68: Rules Aren't Real 📐
Dispensing with the status quo is the key to escaping mediocrity.
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67: Not all that glitters 🪩
In one morning I came across three stories that made me think twice about the ‘metaverse’. It’s not some abstract future dystopia—it’s already here. Many of us already inhabit mini-metaverses full of personalised algorithms, and few of us are ready to take off the headset. The first...
66: Win the small hill ⛷
Sometimes in order to win the game you're optimising for, you must lose the ones you've been told were important.
65: What you want for dinner 🍽
How often do you revisit ideas you believe to be common sense? When thinking of possible ways we could develop our thinking or improve our lives we naturally gravitate to new ideas instead of investigating existing patterns. When you start thinking from first principles, a lot of things you might...
64: Constraints and consistency 🎲
People become great by being creative within the boundaries and persisting when others might quit.
63: Nobody cares 📵
Sometimes you will be out in the field, pushing the limits of expectation, on the verge of changing the world, and not a single soul will care. The masses often sleepwalk through innovation. You can only make great things if you’re willing to be ignored and unafraid of going...
62: The hard thing about hard work ⚒️
Brandon Sanderson is one of my favourite authors. If he writes something I’m going to eat it up. But not immediately. Because Brandon likes to write big beefy books that could double as self-defence weapons or stools for small cats. He writes a LOT. He recently surprised his entire...
61: It Sounds Better Over There 🎋
Whenever words are carried by saltine winds over vast expanses of water, they somehow gain the magical property of resonating clearer in our minds. This is why we seem to fall head over heels in love with wisdom from faraway lands. It explains our obsession with Ikigai. It’s why...
60: The Sum of our Parts 🧩
No one human knows how to make a pencil from scratch despite it seeming like a fundamentally basic thing - something every child can use. To construct something as simple as a pencil takes mining graphite, cutting wood, shaping metal, and figuring out whatever modern erasers are made out of....
59: Greener Grass
The Sword of Damocles has become synonymous with imminent danger and the threat of sudden calamity - but that’s only half the story, and perhaps the wrong half to focus on. If you’ve never heard of Damocles before, you’re in for a treat! The story of Damocles...
57: The Power of Impostors 👻
What the heck is an impostor anyway? Someone who is not supposed to be there. An impersonator. A copycat. A covert intelligence gatherer. Uninformed. Uninitiated. Uninvited. Maybe that’s you. It’s definitely me—but maybe there’s power in that. The ones who are different I am not supposed...
A Tree in the Woods
If the cameras turn off, do the Kardashians still exist? People are designing their lives and actions around black camera lenses, hoping that an audience will exist on the other side. People stand alone in rooms swinging their arms violently and making faces at the wall, because TikTok promises their...
56: Finding your passion 🔮
People spend their lives chasing passion. We have dreams of what life should be like. What it could be like, once we find the magic that's missing. We all want to get paid to do something we love. And we want to be paid well for it! To...
55: Almost Invisible 👻
We quickly get used to the sound of alarm bells. My smart watch keeps vibrating, every single hour, reminding me to stand up. I turned on the feature because I know sitting for too long is unhealthy. And when I say I know, I KNOW. I know it in my...
54: A glass half full 🥃
Is the glass half empty or half full? Apparently, your answer indicates whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist. I think that’s silly. It’s a question of orientation, not optimism. Are you picking it up or putting it down? What’s your motivation in the scene? Are...
The Advice Trap: How to Make Choices That Align with Your Goals
It's easy to fall for the trap of following universal advice. Some people say you should travel the world while you're young. Some say you should save fervently and funnel every penny into the stock market until you're 50. The practicality of such advice...
There's always someone better: How To Stay Ahead of The Pack
When I was 21 I remember feeling ahead for my age. But when I was 19 I felt woefully behind. I felt so behind that I dropped out of college and got a job working in China. When I tell people my age now, I often still get looks of...
Curate all the things: How to Take Control of What You Consume
A bazillion years ago, in the great library in Alexandria, you could find some cool books. You didn’t have ebooks, or newspapers, or a local library. If you wanted to read the best things humans had written down you would need to travel to one of these vast collections....
🎙️ 139: Why cities are now competing for nomads (ft. Sondre Rasch)
David speaks with Sondre Rasch, Co-founder and CEO of SafetyWing, a global social safety net for remote workers and companies. A natural entrepreneur, Sondre started selling server space in his early teens whilst playing MMORPGs. While most kids were focused on high school, at 14 he was already planning to...
🎙️ 138: Business Lessons from 20+ Years Online (feat. Neville Medhora)
David speaks with Neville Medhora, an expert copywriter, best-selling author of "This book will teach you how to write better", and founder of Copywriting Course and SwipeFile.com. Neville never set out to be a copywriter - it just kind of happened. He started out messing around with...
🎙️ 137: How You Can Feel More Alive in Your Work (feat. Michael Ashcroft)
David speaks with Michael Ashcroft, a writer and Alexander Technique teacher who previously spent 10 years consulting on clean energy innovation. A lot of Michael's work centres around helping people expand their awareness. He's written several essays and posts I've loved, particularly about the...
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