In a recent conversation with my uncle, we were discussing the optimal amount of time to assume you have left on this earth.

Baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs.

On August 11th, 2018, I tweeted the following: “I feel like I’m about to hit a personal / mental breakthrough. If the dissonance between where you are and where you want to be gets stronger, keep going through it!”

My knees were buckling under the crushing weight of stress. And I decided to take the weekend off of work and hang the cost.

As adults, we are told bedtime stories every single night.

We all got into this game because the feeling of turning ideas into reality is unmatched. Like a drug, it’s euphoric. And like a drug, it’s addictive and debilitating.

If you feel like people won’t respond to your work because you’ve already published something similar, that’s just resistance talking. They barely, barely remember what you published last week…

We’re not asking for a bulletproof, absolutely original, culturally tasteful eponymous debut album that’s rock solid from track one to track twelve. We’re asking for a summer bop we can play for our friends in the car and say, “I know these guys!”

We have a misconception that eventually we’ll get really healthy, or eventually we’ll start investing a ton of money at once, or eventually we’ll slow down and have a ton of time for family…but it just doesn’t work that way.

Life-changing wisdom and insights can be boiled down to a few very short sentences. The trouble is, when things are too short they don’t stick.

I injured my foot during training and I had to get an x-ray. I was tired and hungry all the time for two and a half months. My hips locked up for a year afterward, and I had to take a special stretching class to regain mobility. I got 2,519th place with a time that doesn’t impress anybody.

When we take steps to improve our lives, the people around us can feel insecure about their lives. They might isolate themselves, they might lash out, or they might stop asking you to hang out.

Through all this achievement we’re chasing, we need to remember this. Businesses and cars and machines benefit from the very best at all times. But as humans, we’re a little different. Sometimes we just need a turkey sandwich.

The best part of a movie is the monologue. The main character finally decides to speak up, inspire their companions, and face up to the challenge. These scenes give us chills, and live long lives in our minds after the credits roll.

The most optimized approach is not the most effective for long-term habit building. Former athletes and musicians struggle with this the most. We know the most optimized way to exercise and play, and we tell ourselves if we can’t do it that way, we might as well not do it at all. This is a big lie that holds us back.

I barely believed it when I read it, but Barnes and Noble grew by 4% last year. They’re in pursuit of opening 30 new stores this year. Even in the shadow of Amazon, which offers every book cheaper and faster, Barnes and Noble is expanding.

I just received a proof copy for my first book. Still a way to go from here but it’s exciting to hold something in my hand. As I do, I can’t help but think one thing…I hope this book sucks.

On Instagram, you could get by with pretty visuals, even if they were devoid of opinion. This isn’t the case on Threads.

I was having lunch with a friend who me if I wanted to start producing narrative pieces. I’ve produced a ton of commercials, but I haven’t produced anything narrative. I told her no. Two weeks after that, I produced my first narrative short film for Fuel the Fire Film Fest.

“Something that I learned very early on is the importance of separating person versus persona. When people who don't know me are criticizing me, they're criticizing my persona, not my person.”
–Olivia Rodrigo