Craig Gauthier

Author of Rules: Optional | Keynoter | Entrepreneur Former Professor | Part-Time Athlete | Full-Time Lab Rat |

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

Today, Rules: Optional officially launches.

That sentence feels strange to write.

For seventeen years, this book lived in my head. For the last two, it lived in drafts, rewrites, and an endless search for the sentence that finally said what I meant.

It was always something I was working on.

Now it’s finished.

I always thought finishing would feel different. That there would be a clear emotion waiting on the other side. Instead, I feel a little bit of everything.

Grateful.
Excited.
Relieved.
Overwhelmed.
A little scared.
Maybe a little empty too.

For most of my life, I’ve been more comfortable building things than talking about them. Writing the book was uncomfortable. Talking about it is even harder.

So this is me doing that.

If you were an early reader, purchased a Founder’s Edition, or supported the book along the way, you helped make this real.

Thank you!

If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, today’s the day.

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

Your to-do list isn't the problem.

It's the receipt.

Every item on it started as a yes.

Your calendar doesn't show your priorities. It shows your past decisions.

Next week's list is being written today.

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

@tferriss Rules Optional.

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

Since nearly all the rules are made up anyway, during my podcast sabbatical I asked myself a bunch of questions, including:

What might this look like if it were maximally fun?

What might this look like if it were easy?

If I get to do this for another decade, or had to do this for another decade, what new rules might I create to keep it interesting?

Of course, these are implicitly “for me.” It’s a highly personal thing.

In my experience, keeping it interesting for me generally keeps it interesting for my lovely listeners. At the very least, it’s the only way to ensure I have the enthusiasm required for endurance.

Sure, sometimes what-Tim-likes is too strange and misses the mark, but trying to cater to the tastes of an abstract “audience” or the YouTube gods, without paying attention to what you like, has sent a lot of podcasts to the elephant graveyard.

And even if you manage to “win” that game, winning might be the most dangerous.

Rather than getting Old Yeller’d behind the barn, you have just enough income or traction or validation or growth to make it seem crazy to stop. How could you shut it down? Then you adjust to the creeping boredom and incremental gains, and you convince yourself that it’s all a cost of doing business.

You start by feeding the machine through the cage, only to wake up one day and realize that you’re the one inside the cage.

Media is a great tool and a merciless master.

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

The MRI made pretending impossible.

Two options. No guarantees. 
Surgery.
Rehab.

Surgery felt like surrender. 
Rehab felt like war.

I chose war.

The doctor read off three lines of medical code like Latin prayers at my own funeral. Translation? My shoulder was shredded.

Decades of fastballs, heavy presses, and sheer stubborn pride had finally come due. The body keeps receipts and mine had just handed me the bill.

My friend Brandon sent me to Coach Rob. "Old school. No fluff. He'll fix you or you'll die trying." 

Rob ran his diagnostics.

Range of motion? Laughable.
Stability? Nonexistent.
Strength? We didn't even get that far.

He looked at me and said, "Show up. Do the work. The rest will take care of itself."

No timeline. 
No promises. 
No handholding.

What he was really telling me was that I had to go through the C.O.D.E:

Clueless. 
You don't know what you don't know. (Ignorance feels like bliss.)

Overwhelmed. 
Reality hits and you realize how far you must go. (You want to quit here)

Deliberate. 
Every move takes effort and focus. (You're not a beginner but you're nowhere near fluid.)

Effortless. 
Skill becomes instinct and effort becomes art. (Flow state.)

Nobody talks about the messy middle because it's ugly. The highlight reels skip straight from before to after. They never show you the footage of stumbling, sweating, and looking ridiculous.

But that middle is the truth.

Your old self shrinks. Your new self feels borrowed. Confidence evaporates and impostor syndrome takes the wheel. Every rep feels wrong. Every step feels foreign.

It's awkward.
It's humiliating.
But it's required.

The difference between terrible and brilliant is endurance. Knowing terrible is supposed to happen first.

Show up.
Do the work.
Watch what happens.

[DAN KOE @thedankoe]

https://t.co/7l7Jef99QZ

[Andrew D. Huberman, Ph.D. @hubermanlab]

New Huberman Lab Essentials (30min total, key takeaways only), on science based tools to build flexibility. Turns out there are 2 lesser known ways to enhance stretching significantly & both involve very brief sessions, done frequently & NOT pushing too hard in any one session.

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn’t make it productive or worthwhile.

Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you’re still living the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, or 20 years ago shouldn’t stop you from making good decisions now.

If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons. Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner.

Going into a project or job without defining when worthwhile becomes wasteful is like going into a casino without a cap on what you will gamble: dangerous and foolish.

“But, you don’t understand my situation. It’s complicated!” But is it really? Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon. The problem and the solution are usually obvious and simple. It’s not that you don’t know what to do. Of course you do. You are just terrified that you might end up worse off than you are now.

I’ll tell you right now: If you’re at this point, you won’t be worse off. Revisit fear-setting and cut the cord.

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

Your life changes when you realize reinvention isn't a one-time event.

Your skills evolve, your beliefs change, your goals shift, and your identities move.

Everything requires an update.

Reinvention isn't optional anymore.

The rules are

[The Times and Sunday Times @thetimes]

Fearing for his child’s prospects, a Microsoft veteran dug into the data and found the jobs to avoid and skills to develop. Wait and see is not an option, he writes

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

@tferriss I think KK 1000 true fans is still the answer. Find your tribe. The basics are still undefeated.

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

This was a painfully good after a long ✈️

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

I made an unpopular bet.
Before trying to scale, I wanted to see if the idea mattered.

That meant a lot of movement.
1,245,480 steps.
174,321 calories.
38,402 km travelled.
9,000+ messages.
171 meetings.
27 events.
11 cities.
1 book launched.

My launch strategy was simple: Conversations before clicks.

Meet with as many people as possible (IRL) before anything else.

For three months, that meant airports, events, dinners, golf courses and countless conversations squeezed into the spaces between them.

I was there to listen. Ask questions. Understand where people were struggling, where they were succeeding, and what stories they were telling themselves about work, life, and what’s next. I wanted to see where Rules Optional fit into those conversations.

Along the way I met a pastry chef who moved from Italy to London to earn twice as much working less. She now has time to write her first book. A shy student who travelled twenty hours by bus to learn AI and left with a community to help her. A retail manager who started inviting people to run with him. Now he's building a run club.

Many of them were discouraged from starting.
Nobody gave them permission.
They did it anyway.

To everyone who shared their story, picked up a copy, introduced me to someone new, or simply stopped to chat, we’re just getting started.

Now it’s time to scale.

(But first, some Vitamin D.)

[David Senra @davidsenra]

The mind is a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way

How @tobi got over his fear of public speaking:

“I  was terrified of public speaking until I sat down for like a week and every day I spent ten minutes just writing that I like public speaking.”

“ If you tell yourself or write something down 100 times about yourself, that writes it into the prefrontal cortex at such a deep level that your brain will start reconciling you to that.”

“It’s not a placebo. You actively change your prefrontal cortex.”

[Craig Gauthier @goatc11]

A guide to optimizing you:

No sugar.
No late nights.
No wasted time.
Track your steps.
Count your calories.
Optimize your sleep.

A guide to being you:

Indulge a little.

Rules: Optional

[Barstool Sports @barstoolsports]

RIP Claude Lemieux

The legend carried the torch into the Bell Centre just a few days ago at Game 3

[Hiroo Onoda @OnodaCapital]

god what a bleak chart

[Camus @newstart_2024]

Chris Williamson dropped a brutal truth on Rogan:

Most people only tinker — new haircut, lose five pounds, switch jobs.

But real transformation? Rewiring your body, your country, your entire worldview? That’s unicorn-rare.

And here’s what almost nobody says out loud: the hardest part isn’t the work.

It’s the loneliness that hits when you start moving at a different velocity.

You become the weirdo training six nights a week, eating differently, journaling at dawn, chasing something you can’t fully explain. Your self-belief doesn’t stay Hollywood-strong — it flickers hard. You’re scrabbling in uncertainty, wondering if any of this is even working.

The old crew doesn’t get it. The pull back to “normal” is magnetic. You might lose entire friend groups… sometimes more than once.

That isolation isn’t a glitch. It’s the feature. The price of refusing average.

In a world built for comfort and sameness, choosing the uncertain climb is one of the last truly rebellious moves left. It forges depth most people will never touch.

I’ve lived those lonely chapters chasing my own new start. The doubt is heavy. The freedom on the other side is heavier.

What’s the biggest change you made that left you out of sync with your old circle — and did you ever find your new one?

[Camus @newstart_2024]

A group of UC Berkeley students did a 9-week digital detox… and the results were striking.

Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Sahar Yousef (UC Berkeley Haas) found that participants experienced less anxiety, less depression, and more mindfulness. Some students said they suddenly started noticing all the positive things in their real life once the constant scrolling stopped.

Dr. Yousef also raised a concern, noting that heavy daily tech habits may be linked to brain changes: “We’re actually seeing brain atrophy… degradation of certain brain areas related to self-awareness [and] cognitive control.” (Note: This is an emerging area of research — more long-term studies are needed.)

This feels very relatable. The longer I step away from endless scrolling, the clearer and calmer my mind seems to get.

Our digital habits have become so automatic that we rarely stop to consider their impact on mental health and focus.

Have you ever tried even a short digital detox? What difference (if any) did you notice?

[Tim Ferriss @tferriss]

The main benefit of your product should be explainable in one sentence or phrase. How is it different and why should I buy it? ONE sentence or phrase, folks. Apple did an excellent job of this with the iPod. Instead of using the usual industry jargon with GB, bandwidth, and so forth, they simply said, “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Done deal. Keep it simple and do not move ahead with a product until you can do this without confusing people.