Every Sunday, I write a quick newsletter to share some thoughts, topics I’ve learned, and a few of my favorite things from the week. Enjoy!

Hey friends,

Hope everyone had a great week. I’m typing this from some new tech, and it’s invigorating when we leverage tech that can enable us to be even more productive. We do have to be careful about our spending choices to focus on things that add substantial value to our lives. I also think it’s important to add some rigidity to this thought process to make sure these choices (and rationale for these choices don’t get out of hand). My mental model for this is something I’m calling “spending X in T0, to achieve (X + N) in (T + 1).” Spending can enable us to produce even further. We should think long-term about short-term costs, as taking on this “leverage” can propel us even further and achieve even more than if we hadn’t made that purchase, hopefully achieving a higher “MOIC” to use investing terminology. I’ve found this to be a useful framework to govern spending choices.

In my spare time, I’ve also been diving into more music theory and how it can inform music composition. Melodic interpolation has always fascinated me, and I think I’m starting to get better at it. Interestingly, I’ve find that playing music while showering happens to be an opportune time to work on melodic interpolation. The hum of the shower tends to dampen the higher ranges of the music, while providing enough percussion and bass to interpolate melodically on top of it.

Separately, hope everyone is getting into Morning Pages. It’s both enjoyable and meditative! See below for some of my favorites from this week.

Have a great week!
Daniel


Things that resonated with me this week

  1. Eric Schmidt had a great Q&A with the Bendheim Center, discussing topics in cybersecurity, privacy, and innovation.
  2. Came across this piece by Paul Graham and wanted to share it. It talks about some of the most important things we should be thinking about, both in our daily lives and in the long-term, especially when it comes to how we make decisions. He cites another book which discusses how our biggest regrets tend to be regrets by omission, rather than commission. Jeff Bezos also talks about this in this interview, which he terms as a regret minimization framework. He also mentions it here, years before Amazon became how we know it to be today. [I’ll talk about this more in a dedicated post on this regret minimization framework and how our best decisions can come from this]. With this in mind, we should be aware that we’re far less likely to regret things we’ve done, versus not done. We’re much more likely to regret things we didn’t didn’t try, paths untraveled. Those tend to be the most piercing regrets, not regrets of things we did try but ended up not working out as planned. [On a separate note, one of my creative idols is Lauv. He has talked before about striving towards creating from “the source” when it comes to music composition and songwriting. He doesn’t waste time overthinking. He just does. And I think that approach fits well with Graham/Bezos’ framework for regret minimization.
  3. Enjoyed this overview of Guardiola’s best team talks. His desire and leadership comes through in every game, and that day-in day-out dedication is part of the reason why he’s so respected in the dressing room. Again, goes back to an interview I referenced last week from Ryan Tedder - you have to love the grind.

Things I’m trying out

  • It’s not really something I’m trying out and more so something I’ve always done and have fully adopted into my daily routine - morning pages. There are many ways of doing Morning Pages but the standard definition is “three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning.” The three pages can be about anything and everything. The important thing is just that you write. Three pages worth of anything. For me this usually encompasses ideas I have when I wake up or general to-dos for my day or week that happen to pop up that morning. I mainly use Notion (an app I absolutely love and will discuss in a post later on) for this since I do all of my journaling-type writing there. But I’ve found morning pages to be an immensely useful exercise and would highly recommend it. If you’re like me, you have at least a few ideas first thing in the morning, so it’s nice to have a consistent place to put these thoughts down and make it a consistent routine.
  • While we’re on the topic of mornings, I’d love to share my morning routine. I’ve come to realize that having a strong morning routine is super important, and I’ve found one that really works for me. Having a consistent morning routine (each made up of healthy steps of course) is huge, and by repeating it every day you don’t have to actively think about those steps, they’re simply non-negotiable. So, you can then focus your energy on the actions and decisions that actually propel you, in the pursuit of, well, whatever you’re pursuing. Having consistency around this helps you focus on these other things. Mental energy is finite, and so it’s best to allocate it appropriately, and conserve/maximize it as much as you can.
    • For me, my morning routine is:
      • 10 min meditation first thing after I wake up
      • morning pages (usually around three pages, but at the very least filling out my template in Notion, which I’ll share at a future date)
      • 20 min walk outside
      • brushing teeth, showering
      • breakfast and coffee immediately
      • filling out my daily planning entry in Notion (I’ll share my template for this as well)

Stuff that’s on my mind

  • How much health can impact every other aspect of your life. It’s imperative to take care of that. Everything follows from health.
  • If you like writing, just start. Whether it’s writing or any creative outlet, it’s important to just start, and furthermore to first focus on whatever you’re interested in. Don’t worry about payoff or how any utility can come from it etc., just start with whatever you’re interested in, and the rest follows from there.

Quote of the week

“Life is like being a sprinter; long stretches of hard work punctuated by brief moments in which we are given the opportunity to perform at our best.” - Michael Johnson