) a thought occurred to me.

two thoughts, actually.

1. damn, this white privilege thing is very real.

2. what if the semesters are the answer to this life-speeding-up thing?

semesters are a beautiful thing.

they split the year into clean blocks of time. each with a clear start and end — providing a scaffold on which to hang the memories that make up a year.

might they be the antidote to the phenomenon known as time soup?

if so, could i create my own pseudo-semesters?

two and a half years later, with nothing to lose i decided to take it for a whirl.

i would opt out of NYE. replacing it with a self-guided retreat.

following an airbnb research expedition, i found the perfect venue.

a llama ranch in lebec, ca run by reformed amish folks.

i haven’t looked back since.

in fact, i’ve doubled down.

adding the fourth of july to my opt-out circuit.

(another holiday that’ll make you feel like an absolute thumb if you don’t have a booze-filled agenda locked in.)

coincidentally, those two holidays evenly split the year in two.

the best part is — no one is going to bother you because they assume you’re 3 sheets to the wind and incapable of responding to email.

the playbook

note: prompts marked with "*" are personal faves. feel free to treat them as a sampler platter, choosing the ones you like most and skipping the rest.

part 1: reflection

1. *open your calendar and starting with january 2024, review the past year month by month, noting the highs and lows in two columns.

   1. take note of any patterns you notice.

      1. example:

         1. activities with 2%ers resulted in more peak experiences.

         2. activities i reluctantly agreed to with bozos did the opposite.

2. *if you’re a visual person, you can do the same exercise, but with your camera roll. start in jan and scroll forward, saving your fave images to an album.

   1. note the highs and lows as they come up.

3. what are 3 words that describe your 2024?

4. what are you most proud of from the last year?

5. *rate each, out of 10 (no 7s allowed):

   1. health

   2. play

   3. love

   4. work

   5. self-respect

   6. creativity

6. biggest lessons from 2024.

7. *what have you been lying to yourself about?

   1. two lies i wrote down (in part 2 i’ll explain how i’m tackling them):

      1. pot is serving me.

      2. protein bars are healthy.

8. what aspects of your life felt like they were most aligned this year?

9. review your goals/intentions for 2024.

   1. rate your effort, then rate your success (you know the rules, no 7s)

part 2: the year ahead

1. *word of the year — if you do nothing else, do this.

   1. take all your goals and intentions for the year and roll them into just one word.

   2. then create an evidence doc for your word.

      1. you’ll update it each time you take an action that supports that word.

2. *more of / less of list.

3. who do i want to be?

   1. what’s that type of person do on a daily basis?

4. *write a letter to future you, as if you’re checking in with an old friend.

   1. it’s such a treat to read these. so much more rewarding than setting rigid, pass/fail goals for the year—only to interrogate future me about whether i measured up to whatever unreasonable standards i set as “success.”

      1. you can write out the letter in your journal or use futureme to have it emailed to you a year from now.

5. *what is one emotion you’d like to feel more of in 2025?

6. describe what your ideal tuesday looks like, 5 years from today.

   1. detail is key. what do you see when you look out your window upon waking? what are the first 3 things you do?

7. if you’re the goalsetting type, list your goals for 2025.

8. re: the above — yearly goals don’t work for me. it’s too long a timeline. too many opportunities to say “i’ll start next week.”

   1. instead, focus exclusively on the first 3 months.

      1. with your goals in mind from #7 — create month-long initiatives that’ll move you towards those goals.

      2. each month gets just one initiative.

      3. having a singular initiative brings peace of mind. you’ll wake up with a clear purpose: improve 1% on this one thing.

         1. examples:

            1. month one: improve typing speed

            2. month two: refine storytelling

            3. month three: post a video each day

   

tiny penalties, big changes

above i listed two lies i’ve been telling myself. it’s good to admit those, but that’s not enough. i want to change that behavior.

sure, i could use willpower, but we all know willpower is overrated.

plus, trying to quit that behavior entirely is too restrictive. it won’t stick. and again, it requires that annoying willpower thing.

instead, i added friction to each behavior. via written contract.

each time i smoke the pots, i have to venmo luke $20. and for every protein bar i eat, i have to send matt $5.

it’s silly. but it works.

it’s enough money that it makes me think twice. but not enough that i wouldn’t send the money if i transgress. plus it allows me to be a bad boy every so often if i really want to.

how about the retreat?

last year i spent new years in ojai bouncing between the sauna and chatting with liz, my 90-year-old host, while i siphoned off some old person wisdom.

this year

my NYE is going to look a little different.

so i had to run my retreat ahead of schedule.

a few weeks back i ventured into the deep backcountry of mount hood’s national forest to this magical little airbnb. though i typically conduct my retreats solo, i’ve made a few exceptions and so long as your companion isn’t a bozo, it’s not a bad call.

this time my partner in crime was matt. he asks good questions and enjoys a sauna as much as i do, so he fit my companion criteria.

between sauna sessions, stream powered polar plunges, lots of camp coffee and a few nutritious oscar mayer wennies, we conducted our 2024 review.

it was really great, though i should warn you it’s a lot to try to do in just one day. i recommend booking your bnb for 2 nights (which we had done, but both of us wanted to sleep in our own beds after the first night… these boys soft).

wait, so where are you spending actual NYE?

V E G A S

yeah, probably not what you expected. me neither.

but someone important to me is getting married on jan 1st, so i’ll be there.

why am i telling you this?

1. to virtue signal — see, tadz of yesteryear might have flat out declined because... “but my new year’s retreat! … *robot voice* can’t. change. plans.”

   1. if i’ve learned anything in the last year, it’s the virtue of flexibility. so i canceled my airbnb and made a change of plans.

      1. instead of being out in the sticks on a retreat, maja and i will get a spa day pass at the casino and conduct a mini retreat on NYE. it’ll look a little different than previous years, but that’s life.

2. okay, the real reason i’m telling you this is not everyone can or will want to opt out of NYE and july 4th. no problem, just schedule your retreat a week earlier.

p.s. if you’re interested in opting out this year, here’s a video on how i do it.

happy NYE, see you in 2025.

-t

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& if you didn’t enjoy it, holler at me w/ your feedback.

seatbelt light still on, i buss down the tray table, crack my moleskin, and let the pen fly.

i call them air pages—an unfiltered brain dump at 30,000 feet.

there’s something about the no wi-fi, altitude, and the feeling of being nowhere yet everywhere at once that creates the perfect cocktail (oh, those help too) for reflection and intention setting.

one chapter closes. 6 weeks in LA—done and dusted.

ahead: a month in new york.

amidst the journal slop, one thought rises to the top:

what if, for the next four weeks, i just do what i want, when i want to do it?

to anyone else, that might sound like a no-brainer.

but as someone who’s relied heavily on discipline to navigate life, it’s a radical thought.

no rigid plans, no tracking macros, no endless to-do lists.

instead, i would be guided by just 3 letters: A, B, Z.

simulated suffering

classic scenario: i’m driving to the gym, but my mind isn’t on the road—it’s planning ahead to the workout.

but when we say “planning ahead” something else is actually happening.

it’s more like we’re simulating the event ahead of time—because the mind is famously bad at distinguishing between real-life and events we simply imagine2 (this is why visualizations are so effective).

the result? rather than relish in the ultimate driving experience™ of my 143 horsepower honda civic rental, i’m enduring the workout twice—once in my head on the drive over, then again IRL.

and, as anyone who’s ever dreaded a dentist appointment knows, the imagined version is almost always worse.

unfortunately, i’m wired to plan ahead. suffering twice is the norm.

this makes life feel chore-like, imbuing it with a heaviness. even things i once enjoyed—like the sauna—become obligations—another box to tick in the name of “wellness.”

obligations demand discipline, and discipline is exhausting—a constant struggle to swim upstream.

desire, on the other hand, is the current that carries you forward, effortlessly.

so, for the next four weeks, i’d let desire take the wheel—and see where it leads.

the A, B, Z framework

i first heard about it from shaan puri3 — he talks about it in the context of business, but the more i noodle on it, the more certain i am that it’s a universal truth.

here’s how it goes:

• start where you are (A).

• identify where you want to go (Z).

• and focus only on the next immediate step (B).

that’s it.

no grand strategies.

no overthinking (A,B,C,D,E,F…).

just enough structure to keep moving forward without falling into the trap of analysis paralysis or procrastination (our attempts at the “perfect plan” are almost always just procrastination, i would know, i’m a recovering midwit).

let’s see it in action. take meditation:

A (where you are): 📍

Z (your goal): a calm mind

B (the immediate next step): this inhale

then repeat.

as you inhale, what’s the immediate next step? exhale.

repeat that enough times and you might just experience a few moments of calm strung together by lots of frustration.

you don’t need to hunt down the full ram dass discography or go on that silent retreat.

or at least you don’t need to plan that right now — just do what the moment asks of you.

the P word

right about now you might be thinking… well hold on tadz, it sure sounds like you’re telling me to “just be present”.

i know, i know.

you’ve been told to do so a million and one times.

yeah, it’s never worked for me either. i’m too future-oriented.

fortunately, A, B, Z meets us where we’re at.

it’s a bit like presence, with a plan.

a very immediate plan, but a plan nonetheless.

we’ll call it presence-ish.

we’re reducing the planning window from 10 steps, to just one.

→ the immediate next step.

by shrinking your focus to just the next step, you eliminate the need for discipline to drag you through the entire plan.

you’re not thinking about struggling through the next 9 minutes of your meditation, you’re just doing what is in front of you — taking a breath — an action driven more by desire than discipline.

i call this action of moving from A → B… B-ing (being).

old habits

to be clear, i still find myself falling into old habits and scheming far ahead.

i’ll skip B and jump down the alphabet… to F

when that happens, i go “ooop, F-ing myself again.”

but i try not to chastise myself, that would make the problem worse.

instead, i treat it like a rep—an opportunity to strengthen my presence-ish muscle by recentering to (A), so that i can just (B)e.

one day at a time

i’ve never been to AA, but i’d kinda like to. it sounds like they’ve got a lot figured out.

alcoholics in recovery are taught to focus on the immediate challenge—staying sober today.

not staying sober this week. or year.

just take it one day at a time.

A, B, Z echoes this sentiment, one micro-step at a time.

A: this moment

Z: live a life of sobriety

B: do anything but pick up a drink

string enough of those moments together and you’ll live a life of sobriety. but focus on being sober for life and the weight of the task will crush you.

4 weeks later

so, how’d the experiment go?

i’d be lying if i said it totally changed my life.

though, for the first two weeks, it really felt like it might.

which frustratingly is almost always the case with these things.

after reading awareness by anthony de mello i had a similar experience.

profound lightness. so this is living!

and that lasted about two weeks, then i started slipping back into my old habits.

still, i’m a bit better at catching myself when i F myself and returning to B-ing.

maybe that’s all we can hope for—to be a little better today than we were yesterday. one day at a time, as the AA folks say.

more importantly, i learned to trust my desires a bit more.

my biggest fear going in was that, left unchecked, i’d end up stranded on couch island, surrounded by empty pints of ben and jerry’s.

i didn’t.

in fact, not a single ben and jerry’s was harmed.

till next time,

-t

Leave a comment

p.s. — i’ve got a favor to ask: if you were to describe joy arb to a friend, how would you pitch it? stream of consciousness welcome. not looking for perfect prose — just whatever comes to mind. hit me here or just bonk that reply button.

…alright

i spent it fiendishly searching europe’s cobblestone streets for…

protein bars.

???

worse, i did the same thing last year.

for those interested, i dropped my protein bar power ranking at the bottom.

but first, what’s wrong with me?

it’s no secret, i have a tendency to get a bit obsessed.

and it’s not limited to protein bars.

last summer i temporarily deviated from my protein bar quest and went in search of the best cardamom roll in paris. (i’ll save you 7600 kcal and €52 — just go to leonie).

nor is this limited to food. i do the same with travel. i’ll spend hours researching the best hotel, long past the point of enjoying the treasure hunt.

now that i think about it, nothing in my life is safe from this tendency.

• need a new dishrag? → 20 min on amazon comparing reviews for a $7 product.

• trying a new recipe? → check to see if there are similar ones with higher reviews.

must. have. the. best.

maximizers and satisficers

there are 2 types of people in this world.

when faced with a decision, you’re either a maximizer or a satisficer1.

a maximizer is the type to go shopping for a jacket, find one they like, ask the store to hold it for them, then spend the rest of the day scouring town in search of a better jacket.

a satisficer on the other hand will take the first jacket that meets their criteria:

isn’t hot pink ✅

has a zipper ✅

looks warm-ish ✅

and then they’ll go on with their day.

i used to think the satisficer was a loser.

i was wrong.

maximizer’s dirty little secret

maximizers obsess over every decision, so you’d expect them to feel good about their choices.

but they’re notoriously dissatisfied.

since they exhaustively evaluated all the options, they’re keenly aware of what they passed up by choosing door C.

it’s a bit like spending hours scrolling netflix, trying to pick the perfect movie. by the time you decide, it’s so late you don’t have time to watch it. and your partner (who was fine with… literally anything) is pissed.

but even if you did happen to settle on the “perfect” movie, you’re likely to get a quarter of the way through before kicking yourself for choosing the one with the highest rotten tomatoes instead of the one you really wanted.

if you're thinking, tadzio, this maximizer thing sure sounds a lot like modern dating. i had the same thought. followed by… wait, is this why i haven’t dated anyone seriously in 6 years?

confession time

i made it sound like maximizers have just one dirty secret.

that’s a lie.

while writing this, i discovered 7. and there’s probably even more.

but for the sake of time, we’re gunna bang-bang through these and zero in on just a few.

1. LESS SATISFIED — with their decisions (and by extension, life).

2. WASTED TIME — on trivial shit like finding the highest absorption dish rags.

   1. warren buffett has a proposition for you — he’ll give you $138 billion in exchange for your youth. so you’d be a billionaire 138 times over, but you’d also be 94 years old. you taking that deal?

3. DECISION FATIGUE — the maximizer’s constant pursuit of the ‘best’ choice ironically leads to poorer decisions.

   1. just like a muscle, decision-making fatigues with use.

      1. example: tadzio exhausts his decision-making power comparing dish rags on amazon and makes an A+ decision there, but fumbles the bag later in the day when deciding which stock to invest his piggy bank in.

         1. it’s why steve jobs famously wore a turtle neck and jeans every day. he thought he had better things to do than exert his energy assembling a fire fit.

4. CHERISHED OUTCOMES — in a recent interview, elizabeth gilbert was asked what she hoped to get out of the experience. she replied that she had, “no cherished outcomes”.

   1. to the maximizer, this is an alien concept. cherished outcomes are all they have—perfectly laid plans that must be achieved, or else…

   2. clinging to these cherished outcomes requires going head-to-head with the universe in an arm wrestling match. time after time, i’ve learned it’s a losing battle. and yet… i still try.

5. NEVER PRESENT — when you’re fixated on a cherished outcome (a desire), your mind is always a few steps ahead, scanning for ways to reach it.

   1. it’s like hiking a mountain with your eyes fixed on the summit—you’re gunna miss all the beauty along the way.

// BRIEF INTERLUDE //

when traveling with friends, having the right ratio of travel doms (maximizers) to travel subs (satisficers) is critical.

6. ANALYSIS PARALYSIS

maximizers crave the “perfect decision”.

but that requires perfect information — a luxury we rarely have, especially at the beginning of a project.

if you wait around for perfect information, you’ll never start.

i know this because i’m guilty of it — heavy on planning, light on execution.

only by taking the first (blind) step forward will the next step be illuminated.

if you’re thinking about a project — consider this a sign — just start. today. no more planning.

this is the curse of the midwit. too smart for their own good.

7. LIFE MAXXING

my maximizing knows no bounds.

it permeates every aspect of my life. hence — life maxxing.

take the most productive day you’ve ever had — everything went your way — you hit green light after green light.

now set that as your baseline for what you expect out of every day.

you’re doomed to fail. and yet i do it everyday.

“interruptions” is what we call them.

maja calling me midway through my morning writing session to tell me about something she’s excited about.

but she doesn’t understand — my day simply won’t allow for interruptions. i’ve planned it down to the minute, and this unaccounted for interruptions threatens to derail my carefully laid plan.

the trouble is, today isn’t unique. because tomorrow won’t allow for interruptions either.

the truth is of course that what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life.

-c.s. lewis

the larry david model

is there hope for the maximizer?

i think so.

how can i be so sure?

larry david.

i’m not saying LD is a maximizer, though that wouldn’t surprise me.

one thing we can all agree on is… the man is a touch neurotic.

a character flaw to most... but to LD?

he made a career out of it.

turned his greatest weakness into his greatest strength.

what is curb your enthusiasm if not a thorough documentation of larry david’s neurotic behavior and the sticky situations it lands him in?

we can do the same with maximizing, but not while it’s evenly applied across our life.

we need to find an outlet for it.

one or two areas in your life that you can go all in on.

you’ll never get rid of it, but you can re-allocate it.

optimizer extraordinaire, tim ferriss was asked how he thinks about where to optimize in his life. his advice: find one or two things to get really good at, and for everything else, settle for good enough.

by trying to maximize everywhere, you end up maximizing nowhere.

what to do?

i don’t have the answers, but i do have a few suggestions that i’ll be trying out myself.

the coin flip test:

• this is a trick to get in touch with your intuition.

  • grab a coin, assign heads and tails, then flip…

    • in that moment as the coin hangs in the air — which side are you hoping for?

      • → BOOM! that’s your choice.

the $20 razor:

• it must be the immigrant mentality i inherited from my mom — i overthink small purchases. comparing two products that cost roughly the same, trying to decide if the more expensive one is worth the extra $1.45.

  • this used to be fun (if it’s still fun for you, keep doing it), but now it just feels like a poor use of time. so, for anything under $20, i don’t second guess. if i make the wrong choice, well it can easily be reversed for less than $20. which leads us to…

  • [note: the name is a nod to occam’s razor2, not the gillete type mf.]

one-way and two-way doors:

• those purchases of $20 or less are two-way doors. meaning — they’re easily reversible. for decisions that are two-way doors, the satisficing approach is good enough.

• one-way doors aren’t so easily reversed. having a kid is one example. or who you marry. those decisions are harder to reverse and justify a more maximizer-heavy approach.

exploration vs. exploitation:

• when you’re at a restaurant do you order the dish you got last time and enjoyed, or do you roll the dice on a new entree?

  • kevin kelly suggests that the ideal ratio of exploration (new dish) vs exploitation (the dish you know is dank) is 30/70. i agree.

hey siri:

• set a time limit for yourself to make the decision. my fav way to do is by dictating to siri to put 5 minutes on the clock. almost feels like i have a buttler.

bullshit allowance:

• bullshit is invertible, even jeff bezos deals with it. you should expect to encounter it daily and allocate a budget for it. don’t be a tadzio with no room for the inevitable interruptions of life. when they appear (& they will) rest easy knowing that you accounted for them.

  • think of it as a luxury you’ve granted yourself. for someone like me, where never feeling rushed is the ultimate luxury, having a bullshit allowance ensures you can handle the unexpected without stress.

welp, that’s all for the week.

talk soon,

-t

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🏆 protein bar power ranking 🏆

editor’s note: though i enjoy protein bars (obvi), i don’t reccomend consuming them. in fact, i don’t even consider them food. they’re really ‘industrially made edible product’ as chris van tullekan calls them in his bestseller, ‘ultra processed people’.

👅 BEST TASTE:

power crunch peanut butter (toss em in the freezer and ohhhh my)

⚖️ BEST MACROS:

david protein bar: 28g protein, 150 kcal 🤯

🍫 BEST CANDYBAR REPLACEMENT:

tie: barebells salted peanut caramel & robert irvine’s fit crunch peanut butter

🇪🇺 BEST EURO BAR:

grenade chocolate mint — tastes like a peppermint patty. if anyone in the UK wants to ship me a box, that’d be great.

🥈 HONORABLE MENTIONS:

• aloha (mint chocolate and cookie dough) — quite tasty. macros are just ight: 14g protein, 220 kcal.

  

• quest crispy peanut butter — macros are solid, taste is real good. probs deserves more than an honorable mention.

🧟 LEAST FRANKENFOOD-LIKE:

• nugo slim

  • no palm oil

  • 3g sugar (no artificial sweeteners or maltitol — genuinely perplexed how they sweetened it if they used just 3g of sugar)

  • certified gluten-free and non-GMO ingredients

  • can pronounce most of the ingredients

  • 170 kcal, 17g protein — hits the 10kcal to 1g protein ratio i look for

🏆 BEST OVERALL:

• tie (depending on how much you care about frankenfood // pure macros)

• in the words of … the david bar is pretty tasty, so long as you don’t look at the ingredients.

• if you’re trying to limit your ultra-processed food consumption, but still need your protein bar fix — i’d reach for a nugo slim — mint or peanut butter — wholefoods has em for like $2.20 which feels remarkably affordable for bezo farms.

jetlagged and restless.

methinks i’ll take myself for a walk, like a good boy.

i pass buzzing pubs—warm with laughter and the cheerful clink of pints.

it's nice—for a moment.

then loneliness hits.

my default mode

as i walk the cobblestone streets, i’m subconsciously assessing everyone.

let’s be honest—i’m judging them.

• pff, deff a finance bro

  • they actually think that looks good?

    • ..bet i could smoke em in a footrace

standard stuff.

but then get this—that very same man of ~finance~ has the nerve to judge me.

sees right through my stoic facade:

look at this loser—no friends to hit the pub with. oh and he’s definitely gunna sleep like shit tonight. bozooooo.

and ya know what, he was right—i did sleep like shit.

but i was wrong.

see, he didn’t know i existed.

i forgot a key piece of human psychology…

our egocentric bias

we rely too heavily on our own perspective, assuming that others think, feel, and experience the world just like us.

in other words—main character syndrome.

after eyeing up and down every lad i passed, assessing my footrace chances, i began to tire.

maybe the 2mg melatonin was finally taking hold.

i let go of the posture of judgment.

tried a different posture on for size.

there’s a buddhist practice called metta, where you focus on filling your mind and heart with kindness, love, and compassion, then extending those feelings to loved ones, strangers, and even yourself.

it sounds hokey, but the shit works. by the end of this, you’ll understand why.

back on the cobblestone streets, everything feels different.

that table of drunken lads is no longer a nuisance.

no, they’re my pals.

seeing them slam pints with sloppy grins fills me with joy.

my new posture is one of wanting the best for them. and though tomorrow might be a tough day at the bank, right now they’re having the time of their lives.

in a way, i’m able to partake in their joy. like drafting off a racer ahead of you. their happiness flows to me.

joy isn’t zero-sum. there’s enough to go around.

besides, the more joy in the world, the better: more joy = fewer school shootings.

what’s happening here?

we assume everyone experiences the world same as us.

usually, this works against us.

as we judge others, we incur a debt. the judgment of others reflected back.

but it’s not 1 for 1 on judgment. when you open the door to judgment, you’re inviting the judgment of everyone.

1 (you) vs 8,000,000,000.

that’s a very unwelcoming world you’ve just manufactured for yourself.

billions of people—dissecting your every flaw. singling you out. you’re no longer a part of a greater whole. just a lonely individual trying to withstand the judgment of 8 billion people.

now, none of those people actually know you exist.

but because you’ve adopted a judging posture, you assume they’re doing the same right back.

but, this same bias can be flipped in our favor. that’s why metta works.

if you can feel love, compassion, or whatever you can muster, towards everyone you pass, you’ll feel it reflected back.

i mean, they still won’t know you exist, but that doesn’t matter.

your perception is your reality.

if they briefly snap out of their bubble for long enough to take notice of you, they might pick up on your warmth and reflect it back, creating a beautiful interaction.

but for now, just assume they are. the result is the same.

is love asking too much?

we have a lot of associations wrapped up in the word “love”—making it a difficult target to hit. “am i loving enough?” “what does it actually mean?”

so if love is out of reach, aim for kindness instead.

kindness is very down to earth.

easy to recognize in your interactions. “am i being kind or unkind?” simple.

whether you aim for kindness or love, i’ve found these to help:

• visualize each person as a young child. vulnerable, innocent, and in need of love and care.

• or imagine their story—what their life might be like. challenges, joys, relationships and struggles.

maybe this is the most obvious concept.

i mean, it sorta is—once again—all we need is love.

but i’m here to study the classics—the handful of simple principles that if we would just learn (really learn) we’d live a ~blessed~ life.

cliches are easy to say, and even easier to dismiss.

these essays are my attempt to take simple ideas and turn them over, spin them around, and look at them from every angle until they click.

fortunately, life is a relentless teacher. i doubt i’ll run out of essay topics any time soon.

p.s. — i forgot how great solo travel can be.

i’m not sure if it’s the balmy london weather (rare), my ugly american accent, my vibe or the vibe of londoners — but i’ve had the best interactions with folks out here.

maybe it has something to do with the above?

okay, back to vacation mode.

-t

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other times it shouts.

this time it was shouting.

between bites of pizza, i lamented to andrew (fellow man of the ‘sletter) that i felt i wasn’t taking full advantage of new york.

if you’re paying $3500 for a shoebox you better be getting more out of the city than just feeling in on the latest nolitadirtbag meme.

the talent pool in new york is bar none. your proximity to greatness is unmatched by any other city.

shouldn’t i take advantage of that?

there’s this concept i love—it’s the idea of the asymmetric life1.

speaking at stanford, graham weaver reflects on his 29-year career as an investor,

if i had to summarize great investing in a single word, it would be “asymmetry.”

seek opportunities where the possibility of gains wildly outweighs what you can lose, which is typically capped at 1x your investment. 

you’re not playing for a 1.5x or 2.0x outcome, you could be playing for a 10x, 20x, or even 100x outcome. 

…

as i started applying the principle of asymmetry to investing, i also began to realize that the principles were even more powerful when i applied them to other areas of my life. and just like in investing, i was playing small in my life — playing not to lose. 

playing not to lose. that’s how i felt.

what’s a fella to do?

only one answer…

send more cold email.

as far as bets go, i can’t think of anything that’s more asymmetric than firing off a cold email.

takes you, what, 5 minutes to draft and send?

downside: wasted 5 minutes

upside: a great conversation, a new best friend, a lover. if you’re lucky—all three.

something about our convo must have struck andrew, because our imessage thread quickly turned into a cold email circle jerk.

that final one tipped the scale.

the challenge was on.

but we needed a little skin in the game.

and tadzio cometh to collect:

”life-changing” is pretty overused.

but it applies here.

send one cold email a week for a year (52) and there’s zero chance it doesn’t shift the trajectory of your life, even slightly.

the first person on my hit list was adam robinson.

i heard him on an interview 7 years earlier. that interview changed my life (no, really).

then the other day while researching a piece, i happened to look him up.

his twitter says he lives in williamsburg. i’m in greenpoint. we’re neighbors?

fuck it.

after crafting the ~perfect~ email, i tracked down an old email of his and fired it off.

5 minutes later my email client showed he opened it.

*refresh, refresh, refresh*

nothing.

…

still nothing.

to be fair, the guys got better things to do…

• he’s advisor to your fav hedge fund billionaires

• founded the princeton review

• chummy pals with warren buffet

but i wasn’t done.

a week later i hit him on IG DMs.

moments after i see “typing…”

queue anxious excitement.

quick—close the app before he sends and the read receipt shows.

10 minutes later—after i’ve given his message sufficient time to marinate—i reopen the app to see what awaits.

oh shit, his direct number !

i schedule a coffee chat before he’s got a chance to reconsider.

well that 20 min chat turned into a 2.5 hour chat.

and doggone it, the motherfucker did it again—changed my life for the second time.

but…

there’s no one i want to connect with.

nonsense.

if you consume media, there are people whose thoughts you enjoy. start there.

go through your newsletters, fav podcasts, books, etc and make a list of the ones you enjoyed the most.

you can even do it with folks on social, though i’d avoid folks with above 100k followers.

but i don’t live in nyc.

well i’m back in oregon now.

touching grass.

and hosting our annual lobster club residency.

in fact, i’m writing this from the middle of a forest.

but i’m still sending my weekly cold outreach.

so if you’re not in new york city, you’re not off the hook.

in an era of zoom, distance is no excuse. obvi meeting IRL is the gold standard—though you shouldn’t always go straight for the kill…

it took me embarrassingly long to realize this—a cold outreach doesn’t need to have an ask attached to it.

many of the best ones don’t.

they’re a simple—hey i appreciate what you do.

sometimes that’ll be the end of it.

other times it’ll be the start of a beautiful relationship.

a few tips:

• reply to newsletters!

  • despite having worked in email for years, i still forget that you can respond to newsletters. when i do, i’m always surprised by how often i get a response. try it.

• any time you consume a piece of media you like (podcast, video, essay), take 30 seconds to send them a note saying you enjoyed it. try to be specific about what resonated. you’ll make their day and you might get a few new friends out of it.

• keep it short and to the point — this template from alex banayan is a decent place to start:

  • 1st line: “i know you are very busy and get a lot of email so this will only take 60 seconds.” actually, this is probably a terrible way to start a cold email. i’d skip it.

  • 2nd line: 1 or 2 sentences about who you are and how that’s relevant to the person you’re contacting.

  • 3rd line: 1 or 2 sentences with a specific question (should show that you’ve done your homework) the recipient can answer quickly.

  • 4th line: “i totally understand if you’re too busy to reply. even a 1-to-2-line response will make my day.”

• get some skin in the game.

  • ask a pal to be your accountability buddy & put $5 on the line for each time one of you doesn’t send a cold outreach that week.

editor’s note: halfway through this piece i realized something—i only know andrew because 3 years ago i sent him a cold DM. in fact, the kid blew me off twice. a few reschedules later, i reluctantly agreed to meet him at a pub in mexico city to catch a world cup match (for those that don’t know—tadz hates televised sports). look at us now—monetarily, i’m at least $5 richer than i would be otherwise, and richer in non-monetary ways many times over.

send the damn email.

talk soon,

-t

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additional resources:

• how to meet anyone you want - greg isenberg (podcast)

• lessons from cold emailing billionaires (podcast)

what if i don’t make it?

stop. don’t go there, tadzio.

pull it together.

focus.

though this sounds like a riveting episode of 24, it’s not.

just another day in the life of tadz.

see, each day i begin the day in debt.

racing against the clock to get through my to-do list, just so i can get back to 0 before the clock strikes 5.

oliver burkeman calls this productivity debt1.

the vague sense that i’m falling behind. that i need to claw my way back to a minimum standard just to… justify my existence?

i tell myself, if i have a really good day, free of distraction, i might be able to pay off the debt, get out of overdraft and back to zero.

but that never happens.

so who’s the asshole running up my AMEX bill?

ahh, yes, that would be… tadz of tomorrow.

thanks pal.

tadz of tomorrow thinks he’s doing us a favor. he’s working to create a better future. he’s all about becoming.

but tadz of today would like to enjoy… today.

he’s just trying to be, man.

unfortunately, they share a to-do list.

though it’s really a “should-do list”.

and there’s no limit to the number of things he “should do”.

whether it’s career ambitions, or the desire to make the world a tiny bit better— infinite scroll newsfeeds and rungs on the career ladder make the number of things we can potentially do in a day infinite.

this puts us in a pickle.

though the number of things we could do is infinite, we are very much finite beings.

we all gunna die. even bryan johnson.

finite beings + an infinitely long to-do list = problem

FAST… no quick maths

(answer at the bottom of essay)

with our limited time, there’s no way we can do everything.

yet, we still try.

which is why you can get to the end of a day, having absolutely hammered your to-do list, a la davis clarke2, and still feel like you haven’t done enough.

here’s the issue: we have unrealistic expectations.

the bar was too high. in fact, the bar wasn’t even defined.

it’s always 5 steps ahead of you.

like a mirage, you’re tricked into thinking you’re about to arrive at the oasis, but it never comes, always just out of reach.

just put in a few extra hours today to get ahead and tomorrow you’ll enjoy a break.

this is the lie that tadz of tomorrow tells me. it’s no wonder i have trust issues.

what to do?

we need to define the goalposts so they can’t keep inching back.

we need constraints.

3 strategies

editor’s note: please for the love of god do not try to adopt all 3 of these at once. choose one and try it for a month. i’ve gotten the most mileage out of the first two methods, but YMMV.

strategy 1: the three 3s method

no more endless to-do list.

today you only have 9 slots on your list.

that’s going to require some decision-making. trade-offs. embrace em.

here’s what your list looks like:

• 3 important tasks

• 3 maintenance tasks

• 3 small tasks

that’s it. choose wisely.

i recommend starting with the important tasks first thing. as the saying goes, eat the frog first. also, you’ll have nature’s adderall on your side.

strategy 2: the timer method

okay, we’ve limited the number of things on our to-do list.

next, we need to limit the amount of time we’re allowed to work.

you already do this, but the timeframe is wayyy too big.

we say: i work between 9am and 5pm.

that’s crazy. there’s no way you’re effectively using your time.

so instead i crunch my timeframe. by A LOT.

each day i set two timers on my computer.

90 minutes each.

a total of 3 hours.

that’s all i’m allowed to spend working on client work.

sounds crazy, huh?

to be fair, i’ve been slipping. but when i do stick to it, WOW. it’s incredible.

here’s why:

i CRANK during those 90 minute sessions. they force me to focus. distractions are off menu. after all, i only have 180 minutes to get a day’s worth of work done.

no room to pussyfoot.

since i’ve set that as my quota for the day — tadz of today and tadz of tomorrow are in alignment. when those 180 minutes are up, tadz is released from his duties.

that constitutes a successful day—because we’ve defined it.

strategy 3: the done list

as you cross things off your three 3s list — write them down on your done list.

a to-do list functions on subtraction—each time you do something, you cross out the task… closing the gap between you and a finished to-do list.

but what’s a finished to-do list, really?

it’s 0.

they’re a reminder of the debt we’re in.

didn’t manage to cross off 2 items from your to-do list?

you’re ending the day at -2.

not quite, try again tomorrow.

what a pitiful way to live. and yet that’s how i live. fuck.

contrast that with a done list.

it starts at 0. blank.

with each thing you do (you can count “made coffee” if you want, i won’t tell), you’re making a positive deposit (+1), versus an interest payment (-1).

as burkeman notes,

each entry is a cheering reminder that you could after all, have spend the day doing nothing constructive, yet look what you did!

how about maintenance?

ahhh maintenance… my frenemy.

doing a maintenance task feels like an interest payment (-1). something you have to do to stay alive.

but i’m trying to embrace them. shift it from a have-to-do, to a get-to-do.

• lately, i’ve been trying to view maintenance as an act of creative expression. repair as a way of making the whole, more whole.

• it’s preparation for the adventure ahead.

  • example: i go to the dentist so that my teeth are prepared to go to battle with brat’s3 charred sourdough... last summer we lost the battle and i chipped a tooth. this summer, i’ll be prepared.

answer: 4,000 weeks (also the title of oliver burkeman’s book—a must for any type-A psycho like me)

• that’s roughly how long you’ll live, provided you're lucky enough to die of natural causes.

  • at 28, i’ve got just 2,524 left. yikes.

    • i’ll take a second order of the sourdough, thank you!

tadz’s first mug shot

at ripe age of 8.

shellshocked, i blink as the thriftway employee flips my jansport, a waterfall of candy flowing out onto the desk of “loss prevention” HQ.

yes, i was a thief.

and my poor mama had to come bail me out.

writing a $26.36 check (in 2004 dollars!) to cover the cost of my would-be heist.

i wish i could say that was the end of my larceny career, but it wasn’t. i just got better.

here’s the good news: i can now afford candy. so stealing is a thing of the past.

& contrary to what the title suggests, i do not recommend you follow my lead.

GRAND THEFT LIFE

i first heard about this concept via tim urban1.

he covered it beautifully, so i’ll be borrowing from him liberally while adding a touch of tadz flare.

remember grand theft auto?

that video game your parents warned you about.

good, wholesome fun—robbing convenience stores, hitting 180 on the 101, running over a prostitute or two.

all the things you’d want to do, but are too afraid to.

errr, wait, no.

but it brings up a good point. in a world without consequences, we’d live our lives differently.

imagine this:

you’re given a video game called GRAND THEFT LIFE—a perfect simulation of real life, just there are no consequences. there are still laws—so casual muggings and candy heists are a no-no—and you still have to support yourself and your family—but otherwise, you’re free to do whatever you’d like.

you only have one objective: to live the best life possible.

what would you do?

i don’t know about you, but i’d take more risks. live with more spontaneity, explore greater creativity, and generally feel more alive.

the life i’d build for my character would be much truer to myself than my life outside the game.

what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

i struggle to answer this question.

why?

because fear has such a grip over my life that i’ve narrowed the scope of what i think is possible.

like horse blinders, i can only see what’s directly in front of me.

a world of possibilities hidden from view.

so i’ve reframed the question to cut to the heart of it:

on a scale of 1 to 10 (no 7s allowed), how would you rank your boldness?

you can answer, i’ll wait.

“boldness” looks different for everyone. i don’t think it’s a masculine or feminine thing.

it just means to live the truest version of yourself. one less encumbered by the opinions of others.

rn i’m a 6/10.

last year, around this time i was rockin a solid 9/10. and my god did it feel good. life on my own terms—in charge of my destiny. we’re gunna get back there—and, if you’re down, i’ll bring you along for the ride.

it’s all larry’s fault

who tf is larry?

larry is you, just in 50,000 BC.

one night you’re out at your local watering hole. you spot a cutie and want to introduce yourself. do you?

abso-fruitly not! if you happen to stumble your way through a dad joke, you’ve just done something irreversible.

see, larry lives in a tribe of 80.

and he just made a fool of himself to 1 of 10 (single) tribal baddies.

worse, she’s gunna tell her friends (the 9 other baddies!) and now larry is toast.

he’ll forever be the dad joke guy—losing any chance of passing on his genes. if the joke was particularly lame, he’ll be exiled. a death sentence.

unfortunately—larry is still within each one of us.

our brains never got the memo we no longer live in tribes of 80.

and it’s ruining our lives.

the F word

fear.

we’re wired to take fear very seriously.

evolution saddled us with a better safe than sorry philosophy.

it once served us very well.

but in today’s world where we’re more likely to die from a tipping vending machine than a tiger, it’s not so useful.

we need a software upgrade.

just how out of date is our software? tim beautifully illustrates it here:

(fear) programs us to be terrified of all the wrong things. we’re more afraid of public speaking than texting on the highway, more afraid of approaching an attractive stranger in a bar than marrying the wrong person, more afraid of not being able to afford the same lifestyle as our friends than spending 50 years in meaningless career—all because embarrassment, rejection, and not fitting in really sucked for hunters and gatherers.

the 3 deadly misconceptions

misconception #1: misplaced fear

we’re wired to take fear very seriously and it’s mostly ruining our lives… see lonely larry.

misconception #2: misplaced identity

are you the experiment or the experimenter?

each time we take a bold action, we’re running an experiment.

success is not guaranteed. that’s why it’s bold.

here’s the thing—we make a fundamental error—which is identifying with the experiment itself. we cannot separate ourselves from the experiment.

why? because we’re narcissistic little twats.

when we hear “no” we immediately think it’s because of us. a referendum on our value as a human being. we neglect to consider the two other variables…

1. our strategy in going about the experiment.

2. the other person. what do they need? what’s their history? did they sleep poorly last night? might they be hangry?

let’s address #1 — the experiment.

you are not the experiment.

you’re the mad scientist in charge of the experiments, playing with pipets and shit. determining which experiments to run and how to approach them.

your goal shouldn’t be to run only successful experiments.

it should be to run as many experiments as possible.

success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

• winston churchill

the scientist who sets out to run only successful experiments is a pretty lame scientist. he’s making baking soda and vinegar volcanos for the rest of his career.

miss me with that bullshit.

on the topic of mad scientists, let’s tap in with thomas edison. you’ve heard the quote,

i have not failed 700 times. i’ve succeeded in proving 700 ways how not to build a lightbulb.

apparently that number is off. this MF tried to make a lightbulb 2773 times before he succeeded.

with each experiment, edison moved toward his goal.

but it didn’t feel that way. it’s not like with each experiment, the lightbulb stayed on for an additional second.

no, these were terrific failures.

literally blowing up in his face.

you should expect to encounter the same. the path will be non-linear.

the key is to shift the way you judge your self-worth.

value yourself not on the outcome of a single experiment, but rather on the number of experiments you run.

the 33% rule

misconception #3: misplaced expectations

here’s how it works:

• 33% of people will think you’re mids

• 33% of people will LOVE you

• & the final 33% of people will think you’re a shmuck

so no matter your strategy, 2/3 people won’t be for you. at least not the real you.

you’re welcome to try to win them over, but that’s a terrible use of time.

forget the 66% of folks and focus on the 33% who love you.

some people just aren’t going to be for you. there are plenty of reasons why, and it’s mostly a waste trying to figure out why.

just keep it moving.

for every 3 doors you go through, 2 will be duds. but that 3rd door will be oh so sweet.

this means you need to, at a minimum, run 3 experiments to get 1 success.

this is assuming you’ve perfected your experiment design, which let’s be honest, you’re no edison, and that guy still had to show up 2774 times before he saw any success.

so those are the 3 epiphanies.

interesting. but not all that useful, yet.

we need a catalyst to activate their potential.

the evidence doc

the first essay i wrote was how i squashed my deepest fear with a 3 letter word and a notes doc.

it covers the topic in depth, but i’ll give you the sparknotes here:

changing your behavior is absurdly difficult.

wanting to change your behavior isn’t enough.

you need to prove to yourself that you’re capable of doing so.

how?

by collecting evidence.

step 1: fire up the notes app

step 2: title it: i am someone who is _______ (insert desired behavior)

step 3: start collecting evidence (big and small)

don’t expect to go 10/10 bold off the bat.

instead, it’s helpful to borrow another concept from video games: levels.

breaking things down into levels gives you a clear path forward, helping you close the gap between where you are and where you want to get to.

here’s an example in the social context:

lvl 1: exchange a smile with someone.

lvl 2: strike up a convo with a stranger. your uber driver, barista, person in line next to you.

lvl 3: offer to exchange contact info if you have a good rapport.

doing something out of your comfort zone and having it turn out okay is an incredibly powerful experience, one that changes you—and each time you have that kind of experience, it chips away at your respect for your brain’s ingrained, irrational fears.

• tim urban

welp, that’s it. treat it like a game. cause it is.

play for the high score.

not because you have to as a matter of life and death, but because why not?

you’re already here.

might as well.

it’s hard not to be afraid. be less afraid.

• susan sontag

lifted from nolita dirtbag’s medium rare

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don’t answer that.

unless you practice the dark arts of copywriting, you most certainly have not.

and that’s a shame. because they’re a goldmine. sorta like prison break meets MBA degree.

while serving time in the state pen, a fella by the name of gary halbert took it upon himself to give his teenage son, bond, an education.

not the easiest thing to do from prison.

except gary is one of the greatest copywriters of all time (it’s what helped land him in prison). so he taught his son using the method he knew best—writing.

through a series of letters, gary shared everything he had learned with his son.

and he began with the most important piece of advice.

the four square lesson on life

• everything you do can be categorized as either important or not important.

• also, everything you do can be categorized as urgent or not urgent.

Q1 (urgent // important) & Q3 (urgent // not important) almost always get done.

why?

because you have a deadline or a boss up your ass—providing a heavy dose of urgency. urgency is very good at getting our attention.

the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Q4 (not urgent // not important) is not important or urgent. delete these.

so we’re left with Q2—a neglected little fella.

important, but not urgent.

meaning, no one is hounding you to get it done. so it doesn’t.

and that’s the trouble with Q2—it lays dormant until it’s too late.

what no one ever told you

here’s the thing about Q2—it’s where your dreams and nightmares reside.

the attention you give to Q2 is the difference between waking up one day and getting carted into the hospital for a triple bypass surgery vs. having a beach bod straight out the hollister ad.

it’s the difference between having 3 people at your funeral versus 250.

the key to Q2 (and building the life you want) is intention.

but urgency is the enemy of intentionality.

urgency will plow intentionality over like a 300lb linebacker facing up against a twink.

here’s the good news—since Q2 is so neglected, if we shift even a small fraction of our attention to it, we’ll get outsized results.

Q2 ingredients

a lot of Q2 is the unsexy bits. maintenance.

• maintaining a clean apt

• maintaining friendships

• maintaining health

• maintaining a creative ritual

maintenance gets a bad rap. unfairly, says i.

we view it as an inconvenient necessity.

we think—if only i could get rid of it. just do the fun things.

but life happens in the maintenance. some of the best parts too.

before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

after enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

• zen kōan

what if we reframe maintenance? could maintenance be a creative act?

each time you practice maintenance, you’re doing something special. you’re pushing back against the entropy of life. readying yourself for life’s adventure.

& maintenance needn’t be limited to preserving old things.

it can be about improving what’s already there. making the whole, more whole. finding a better way to do something.

to drive this point home, allow me to introduce you to luke, my childhood best friend.

he was facing a menial task many of us are familiar with.

taking out the trash.

@lukekazI’m a carpenter, so I used wood. If I was a welder this would have been next level 😅🤙 #trashday #tractorattachment #tractortok

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now, each time he takes out the trash, he gets a little dopamine squirt from the creative solution he came up with.

how to find you Q2

with maintenance out of the way, let’s identify what else falls into the category of important, not urgent.

to find your Q2, ask yourself:

1. what am i working towards?

2. what are the core values that drive my life?

so you’ve identified your Q2 activities.

now how do i make time for them?

you gotta schedule that shit. it won’t just happen.

our 300 lb urgency linebacker is on a warpath and unless you find a way to sneak away for a few hours each day, your Q2 is going to get plowed.

for me, this is where nature’s adderall comes in. i give my best hours of the day (6:30-8:30am) to Q2... & everyone else gets the scraps.

for the night owls, maybe yours looks more like 11pm-1am.

but by not scheduling it in, you’re making a choice to not do Q2.

before this essay, you had the excuse of ignorance, but sadly i’ve pried your eyelids back to this unfortunate truth. now it’s up to you.

…at the same time.

does it really matter?

maybe your best life is to be a serial chiller.

i think that’s great.

just so long as you’re intentionally choosing that. rather than getting swept up by the default path.

that’s all folks. chat soon.

-t

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a full-on sprint—titrating between adderall, juul, and a tiny bit of caffeine (mind the heart palpitations!)

editor’s note: if my future mother-in-law ever reads this—please note that i’m now a certified good boy who goes to bed at 8:30. the shenanigans have exited the system.

for those who have never taken a study drug—they’re pretty wild.

about as close to that movie limitless as you can get (at least that’s the impression the user gets—to everyone else you still look like a bozo).

but adderall is not without its cost.

aside from the going (collegiate) rate of $5 per 10mg, there are the sneakier, longer term costs.

after a few seasons of finals sprints, i noticed my attention span was pretty fucked. hard to say whether this was due to the adderall, pot, or alcohol—but adderall was the prime suspect.

neural damage aside, there’s something else the seasonal adderall user ought to be wary of…

the dreaded wikipedia rabbit hole.

as anyone who has ever popped a 20mg IR without a clear to do list in front of them can attest—taking adderall does not guarantee you study.

it only guarantees that whatever you aim your tractor beam of focus at is engaging.

it does this by flooding your brain with dopamine, then blocking it’s reuptake.

sorry accounting 201 final, i just discovered the 5th beatle1 and now it’s all aboard the wikipedia rollercoaster for the next 6 hours.

trigger warning for anyone who hates mornings

🌶️ take: mornings are nature’s adderall.

and almost all of us waste our highs.

i’ll explain.

dopamine—we’ve talked about this little misunderstood molecule before.

to refresh your memory: dopamine is like a tiny cheerleader inside each of us that makes us feel good as we work towards achieving our goals. it’s the motivation molecule.

no dopamine? you’ve got problems. you’re not getting out of bed.

speaking of beds—each morning when you wake, your dopamine reserves are at their peak.

an avalanche of dopamine ready to be released.

this is great. but it can go sideways with one false move.

see, your morning supply of dopamine is like a horny 14-year-old. the slightest gust of wind, and well… there goes all your dopamine.

high versus low

that gust of wind is what’s called a high dopaminergic activity2.

think: checking IG notifs, strolling tiktok, video games, porn, etc.

engage in any of these activities and you’ll break the dam holding back your reserves of dopamine—flooding the system.

which is fun.. for a moment. but then you’re left without your cheerleader for the rest of the day.

bad news.

but there’s another category: low dopaminergic activities.

these do not trigger dopamine floods. rather, they release a steady drip drop.

they’re boring by comparison. and that’s the point. if they weren’t boring they’d blow your reserves in one big dopamine bonanza.

the bigger your dopamine reserves, the easier it is for dopamine to be released during non-pleasurable experiences (read: boring/hard stuff).

though the mechanism is different from adderall—the result is similar—more dopamine in your system—transforming otherwise boring or challenging tasks into engaging activities.

hence, mornings are nature’s adderall (provided you don’t waste it with a high dopaminergic activity).

okay tadz, is this where you tell me to adopt a 15-step morning routine so i can unlock turbo productivity?

no.

elaborate morning routines are overrated. keep that shit simple.

wake up. make your coffee, journal, whatever—then get after what’s important to you.

ideally, something that gives you (sustained) energy.

the R word

clearly i have a thing for mornings.

but it’s not just me. every major religion regards mornings as sacred.

woah, woah, woah, he just dropped the R word.

don’t close the window just yet—consider this:

• once you remove the toxicity of religion, you’re left with a stack of time-tested lifehacks, wrapped in a compelling story format (which itself is a hack for improving retention).

  • meditation = praying

  • intermittent fasting = fasting (ramadan, lent, yom kippur)

  • gratitude journals = praying and blessings

  • burn out prevention = sabbath

  • communal movement = ceremonies with singing and dancing

  • community building = attending service

accept the initial agitation

mornings are great. but i don’t want to overpromise here.

some things will still require activation energy.

anytime i sit down to do something difficult i remind myself to:

accept the initial agitation.

..when you try to lean into boredom or a bout of focused work, at first, the brain naturally tries to resist. it might have you reflexively reach for your phone, tempt you to pull up your email, or remind you about that text you still need to reply to. the agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning is just a recognized gate…there is a gate of entry. you have to wade through some sewage before you can swim in clear water. that’s the way I always think about it.”

(via billy oppenheimer)3

it’s like a run. the first 15-20 minutes are gunna suck, but once you do it enough times you know to expect that and can push through knowing that it’ll get better.

sorry night owls

damn, i really didn’t mean to write another “just be a morning person” essay. but here we are.

for the night owls amongst us, thanks for making it this far. i can’t speak to your experience, but morning person or not, we’re all slaves to dopamine so hopefully you got a nugget or two out of this.

closing nuggets to chew on:

• there’s no right way to spend the morning, but there is most definitely a wrong way to spend it.

  • avoid dopamine floods at all costs for the first 90 minutes of the morning.

    • starting your day with a high dopaminergic activity is the equivalent of flushing your supply of (natural) adderall down the toilet like a trap house about to get raided.

  • i’ve found leaving my phone on airplane mode through the night and into the first few hours of the day to be a good strategy.

• elaborate morning routines are overrated — night routines are underrated.

  • if you dial in your night routine, your morning will handle itself. so long as you don’t fuck it all up by triggering a dopamine flood.

• the 3, 2, 1 night routine:

  • 3: finish eating 3 hours before bed.

  • 2: stop drinking 2 hours before bed.

  • 1: avoid screens 1 hour before bed.

• figure out what’s important to you, and spend your natural high on that.

  • for a lot of us, it’s something you’re not getting paid for, at least not yet. which is exactly why you need to prioritize it and give your best hours to it, otherwise it’ll get overshadowed by everything else. prioritize it and let everything else get the scraps. they’ll survive.

that’s it for the week.

talk soon.

-t

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the big plan is no big plans.

i’ve charted a course, now i need to see it through.

if i sound sure of myself—don’t be fooled. i’m not.

there’s a lotta blind faith involved.

i don’t have it all figured out.

in the words of naval ravikant:

my 1 repeated learning in life: 'there are no adults' everyone's making it up as they go along. figure it out yourself, and do it.

the first 27 years of my life were spent learning something new each day.

the next 27 will be spent trying to unlearn something each day.

let me explain…

see, there’s something you may not know about me. i own a hot air balloon.

i’ve spent the last 27 years inflating it.

but it hasn’t gone anywhere because it’s still tethered to the ground.

i want it to go up, but putting more hot air in the balloon ain’t gunna do it.

but, if i would just untie the tethers, it’ll naturally go up.

that’s what i’m focused on now — releasing the tethers.

h/t michael singer for the analogy.

7 years ago i read ryan holiday’s how to live a full life (and leave nothing on the table) by 30.

21 year old tadz was in awe.

how’s this cat have so much knowledge by 30?

a few year later i read kevin kelly’s 68 bits of unsolicited advice.

the density of wisdom per line. good lawd.

this year i thought i’d compile my own list.

for me.

unlike ryan and kevin, i don’t have any advice for you. just advice for myself.

28 reminders for my 28th year.

1. there’s no such thing as “when”

• “when i ______, i’ll be ______” is a total farce.1

• because “when” never arrives.

  • your appointment with life is right now.

2. the moment you think of a friend, take 30 seconds to send them a text

• the longest-running study on happiness found the greatest predictor of happiness, health, and lifespan is…

  • the quality of your relationships.

• yes, you can afford to spare 30 seconds. it might be the most important thing you do today.

3. mornings are for output, not input

• avoid cheap dopamine2 at all costs for the first 90+ minutes of the day.

• same for food—the moment i open the pantry door, it’s all aboard the snack train —next stop tummy ache. or at the very least a workday revolving around trips to the kitchen — which ends up not much of a workday at all.

4. never stifle a generous impulse

• two of the most generous people i know, bethany and luke, set aside dedicated generosity budgets. doing so makes an act of generosity feel like seizing an opportunity rather than a burden.

5. different strokes for different folks

• no one has the blueprint for you.

• you’ve gotta be the architect of your own life.

• if you don’t, you’ll inherit someone else’s blueprint and at 40 you’ll look around and wonder why your house has 5 bedrooms but no bathrooms. what dumbass designed this?

6. “i’m my own side-project”

• was the golden nugget seb dropped on destiny and i over dinner at choza while talking about how everyone feels they need to have a side project these days.

7. willpower is overrated

• if you want to change a behavior, leverage your lower self, not your aspirational, higher self.3

8. produce or be still. anything in between is a waste

• a wandering mind is an unhappy mind - harvard researchers4

• corollary — when speaking with someone, we treat the attention we give them as though it’s on a dimmer — i’ll give them 60% of my attention. instead, treat it as an on // off switch. either 100% or 0%. don’t do them (and yourself) the disservice of giving them just 60%. (h/t to arthur brooks)

9. to accomplish anything of importance, you must be able to “accept the initial agitation.”

• it’s a bit like running. the first 15 minutes suck. but if you stick it out, you’ll get into a flow. pause at any point (even for the slightest glance at your phone) and you'll lose all momentum.

“the agitation and stress that you feel at the beginning is just a recognized gate…there is a gate of entry. you have to wade through some sewage before you can swim in clear water.”

— billy oppenheimer

10. never worry alone

• let your friends into your garden. we could all use a little help with the weeds.5

11. buy this sleep mask. it might just change your life

• okay, okay i couldn’t help myself. yes, this is a piece of advice. no, it’s not an affiliate link.

12. you only need to know 3 things: A, B, and Z

• A: where you’re at.

• Z: where you want to end up.

• B: the immediate next step.

  • focusing on the immediate next step is often the closest i can reliably get to the ever illusive “presence”.

  • in other words, focusing on step B is a shortcut to → BE(ing).

i am a human being, not a human doing.

— kurt vonnegurt

13. remember to zoom out (or zoom in)

• too often we’re stuck in the middle. where we’re not zoomed out enough to appreciate that this too shall pass. nor are we zoomed in enough to appreciate this present moment.

  • focus on B or Z — forget the rest.

14. isle seat. always.

• unless you’re in biz or first and can access the bathroom without being at the mercy of your seatmate. in which case—window, obvi.

15. problems shrink or expand in relation to the space they’re allowed

• there will always be a problem du jour, so you can give up on the dream of one day arriving at a “when” in which you have no problems.

• the only way forward is to get better at dealing with them. bleak, i know.

the purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.

— rilke

16. find your 2%ers, then do life with them

17. you’re probably not hungry, you’re just bored

18. the 25% rule

• take your big goal, multiply it by .25

  • now you have your immediate goal—one that is far more achievable. thanks to momentum, this makes your big goal more likely.

  • & this creates wins along the way — helping you ~enjoy the journey~.

  • if you don’t practice celebrating along the way to your big goal, your celebration muscle will atrophy and the best you can ever hope for is to become another miserable billionaire.

19. how am i treating myself and those around me?

• if you’re ever wondering how you’re doing in life — just ask yourself this.

20. get yourself a good insulated bottle

• plastic gunna kill us for real.6

• plus keeping your bevy’s at perfect temp is one of life’s true luxuries.

21. “let them”

— mel robins

• let people make their own choices. the moment you try to steer them, you risk taking the wheel—and the ownership—away from them.

• example: your kid starts making their bed — you mention how great it is they’re showing initiative — over time they stop making their bed because it’s no longer their thing. you’ve made it yours and they’ve lost ownership over it.

• even if something was your idea, it’s always best to let the other person believe it was theirs.

22. beware the midwit that lurks within us all

• a 15-step morning routine won’t make you better. it’ll only drive you insane.

• the simplest solution is usually the best.

23. not an “i have to”, but an “i get to”

• Q: if i could fast forward through this current activity (click style), would i?

• if the answer is yes, i should remind myself that it’s an “i get to”, not an “i have to”.

• chances are, i’m incredibly fortunate to be able to do whatever task is up next—even if it’s taking out the trash…

  • wow, i have legs that work

  • i live in a place that has waste management

  • it’s an opportunity to practice walking meditation

24. be a good parent to yourself

25. doing the wrong thing efficiently is actually worse than doing the right thing badly

— rory sutherland

26. 95% of the problems in my life are self-created

• this sounds insane. but it’s true.

• we’re storytelling creatures. it’s how we understand the world. every good story follows an arc — a challenge for our hero to overcome. when there is no challenge, we can’t help but create one.

27. energy management, not time management

• is this a power-up or a power-down?7

  • a great test for choosing projects and people.

• some things that look like a power-down are really a power-up (exercise) and things that look like a power-up are really a power-down (too much caffeine).

28. it’s all about the other

• 9/10 times when i’m in a slump it’s because of one reason, and one reason only—being too focused on myself.

  • the antidote is simple:

    • realize that it’s all about the other person.

      • only in the presence of others can magic be created.

• imagine this: i tell you that you can have all the money in the world, the body of your dreams, the perfect job, villa on the sea, etc… but you’re the only human on earth.

  • don’t worry, there are robots who will do all the hard work, so there’s no taking out the trash or other bs for you to deal with. just no humans.

    • would you take the deal?

• if you enter each interaction with the intention of giving everything and expecting nothing in return, you’ll never lose. it’s impossible to lose if you expect nothing in return.

• plus, it relieves ~90% of the pressure you feel because the spotlight is off you. you’re just a conduit for magic and delight, rather than the main attraction.

(h/t to adam robinson and peter attia for the musings)

bonus:

29. go first

“everyone is shy. other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they want you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. so go ahead.”

— kevin kelly

30. “this is all there is. that’s more than enough.”

— ryan holiday

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