Doug Tompkins, the founder of North Face, did that despite his busy schedule and so I thought, if he can do it, so can I.

It doesn’t matter what book it is. The range has been wide: Science fiction, rockstar memoirs, 19th and 20th century US history, evolutionary biology, how dogs communicate and how to communicate with dogs (because yes, I got a dog), and even a Japanese novel about a convenience store worker.

During the early weeks, while still building the habit, I would sometimes finish the book at 11 pm on Sunday, barely making my self-imposed timeline.

Other weeks, I would finish two, sometimes three books in a week.

Gradually the habit formed…whenever there was a free moment, I had something to do.

And gradually, I started to see the power of this habit.

When you read a book a week, you witness the connective tissue of the world.

Words you learned in one book show up in another, characters from one story find their way into a different one, opinions in one get challenged by the other. This gives you a bird’s eye view and an ability to think for yourself, which creates a subtle self-confidence.

Social media is created in short spurts. As a creator, there’s no time to ponder, to consider different perspectives, because the clock is always ticking. This inevitably leads to ideas getting repeated. A creator sees that another creator published something that got hits so they take the idea, mash it up, and regurgitate it as if new.

This leaves us all thinking and creating the same as everyone in our bubble and makes our thoughts very unoriginal.

But a book is different.

A book is years of work. Oftentimes years of research.

A book is (usually) carefully thought through, with different perspectives considered.

A book is like inviting your friend with a PhD for dinner vs. a dude from Too Hot To Handle (aka Insta). You leave feeling smarter, inspired, and curious.

But building the habit of reading has done something else for me entirely…

It’s helped me build a writing habit.

Reading opens your world to new ideas, writing helps you digest them.

Writing is the second piece of the puzzle in thinking for yourself as it forces you to condense what you learn and what you believe.

And this year my writing habit has been whack. I’ve written when I‘ve felt like it, waiting for inspiration to strike. No organization, no structure…and so, a minimal sense of fulfillment.

But now, with all these new ideas in my head, I feel a need to put down my thoughts on paper.

The whole ‘write every day’ thing never worked for me though.

Writing every day creates the same pressure as working out every day. Sometimes it will be so forced that it will be unhealthy. You’re telling me that if I go through a breakup, I’ll have to sit down and write? No, thank you. Pizza will do just fine.

In the past five months, there were days I felt too tired to read. Maybe I was traveling, or I was sick. One time I actually did go through a breakup. Had I felt that pressure to sit down and read while I desperately needed rest, I would have given up on the habit altogether.

But giving myself space to do it in a week allowed me to take advantage of days where I felt better.

Hence why publishing something once a week feels right.

One newsletter.

One week for the free subscribers, the next for the paid subscribers.

Is that a habit I can keep up?

I think so.

But sometimes these newsletters take me a day or two to write. In which case, what do I do?

Well, just like there’s always another book to read, there’s always more to write.

Which means that maybe I’ll have space to write my second book.

And maybe, just maybe, I’ve already started it ;)

Love,

Matt

PS - here are my favorites so far this year:

1. History gems, all by Candice Millard (my new favorite author):

   1. The River of Doubt

   2. Destiny of The Republic

   3. Hero of The Empire

2. Science Fiction page turners:

   1. Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (could not put it down, especially the last 150 pages)

   2. Red Rising by Pierce Brown

3. Inspirational non-fiction (aka how we can make the future awesome):

   1. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson

   2. Utopia For Realists by Rutger Bregman

PPS - If you have any recommendations, please comment them below or email them to me!

It’s 7 pm in Lima, Peru.

I’m on the patio of La Panchita, a local restaurant recommended by a local, three minutes from my hotel.

A guy has been laying on his horn for literally one whole minute. Wild.

The city. I’m back in the city. The undeniable bustle, the running around.

I miss the jungle. I didn’t think I would. I thought I’d be thrilled to be going back to Barcelona.

A quick recap: I’m a huge fan of Junglekeepers, an organization that is working to protect 300,000+ acres of the most biodiverse land on Earth in the Madre De Dios region of the Amazon rainforest. I connected with them, they invited me down, and I just spent a week in the jungle.

This trip, like all trips, didn’t meet my expectations.

Instead of a solo spiritual experience, I was surrounded by indigenous guides and a few foreign visitors.

Instead of meeting Paul Rosolie, the founder, I met his director and his team. Instead of coming out satiated, I’ve left emboldened.

The land I’m coming back from is precious and I don’t say that lightly. Whoever came up with the Garden of Eden in the Old Testament must have somehow spent time in Madre De Dios, aka Mother of God.

It is so raw, so untouched. No wonder they’re risking their lives to protect it.

It used to take two days by boat from the nearest city, Puerto Maldonado, to get there. Now it takes a few hours via car and boat. Someone cut a road through the jungle forty minutes upriver and a new town has popped up there since, and with it logging.

Logging, gold mining and agriculture: the three headed monster of rainforest destruction.

You’d think the Junglekeepers team would hate the guys with chainsaws but they don’t. Most of the guides were once loggers. They understand that poverty incentivizes short-term decisions over future preservation.

Their real enemy is time. Because the urgency is clear: if they can’t buy and protect this land within the next few years, it will be gone.

But why should I care and why should you?

I have friends telling me they love what I’m doing but that the Amazon isn’t really their thing, their cause. And I’m sure there’s a lot of you reading this that feel that too.

I could give you all the data points to convince you that this is important: the absurd amount of carbon the Amazon captures, the 20% of global oxygen it produces, the infinite number of species it hosts, the last of the uncontacted tribes it protects.

But after going there and seeing it for myself, I don’t think those points fully capture its importance.

Instead, I’m going to share a quick story with you…

The first three days I walked through the jungle, I saw one monkey.

I couldn’t believe it.

I had come all this way, and heard all this talk about wildlife, and all I saw were bullet ants and birds.

Halfway through my stay, I shared my frustration with Stephane, the director of Junglekeepers. He understood the problem right away: silence. You have to be silent. “These animals have evolved millions of years to hide. So, the next time you go out there,” he said, “just stop moving. Wait and see what happens.”

The next day I went out into the woods alone.

I walked slowly, observing, trying to channel my hunter gatherer ancestors and…nothing. Still freaking nothing.

And then, I listened to Stephane’s advice: I stopped in my tracks, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Be still Matt, be still.

And I swear on everything I love, as soon as I opened my eyes, through the hole in the trees I saw a howler monkey staring back at me.

His head was tilted, observing me.

I didn’t move a muscle.

Soon enough, he began crawling across branches, picking at leaves, scratching his butt, dropping two huge poops. I’ve never felt more touched watching another animal relieve themselves.

It was such a sudden, intimate look at life.

Within that next hour I got to partake in a world far removed from the one I grew up in. Spider monkeys, howler monkeys, families of squirrel monkeys, suddenly started flying around.

Some noticed me, others ignored me, one started shaking the branch at me to establish dominance. I felt like I was home.

I finally felt like an animal.

When I got back to camp, I excitedly shared with the local guides: You have no idea what I saw! Probably forty of them! It was crazy! I felt so ALIVE!

They each smiled at me like, yeah buddy, welcome to our lives. Why do you think we’re doing this work?

It was that day that I finally understood that protecting the wild isn’t about statistics, facts or pages of research.

It’s about protecting a part of ourselves that we’ve forgotten.

It’s about protecting the version of us that gnaws at us when we spend too much time in front of a screen or inside a cubicle.

It’s about protecting our truth. Our deep, undeniable, raw, animalistic truth, that we try to keep at bay in order to be civilized, sanitized and in control.

Being back in the “modern” world now, I’m more motivated than ever to help protect that world I got to be part of.

Junglekeepers are in the process of buying 2,500 acres to protect it forever, and I want to help them do it with my own money and with my community. If you’re willing to join me, I’ll share exactly how soon.

For now, here’s a video from my last day there.

A group of squirrel monkeys and howler monkeys, right outside camp.

They send their hellos :)

Love,

Matt, aka Indian Jones Jr.

And honestly, most 25 year olds.

There’s this relentless pressure to become someone, to build something, to see the world and soak it all in. To prove your worthiness to some weird combination of your parents and your high school bullies.

It’s hard to enjoy life when everyone insists you’re in your golden era.

But something shifts when you enter your 30’s.

Many say that it’s that you stop caring what people think. That’s part of it. But I think it’s something deeper…

Age gives you empathy.

By 35, you’ve experienced more peaks and valleys. People close to you have passed away. Many dreams and expectations didn’t come true. You’ve fucked up. You’ve been betrayed. You’ve been heartbroken, oftentimes more than once. Wrinkles have emerged. Muscles take longer to recover. Years start to accelerate. You start to see it…the thing your elders talked about.

But that incoming tide isn’t as frightening as you expected because you realize that we all go through it. Every being on this planet goes through the birth-entropy process. A process that makes one thing clear: You are not invincible.

That recognition of fragility opens your heart and makes you want to be there for others because you now know what it means to hurt.

In the The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz, he explains that true joy comes from giving love. That we are at our happiest when we direct our love outward.

Andrew Huberman explored something similar on his podcast. Gratitude lists, it turns out, don’t move the needle much. What really generates joy is receiving gratitude. Being of service and receiving a thank you, a hug, a recognition of our giving.

There’s a reason grandma insisted she cook and that you eat your whole plate and that your stomach be full. Your belly-filled smile was her greatest gift.

At 25 we’re mostly in survival mode, chasing things for ourselves. It’s a pursuit that inevitably leads to more frustration, not less.

But at 35, we realize our best moments were the ones where we felt most connected, where we were there for someone.

Now imagine what we’ll know at 85 :)

Love,

Matt

With one click, 270,000 followers and a fancy blue verification badge were gone.

Mental health was my priority going into the new decade, so Instagram was the first thing that had to go.

That decision changed my life.

It took me off the hamster wheel.

It saved me 4,350 hours—time that I spent exploring what I wanted, trying new hobbies, learning to feel my emotions instead of numb them.

So of course I told everyone to join me and get off it.

But now, things are changing.

Six years later, I know myself a lot more.

I feel much more balanced, grounded, and fulfilled—a far cry from the anxious lab rat I used to be.

And with this increased calm and sense of purpose, I recently thought to myself…maybe it’s time.

Maybe I can come back…

Why, you may ask, would I risk such hard-won peace?

Two reasons: creativity and connection.

If you feel lost and insecure, social media is the last place you want to be.

But if you feel good about yourself, then it’s actually pretty fun.

And that’s what I’m doing now.

My Instagram has 600ish followers, but I’m having more fun with it than ever before.

I’ve hired one of my closest friends, Dez, to help me put out some great content (and not be an Unc).

I use the app blocker Opal so I don’t get sucked into the dopamine vortex.

And I’ve even managed to re-connect with old friends like my buddy Ramsey, who I saw again after 21 years! :)

I don’t need a million followers.

I just need places to make stuff and make friends.

Finally, I get to use these platforms in the way they were originally intended.

So I guess this is all to say, thank you Kevin Systrom.

Love,

Matt

PS - If you wanna say hey or see more of me, you now know where to go @mattdahlia :)

My friend put on a new MTV show called The Buried Life and thereafter, I was never the same.

I’ve talked about it before. If you’ve read my book you’ve heard this. But it’s worth repeating…

Without that show—about four best friends who went after their bucket list—Yes Theory would have never existed and you likely wouldn’t be reading this.

Their insistence that my dreams were possible, and their relentless pursuit of their own, blazed a path before me.

As I left the world of YouTube two and a half years ago, I felt that path get more and more narrow, until it slowly but surely became covered in shrubs.

I had met my idols, achieved my dreams, crossed off my bucket list. It felt like there was nothing left to do. I was 32, exhausted, and coasting into early retirement.

To gain some clarity, in January of 2024, I booked a ticket to Southeast Asia.

Despite knowing I should relax while there, I frantically tried to brainstorm my next project, my next business.

Lists were made, ideas pursued.

I ended up spending the next two years half heartedly building a language learning app.

Why a language learning app?

Cuz I had a dream about it and figured it was a cool departure from what I’d done before.

Turns out I don’t care much about language learning, and barely use my phone so creating an app was hilariously ironic.

And then at the start of this year, I spontaneously turned on a podcast that looked interesting.

It was a movie moment.

A pause in the matrix.

It wasn’t so much what Paul Rosolie said but the energy and passion with which he said it.

In a world of doom and gloom, of destruction and despair, here was a 38 year-old guy born in the same city as me, tackling the impossible: working to help save the lungs of this Earth—the Amazon Rainforest.

And holy shit, he was actually doing it, alongside the many conservationists around the world.

My mom was a lawyer for the Wildlife Conservation Society. She played a major role in helping to restore the tiger populations in Asia. I grew up hearing stories about how this species was on the brink of extinction and literally witnessed her and her team bringing them back from the brink.

Her work was my initial childhood spark, which had long been dormant.

Paul threw a torch on it.

And suddenly the path lit up again. There was now a trail to follow.

This is the kind of person I want to be, the kind of mission I want to help with, the type of leader I want to support.

And so I made a video.

I announced my intention to help him and his team at Junglekeepers. I shared that with every season of my show, I would support a different organization tackling the world’s biggest challenges.

Lo and behold, a week after posting the video, he commented on it.

I was in disbelief and pulled out my camera to capture the moment. It’s not often the people you admire acknowledge you.

I love this three minute video of me freaking out about his response because it shows that aliveness I thought I’d lost.

So many times in my life I haven’t known where to go.

Purpose felt so elusive and out of reach.

Some people were born knowing theirs, but not me.

Yet now I see that purpose often hides behind the people and stories that ignite us.

It’s not something we decide. It’s something that pulls us in.

From now on when someone asks me what to do with their life, I will say this: become a superfan.

Consume the world around you—art, books, podcasts, music, movies, events—until something or someone gives you that holy shit feeling.

That’s your map.

Don’t throw it away.

It’s your invitation to the party, and all you have to do is say yes ;)

Love,

Matt

I’ve stood on the sidelines for so long now.

Cozy in early retirement.

I’ve been learning to feel good in my skin, to draw, to dance salsa.

The recovery has been much needed.

The slow re-building of my life has been essential.

And yet, at the start of this year, an unease started creeping in.

An emotional flattening.

I love my friends, my hobbies, my home, but a bigger purpose was missing.

And then two months ago, I listened to Paul Rosolie’s podcast on Modern Wisdom, and I felt that long-dormant spark ignite again.

As I’ve written in a previous newsletter, Paul and his team at Junglekeepers are on the frontlines of saving the western Amazon Rainforest.

And the truth is that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.

A question has stayed in mind ever since I heard him speak: Why am I not helping?

Instead of fighting this pull, I’ve decided to lean into it.

I’ve read his books, researched the work they’re doing, and I see an opportunity for me to help.

What is now taking shape is my new project.

It’s a podcast of sorts.

Not the kind of podcast where I sit across from informed experts and talk about the world’s issues.

It’s a behind-the-scenes, DIY documentation of me trying to help some really cool people doing some really important work.

In the video above, I explain my (still forming) idea. It’s nothing fancy. Just me talking on my computer.

I don’t know what video #2 looks like.

I don’t know where I go from here.

But this is how anything always starts…with a simple first step.

I’m done over-thinking.

Done being complacent.

It’s time to get back into the arena.

Love,

Matt

Congested air.

Stressed humans.

I pass a Burger King.

Across from it, a Ray Bans store next to a Tutti Frutti candy shop.

These are reminders to go easy on myself.

Of course it’s hard.

Every second of every day we are pulled towards our worst impulses.

This very screen I write on could take me down dark holes I can’t begin to fathom.

Be easy on yourself, Matt.

You’re up against it.

This insatiable machine sees you as a stat, a user, a dollar sign.

Willpower won’t beat it.

Only love can.

Love and compassion for yourself and others, because you live in a world that works 24/7 to take you off balance.

I had a dream last night I was sat by a lake in a rainforest.

Next to me stood a towering Kapok tree with hundreds of species on it.

Birds of shimmering white and blue saluted the morning as armadillos burrowed, snakes weaved, and jaguars purred.

The sun rose as they contentedly engaged in their own existence, unaware of my gaze.

A beautiful peace washed over me as well as a deep longing.

The artificial world I grew up in is no match for the world of nature my ancestors knew.

The longing is real because it’s true.

They can construct a billion Burger Kings run by a billion robots to feed 10 billion humans, but the ground it all stands on remains the same.

Earth. Soil. Life.

So long as I stay connected to that simple truth, I am free.

Love,
Matt

Like the fire is slowly encroaching every inch of the Earth.

But as soon as 8 pm hits, that fire slowly dims for me.

For the past few months, I’ve set boundaries with the world.

That’s right—not with a family member, an ex or a friend…but the freaking globe.

How does this work?

Well, it’s simple.

After dinner, the phone, the internet, and the screens all turn off, and they don’t come back on till after breakfast.

I’m not perfect, and some days I cave and find myself in a YouTube rabbit hole.

But most of the time I stick to this discipline, and nothing has changed my life more in the past few years.

Instead of binging stories and news cycles and keeping up to date with the chaos, I’m listening to handpan music with my red light on while stretching, reading or drawing.

I hesitate to share this because: 1. It’s such classic self-help advice 2. It can sound very biohacker bro and 3. It’s a very privileged thing to be able to do.

But I don’t think we actually talk about boundary setting with the world enough.

Because the truth is that the world is one crazy motherfucker.

If the world were a person, you would not want them crashing at your place.

It would be a tornado of insanity.

Yet for most of my life, I have had a codependent relationship with this insanity.

If the world was doing bad, I was doing bad.

If the world was acting up, I was losing my shit internally.

If the world felt like it was ending, I was certain of my own imminent demise.

Getting older has taught me that the world is in a constant state of change and as a Homo Sapien, I have a nervous system that runs on the following equation: change = danger.

Hence why introducing a routine with boundaries—aka, intermittent fasting technology—is essential.

Because no matter what happens during the day, I now know that for about 14 straight hours I will be recharging and re-grounding inside my own spaceship, far away from the pale blue dot I call home.

And when I come out of my cocoon, I can better handle the madness.

I can see what I actually control, how I can be of value, and how I can contribute to a better world.

And would you look at that—it’s now 10:37 am as I wrap up this piece and finish my breakfast.

I feel rested and ready.

Alright, open the gates…

Love,

Matt

- Fred Rogers

During the 1980s, Maria Zeitlin, a professor at Tufts University, traveled throughout impoverished communities in Asia, Africa and Latin America to understand what was causing widespread malnutrition.

Zeitlin approached her research unconventionally.

Instead of focusing on the classic culprits like poverty, under-funding, and lack of education, she wanted to find the families who, despite their difficult circumstances, managed to raise healthy, well-fed children.

This method was later replicated by Jerry Sternin, a researcher in Vietnam, who also went to healthy families in lower-income communities to understand what they were doing right.

Both researchers came to the same conclusion: healthy families relied on local foods, served smaller meals more frequently, and were more actively involved in feeding their children.

In the book, Switch: How To Change Things When Change is Hard, Chip and Dan Heath reflect on this research and coin the term “Bright Spots.”

They define Bright Spots as “the exceptional successes in difficult settings.” Rather than obsessing over failures or root causes, the key is to shift the focus to the positive outliers by asking, “What’s working, and how can we do more of it?”

I read Switch in college and this idea fundamentally changed my worldview.

And recently, I’ve learned about two Bright Spots that I have to share with you.

Bright Spot #1: Titouan Bernicot, founder of Coral Gardeners

If you watch one video this week, make it this one.

Titouan Bernicot is the Tahitian founder of Coral Gardeners, an NGO that rebuilds coral reefs.

Rebuild coral reefs, you say?

I thought once they were dead they were dead forever??

Nope, not on Bernicot’s watch.

Bernicot’s Bright Spot moment? Learning that you could take the most resilient corals off dying reefs, and use them to birth more climate-resilient coral that can grow in more difficult conditions.

Just like the aforementioned malnutrition studies, by observing what the healthiest subjects were doing, you could replicate it and support the growth of the rest of the population.

Bernicot and his team have now planted over 160,000 corals, rebirthing ocean life in French Polynesia, Fiji and beyond.

Bright Spot #2: Paul Rosolie, founder of JungleKeepers

This guy is doing the podcast rounds right now and man is he worth a listen.

At 18, Rosolie moved from New Jersey to the Amazon rainforest and witnessed the rapid scale of deforestation.

From that day forward, he made it his mission to protect Earth’s biggest and most biodiverse habitat.

Rosolie and his team have now preserved 180,000 acres of Amazonian jungle—nearly seven times the size of Manhattan Island. They are in the process of nearly doubling that number and making the region of Madre de Dios, Peru an official national park.

What was Rosolie’s Bright Spot moment? Befriending the tree-cutters.

Yep, having beers with the guys who were destroying the jungle, and ultimately realizing that it was an economic problem.

His solution was simple: he paid them three times what they were making, and instead of tearing the rainforest down, they got hired to protect it.

That idea became the catalyst for the land they’ve saved today.

The Personal

There are countless Bright Spots around the world if you’re willing to look.

But this concept isn’t just external. It matters just as much on an individual level.

In The Confident Mind, Dr. Nate Zinsser talks about how we must each “build our bank”.

In anything you want to get better at, you have to deposit your successes into your internal memory bank. You have to intentionally remember the moments when you did the right thing in order to train your brain to replay those successful patterns in the future.

He explains it beautifully here:

With a functioning mental filter, you could play in an afternoon softball game, get only one hit in four at bats, and spend the evening reliving and enjoying that one successful trip to the plate…by hanging on to the memory of that one hit, rather than beating yourself up by reliving the three misses, you give the part of your nervous system that sees the ball and swings the bat an image of what you want more of, and thus you get that mind-body connection working for you.

In essence, Zinsser is saying to seek the Bright Spots in your own life. To, at the end of every day, reflect on what you did well, what you’re proud of, what you would deem a success. And that way, to get more of it.

Bringing it all together

The reason I’m so anti-news is because it’s structurally opposed to Bright Spots. It gives you all the bad without any solutions, which will leave you paralyzed and disillusioned.

The world can be sad, scary, and dark, yes. But to focus our attention solely on that side of things will only perpetuate it.

What’s required first on an individual level, and gradually on a global level, is an intentional focus on the things that are working. On the good. On the helpers. On what we are each individually doing well.

Where attention goes, energy flows.

And so, to change ourselves and to change the world, it may be as simple as looking in a new direction.

Love,

Matt

PS - I’ve recently become a monthly donor to both Coral Gardeners and Junglekeepers.

If you want to support their incredible work, check out their links above ^^