“You get more out of reading one book that’s great five times, than [you do] out of reading five mediocre books.”
–Alex Hormozi

Behind every piece of good marketing is a good cause. Even the most profitable companies in the world wrap their products in a “cause” that helps their customers.

Is it your business? Is it your side hustle? Is it your health? Is it your relationships? Or your mindfulness?

I’ve had a pile of clean laundry sitting on my armchair for a week. I haven’t folded it. I hate folding laundry. This again? I have two weeks worth of underwear and a bunch of extra shirts that I hate wearing just so I don’t have to do laundry.

Maybe the Twitter outrage factory that brings us so much dopamine is digging a deeper trench in our minds. Maybe the one-sided explanation of the world that comforts us is sinking us deeper in neural mud. Maybe the thoughts that we can’t get out of our minds are wrapping their tentacles around us more and more each day.

Sometimes you fall into a rut. Everything is annoying and nothing seems like it’s going to work and it feels like you’re stuck inside a black and white photograph, slowly deteriorating in a box in God’s attic.

We convince ourselves not to share our work out of fake humility. We tell ourselves that not posting really is a generous act because we aren’t bothering anyone. Our meekness is a moralistic leg up in our minds—at least I’m not clawing for attention like that guy!

My friend started a disc golf company that creates discs from 100% recycled material. Anyone who knows anything about plastics knows that this is a difficult thing to do. It’s a good thing my friend didn’t know anything about plastic.

There’s a tipping point in many decisions. If you’re wondering whether or not to do all the startup work for a new project you’re testing, just don’t. Get a few dry runs under your belt. It’s okay if it’s not a perfectly clean process.

You lost it. You worked overtime to put together a last-minute pitch for a client, and then…nothing. You’re not alone. I’ve lost and won hundreds of freelance pitches throughout my career. I’ve taken notes and I’m sharing my top 5 lessons with you.

Sustained greatness is so difficult to achieve. Great directors, authors, musicians, and even sports teams struggle to string together even just two or three top-tier performances in a row. Many of us are caught in the never-ending dryer spin of chasing accuracy.

I dropped somebody off and I pulled over to the side of the road and f**king bawled my eyes out. I was just like Why isn't this happening faster? Why am I not doing this creative stuff faster? Why is it that I'm still behind the wheel driving people?

I had walked too far to turn back but wasn’t sure how much further I had to go. Then, a woman driving a golf cart (decked out with neon lights and a speaker playing house music) rolled up to me. “Want a ride?” She said. “$20.” 

What’s the big deal about habits? Why do all these ice-bath-taking meat-heads keep talking about building good habits? What’s the point? The one benefit that inspires me to build good habits is this: habits make things I hate doing much easier.

The economics of buying and reading a book are amazing. A $25 self-development book with even just one simple actionable insight can help the reader make 10x-1000x that amount in their lifetime.

In a world where everyone is fighting for attention, being a good listener gives you a disproportionate amount of leverage. Good listeners are uncommon, and scarcity brings value. Beyond this, good listeners hold an incredible amount of information—not just from what is said, but also from what is left unsaid, and how things are said.

If denial is a mental fallacy, then acceptance is a super power.

I became aware of the idea of the $100,000 salary in 2005, and have held that number in my mind since then as a benchmark. Here’s the crazy thing. 2005’s $100,000 only has the equivalent buying power of $66,000 in 2023’s money.

“You’re better off with a great salesman and a mediocre product than with a masterpiece and a moron to sell it.”
–Herb Cohen

How much should your business spend on video content? In the age of the endless scroll, where a trending sound can get you 500,000 views, the answer is tough to calculate.