Notebook

Feb 2, 2024

One of the skills I want to embody: during a heated debate, have the ability, when the other person says something that contradicts your point of view, to say ‘that’s fair, let me think about that’ or ‘that’s true, you’re right’. Not after the debate, right in the moment.

Jan 21, 2024

Personal goals

• feeling physically strong: lift weights
• feeling dangerous: do martial arts
• feeling mentally sharp: eat right and sleep right
• feeling like I'm progressing career wise: making more money and being more well known than the month before
• feeling like I'm progressing intellectually: consuming deep insights (books) vs bite-sized content

Jan 8, 2024

Becoming a dad, I realized how easy it is to be seen as a good father vs a good mother. 

If I just change one diaper or feed my daughter one time, I get compliments from people how I’m such an engaged father.

But my wife, if she does the exact same thing, gets zero compliments. Because being a mother, it's just expected of her that she changes diapers, feeds, plays with, holds, and calms the baby when she cries. 

And if she makes one mistake – if she doesn’t feed our baby right away when she’s hungry that she gets a little cranky or starts crying – she gets comments about it from people right away. From *her* mother, from friends being over, from random strangers in a cafe or on the train.

I try to be a 50% parent for Maya, sharing equally in every responsibility, from diaper changes to nighttime feedings to calming her when she cries.

But it’s never truly going to be 50% because even *IF* I do 50% of everything, I get praise for doing so much, while my wife gets comments on why she does only so little. While I receive a lot of praise for doing my share, my wife and mothers everywhere, often don't get any appreciation for doing exactly the same. 

We've made progress, sure. But as a society, we're still far from setting equal parenting expectations.

Dec 17, 2023

The ingredients to an adventurous life:

• An open/empty schedule
• Being self-owned
• Having a set of topics/issues one is deeply engrossed by

December 9th, 2023

I think I realized today why it irks me when people say they don't read fiction. Because it's really only through novels that I think you learn how to be a good person. Or an honest person. Or an honorable person. Non-fiction can teach you skills, and some of these skills might even contribute to becoming a "better" person, but being something like a good/honorable/virtuous person comes in a complete package, not in bite-sized chunks ignorant of all the trade-offs. By following a character develop throughout a story, it gives you a complete framework for something to run towards or away from. The lessons you learn are more subtle but deeper (for a good novel or story). Follow along Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Siddhartha in Siddharta or Jimmy the Hand in Feist's Riftware Cycle and you know what I mean. A good novel teaches you the most important thing: who you want to become. The only exception here might be biographies, which, in a sense, are novels based on a true story.

Oct 31st, 2023

I want to live a meditative, ambitious life.

• ambitious: work on big, exciting, hard problems, build an audience of millions of people who follow and read my stuff, make millions of dollars, do very intense workouts
• meditative: read and write a lot, spend time in nature, go for long walks, spend time with my family, spend time with friends playing cards over beers, build things with my own hands — and not just on weekends

June 13, 2023

So many things can be figured out by just paying attention — without needing training or expert advice.

How to raise your children? Try some things and pay attention to how they react. Are they smiling? Are they unhappy? Are they calm? Agitated? Do more of the things that work and less of those that don't.

How to squat properly? Put some weight on your back and pay attention to your body — does something hurt, feel uncomfortable? Shift your weight until you feel stable and connected to the ground.

How to create a proper diet? Eat things and pay attention to how they make you feel. Do you feel sluggish? Energized? Got a stomach ache? Felt like you got the best sleep in a long time? Adjust accordingly.

How to sing? Make sounds and pay attention. Does it sound good? Does it sound off? Does it hurt or feel natural? Shift things around until it sounds good and feels right.

How to market your product? Create some content, run some ads, and then pay attention to how customers react to it. Do they engage? Do they have pushback? Is it making people ask you for more information? Is there radio silence?

We want people to give us their blueprint because we don't want to have to pay attention. We just want to go through the motion and know we're doing it right.

The problem? There is no blueprint. Every child is different. The right angle for your squat depends on your specific anatomy. There is no one-size-fits-all diet. There are a thousand different ways to learn to sing. Every product needs a different marketing mix.

Reading: What vs How Much (April 22, 2023)

Clearly much more important than how much or how fast you read is what you read and by whom. If you speed-read 100 trash books in a week, all you’ll do is become more stupid faster.

I want to read about finance from a billionaire investor (eg. Howard Marks).
I want to read about entrepreneurship from a successful serial founder (eg. Peter Thiel).
I want to read about creativity from an artist with a track record (eg. Rick Rubin).
I want to read about science from a Nobel prize-winning scientist (eg. Richard Feynman).
I want to read about history from the actual people who lived through that period (Marc Aurelius, Seneca, etc).

In general, practitioners with a verifiable track record. This seems obvious, but somehow a lot of people don't do it.

For example, let's look at the current bestseller list for finance books (taken from Amazon):

The current #1 bestseller (The Psychology of Money) is written by Morgan Housel, a journalist.
The current #2 bestseller (Rich Dad Poor Dad) is written by Robert T. Kiyosaki, someone who has a history of bankruptcies and seems to have made all his money from his books and affiliated courses/seminars.
The current #3 bestseller (The Total Money Makeover) is written by Dave Ramsey, a radio show host who according to Google has a $200M net worth but seems to have made most of his money from his books and his personal finance counseling company.

Only with #4 and #5 do we get to actual practitioners: Principles by Ray Dalio and The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham.

I'm trying to avoid anything written by a journalist unless it’s about journalism or a biography. Basically avoid reading people who write for a living unless it’s novels.

One test for this: Is the author spending the vast majority of their time doing the thing (managing funds, running a company, making art, doing scientific research) or writing and talking about the thing? You can often tell from the person's own Twitter bio: If the first thing they list is "NYT bestselling author" (rather than Chairman at INVESTMENT FIRM or Founder & CEO at COMPANY etc), it's a baaad sign.

Organic growth (Jan 15, 2023)

Organic growth, besides being more sustainable (maybe because of this), has another benefit: you allow people to make mistakes on the small scale before they potentially make them on the grand scale.

The startup founder who artificially grew their company to 500 people in two years by using VC money, once they have to deal with layoffs for the first time, will make mistakes at a much bigger scale than the founder who grew their company organically and had to deal with layoffs already at multiple stages of their company previously, when they were 10 people, 70 people, 150 people, etc.

Same reason why overnight success/wealth/fame is hard on people's psyche. The pop star who goes crazy, the lottery winner who loses it all in 2 years, being worse off than before. Ideally, you want to work your way upwards to fame or wealth, progressively making a little bit more money or being a little bit more famous, so that you can make all the mistakes along the way when the stakes aren't as high yet.

Possibly also why we have a minimum age threshold for many Presidents/Heads of States in many countries (you need to be at least 35 years old to become US President). While an age threshold doesn't guarantee that you have made your collection of mistakes (and the right ones), being too young (say, 20 years) almost guarantees that you have not made enough mistakes at a small scale to be allowed to possibly make them at a grand scale.

Book Club (Jan 8, 2023)

Not quite happy with the Book Club. With the baby on the way and dealing with a recession on the business side, I haven't been able to prioritize it properly. I'm also not sure whether my motivations for starting it are still active. There were two reasons back then:

1. I felt like I didn't have enough long, deep, philosophical conversations in my life with people who are well-read, curious, and open-minded. Maybe it's due to life currently being busier and therefore less mental space or because I've now had a good amount of these conversations in the last year, but that itch isn't as big anymore.

2. I felt like it was difficult to have a civil, respectful conversation (not debate) with people I disagree with about sensitive topics (Trump, vaccines, abortion, gender, race, etc). So I wanted to create a space where these conversations can happen. We've had a good amount of them in the book club in the last year and it seems that things are getting less polarizing, but maybe that's also just the function of having had these conversations and seeing people from both sides of the argument be respectful to each other. There is another point: There are polarizing topics still (Andrew Tate, Elon Musk buying Twitter), but there is this nagging thing in my mind of what's the point of discussing them? For pure intellectual pleasure? Or is there some utility? Maybe I'm overthinking this.

Lastly, is an online community like Discord really the best place? Yes, it opens it up to anyone in the world which is amazing. But it makes scheduling discussions hard (different timezones) and do I really want to stare at a screen for yet another 1.5 hours after a day of work staring at a screen? And discussions with more than 5 or 6 people are tough to manage via video calls. It would be so much nicer to meet up somewhere in a bar on a Saturday evening and discuss in-person. But that comes with its own challenges and limitations.

Not sure about the paid thing either. Adding some financial friction helps with only getting people who really want to join and disincentivizing lurking for people who are not able to engage, but $7/month is an arbitrary amount that's too much for some people and very little for others, so you still get lurkers (we have 100% discounts for people who can't afford the membership fees). Maybe making it free but requiring people to write an application is the better model: you still add friction, the financial playing field is leveled, and you can curate the community a little bit better. But then I need to read every application.

Anyway, nothing final here, just putting down some unfinished thoughts.

God only knows (Jan 6, 2023)

Nassim Taleb helped me think of religion as a set of behaviors (established through tinkering) that enhance adaptability and survival (fasting, community, etc). Here's a new one I heard him talk about from a podcast from 2009. In many languages, "I don't know" translates literally into "God knows", or at least the phrases mean the same. The point? It's beneficial to say "I don't know" when one doesn't know, because it's not the things we don't know that get us in trouble, but the things we think we know that aren't correct, but it's uncomfortable and humans are vain. So it's easier to say "God knows" because it allows us to transfer responsibility and acknowledge ignorance without acknowledging ignorance. Anything that allows us to acknowledge our ignorance easily and move on is an adaptive advantage.

Voltaire (Jan 4, 2023)

Never knew Voltaire was so funny. I always assumed him to be a philosopher and therefore dry and boring (that's what school does to you). But no! The dude's hilarious. If the English translation makes me laugh out loud, wonder how much better the French original must be. Reading Candide still feels relevant today and made me think of two things:

1. I'm overthinking what funny writing is. Most of it is just exaggerating common beliefs to the point of ridiculousness ("It is demonstrable that things cannot be other than they are: for, since everything is made to serve an end, everything is necessarily for the best of ends. Observe how noses were formed to support spectacles, therefore we have spectacles. Legs are clearly devised for the wearing of breeches, therefore we wear breeches"), irony ("The Baron was one of the most powerful lords of Westphalia, for his castle had a gate and windows"), and choice of words ("Conégonde, seventeen years old and rosy-cheeked, was fresh, plump and appetizing").

2. Reading it makes me want to make fun of some of today's beliefs and views, just to poke at them.

On Inventions (Oct 16, 2022)

First you have a problem.

Then you develop certain tools and techniques to solve that problem or solve it faster.

Then you realize that other people who have the same problem can use your tools and techniques to solve their own problem, without having to do the upfront work of developing tools or techniques themselves.

Then you realize that your tools and techniques don’t only apply to the one problem you developed them for, but to many other problems and even other classes of problems.

Then you realize that your tools and techniques will still work and be applicable to all these classes of problems 500 years from now.

The further down you go, the greater the invention.

On Defaults (May 1, 2022)

We have defaults for most aspects of our life.

• default time to get up in the morning.
• default activities to do right after getting up.
• default time to start working.
• default set of tasks to do when at work.
• default time to stop working.
• default type of meal to have for dinner.
• default thing to do after dinner.
• default time to go to bed.
• default set of activities to do on weekends.

This doesn't mean that this is what you always do or that you never do anything else. Your defaults are what you do when you don't think about what you're going to do. They are not quite as intentional as habits, but you can think of them as habits. Your unconscious habits.

If you don't make any specific plans for the weekend and you just let the weekend happen, what is it that you'll end up doing most of the time? That's your default.

If you don't talk to your boss and make a request to work on a specific project, and you just show up at work, what is it that you'll end up doing most of the time? That's your default.

If you don't coordinate with your friends that you'll all gonna try something new and get tickets to this cool show on Wednesday, but you just let Wednesday evening happen, what is it that you'll end up doing most of the time? That's your default.

Your defaults will define the course of your life. So if you're not happy with your life, examine your defaults.

On living one's passion (Aug 1, 2020)

A passion is something you can’t stop trying to get better at without getting paid for it.

If you play video games for 8 hours every day even though no one pays you for it, that’s a hobby.

If you spend 8 hours every day playing video games, studying other people’s gameplays, watching Youtube tutorials about new tactics and strategies, and taking notes about things you should try or need to get better at—even though no one pays you for it—that’s a passion.

The first one is casual, the second one is obsessive. The first one is about killing time, the second one is about improving.

To find your passion, find the thing you can’t stop watching Youtube tutorials about. To “live your passion”, find a way to monetize your passion. Not become rich from it, but make enough to make a living.

For the above example, that could mean becoming an esports player. But it could also mean becoming an esports commentator, or uploading gameplays to Youtube, or running an esports podcast, or starting a Twitch stream, or teaching gameplay 1-on-1 through Upwork, or leveling-up and selling accounts on Ebay, or taking a part-time job at an esports organization. You get the idea.

The internet made living one's passion a reasonable career choice.

A day for side-projects (June 4, 2020)

Setting up a new experiment for the next week: I want to have 1 day per week (Wednesday) dedicated to side-projects, random ideas and/or strategic planning.

Project 33 is occupying most of my day-to-day work responsibilities which means side-projects like my app happen after I’m done with work. Usually that’s late afternoon when most of my creative juices are used up. I try to get to some stuff on weekends but it’s also fun to dedicate weekends to day trips or just taking the day off to get my mind off of things and recharge.

So taking a day out during the week means I’ll still follow my regular work day routines, getting up early, skipping breakfast etc. but won't be looking at emails, LinkedIn, Slack, client stuff and all those things that clutter my mind.

As a side effect, what I‘m expecting will happen (if I actually do this) is that it’ll make me tighten up P33’s processes and work more efficiently because I still need to get the same necessary stuff done but with 1 day less to do it.

Racism (June 3, 2020)

Today was date night, every Wednesday is date night. Anastasiya and I went on a long walk, had some sushi and then watched Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, a movie about Nelson Mandela’s fight against Apartheid in South Africa. A movie or story that feels very relevant right now for obvious reasons. Made me think that the fight against racism doesn’t happen gradually, it happens in jumps. Hopefully we’re experiencing one of those jumps right now. A thought: Don’t stand in the way of justice even if it comes at the cost of “order.”

Working less (June 1, 2020)

Here’s one way how I'm different from a year ago: I want to work as little as possible. I used to think working 12 hours a day is cool. And “no days off”... even cooler. The goal used to be to have every 15min increment planned out, from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed. Now the goal is to have as empty of a schedule as possible.

As I’m building Project 33, I’m actively trying to not build a golden cage for myself. I don’t want something that makes me a lot of money but enslaves me to show up to some office (or equivalent of it) every day at a set time.

I’m not trying to just hang around and do nothing… I get bored pretty easily if I’m not working on *something*. But I want to have a schedule that allows me to spend my days the way I want to spend them and work on the things I want to work on, when I want to. Read, reflect, write, take long walks, spend time with Anastasiya and friends, go on trips, work on fun side-projects, my app, learn new skills that are “irrelevant” to my business… and do it all with a mind that is at peace.

Pathemata Mathemata (May 31, 2020)

Look back at all the mistakes you’ve made and all the lessons you’ve learned: The more painful the mistake, the more vivid the lesson. Why? Lessons are just recipes for avoiding classes of mistakes. And the more painful the mistake, the stronger the motivation to avoid it in the future.

There is a term in ancient Greek that captures this: Pathemata Mathemata—one learns by suffering.

True learning, the kind of learning that sticks with you for life and becomes part of your psyche, is, by definition, painful and embarrassing. True learning requires falling on your face.

On being original (May 30, 2020)

I got accused of never writing about anything new. Apparently, everything I write has been said or written about before in some shape or form.

First, it feels like a foolish way to think about writing. Or about anything. The more you read, the more you realize there are no new ideas. Even the idea that there are no new ideas... is not a new idea.

Mark Twain in the 19th century: “There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

But unfortunately for good old Mark, 2,000 years before him in the bible: “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”

Second, anyone who does anything understands that ideas don’t count, executing on those ideas is what counts. It doesn't matter that, e.g., the importance of getting outside of your comfort zone has been long understood and written about for centuries. It doesn’t even matter if you understand it or agree with it intellectually. What matters is that you execute on it and actually get outside your comfort zone.

And sometimes it takes reading and re-reading about the importance of it 1,000 times in 1,000 different ways and it’s the 1,001st time that gets you to do it (going back to the idea of mental habits).

So reminder to myself: Don’t let the fact that whatever you wanna do or write about has been done or written about before get in the way of executing, that’s just another form of perfectionism. Just do it your way and you will have created something new: something old with your own personal twist to it.

Why I'm building the Reminders App (May 29, 2020)

It doesn’t matter what you do, what matters is what you do consistently. It's that Aristotle/Durant quote, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

In the same way, what you “believe” is irrelevant. What matters is what you believe consistently — the thoughts you repeatedly think — your mental habits. And we all know belief informs action. If you believe it’s important to tell the truth, you’ll actually make an effort to lie less often.

So then: We are what we repeatedly do and we repeatedly do what we repeatedly think. Excellence, then, is not an act and not a habit, but a mental habit. (You’re welcome, Aristotle)

I realized that’s why I want to build my reminders app. If I want to become the person I want to be, I first need to update my operating system. I need to repeatedly and consistently be exposed to the ideas, thoughts and beliefs that I want to become my mental habits.

Trying to get married here (May 28, 2020)

Turns out getting married in Germany when one person doesn’t have German citizenship is a pain in the ass, and Corona doesn’t make it easier. After finally assembling all the approximately 237 documents we need (from 3 different countries), the government body responsible to get us married is… ghosting us. It’s not like we have all the time in the world, Anastasiya’s current visa runs out on June 30th. It’s not even that we’re trying to get married before that date, it’s just that we want to put in the application to get married before that date… which then needs to be approved by court… which is officially closed right now… to then maybe still get married before the end of the year… if Germany lets Anastasiya into the country again before the court approval expires. One might wonder how all this paperwork and bureaucratic BS is even correlated with what is supposedly one of the most beautiful moments in your life. But then again, no fun in always getting what you want when you want it.

Doing things halfway (May 27, 2020)

Not doing things halfway is not about starting to give 100% in everything you’re doing, it’s about pinpointing the things you’re doing halfway and dropping them. It’s about being honest with yourself about the things you wish you cared about but don’t. Find the things where giving 100% feels easy and worth it.

Why I write every day (May 26, 2020)

Shit, I still need to write my story for today. I don’t have anything to write about. I don’t wanna write today. That’s me about every third day.

These days are the reason why I’m doing it daily.

No matter how uninspired I feel or how much I don’t wanna do, I have to do it. I can’t say “I’ll just write 2 tomorrow.” (that never works out)

Every time I wanted to stick with something, I had to make it daily.

When I taught myself programming in 6 weeks, it only worked because I did 15 minutes every day. When I wanted to vlog consistently, it only worked when I made a new vlog every day.

It’s much easier to do something every day than doing it “2-3 times per week”. The day I decide I’ll write 3 or 4 of these stories per week is the day I drop it.

PS. some of the best ones I wrote so far (according to you guys) were written on days where I didn’t feel like it. Today is one of those days.

Complex problems and thinking deeply (May 25, 2020)

To solve complex problems, you have to think deeply.

Thinking deeply means being able to follow a train of thought as long as you need to until you arrive at something new.

To do that, remove all distractions:

1. Put your phone in airplane mode
2. Turn off all notifications
3. Be alone

Never work on complex problems when you’re not in control of whether someone can interrupt you.

Distractions are someone else pulling the emergency brake on your train of thought - you lose all momentum every time your phone beeps or someone tries to start a random conversation with you.

Running an agency (May 24, 2020)

One of the problems with running an agency is that you don’t own the things you create. You create websites/apps/videos/blog posts/etc for someone else, for them to use.

Very often you can’t show-off the fruits of your labor because there is some form of confidentiality agreement between you and the client. And even if you’re allowed to share your work, you can’t use it. You can’t use a blog post you wrote for a client in your own blog, except as a case study which is different.

Without ownership, you’re also capping your upside. If a video you create for a client goes viral, resulting in 10s of thousands of $ in additional revenue for them, you still only get the same flat fee you get for every video. (In most cases you’re also capping your downside if the video flops, hence it’s a removal of skin in the game)

There is a different level of satisfaction that comes from creating your own product, for yourself, that you yourself can use in your daily life and call your own. I think that’s partly why I compensate by writing these daily stories or creating my own app. You want to aim to be an owner.

On looking ahead (May 22, 2020)

One of the differences between average race car drivers and great race car drivers (I heard) is their vision. Average race car drivers always look at what’s right in front of them. Great race car drivers have their eyes fixated 50, 100m ahead. Before they make a turn, they’re already looking at the track behind the turn. As they’re turning, they’re making sure to position themselves so as to get out of the turn perfectly to hit the straight.

That’s how you gotta operate in life… always look a little ahead. It doesn’t mean that you need to have a perfectly laid out plan for the rest of your life or that you should predict the future (you can’t). It just means making sure that you’re setting yourself up for success further down the road with what you’re doing today. Ask yourself, will what I’m currently doing/learning help me better take advantage of opportunities 1-2 years down the road?

On price and value (May 21, 2020)

I’ve heard it way too often now: "People don’t care about the price, they care about the value you provide to them."

Bla, bla, bla.

Here is what’s actually true: People care about the value-to-cost ratio.

If I offer a service that helps someone get 10 new customers, each worth $1,000 and someone else offers a service that helps someone get 5 new customers, each worth $1,000, who provides more “value”? Me.

But if I sell my service for $5,000 and the other person sells their service for $1,000 - who will get the deal? They will.

I might still get some deals because I create more absolute surplus ($10k - $5k = $5k) than they do ($5k - $1k = $4k). But who will retain their customers longer and who will be able to build a bigger, more sustainable business long-term? They will.

My value-to-cost ratio? $10,000 / $5,000 = 2
Their value-to-cost ratio? $5,000 / $1,000 = 5

It’s not enough to create a surplus for your customers, i.e. generating more value than the cost you’re charging for it. You need to have a better value-to-cost ratio than your competitors.

The higher your value-to-cost ratio, the less likely you are to be fired by your clients in tough times when budgets are tight.

If you haven’t noticed yet, value-to-cost ratio is also sometimes called ROI. So stop pretending like price doesn’t matter.

On changing the world (May 20, 2020)

In 2017, 2018 I used to say that I’m gonna change the world. I don’t really say that anymore. Maybe I’ve gotten less ambitious since then.

But then again, I also used to wear my underwear 3-4 days in a row during that time. Now I’m engaged to a woman who is 11 years older than me… talk about ambitious.

In my head, I still feel like I’m gonna go down in history in some shape or form… but that’s usually not a very charming thing to say to people. I guess I don’t have any urgency about it anymore. I wanna be happy now not once I achieve that thing, whatever that thing is.

The biggest thing I can do right now is to keep chipping away and stay in the game. And to keep tinkering—not focusing—to maximize serendipity in my life. And if I don’t go down in history, I won’t be around to bemourn myself.

On punishment (May 19, 2020)

How much punishment is the right amount of punishment?

If someone, say, posts a video depicting a person who hung himself and makes fun of that dead person—how much should that person get punished?

First, why do we punish?

Is it so that we get some personal satisfaction out of seeing that person suffer? If so, would that make us any better than the person we’re trying to punish?

Is it because that person deserved punishment? If so, who can say what’s the right amount of punishment? Different people will have different opinions based on their relationship to that person.

The reason why we punish people should be so that we can insure with high likelihood that they won’t repeat those transgressions that are detrimental to the bigger community. Punishment therefore is nothing else than a deterrent.

How much punishment is the right amount of punishment?

The expected pain of the punishment must be (at least) equal to the expected payoff of the transgression (adjusted to the likelihood of getting caught).

Someone scams the government for $1M dollar and has a 5% chance of getting caught?

$1M / 0.05 = $20M punishment

Someone posts an unethical Youtube video that due to it going viral generates $500k in ad revenue + 50k new subscribers and has a 50% chance of creating an outrage? Punishment: $1M fine + losing 100k subscribers.

On learning and speed reading (May 18, 2020)

You don’t learn to the extent that you can consume more information faster. You learn to the extent that you can deeply reflect on small bits of relevant information.

That’s why I’m not a fan of speed reading, or “just getting through” a book. A book’s timeliness is measured by the extent to which it makes you pause and think. If a book doesn’t give you cause to reflect, discard it.

Don’t ever allow yourself to read a book that bores you, just as you should never allow yourself to learn about a topic that bores you, it corrupts you.

Tasks & schedules (May 17, 2020)

Review your day’s schedule ahead of the day, review your week’s schedule ahead of the week. For every task and appointment, ask yourself:

1. Is this something I absolutely have to do? (meaning life or death, like taxes)
2. Is this something I want to do?

If the answer is no to both, remove it. Life's too short to waste time on things that are neither mission-critical, nor enjoyable.

Writing funnily (May 16, 2020)

I want to learn how to write funnily. I like to think of myself as a decently funny person in conversation or video, but how to convey humor in writing still escapes me. Benjamin Franklin seems to have been pretty good at it, which turned out to be a very useful skill for him.

Life's little disruptions (May 14, 2020)

One thing that’s certain about life: you can’t get rid of all of its uncertainties. Accidents happen, catastrophes creep up on you, people that are close to you die. And the more predictable your lifestyle, the more vulnerable you are to disruptions.

The antidote: Introduce chaos into your life. Go on adventures, get off the grid, live in the wild, don’t eat for a couple days. Get your mind and body prepared to deal with whatever life’s gonna throw at you.

And appreciate the little disruptions in your life.

On brevity (May 12, 2020)

Don’t say anything with more words than you need to, it’s a disrespect to the reader. Write, then ruthlessly edit. Examine every word, sentence and paragraph, and delete everything that doesn’t add to your point. As Paul Graham said: Most books should’ve been an essay, most essays should’ve been an article and most articles should’ve been a tweet. (I think it was Graham, couldn’t find the tweet anymore)

On self-discipline (May 11, 2020)

It’s hard to do hard things proactively. It’s easier to do hard things when you have no choice. You give yourself no choice by making a commitment to a person with whom the pain of breaking your promise is greater than the pain of doing the hard thing. Self-discipline is learning to be that person for yourself.

On being criticized (May 10, 2020)

There is an old fable of a father traveling with his son and a donkey to a faraway land.

When the father rode on the donkey and made his son walk, he was criticized by passing travelers for being selfish. When he let his son ride the donkey and walk himself, he was criticized for spoiling his kid. When they both rode on the donkey, he was criticized for torturing the animal. When neither rode, he was criticized for being stupid by not making use of the donkey.

The moral of the story: You’ll be criticized no matter what you do. So don’t even bother trying to please people.

On beauty (May 8, 2020)

I can count on one hand the occasions where I’ve seen Anastasiya wear makeup in the last 1.5 years. You know how proud that makes me? Does she look absolutely stunning when she’s all dressed up, wearing high heels and all of that? Yes. Is she more beautiful without any of that stuff? Yes. The fake can be hot/pretty but only the natural can be beautiful.

Balance through extremes: Barbell Strategy (May 7, 2020)

I just did four 100m sprints... and I’m absolutely flattened. The whole workout took about 10min total. It reminded me of Nassim Taleb’s barbell strategy: Achieving ”balance” by combining the extremes while ignoring the moderate.

He initially applied it to investing: With 90% of your money be maximally paranoid and conservative (government bonds, cash), then have 10% in very risky assets (venture, crypto etc), but have no money in “moderate risk” assets.

The same concept can be applied to many other things.

Don’t eat your 2,000 calories every day steadily, instead have days of fasting where you eat nothing and days of feasting where you eat multiples of your “daily requirement.”

Don’t run for 1h at a moderate pace, instead combine sprints and slow, leisurely walks.

Don’t work for 8h with moderate focus, instead work for 3h at high intensity and focus, then take off for the rest of the day.

On digital products (May 6, 2020)

Been thinking a lot about digital products lately. One of the skills I’ve written on my whiteboard that I want to learn is “building products.” The service industry is fun and all but I feel like it’s not the end game. The end game is creating a product, physical or digital. Creating something novel.

Yet I somehow feel super iffy about this whole info product, online course industry. It might just come down to the fact that 99% of info products and courses are overpriced garbage. It’s probably always been the case that 99% of products are garbage, what’s changed is that now you can actually scalably sell garbage if you’re just good at funnel building and renting fancy cars.

Here’s an info product I don’t feel iffy about: a book. An idea why info products might feel like ripoffs: after some decades of the free markets doing their thing, the generally agreed-upon price for a *physical* book we arrived at is $15 to $25. Yet I see many online courses, created often with much less time investment, the insights much less valuable than most books, being sold for $100, $200, $500.

Blank canvases (May 5, 2020)

A blank canvas is a daunting thing. Blank canvases are single-handedly responsible for our biggest loss in creative potential. Something I read recently in a newsletter by Jack Butcher:

How to create something valuable:
1. Create something worthless
2. Keep iterating

It’s easier to create once you have something to iterate on. It’s impossible to create in a vacuum.

So just type that first word.
Put that first brushstroke on paper.
Take that first step that will start the dance.

Maybe art is nothing more than the manifestation of the courage it takes to face the blank canvas.

On growth (May 4, 2020)

Remember when you were a kid and it felt like you were growing so slowly? But when you met your aunt for the first time in 6 months, she flipped out how tall you are now? And you just rolled your eyes because you felt like she was exaggerating?

Well, she didn’t. It’s just that her last data point is from 6 months ago, your last data point is from yesterday.

It’s the same with personal growth. It’s impossible to measure progress day-to-day, so don’t bother. It’s just gonna frustrate you because there are too many fluctuations in the short term.

Don’t compare yourself to the version of you from yesterday, compare yourself to the version of you from a month ago. It will give you a much clearer picture of your efforts. So keep chipping away. You’re making progress even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. All you gotta do is show up.

Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci and Steve Jobs (May 2, 2020)

Leonardo da Vinci grew up in the 1470s in Florence, a city that later became known as the cradle of the Renaissance. Steve Jobs grew up in the 1970s in Palo Alto, part of what later became known as the Silicon Valley. (I’m reading both of their Walter Isaacson biographies right now)

The time and place of both of their upbringings feel so vivid and vibrant, full of wonder and discovery - both lived during a golden era. Talent was concentrated and collaborated. Tinkering and exploration was celebrated. Hobbyists and dilettantes were plentiful. Tolerance for misfits was high. Both eventually became known for marrying art and technology when most of their contemporaries focused on one or the other.

Don’t focus. Don’t settle on a path. Have many side-projects and hobbies, all the time. Explore. Experiment. And waste time doing things for the sake of doing them. You don’t discover by following a blueprint.

Meditation, snacks, fasting (May 1, 2020)

First, I started doing 20min of meditation every morning again (almost every morning, no one is perfect). Second, I started cutting back on evening snacks (especially hard with leftover cookies laying around). Third, I had my first meal at 3.30pm after 19h of fasting today. Finally, I had a really good day today, mentally, even though I did very average things. My best guess is that it’s due to the above 3 things.

Writing again (April 30, 2020)

I decided I want to write more. To put some thoughts down and get better at writing. Just a few lines every day. I found this notebook I used to write into every day in 2017. It felt so stupid and irrelevant back then, now it feels special... and insightful. So I’ll post one of these things every day or so.