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....
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 achieve the...
48: Death of a Cartographer 🌊
What if I told you that nearly every island in Polynesia was discovered without maps or compasses by men in canoes who navigated by the stars?
45: A guide for better gifts
How to give the best gifts to your past, present and future selves.
43: Searching for easy answers
Pattern-matching and robust thinking are more important than tactics and abstraction.
42: How to fail exquisitely
How to give the best gifts to your past, present and future selves.
Using the Power of Old Ideas to Make New Discoveries
Everyone wants to be first. Our competitive and status-seeking nature drives us to chase the novel. We want new experiences. We want to make fresh discoveries. When it comes to learning, despite being frequently frustrated at how little we know, it is important to remember that there is no expectation...
15 unconventional lessons about life, money, and success
I spent half a decade at one of the biggest corporate law firms in the world. The kind where equity partners make a couple mill per year. Here are 15 unconventional lessons I learned about life, money, and success: Don't wait to be happy. Your satisfaction won't be unlocked by...
Why You Should Rekindle Your Creative Spirit
From a young age, we all naturally gravitate towards art . We scribble, draw, and paint - even if it’s just to make a mess. Art is something children do instinctively. Since humanity’s primal ages we’ve made art. Faces on clay vases. Stick figures on cave walls. It’...
Breaking the Cycle of Bad Habits: How to Rewire Your Brain
We're the sum of our choices. Every decision we make is a vote for the person we want to be. Here's how you optimise your choices and actions to do work with lasting impact: Guard your attention closely. People say time is money but most of them don't act like...
🎙The Art of AI with Alex Fefegha
David speaks with Alex Fefegha, the co-founder and principal director at COMUZI. This episode was two or three years in the making, and it was definitely worth it. Alex Fefegha works at the intersection of design, programming, speculative fiction, and art, expressing societal challenges and exposing the technology systems that...
The Art of Scratching Itches: How to Identify and Solve Problems for Profit
Someone once said it takes money to make money. They lied. By the time I was 12 I’d mastered the art of making money appear from thin air. I started by selling my lunch. Item by item. The sandwich my mum made me, a pack of crisps, and a...