jarod

[jarod @farchione_j]

@benln Yes, thanks Ben!

[jarod @farchione_j]

@businessbarista Claude

[Kevin Dahlstrom @Camp4]

Today I turn 55.

I’m the fittest, sharpest, and happiest I’ve ever been.

If I’m an outlier, it’s not because I’m built different or discovered a secret formula. The truth is far less glamorous:

It’s a million tiny choices, compounded over decades.

Here are 55 of them:

1. Walk 15+ miles a week, even if you do other exercise. Humans are uniquely made to move slowly over long distances—it’s critical to longevity.

2. Develop a writing practice. It’s the single best way to sharpen your mind. And remember, you don’t have to be a good writer to write. Start with 10 minutes a day.

3. Swap out your toothpaste, deodorant, lotions, soap, shampoo, and other personal care products for natural versions. Here’s a rule of thumb: Don’t put anything on your skin that you couldn’t safely eat.

4. If you have a positive thought about someone, don’t keep it to yourself—share it immediately. Encouragement defies the laws of physics: When you give energy, you also receive it.

5. Wear shoes with a wide forefoot (I like Topo Athletic) and wear toe spreaders around the house (search “yoga toes” on Amazon). Spine health begins with the feet.

6. Get sunlight regularly. Moderate sun exposure (without sunscreen) is hugely important for overall health.

7. Do a 3-minute deep (“ass to grass”) squat every morning. Deep squats are often called the anti-aging exercise. It’s been said that, “It’s not that you can’t do deep squats because you’re old, it’s that you’re old because you can’t do deep squats.”

8. Explore minimalism (it’s not what you think it is).

9. Set boundaries on toxic relationships. We tend to cling to relationships past their expiration date, and it takes a bigger toll on our health than we recognize.

10. Eat real food. Not too much. Don’t eat garbage. Binge occasionally. Fast occasionally. That’s the diet.

11. Learn about FIRE. It’s a great framework for financial success.

12. Don’t take antibiotics except in emergency situations. They’re massively over-prescribed and aren’t needed in most cases. Antibiotics have done untold damage to our guts, which is where health begins. Great natural alternatives are out there.

13. Get 8 hours of quality sleep each night. To optimize sleep:
—Don’t eat after 6pm
—Get blackout shades and cover LEDs with black tape
—No screens 2 hours before bed
—Try ashwagandha (an herb) to calm the nervous system

14. Stop drinking, even in moderation. People find all sorts of ways to justify drinking, but there’s no escaping the simple fact that alcohol is a toxin and it limits your potential.

15. Travel as much as possible. Nothing expands the mind like seeing the world. And travel doesn’t have to be expensive—the best experiences happen outside of fancy resorts, when you live like a local.

16. Let go of resentment. When you forgive someone, you release the prisoner, and the prisoner isn’t them… it’s you.

17. Show up on time, every time. Poor time management limits success more than most people realize. If you struggle with punctuality, stop everything else and fix that first.

18. Spend lots of time in nature and touch the earth. Humans evolved over 300k years to live in harmony with nature, and only recently have we retreated indoors. If you don’t spend time outside, you’re fighting biology (hint: You won’t win.)

19. Stop doing dumb things. As Leo Tolstoy said, “People try to do all sorts of clever and difficult things to improve life instead of doing the simplest, easiest thing—refusing to participate in activities that make life bad.”

20. Find your happy place and (eventually) move there. Most people live where they live because... that's where they live. We are products of our environment—choose yours carefully.

21. Find a hobby and pursue mastery. You can’t have a happy life without a passionate pursuit that isn’t your vocation. Your work—even if you enjoy it—isn’t enough.

22. Avoid mainstream medicine except as a last resort. The results are in—our healthcare (or more appropriately, sick care) system is badly broken and only makes people sicker.

23. Have a mindset of abundance. There is no advantage to being a pessimist—even if you’re right, it’s a miserable way to live. In a very real way… whatever you believe, you’re right!

24. Do hard things. Choose courage over comfort. Everything you want is on the other side of fear and hard work. As Jerzy Gregorik said, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

25. Ignore haters. Hurt people hurt people. Negative/toxic people live in a prison of their own design. Don’t join them!

26. Say no. Protect your time and energy like it’s your most precious asset… because it is.

27. Become a water snob. As an alien said on Star Trek, humans are “ugly bags of mostly water.” You are what you drink—literally! We have Mountain Valley Spring water delivered in glass 5-gallon jugs and also have whole-house water filter (Aquasana Rhino).

28. Stop drinking sodas and sugary energy drinks. After a few weeks you won’t miss them, and a few months later they’ll seem disgusting. Refined sugar causes inflammation, which is the root of most disease.

29. If you’re over 35, find a good functional/longevity medicine doctor and start tracking your hormones. Modern life is hell on the endocrine system and restoring healthy hormone levels can change your life. As we get older, we either accept a slow decline in performance or we do something about it—choose the latter!

30. Develop a morning routine and follow it faithfully. Win the morning, win the day!

31. Invest in experiences, not things. People frequently regret buying things, but rarely regret investing in great experiences (especially when shared with loved ones). Remember, there’s nothing you can buy in a mall that you’ll remember in ten years.

32. Explore spirituality. It’s arrogant and small-minded to believe there’s nothing going on in our universe that is beyond our comprehension. We know less about our universe than an ant meandering on a sidewalk understands about this planet.

33. Have a strong bias toward action—doing rather than talking. If you ask a bunch of old people about their regrets, they’ll talk about the things they *didn't* do—the shots they didn’t take—more than the things they did do (even if it went wrong). As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Most people don’t take enough shots.

34. Stay lean. Men in particular are obsessed with muscle mass these days, but bulk doesn’t age well. The goal is to be strong but lean. The fittest guys in their 50s and beyond aren’t meatheads, they’re lean guys who are serious about a sport.

35. Curate your inner circle carefully. Surround yourself with people you admire and who challenge you to grow. Remember, we’re the average of our 5 closest relationships.

36. Be the fittest version of yourself. Your body is your only vessel for experiencing life—so treat it as such. Fitness isn’t working out a few times a week, it’s a lifestyle. The older you get, the more time you need to devote to your health.

37. Take the time to appreciate art and beauty in all its forms.

38. Think globally, but act locally. Too many people put their energy into far-away problems they don’t understand and can’t impact, while ignoring problems right under their nose. Want to change the world? Start at home.

39. Try psychedelics. It’s one of those things everyone should do at least once, and it might be the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.

40. Limit bad habits, including unhealthy thought patterns. We all have them—practice avoidance and find substitutes. Get professional help if needed.

41. Be a lifelong learner. Your brain is just like a muscle—if you don’t feed and flex it regularly, it will atrophy.

42. Find your purpose. People with a strong sense of purpose are happier and live longer. Lack of purpose sucks energy and magnifies depression.

43. Only take advice from people who embody the traits you want to have. Talk is cheap—emulate those who have DONE it.

44. The goal is not to retire and do nothing, it’s to build a great day-to-day life that you don’t need to escape. A life of leisure is a slow death. Happiness isn’t possible without a little struggle, uncertainty, and skin in the game.

45. Have fun! Do frivolous and silly things that make you smile. As George Bernard Shaw famously said, “We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

46. Whatever you want to do or achieve in life, start NOW. Don’t fall victim to “someday thinking” because someday never comes.

47. Accumulate assets—things that grow in value over time. It’s the #1 habit of rich people, and it can be done in tiny chunks. Instead of spending $100 on an impulse purchase that has no lasting value, put that money into an index fund or Bitcoin. It becomes addictive (in a good way).

48. Don’t ignore the big 3 canaries in the coal mine for health:
—Low libido (and ED)
—Frequent sinus & respiratory issues
—Depression
These usually aren’t medical conditions in themselves, they’re symptoms of an underlying problem. Find a good doc (outside of the mainstream) and figure out the root cause.

49. Have a clear vision for your future. How can you decide which direction to go if you haven’t clearly defined the destination? It sounds obvious, but 95% of people haven’t defined their “Ideal End State” in detail and in writing. (Check out my thread on this topic.)

50. Make your own decisions. We live in an era where most of what society tells us is wrong. Don’t be afraid to break from societal norms—if people say you’re crazy, it’s a sign that you’re doing something right.

51. Get hardcore about mobility exercise. As you age, it’s usually the knees, hips, and lower back that limit physical performance. 30 min a couple times a week can spare you a lifetime of pain. YouTube is a great resource.

52. Go all in on family. Get married, stay married, have kids. Burn the boats. In the end, family is all that matters.

53. Be ruthless with your time. Money comes and goes. Time only goes. Audit your calendar ruthlessly—cut the trivial, double down on the meaningful, and spend your hours like your life depends on it. (Because it does.)

54. Have a strong bias toward action. Be curious, try things, meet people—it’s how you increase your surface area for serendipity, the most powerful unseen force in our lives.

55. Reinvent yourself every decade. Over time, we slowly drift off course from our priorities, values, and true identity. Take stock and don’t be afraid to hit the reset button. Bold, calculated moves made for the right reasons almost always pay off—usually even more than you can imagine.

🎁 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, would you give me a birthday gift? Repost or comment with the item number(s) you liked best?

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

We’re about to see the largest boom in micro-companies in history.

1 person to 10-people businesses that generate real cash, serve tiny but passionate communities, and operate with leverage (organic social, AI etc) that used to require mega teams

Once people realize they can earn a meaningful living by building something tiny and strange that fits a community they actually understand, everything shifts like ambition, lifestyle, career arcs, even how people think about “success.”

Some people will build two or three of these.
Some will build twenty.
Some will build one that accidentally becomes big.

You can literally feel the shift happening.

Just an increasing number of people quietly opting out of the traditional paths and choosing to build a life around small companies that actually work.

[The Boring Marketer @boringmarketer]

how to turn Claude into your marketing analyst in less than 30 minutes with MCP:

- access your data instantly
- get insights & build dashboards at ai speed
- find patterns, grow, wow your team, clients, etc.

this is vibe marketing

[Nassim Nicholas Taleb @nntaleb]

The argument that increasing tarrifs will cause adaptation by local industry assumes all parties consider the tariffs PERMANENT (even if we ignore the immediate impoverishment from decline in trade, the clumsiness in the abruptness).
The problem is that everyone w/ a functioning brain (including people on the traditional "right") by now realizes that Trump is a bit deranged, erratic, & these moves are likely to be transitory. He could be booted out; the 4 year mortality of an unfit 78 y.o. is >20%. A huge discount ratr.

Heavy investments take > 5 years, more than the political cycle & initially require more imports. Huge capital commitments require a bit of certainty.

Some products s.a. wine may take >10 years, olive oil >12 years.

[Andrej Karpathy @karpathy]

Agency > Intelligence

I had this intuitively wrong for decades, I think due to a pervasive cultural veneration of intelligence, various entertainment/media, obsession with IQ etc. Agency is significantly more powerful and significantly more scarce. Are you hiring for agency? Are we educating for agency? Are you acting as if you had 10X agency?

Grok explanation is ~close:

“Agency, as a personality trait, refers to an individual's capacity to take initiative, make decisions, and exert control over their actions and environment. It’s about being proactive rather than reactive—someone with high agency doesn’t just let life happen to them; they shape it. Think of it as a blend of self-efficacy, determination, and a sense of ownership over one’s path.

People with strong agency tend to set goals and pursue them with confidence, even in the face of obstacles. They’re the type to say, “I’ll figure it out,” and then actually do it. On the flip side, someone low in agency might feel more like a passenger in their own life, waiting for external forces—like luck, other people, or circumstances—to dictate what happens next.

It’s not quite the same as assertiveness or ambition, though it can overlap. Agency is quieter, more internal—it’s the belief that you *can* act, paired with the will to follow through. Psychologists often tie it to concepts like locus of control: high-agency folks lean toward an internal locus, feeling they steer their fate, while low-agency folks might lean external, seeing life as something that happens *to* them.”

[Naval @naval]

If you’re a high agency person, there’s never been a better time to be alive.

[Konstantin Kisin @KonstantinKisin]

For my British and European friends who are "shocked" and "surprised", here are 10 reasons you didn't see this coming.

Read this short post and then read the replies from our American friends who will confirm what I'm saying.

1. Americans love their country and want it to be the best in the world. America is a nation of people who conquered a continent. They love strength. They love winning. Any leader who appeals to that has an automatic advantage.

2. Unlike Europeans, Americans have not accepted managed decline. They don't have Net Zero here, they believe in producing their own energy and making it as cheap as possible because they know that their prosperity depends on it.

3. Prices for most basic goods in the US have increased rapidly and are sky high. What the official statistics say about inflation and the reality of people's lives are not the same.

4. Unlike you, Americans do not believe in socialism. They believe in meritocracy. They don't care about the super rich being super rich because they know that they live in a country where being super rich is available to anyone with the talent and drive to make it. They don't resent success, they celebrate it.

5. Americans are the most pro-immigration people in the world. Read that again. Seriously, read it again. Americans love an immigrant success story. They want more talented immigrants to come to America. But they refuse to accept people coming illegally. They believe in having a border.

6. Americans are sensitive about racial issues and their country's imperfect history. They believe that those who are disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth should be given the opportunity to succeed. What they reject, however, is the idea that in order to address the errors of the past new errors must be made. DEI is racist. They know it and they reject it precisely because they are not racist.

7. Americans are the most philosemitic nation on earth. October 7 and the pro-Hamas left's reaction shocked them to their very core because, among other things, they remember what 9/11 was like and they know jihad when they see it.

8. Americans are extremely practical people. They care about what works, not what sounds good. In Europe, we produce great writers and intellectuals. In America they produce (and attract) great engineers, businessmen and investors. Because of this, they care less about Trump's rhetoric than you do and more about his policies than you do.

9. Americans are deeply optimistic people. They hate negativity. The woke view of American history as a series of evils for which they must eternally apologise is utterly abhorrent to them. They believe in moving forward together, not endlessly obsessing about the past.

10. America is a country whose founding story is one of resistance to government overreach. They loathe unnecessary restrictions, regulations and control. They understand that freedom comes with the price of self-reliance and they pay it gladly.

[James Clear @JamesClear]

If you look for evidence that people are conspiring to hold you back and the world is working against you, then it will take you no time at all to find precisely that.

If you expect to encounter helpful people and experience a world that is working with you, then you find plenty of evidence to support that view as well.

The raw material for a sweet life or a bitter life is always there. The story you emphasize is the one you notice.

[Orange Book 🍊📖 @orangebook]

The goal isn't money, it's to compound your knowledge, relationships, talents, mental clarity, toughness, it's to get closer to the most confident version of yourself as you get older. You will then sense what true wealth is about: freedom, peace of mind, love beyond yourself.

[Hidden Value Gems @HiddenValueGems]

Some interesting points from Druckenmiller's interview with @CNBC in May 2024

➡️Cautious on AI in the short term, but bullish long term (cut his $NVDA position in March)
➡️Bullish on Copper, Argentina and Japan
➡️Not investing in China under current leadership

🧵👇🏽

1/6

[Oliver Cookson @olivercookson]

Myprotein turns 20 today.

I started it in my early twenties with nothing more than an idea and a £500 overdraft.

Here's a thread of threads that I've shared detailing the process:

[Tim Urban @waitbutwhy]

It's conventional wisdom that focusing too much on work / ambition / wealth isn't the optimal way to live a happy life. Turns out there's an actual chemical explanation for why:
@maxjoseph

[jarod @farchione_j]

@ryanwashere Maps pack

[James Clear @JamesClear]

Anytime in my life when I have managed to go from a vision to a reality, the vision has not been a plan but a practice.

In other words, what matters is not having a vision, but rather making a habit of returning to and revising the vision. For the big things in my life, I'm always coming back to them week after week—sometimes day after day. As new information arrives, the vision gets updated. The dream becomes more crystallized over time. It's a habit of thinking about where you want to go with an ever-increasing degree of clarity.

You do not need a vision, you need the practice of envisioning.

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

My notes from Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist turned into maxims:

1. Genius lies in ignoring the unimportant. 

2. Intensity is the price of excellence. 

3. If you’re not working on your best idea you’re doing it wrong. 

4. Writing a check separates conviction from conversation. 

5. A thousand opinions doesn't outweigh one conviction. 

6. Let your winners ride. 

7. Make your life's work a work of art. 

8. Learn as much as you can; teach everything you know. 

9. Be the best informed person in your field. 

10.Time reveals who is full of shit. 

11.There is no better investment than intense focus on your own development. 

https://t.co/fpyz7xteDK headstrong about how *you* want to build *your* business.

13.The job to do is the job at hand.

14.Take the time to develop your own philosophy about your craft. It should be unique to you. 

15.Avoid over optimizing for your work at the expense of your relationship with your spouse.

https://t.co/FhRd04QIGY one can predict how this all plays out. 

17.Sell cheap, tell the truth, and put your competitors through a meat grinder. 

18.Never underestimate the power of inspiration. 

19.All you need is the will to work hard and a library card.

20. Be possessed of a spark.

21.Nobody can tell you about a great opportunity. You have to get there on your own. 

22.Have Kanye West levels of self-belief. 

23.Pour your entire soul into one outlet. 

24.Have an inner scorecard. Know who you are and never try to be anything else. 

25.The master in the art of living simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing.

26.The primary benefit of wealth is independence. 

27.Excellence does not come from consensus seeking groups. 

28.A North Star for your life: Will your kids hang up your picture when you’re gone? 

29.Maintain childlike enchantment with your work. 

30. Concentrate. 

https://t.co/0BmCPPjssN is too short to work with people you don't like.

https://t.co/RwUZ5d8XXU can make magic by going farther than most other people think is reasonable. When Warren was asked, "How'd you do it?" He said, "I read a couple thousand financial statements a year."

33. Remember what Andrew Carnegie learned: "Profits and prices are cyclical, subject to any number of transient forces of the marketplace. Costs, however, could be strictly controlled, and any savings achieved in costs are permanent."

34. Let your company be misunderstood by outsiders. They can't compete with something they don't understand. 

35. What looks like work to others but feels like play to you? Do that for a living. 

36.Making decisions based on what other people might do is nonsensical. 

37.Sometimes the real right answer is directly opposite of the *perceived* right answer.

38. Benjamin Franklin's aphorisms are more useful than most of what is taught in business school. 

39. Don't spend money on luxurious offices. "Why does a newspaper need a palace to publish in?" — Charlie Munger

40. Avoid the fatal weak link. Common examples include alcoholism, easy money, too much debt. 

41.Not having a schedule allows you to always work on the most important thing. 

42. Always work on the most important thing.

43. If you love what you do the only exit strategy should be death.

[David Senra @FoundersPodcast]

I read Ogilvy on Advertising for the 3rd time

A list of ideas from the book:

1. The beginning of greatness is to be different and the beginning of failure is to be the same.

2. Down with committees. Committees can criticize, but they cannot create.

3. Search the parks in all your cities; you’ll find no statues of committees.

4. Advertising which promises no benefit to the consumer does not sell. (That is the most important sentence in this book.)

5. The more you tell the more you sell. Long copy sells more.

6. Long copy conveys the impression that you have something important to say, whether people read the copy or not.

7. You aren’t advertising to a standing army; you are advertising to a moving parade.

8. Include the price of your products in your ads.

9. Consider how you want to position your product. Positioning answers (1) what the product does and (2) who it is for.

10. Have humility in the presence of a good idea.

11. At the beginning good ideas are fragile. Nuture — don’t kill.

12. Make the product the hero.

13. Make the product different.

14. If you and your competitors all make excellent products, don’t try to imply that your product is better. Just say what’s good about your product – and do a clearer, more honest, more informative job of saying it.

15. Repeat your winners. If you write a good advertisement repeat it until it stops selling. (Most campaigns are abandoned far too early)

16. The good ones know more. I asked an indifferent copywriter what books he had read about advertising. He told me that he had not read any. This willful refusal to learn the rudiments of the craft is all too common. A blind pig can sometimes find truffles, but it helps to know that they are found in oak forests.

17. It is not uncommon for a change in headlines to multiply returns ten times over.

18. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end. If you are both killer and poet you get rich.

19. You are a human being writing to another human being. Neither of you is an institution. Be personal, direct and natural.

20. Friction polishes you.

21. Pressure refines you.

22. Write down your principles.

23. Don't put profit before service. (Money comes naturally as a result of service)

24. Focus on value not price.

25. Be upfront about your weaknesses. People will like you — and your product — more.

26. Five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy. Unless your headline sells your product, you have wasted 90% of your money.

27. The headlines which work best are those which promise the reader a benefit – like a whiter wash, more miles per gallon, freedom from pimples, fewer cavities.

28. Do not address your readers as though they were gathered together in a stadium. When people read your copy, they are alone. Pretend you are writing each of them a letter on behalf of your client. One human being to another.

29. Your ads must be entertaining and informative. You can’t save souls in an empty church.

30. You cannot bore people into buying your product.

31. It pays to write short sentences and short paragraphs. Avoid difficult words.

32. Promise is the soul of an advertisement.

33. Don’t waste time on problem babies. Back your winners. Abandon your losers.

34. Concentrate your time, your brains, and your money on your successes.

35. Pricing is guesswork.

36. The higher you price your product the more desirable it becomes in the eyes of the consumer.

37. Advertising is a production cost, not a selling cost. It should not be cut back on when times are hard.

38. Study the history of your industry. Get to know the pioneers.

39. Advertising is salesmanship in print. If you can write copy that sells your product nothing else is needed.

40. Great achievements are generated in an atmosphere of dynamic tension.

41. Believe in the dogmatism of brevity. We are both in a hurry.

42. Human nature hasn’t changed for a billion years. It won’t even vary in the next billion years. Only the superficial things have changed. It is fashionable to talk about changing man. A communicator must be concerned with unchanging man.

43. Steep yourself in your subject, work like hell, and love, honor, and obey your hunches.

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Extrapolate the progress Tesla has made over the course of the last 12 months on Optimus, and then consider the rate of progress we are seeing in machine learning/AI, and within 5-7 years Optimus-like robots will be able to do most mundane tasks that human beings do.

People underestimate the convergence of multiple exponentially progressing technologies. The next decade is going to be absolutely insane!

I'm excited. Are you?