Blog
Writing about entrepreneurship, learning, mindset, and building.
Get Off Zero
Why zero is always bad I don't know what the right exposure is for each individual person... But what I do know is 0% is the wrong answer. You can't have no exposure."2025-09-11
The 2-Hour Cocktail Party (Inspired by Nick Gray)
How to Build Big Relationships with Small Gatherings In this post, I discuss why Nick's mission is to help 500 people host their first cocktail party, the formula for hosting the perfect cocktail party, why parties are so helpful for making friends and improving your life, how to have fun while staying sober, how throwing parties can impact your dating life, the pros and cons of blogging, and much more.2023-01-21
What It's Like To Know An Author
Reflections on reading a friend's first book I’m still trying to decide the long-term takeaway here, but it was one-of-a-kind in my life so far and I was deeply moved by it.2022-08-30
30 Mini Essays on Self-Improvement and Happiness in The Modern World
An exploration of productivity, technology, and personal thriving All of my essays from the January 2021 Ship 30 for 30 Challenge2021-03-05
Borrowing Awesomeness
Does Free Leverage Exist? Many successes are often explained as the consequence of adding one improvement to a pre-existing, awesome concept.2020-12-20
4 Ideas For Deliberate Improvement
Input Management, Happy Habits, Truth Seeking and Abundance Systems rarely “get better” by accident. Instead, progress is usually a product of intentional efforts aimed at positive change.2020-12-16
Leverage, Environment, and Books
Three Short Lessons From Hosting an Interview Podcast while Still In College Our goals for the show were simple: grow an audience, learn about entrepreneurship, and gain access to incredibly smart mentors.2020-12-16
Graph Databases, RoamResearch, and PKM
How RoamResearch Uses New Database Technology To Bring Life To An 80 Year-old Idea In this short article, I explain the (very) basics of graph databases and use RoamResearch’s note-taking software as an example of an early and powerful mainstream application of this new technology.2020-11-25
Trust The Process & Workout Like A Boomer
5 Lessons From Completing The 75HARD The 75HARD is an internet challenge dubbed as the “tactical guide to winning the war with yourself.”Andy Frisella, the host of the MFCEO podcast, created the 75HARD to teach listeners how to cultivate discipline, integrity, and physical and mental toughness.In this post, I share the five most significant lessons I learned from completing the challenge this summer.2020-09-01
Trust The Process & Workout Like A Boomer
5 Lessons From Completing The 75HARD The 75HARD is an internet challenge dubbed as the “tactical guide to winning the war with yourself.”Andy Frisella, the host of the MFCEO podcast, created the 75HARD to teach listeners how to cultivate discipline, integrity, and physical and mental toughness.In this post, I share the five most significant lessons I learned from completing the challenge this summer.2020-09-01
Fall 2020 Bullet Journals
5 Minute Entries Documenting Life If you don't stop and look around every once in a while...2020-08-16
The Power List
5 Non Negotiable Tasks That Move The Needle If you get all 5 done, no matter what else happens during the day, you can cross them off and write a big "W" on that piece of paper because you won the day.2020-08-14
Skipping The Line In Life
9 Takeaways from The Third Door What if he could ask the world’s most successful people for guidance in this phase of life? What if Bill Gates taught him entrepreneurship, Lady Gaga taught him music, and Warren Buffet taught him finance?2020-08-06
Reflect On Every "Chapter" Of Life
Last Day In Scottsdale, Last Day of July, Plans For August, Upcoming Semester I don't do all this self-reflection without purpose. It's extremely helpful-->you should try it.2020-07-31
Summer 2020 Bullet Journals
Documenting Life Without Writing Essays These are journal entries on days where I didn't write an accompanying post for the entry. Most recent entries are on top.2020-07-27
3 Good, 3 Improve, 3 Lessons
Buy an Alarm Clock Lately, I’ve been using my phone as an alarm because I left my physical alarm in Alabama. That means I’m in the habit of setting my alarm at night and turning it off in the morning. It means my phone is the first and last thing I touch, and I don’t like that.2020-06-25
Make Your Mess Your Message
The Most Interesting Thing I Learned Today To make journaling worthwhile, ask yourself interesting questions. Here’s an easy one: what is one thing I learned today? You can’t claim to know something until you’ve tried to explain it to someone else. Today’s question challenges you to do just that.2020-06-21
Questioning Modernity This Father's Day
Undoing Modernity - I'm Beginning To Realize How Much We've Gotten Wrong Our ancestors did not eat seed oils, impossible burgers, naked juice, and hormone-fed livestock. These new foods are the ones that need to prove themselves. What we’ve been eating for thousands of years do not.Buy your processed food with skepticism--or don't buy them at all.2020-06-21
More and Less - Two Lists You Need To Make
Ask Yourself Good Questions The things that make you feel happy, healthy, smart, fulfilled? Reflect on what they are and keep doing them. The things that make you unproductive, unsuccessful, unhealthy, and anti-social? Hit the brakes and swap for something better.2020-06-20
Why You Need To Have A Unified Theory
Are you building toward something? Elon Musk's genius reputation is amplified when you realize that everything he does is mutually reinforcing in the short and long term. Elon does not know at what point his projects will converge into space colonization. Elon does know that his probability of reaching Mars increases with each of his activities, so he'll stay the course.2020-06-19
3 Easy Questions, 1 Day of 'Hard' Labor
Slam a cold brew and answer these prompts My dad’s close friend has a concrete business. My dad has always encouraged me to shadow his friend for a day and see what all is involved in the process of finishing concrete. I took that offer today.2020-06-17
Follow One Course Until Successful
Do You Follow Your Own Advice? I tried to do too many things today. So many books tell the same story. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are at dinner. They are asked what the single most important factor for their success was. Reportedly, they both said “focus.”2020-06-16
Why Does Tempe's Target Sell So Much Tito's
Writing Prompts Are Helpful This is day four of this experimental “journal in public” format for me. I don’t have a theme to write about, so I created four prompts. Then, I answered them.2020-06-16
Podcasting As Leverage
Journaling In Public - Number One I'm dividing the written content on this site between the 'blog' which is a collection of more thoughtfully produced articles and the 'journal' which is more raw and reflective.2020-06-14
Produce More Than You Consume
Make Digital Assets - Start Now Digital assets are cool. Blog posts are assets. Podcasts are assets. YouTube videos are assets. Designs are assets. You produce them once and over time they continue to bring value as long as the internet exists.2020-06-14
21 Rules For Getting Your Shit Together
It’s my 21st birthday — I wanted to write something After bombing a math test in my first month of college, I overreacted so dramatically that I developed an obsessive and vague drive to “get my shit together” that continues to this day.2020-05-29
Computers Broke the Old World
Why I Want To Start The Accelerated Masters Program at The University of Alabama Zero marginal-cost economics, instant digital delivery, globally accessible talent pools, international communication networks, and computational power have completely redefined modern life.2020-04-11
Make Failure Suck
The Silver Bullet of Accountability Leverage external consequences to win internal battles.2020-04-11
Pointers for Starting Your Company
Lessons from Yishai Goldstein — CTO and Co-Founder of AutoLeadStar Hard skills alone aren’t enough. Founders need to be very flexible, focused, and fast learners.2020-04-11
The Torah and Deep Work
How Shabbat Subsumes Mainstream Self-Help and Productivity Advice Through Deep Work, the secular community is coming to terms with facts that have been known to the Jewish community for millennia.2020-04-11
The Power of Positive Constraints
Making one decision to simplify thousands of future decisions. Whenever I need to take something more seriously, I come up with a challenge to guide me into action.2020-04-11
Asymmetries, Batching, and Constraints
Productivity Lessons from the Four Hour Workweek Challenge basic assumptions you hold about what is possible, and learn rules and techniques to enable a lifestyle with abundance in time.2020-04-08
Rules for Distraction Free Work
Five Positive Habits for Consistently Overcoming Resistance Don’t let laziness limit your potential. Build a system, automate self-discipline, and execute. Let the results speak for themselves.2020-04-08
Take Control of Your Education
Five Books Every College Student Needs to Read In my first year of school, I read the following books. Without a doubt, I would not have achieved a fraction of my goals otherwise.2020-04-08
Who Is Cal Newport?
Why Am I Obsessed With His Work? Newport is an incredibly prolific academic, author, and blogger and he reached this level of professional success with stunning speed.2020-04-08
The Power of Mindset
Lessons Learned from Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck Individuals, empowered by Dweck’s research can manipulate their own reality in their favor by embracing the appropriate mindset.2020-04-08