Ian Mwaura™

Intrapreneur | Fitness | Aspiring Renaissance Man

[Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) @adamscochran]

I didn’t vote for Obama, in fact, I had supported both the McCain and Romney campaigns at that time.

No candidate did I agree with 100% on policy, but I worried that Obama’s foreign policy stance on Russia under estimated them. (Which was sadly correct)

BUT despite all of that I think Obama did a fantastic job as President.

He accomplished a great deal for this country, and globally.

He inspired a generation with a hopeful message.

And he managed to usher in the first real win in US healthcare in a long time.

He deserves every bit of praise and accolade he gets here today - because he stood as a President for all Americans.

We must remember that politics is not sports teams. You should never wholly agree with your candidate, and every President should be a President for every American, not just the slice of the country that enabled them.

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

President Obama has a unique way of ROASTING Donald Trump without mentioning him by name, and it drives Trump nuts.

He just did it again, this time in front of every living president.

Watch this. 🔥

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

This photographer at the World Cup is shooting matches on a 1950s film camera and the photos look incredible

[Blake Burge @blakeaburge]

Underrated life advice: Become generous with your assumptions. Assume they were tired, not rude. Overwhelmed, not careless. Preoccupied, not distant. This doesn’t mean tolerate disrespect. It means stop turning every small moment into a personal attack. Grace makes life lighter.

[Euan MacDonald @Euan_MacDonald]

French President Emmanuel Macron pulls off what could be the greatest diplomatic troll of all time by getting Trump to sign the "$300 Billion US Surrender to Iran" deal in... Versailles. The ignoramus Trump will have been clueless as to the historical significance of the location

[Naval @naval]

It's the Age of Builders.

(sorry financiers and talkers)

[Yasmine Khosrowshahi @yasminekho]

Jordan Peterson explained how you can become dangerously articulate:

1. Articulate does not just mean well spoken. It means differentiated. A joint that is articulated can move with precision and grace. A person who is articulated can move through the world the same way. Vague people are one solid useless mass. Articulate people have range.

2. Peterson calls articulate people the most dangerous people in the world. Not dangerous in a destructive way. Dangerous in the sense that they cannot be ignored, dismissed, or pushed around. The word is the most powerful tool a human being can carry.

3. It does not matter what you do for a living. A plumber who is articulate can negotiate better contracts, manage employees, advertise services, and think through complex problems. Articulation is not a luxury for intellectuals. It is a practical weapon available to everyone.

4. Jocko Willink is one of the most decorated special operations soldiers alive. Peterson uses him as his primary example of why articulation matters even in the most physically demanding environments. Jocko succeeded not just because he was tough. He succeeded because he could communicate clearly with the men under his command, explain situations to his superiors, and make the case for soldiers who deserved promotion. Toughness without articulation leaves half your power on the table.

5. Becoming articulate starts with paying attention to what you say. Peterson uses the image of crossing a swamp on a hidden stone path. You cannot see the path. You feel for it with each step. You test the ground before you commit your weight. That is exactly what you do with words. You feel whether what you are about to say is solid or whether it will make you dissolve.

6. He noticed 40 years ago that most of what he said made him feel weak. Not all of it. About five percent felt solid. The rest was instrumental language. Words used to win arguments, appear smart, gain small victories. That kind of language is hollow and people can feel it. The goal is to increase the percentage of what you say that actually feels true.

7. Stop filling silence with noise. The ums, the likes, the you knows, the ahs. These are not harmless verbal habits. They are signals that your thinking has not caught up with your speaking. Take the time to craft the word. Silence while thinking is not weakness. It is precision.

8. Peterson calls the pause a prayerful pause. When someone asks you a question, instead of immediately answering with what you think you should say, ask yourself what you actually think. Make it a real question. One you genuinely do not know the answer to yet. Then wait. The answer will come. And when you speak it, people will find you immediately interesting because you are saying something real.

9. Joe Rogan is one of the most successful communicators alive and his entire method is the opposite of instrumental language. He is not trying to appear smart. He is not trying to get something from his guests. He just genuinely wants to know more than he knows. That honesty makes every conversation magnetic. People can feel the difference between someone performing and someone actually thinking.

10. Read great writers. Write about the problems that obsess you. Practice saying only what you believe to be true. These are not quick fixes. They are a lifetime practice. But Peterson's promise is direct. If every word you say reflects what you genuinely believe, the path you walk becomes a golden path. Not because it sounds good. Because it is real. And real is the only thing that actually works.

[Camus @newstart_2024]

The most successful car salesman in America had a different question:

Not “How do I sell this person a car today?” but “How do I make sure they come back to me for their next one?”

So he sometimes downsells, recommends a cheaper model that’s nearly as good. Builds instant trust. One McLaren salesman even saved Jay Leno $20k on ceramic brakes he didn’t need.

Rory Sutherland points out that if you only chase short-term, easily measured sales, you’ll never do this. The top guy probably looked average for his first few years.

Long-term success often looks like short-term “failure” when you’re playing a different game, one based on trust instead of extraction.

“ If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” — Zig Ziglar

[Janet Machuka @janetmachuka_]

I had to share this because it is spot on. Save it to refer to soon.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Pizza Hut used to be the #1 pizza chain on the planet. Today it sold for $2.7B. Domino's, which started two years later, is worth $10.7B.

The story is wild.

In 1995 Pizza Hut owned 25% of the US pizza market. Biggest chain in the world, red roof on every corner, and dine-in was the entire identity. That identity became the trap.

Domino's read it differently. People wanted pizza at home, fast, ordered without talking to a human. Through the 2000s and early 2010s Domino's poured money into the app, online ordering, live tracking, loyalty. Pizza Hut treated technology as something to bolt on later. By the mid-2010s, digital was more than 60% of Domino's sales.

Pizza Hut kept betting on the building. Going into the pandemic, 40% of its US stores were still built for dine-in: booths, buffets, real estate it couldn't unload. When dine-in cratered, those locations turned into dead weight.

2017 was the year it flipped. Domino's passed Pizza Hut as the largest pizza chain in the world by sales. Pizza Hut's US share had slid from 25% to under 14%. Then 2020 hit: NPC International, its biggest US franchisee with 1,200 stores, filed for bankruptcy under a billion dollars of debt.

By the end the two weren't even in the same business. Domino's had quietly become a logistics and software operation: 37 million loyalty members, its own ordering pipeline, data on every order. Pizza Hut was still a restaurant chain trying to bolt an app onto dine-in bones.

Domino's understood pizza was a delivery business with a topping problem. Pizza Hut found out at the closing table.

[Path of Men @PathOfMen_]

There's so much power in believing things will work out, even when you don't know how or when.

[Mark Hyman, M.D. @drmarkhyman]

Laughter is anti-inflammatory. Crying is regulating. Hugging is immunoprotective. Singing is vagal toning. Dancing is neurogenic.

Joy is a biological necessity.

[Austin Hart @Austin_Hart00]

A sleep doctor with 26 years of experience just revealed why everything you believe about sleeping is wrong.

- 8 hours Is a myth.
- Melatonin is a hormone.
- Waking up at 3AM happens to every person on earth.

Here are his 6 rules that will change how you sleep tonight:

[𝕾𝖎𝖗 𝕮𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖘 @eagleseyeinc]

i know you don’t know why things peak at night; why sicknesses get worse at night, why people mostly die at night, you get more hungry at midnight, depression hits more at midnight etc

i’ll explain the science behind that now so pay attention and walk with me

your body runs on an internal clock called the circadian rhythm, a 24 hr biological system controlled by the brain that regulates body temperature, hormones, hunger, mood, immunity and alertness. at night, the body shifts into recovery mode. cortisol, a hormone that helps reduce inflammation and pain, drops to its lowest levels, which is why pain, fever, coughing and asthma symptoms feel worse after dark.

the illness itself may not be getting worse but your body’s ability to suppress discomfort is reduced.

this is also one reason serious medical events and deaths are more common at night as heart rate, blood pressure and overall alertness naturally decline while the body focuses on maintenance and repair.

nighttime also changes the way we think and feel. hunger tends to increase because leptin (the fullness hormone) falls while ghrelin (the hunger hormone) rises making cravings stronger. then mentally, the absence of noise, work and social interaction leaves the mind alone with its thoughts. serotonin and dopamine levels are lower, melatonin rises and the brain becomes more reflective, emotional and vulnerable. this is why anxiety, loneliness, overthinking, painful memories and even heartbreak often feel more intense at night. with fewer external distractions, the brain amplifies internal sensations, making pain feel louder, thoughts feel heavier and emotions feel deeper.

it’s why many doctors and psychologists advise against making major life decisions late at night, when the brain is more emotionally biased and naturally more pessimistic. learn something. 👍

[Michael Dell 🇺🇸 @MichaelDell]

AI is amazing but it's not “magic,” it’s just linear algebra, calculus, and statistics finally hitting the gym with enough data and compute.

[Sheila of the Most High @sheilatebra]

I finally understand what Machiavelli meant when he said, “Never play fair in a game where others cheat.” It doesn’t mean become evil. It means stop being naive. Stop bringing honesty to people who study manipulation, stop giving access to people who weaponize closeness, and stop expecting clean hands from people who already showed you they’ll throw dirt. Sometimes wisdom is not revenge. Sometimes wisdom is learning the rules of the room before the room uses your goodness against you.

[BookNote @BookNoteApp]

“People who love all fields of knowledge are the ones who can best spot the patterns that exist across nature.”

― Jeff Bezos

[Magatte Wade @magattew]

Elon Musk did not become a different person when he landed in America.

In South Africa, he may still have been brilliant, restless, and ambitious, but the environment would not have given him the same room to build SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and everything else.

Talent matters. The country you build in decides how much of that talent can become real.