The Curious Engineer

A Learning a Day

2023–2026

1,394 posts

← 2019–2022

2026 304

October 2026

  1. Being a light
  2. Three things that annoy me about myself right now
  3. The invisible integration
  4. Things could always be worse
  5. Loyal to the absent
  6. Insight, not data. Clarity, not ideas.
  7. The process of giving feedback
  8. Even this will pass
  9. Put it down and stare
  10. Calm, tact, and humor
  11. Ten minutes now, two hundred minutes saved
  12. Accountability goes up, credit goes down
  13. Fear that keeps you alert
  14. Hermit mode
  15. Matching fidelity
  16. Millions of words
  17. Put it down and let your mind wander
  18. No need for a long answer
  19. Instructions before visiting Earth
  20. Divorced from success or achievements
  21. Health before wealth
  22. What you’re solving for
  23. Stopping the spiral
  24. Maybe life is trying to teach me something
  25. Fear that keeps you alert
  26. Container ship, leaky boat
  27. Three certainties beyond death and taxes
  28. Five a weekend
  29. What’s important to you is important to me
  30. Normal is a subculture
  31. The limits of optimizing

September 2026

  1. The tighter shoe
  2. Sitting with discomfort
  3. Boundaries
  4. Pick up one end, pick up the other
  5. Internal weather
  6. A high threshold for pain
  7. Attitude first
  8. YouTube in the restaurant
  9. Ready
  10. Get the logic right first
  11. Products and incentives
  12. First warning
  13. Beware the next club
  14. What you look for
  15. Beware saying never
  16. Two rings
  17. Snark at a time of need
  18. Seeking perspective, not validation
  19. His last adventure
  20. The same race
  21. Pigeon or statue
  22. The ant, the grasshopper, and the middle ground
  23. Good times, bad times
  24. Lighter, then a walk
  25. AI slop
  26. The business of life
  27. The Ealing Beaver project
  28. Light isn’t always evident
  29. Beware global scoreboards
  30. Extreme emotions

August 2026

  1. An exercise program for life, not Instagram
  2. Loose product-market fit
  3. Uni-context
  4. Spiky or broad
  5. More wisely
  6. Wisdom 2
  7. Grumpy Grumperson
  8. Always reaching, already enough
  9. Default alive
  10. Locations and drill bits
  11. Banff National Park
  12. The source of shame
  13. Epic Systems – the software that powers everything – American Healthcare Chronicles
  14. The Coopers
  15. On its own merits
  16. A natural
  17. Old phone
  18. No phone
  19. Tiredness
  20. Mismatched energies
  21. Inner strength
  22. Hard and valuable aren’t the same thing
  23. Trial run
  24. Yoho National Park
  25. Why switchbacks exist
  26. One step at a time
  27. The dust behind us
  28. Repeating the order
  29. No Wi-Fi in the room
  30. Don’t pave the cow path
  31. Jasper National Park

July 2026

  1. Airplanes and reality over expectations
  2. Two sides
  3. The tale of Blue Cross Blue Shield – American Healthcare Chronicles
  4. When the environment enables caring
  5. Checklist
  6. No false bravado
  7. Zion National Park
  8. The saddest evolution
  9. Master in the art of living
  10. Job Lock and Victor Fuchs – American Healthcare Chronicles
  11. Good vs. great product strategy
  12. Ask the person directly
  13. Be careful what you manifest
  14. Bryce Canyon National Park
  15. People and dots
  16. Would the younger me be proud?
  17. The $12,873 Six-Mile Ride – American Healthcare Chronicles
  18. Fix the problem you have
  19. Same amount of snow
  20. MCL sprain reflections
  21. Muscle memory and the big moment
  22. Slaying demons
  23. On immigration
  24. The Law That Made the ER America’s Doctor – American Healthcare Chronicles
  25. On mistakes
  26. Start with context
  27. The traffic ticket and why me
  28. Clutch
  29. Love is a verb
  30. Input vs. allergic reaction
  31. The Flexner Report – American Healthcare Chronicles

June 2026

  1. Coastal redwoods
  2. Retaining good talent
  3. Shift the momentum
  4. iPhone birth control
  5. An escape from the internet
  6. Worrying
  7. 488-40-6969A – American Healthcare Chronicles
  8. When typing is better than talking
  9. Bad and worse
  10. Why AI spending isn’t translating to results
  11. Channeling our dark sides
  12. The hard part
  13. It’s okay not to share
  14. Section 106 – American Healthcare Chronicles
  15. Quality and quantity
  16. The most productive use of this life
  17. When someone asks for your opinion
  18. It’s mostly vibes
  19. A sign of wisdom
  20. em-dashes
  21. The phone is a miracle device
  22. A lesson from the universe
  23. Getting rid of annoying habits
  24. Earn your stripes
  25. Maybe his back hurts
  26. A renewed phone and a good human
  27. Excuses
  28. The shipbuilder and the medical establishment – American Healthcare Chronicles
  29. Why change is hard
  30. Two questions to get unstuck

May 2026

  1. The cost of maintenance
  2. Games of impact vs. games of status
  3. In love with the process
  4. The desert Doctor who invented prepaid care – American Healthcare Chronicles
  5. People and our projections
  6. The lens of intent
  7. Next convenient milestone
  8. How to think – The Andy Grove story
  9. 7 days in the Thunderdome
  10. What got you here won’t get you there
  11. 10 percent cardio
  12. The Wartime Wage Freeze – American Healthcare Chronicles
  13. The culture of winning teams
  14. Dispensing with bad weather
  15. The impact we forget
  16. The impact of the shadow
  17. F1 to Rally
  18. Unpalatable envy
  19. Clearing our heads
  20. Right place, right time
  21. 18 years
  22. Doomporn, AI-native efficiency theater, and AI productivity kabuki
  23. Revisiting drivers of success – notes on privilege
  24. Won it the right way
  25. The informal org chart
  26. The first step of change
  27. The long game, always
  28. The 6:30am Rule
  29. Pick up the guitar
  30. Menace on the streets
  31. Artemis II fault tolerance

April 2026

  1. The person who passes the sentence
  2. On Burning Bridges
  3. Quadrant Two
  4. What you would buy
  5. The cost of an executive question
  6. Prediction markets
  7. Hiring hubris
  8. Excellence is never an accident
  9. Great possessions, few wants
  10. The 3 Dysfunctions of Executive Teams
  11. Getting busy on the proof
  12. Solar supercycle
  13. A few powerful charts
  14. Ancora Imparo
  15. Sam Walton’s Saturday morning meeting
  16. Relationship friction and making it explicit
  17. The Machine Tool You Haven’t Bought
  18. Indispensable meetings
  19. No diet wins
  20. Apo(B), Lp(a), and CHIP
  21. Sid on Cancer
  22. Foolish and stupid
  23. Wrong with the majority
  24. Brenda Frese
  25. Charlie Munger’s Investing Checklist
  26. Insecurities and permeability
  27. EV cost-per-mile math
  28. The Freedom Anton Chekhov Found
  29. Virtue attribution
  30. Sleep and the double whammy

March 2026

  1. Heinz duct tape
  2. Planck Knowledge vs. Chauffeur Knowledge
  3. Curiosity’s bad reputation
  4. VO2 max and the metric trap
  5. When self-preservation backfires
  6. Like a hand in a glove
  7. What the years teach
  8. Structure vs. People
  9. The mountain and the rocks
  10. Curiosity over frustration
  11. The cost of the smarts behind smart glasses
  12. Filler words
  13. Connecticut and the 1 kilometer effect
  14. V37
  15. Excellence as a habit
  16. The world’s deadliest animals
  17. Product Policy and the Two Gates
  18. Doomporn
  19. Optionality
  20. Payzen
  21. Nobody knows
  22. Say goodbye well
  23. Negotiate thoughtfully
  24. Do your best to get the ending right
  25. Evaluating an opportunity
  26. One person per week
  27. Explore broad with a view of your downside drivers
  28. The career exploration starting point
  29. Cold Comforts
  30. Hobbiton
  31. Fiordland National Park

February 2026

  1. Mount Cook / Aoraki National Park
  2. Mount Aspiring National Park
  3. Tongariro National Park
  4. Following the money
  5. Specialization and performance trajectories
  6. Systematic iteration
  7. Building a Morning Briefing with Claude Code
  8. Energy charts – Feb 2026
  9. Last day at LinkedIn
  10. Human computers
  11. Olympic National Park
  12. Death Valley National Park
  13. Joshua Tree National Park
  14. Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve
  15. Nagarhole (Kabini) National Park
  16. Yosemite National Park
  17. Manuel Antonio National Park
  18. Singalila National Park
  19. The Galactico strategy
  20. Stranger who made a mistake
  21. Default to Trust or Distrust
  22. Crazy Planet
  23. The Shingles vaccine and Dementia
  24. Giving better advice
  25. Skipping pageless
  26. Copernicus temperatures
  27. Goals and strategy
  28. Moltbook

January 2026

  1. Early 2026 Manchester United notes
  2. Do Fewer Things
  3. Internal weather
  4. Optimizing Phone Batteries
  5. Looking at the stars
  6. Sit-and-rise progress
  7. Moving from Evals to Eval Loops
  8. New Zealand – a few reflections
  9. Energy as Technology in 2026 – a few reflections
  10. Kind lies and unkind truths
  11. Unique and alone
  12. Reality doesn’t care if you agree
  13. How Will the Miracle Happen Today?
  14. Grace
  15. Stimulus and response
  16. Understanding your gut
  17. Reactions to stimulus
  18. Emotions, institutions, technology
  19. Fart walks
  20. Expected and bonus
  21. Pericles and Athena
  22. The three AI bets
  23. Regret and shots
  24. Wind chills
  25. Dashboard or pipes?
  26. Over-engineered
  27. Lakes and people
  28. Planetarium perspective
  29. Rabbits, stoats and second order consequences
  30. Opposite sides before the trenches
  31. Begin again

2025 367

December 2025

  1. What I’ll take with me from 2025
  2. What I want to leave behind in 2025
  3. The plums no one saw
  4. What’s your legacy?
  5. Fall in love with your new reality
  6. Everything will go south
  7. Take with you, and leave behind
  8. 10 questions – Annual Reflection 2025
  9. Be in the now
  10. Peripheral roles
  11. Curing autoimmune diseases
  12. No one wanted to get involved
  13. The Monks in the Casino
  14. Reference check follow up – the question
  15. Tell your users what changed
  16. Signing on the dotted line
  17. Velocity, then speed – without haste
  18. Teacher models and the demo-to-production gap
  19. Half-hearted engagement
  20. The graduate program and meritocracy
  21. Don’t skip that reference check
  22. To always be the opposite
  23. To get what you want
  24. Occam’s razor x biology retrospective
  25. Just because you can
  26. Ascribing Intent
  27. Giving a damn about the customer experience
  28. Lin-Manuel on both sides
  29. Exponential curves
  30. What it feels like
  31. Why me and why now

November 2025

  1. Action and clarity
  2. Warren Buffett’s letter – Thanksgiving 2025
  3. All it takes is for one to work out
  4. The people
  5. 2500 steps
  6. Rhyme or reason
  7. Finding what you’re looking for
  8. How you like or dislike an idea
  9. Infinitely easier to review and critique
  10. Things that were once hard
  11. Do it wrong – intentionally
  12. Soreness as a feature
  13. Social Print paper
  14. Lessons from MasterChef
  15. The Job Has Changed
  16. A massive jigsaw puzzle
  17. Knowing how to say no
  18. Answer to conundrums
  19. Body clock sync
  20. The validation trap
  21. Making the most of your gifts
  22. Architecture and how it defines us
  23. Insignificance
  24. Happiness
  25. Making career decisions
  26. A notch down on VO2 Max
  27. Consumption and doing stuff
  28. Action shows you what is real
  29. Spend less than you earn
  30. Whose cup are you filling

October 2025

  1. Arsene on Spurs
  2. Contrails
  3. Floss before brushing
  4. Everything is television
  5. Avoiding email scams – 3 tell-tale scams
  6. When you invest your love
  7. The Empty Quarter
  8. Wins and character
  9. Fueling the outcome, not the conflict
  10. Sickness and culmination
  11. Maintenance and showing up
  12. One step at a time
  13. If you get the chance
  14. The Power Tech stack
  15. Why we work
  16. Nonnas
  17. Caring about an idea
  18. Horizons of clarity
  19. AI isn’t replacing radiologists
  20. Jane Goodall
  21. Windfalls
  22. Life changing appreciation
  23. Luckier than we realize
  24. None of your business
  25. Dancing vs. emailing
  26. 3 reflections on careers – for high school students
  27. Oceans – Sir David Attenborough
  28. AI wave – the what and the how
  29. Stats on professional fighting
  30. Fooling yourself
  31. Transcribing audio

September 2025

  1. Junk in the pantry
  2. Electric shock vs. reflection
  3. Virality and extreme views
  4. New parent talk
  5. Crystal Hut
  6. How we wait
  7. Gimli
  8. Starting with hypotheses
  9. The idiot box and the reverse Flynn effect
  10. Unpacking the UK’s impressive road safety improvements
  11. Giving good advice
  12. Management and courage
  13. Sequence of steps
  14. Optimizing for convenience
  15. This might not work
  16. Growing up socially
  17. Waymo safety impact
  18. Does marriage have a future?
  19. Professional maturity
  20. Reduce, Reuse, don’t recycle
  21. Openness in any community or culture
  22. Seeking truth
  23. Showing the way
  24. Practice makes progress
  25. Immediate and urgent reaction
  26. The power of humor and gratitude
  27. Perception of competence
  28. The Effective Leadership test
  29. News experiment
  30. What if AI doesn’t get much better than this?

August 2025

  1. Habit change frustration
  2. Adaptive systems
  3. Dollars and ego
  4. Success
  5. Performance enhancing drug
  6. No man’s land
  7. The goal of the first attempt
  8. Hampton Inn
  9. Woz and smiles minus frowns
  10. Aligning behavior
  11. Painful lesson
  12. To love someone long-term
  13. A lesson in chemistry
  14. The go-karting reflection
  15. Sol Price and agency
  16. Fighting for our values
  17. Judgment
  18. Wisdom
  19. Kneeling isometric
  20. Preparing to leave
  21. Character and mood
  22. Ask for the why behind the advice
  23. Smartphones and social media x kids
  24. Awsom
  25. Prediction questions
  26. Experiencing consequences
  27. Unique Wimbledon decisions
  28. No mobile internet for 2 weeks
  29. Flounder mode
  30. Phytoplankton
  31. Gate of change

July 2025

  1. Conviction that matters
  2. Comparison and gratitude
  3. Certainty and clarity
  4. Speculation and focus
  5. Predicting when
  6. Bad jokes and senior leadership
  7. Bucket baths
  8. Brutal clarity
  9. The Courage to be Disliked
  10. Not one of ability, but of courage
  11. Bright spotlights and dim lights
  12. The courage to be normal
  13. Gemeinschaftsgefühl
  14. Vertical relationships and horizontal relationships
  15. Ateliology and Teleology
  16. Feeling of inferiority as a trigger
  17. The meaning we give experiences
  18. The Lemur’s Tough Life
  19. Async written communication
  20. The Costco Hot Dog
  21. William Kamkwamba
  22. A better solution to visa applications
  23. Failure conditions
  24. The values they discern
  25. A taste for saltwater
  26. Fructose to the liver
  27. Monkey bridge
  28. Charts – the Nat Bullard edition
  29. The fear of striking out
  30. AI news, narratives, and uneven distribution
  31. Soccer choices
  32. Geeking out on data on flights

June 2025

  1. Service costs aren’t exploding anymore
  2. Reducing toxins
  3. 40% for the first time since the 1940s
  4. To begin again
  5. Merging HR and Tech
  6. Exponential progress
  7. Sweet girl
  8. Emotions and the game
  9. Distraught on the air train
  10. Fortune
  11. Tailwinds and headwinds
  12. Anxiety symptoms and swimmers
  13. Discipline and systems
  14. The UPS driver in Yosemite
  15. Bad sights, good sights
  16. 99 not out
  17. So much of perspective
  18. Grinding out victories
  19. Rehashing the scars of the past
  20. ChatGPT
  21. Conviction and evidence
  22. Good Energy – from conviction to evidence
  23. The colon cancer study
  24. 1+1
  25. If come from inside you
  26. Removing the emotion to answer the question
  27. Cuts, soreness, and pain
  28. Agree or like
  29. Books and measure of success
  30. Battery indicator

May 2025

  1. Speaking and removing all doubt
  2. Nobody knows
  3. Near misses
  4. Good habits and spotty wifi
  5. Attitudes to hard work
  6. HBO Max and lemons
  7. Trust the quality of what you know
  8. Seeing the long-term consequences
  9. Balance good
  10. No exemption from one star reviews
  11. Two kinds of care
  12. The minimum workout
  13. Everyone talks their book
  14. 17 years
  15. Unresolved issues
  16. Trying your best
  17. Problem to be solved
  18. How to make good introductions
  19. Died rich
  20. AGI is here
  21. The wonder drug
  22. Linear and squiggly
  23. Liked or approved
  24. Easy and less valuable
  25. Responding to challenging circumstances
  26. King Richard
  27. Dr Fei-Fei Li
  28. Cleared to defy gravity
  29. Heading there
  30. Closing out a long and impactful run
  31. Not a robot – please do reply

April 2025

  1. The experience of being alive
  2. Fault vs. problem
  3. Mufasa
  4. Attaching our identity
  5. Who we pretend to be
  6. Heard at an executive offsite
  7. Grass on the other side
  8. Running the agenda
  9. Deep truths from deep nonsense
  10. Small things
  11. Not a pass and not a kick
  12. How people are really using Gen AI now
  13. That conversation
  14. Paying peanuts
  15. Creative uses of autopilot time
  16. Military genius
  17. Prof Daniel Kahneman
  18. Free checked bags
  19. The most effective retort
  20. The same trade-offs
  21. Our perception of an event
  22. The test from the Soul of the World
  23. The show must go on
  24. The transaction between storyteller and audience
  25. Here, we made this
  26. f (value, scale, speed)
  27. Being the best, giving your best
  28. To build vs. To destroy
  29. Trauma and our purposes
  30. Starbucks mobile app trade-offs
  31. Human nature x innovation – 2 steps forward, 1 step back

March 2025

  1. Tigers on the Rise
  2. Sprezzatura and Federer
  3. Moving intensely or getting randomized
  4. Firing the executive team
  5. Legalese and finding the simplicity
  6. Basketball games and differentiation
  7. BYD’s Super-E platform
  8. Our smartphones are making us dumber – in graphs
  9. Experience dividends
  10. When people get old
  11. 242 investors
  12. Careful what you wish for
  13. The Grant Study and connectedness
  14. V36
  15. Social identities and motivational interviewing
  16. Attuned to feedback
  17. The zen you find on mountaintops
  18. The non-existent popularity contest
  19. Took 12 years
  20. Momentum can deceive
  21. Ego and time
  22. Control and arguments
  23. That stretch of highway
  24. The Trial of Miles
  25. Speed to clarity
  26. Back up capacity and optimization
  27. Two week chunks
  28. Not an image, an experience
  29. Who owes you
  30. Growing in the gap
  31. Subtle effort

February 2025

  1. Exposure, knowledge, wisdom
  2. Successful conflict resolution
  3. The mental game
  4. Looping for understanding
  5. How to save youth sports
  6. Calm under extreme pressure
  7. Unfavorable reality and negative emotion
  8. Investments in yourself
  9. Propensity to document
  10. Mood and energy
  11. Luca on butter
  12. Continuous Glucose Monitor / CGM – 4 week reflections
  13. 5 or more priorities
  14. Easiest person to fool
  15. This is fine
  16. Rushing a decision
  17. Prioritization
  18. Understanding why you lost
  19. A game of errors
  20. Built to Move
  21. It’s just track
  22. The house on the hill
  23. Statue days
  24. The first step to having a successful conversation
  25. Footballer alchemy
  26. Flow vs. Overwhelmed
  27. Moen – from seeing to understanding
  28. Hard anti-sell

January 2025

  1. The main thing
  2. How to dramatically increase the impact we drive
  3. DeepSeek
  4. Determining the what from the how
  5. Built for discomfort
  6. Because reality is real
  7. Changing behavior – amending existing systems
  8. The simplicity beyond the complexity
  9. Finding creative solutions
  10. Acute problem that our users have
  11. CGM week 1 – 5 early notes
  12. As long as you do not stop
  13. Choosing discomfort
  14. Useful life and career advice
  15. Defining strategy
  16. Words are containers
  17. Barrells and ammunition
  18. Don’t ice those injuries
  19. When in doubt, reach for the candy
  20. How to get rich
  21. Helped, hugged, or heard
  22. Finding a way vs. Finding an excuse
  23. Don’t confuse the indicator for the outcome
  24. Chef Graham Elliot’s organization
  25. Cars as technology, us as technology
  26. How Innovation Works by Matt Ridley
  27. The Maasai Mara National Reserve
  28. Where the rats get in
  29. Learning – from the many to the few
  30. The Aggregation of Marginal Gains
  31. 2024 – 3 reflections

2024 366

December 2024

  1. The sea squirt
  2. Dis-moi ce que tu manges
  3. Serengeti National Park
  4. 17 intense years later
  5. Energy – moving from commodity to technology
  6. The M720 Bluetooth pairing solve
  7. Sit-and-Rise test
  8. 10 questions – Annual Reflection 2024
  9. Ngorongoro Conservation Area
  10. On letting fires burn
  11. Multiplayer game
  12. Tackle the monkey first
  13. Quality of life and envy
  14. Made it and not made it
  15. Decision points
  16. Making decisions as my future self
  17. Tarangire National Park
  18. Same outcome, different emotions
  19. Better at being better
  20. Stay on the bus
  21. 5 exchanges
  22. Acute and valuable
  23. The nature of growth
  24. All we have to decide
  25. Over and underestimates
  26. We live on 1/4
  27. The pursuit of happyness
  28. The night sky
  29. The stars
  30. Not within but between
  31. Deliberate play instead of deliberate practice

November 2024

  1. The no with confidence
  2. Meeting online
  3. If Nolan calls
  4. Rafa that
  5. Thinking like an AI
  6. Metabolic syndrome
  7. Autonomous cars
  8. Dealing with challenges
  9. China grid progress
  10. Creating focus
  11. Strength and shadow
  12. Bouncebackability
  13. Good Energy by Casey Means
  14. Cell phone usage and lower grades
  15. Soreness
  16. Essence of perspective
  17. Vorfreude
  18. If it needs to be redone
  19. Who invented the computer?
  20. Buying sneakers – 2 lessons
  21. Diet and metabolism – 16 reflections
  22. Shit umbrella
  23. Non linear
  24. The small things
  25. The lesson, not the event
  26. Sauerkraut and scurvy
  27. Zorro – the Roborock S7
  28. Trust the system on acute issues, ignore it on chronic issues
  29. Candle or the mirror
  30. No silver bullet

October 2024

  1. Water tight funnel
  2. Getting unstuck in the organization
  3. Homo prospectus
  4. Glp 1
  5. Linear to exponential
  6. Transforming feedback to actionable insight
  7. Pitching to excite
  8. Size of a person
  9. The Gas tank arrow
  10. Without Sam
  11. Two health unlocks
  12. Donna Kalil
  13. Battle eagerness
  14. The metronome
  15. Potato prejudice
  16. An emotional intelligence level marker
  17. Making friends with patience and progress
  18. 3 catch ups ago
  19. Brackish groundwater to drinking water
  20. Change and momentum
  21. Fighting for principles
  22. Dealing with potentially sticky situations
  23. Taking for granted
  24. A ULEZ side effect
  25. Nuclear and the cost of not learning
  26. Rise to and fall to
  27. Workout quality
  28. What is
  29. Problem statement
  30. Q&A with Charlie Munger
  31. ETH – when there is a doubt

September 2024

  1. MKBHD’s app and Om’s post – a few reflections
  2. The Green Revolution and Ammonia
  3. Silver bullet
  4. Unconscious weight
  5. The wealth we ultimately seek
  6. An autobiography in 5 chapters
  7. Mud huts and Malaria
  8. Reducing our microplastic externalities
  9. Subtract
  10. The nature of innovation
  11. “Kids these days”
  12. Removing all doubt
  13. Good life unlock
  14. Charts and cause and effect
  15. Pearl Kendrick and Grace Eldering
  16. Wishing for optimism
  17. The 50-50 opportunity retro
  18. Strawberry intelligence
  19. Big car externalities
  20. James Earl Jones
  21. The Boys in the Boat
  22. The Trouble with Friends
  23. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
  24. Tune ups and values
  25. Specialized and diversified
  26. Recurring check on recurring payments
  27. Vandals and bigger accidents
  28. Agri-PV
  29. When positive becomes negative
  30. Rule of thirds

August 2024

  1. Painful or powerful
  2. Wanting the struggle
  3. Hope and observation
  4. Don’t believe your own hype
  5. Communication – outcomes vs. outputs
  6. The Equinix residual heat solution
  7. Posting and boasting
  8. The Vanguard move
  9. Not answer, just ask
  10. Relentlessly solution oriented
  11. What the Olympics teach us about excellence
  12. Dissatisfaction and satisfaction
  13. Bike rack mistake reflections
  14. How infrastructure works by Deb Chachra
  15. Robert Shiller and the library
  16. We struck gold
  17. The backwards law
  18. Just to kinda set the tone
  19. Age and mastery assumptions
  20. Broken records
  21. The 400m race
  22. What advertising sells
  23. Temporary
  24. Sinegal
  25. The rock bottom trampoline
  26. Clarity of thought
  27. Electric mountain – the Dinorwig power station
  28. Unhelpful differentiation
  29. Wanton way
  30. Facing an elephant
  31. Competence, excellence, and greatness

July 2024

  1. On Product shills and policy
  2. Maintenance schedule
  3. Instant Ink
  4. A few lessons
  5. Belief
  6. Storms
  7. Just say it like that
  8. Unexpected sources
  9. The fisherwoman and her friend
  10. Fires and fresh grass
  11. What was and what could have been
  12. Roses
  13. Moments of clarity
  14. Schwab
  15. LensRental box inspiration
  16. Some of those details
  17. Nomophobia
  18. Water – friend and enemy
  19. A lot of mistakes
  20. Appropriate loading
  21. Managing money – the equations that matter
  22. Caterpillar invasion
  23. Having everything
  24. Clarity
  25. Who they are supposed to be
  26. Extraordinary results and our pain threshold
  27. Die with zero
  28. Eduardo
  29. The law of squeaky wheels
  30. Lauterbrunnen valley
  31. Caring deeply, not caring too much

June 2024

  1. Kindergarten teachers
  2. Natural gas
  3. Use them longer
  4. Learning from stand-up comedians
  5. Economies of scale and cautionary tales
  6. Stress and ignoring things
  7. Motion and emotion
  8. Demons
  9. Widening roads
  10. A simple way to brighten up today
  11. The true cost of something isn’t just on the price tag
  12. Patience
  13. All you have to do is look
  14. 6 photographers, 1 man
  15. The Ikea toolbox
  16. Two questions
  17. Outcome, optimizations, and measures
  18. Not what but how
  19. Gift and grit
  20. Don’t fish in muddy waters
  21. The excuse and extenuating circumstance
  22. Young and Old
  23. Frustration as a sign
  24. The Marubo tribe and the internet
  25. Dealing with change
  26. Allergic reactions
  27. Angry denial
  28. One garment at a time
  29. A simple rule of thumb with sports
  30. Mixed bag reflections

May 2024

  1. Deal friends, Fun friends, Real friends
  2. The breakthrough
  3. Insider home decor discounts and satisficing
  4. The Algebra of Wealth by Scott Galloway – reflections
  5. Getting things wrong this time
  6. Going low, going high
  7. Simple advice
  8. Analyzing mistakes – science and art
  9. Asymmetrical upside and downside risk
  10. Past the boundary
  11. Mastery
  12. Energy transition – daily intermittency and Texas
  13. Delay between negative actions and consequences
  14. Credit and character
  15. Writing on the inside of the ring
  16. Debate best practice
  17. Afog
  18. Productive disagreements
  19. 16 years
  20. Chirping
  21. Wanting what you’ve got
  22. A time we never knew
  23. Paradise and going soft
  24. The ordeal paradox
  25. Swinging at every pitch
  26. Buying a home – 3 notes
  27. Others
  28. Scar for happiness
  29. On anger, trust, criticism
  30. Shinise and debt
  31. Fear

April 2024

  1. Two kinds of homeowners
  2. Battery capacity – an exponential transition in the works
  3. 78 years and learning
  4. What did you hear me say
  5. Trade-off honesty
  6. Pigeons and statues
  7. The Observatory
  8. Spannungsbogen
  9. Hungers and stretched minds
  10. Wabi-sabi
  11. Sourest lemon
  12. The other end of the stick
  13. Alarm clock
  14. Was it good
  15. Twenty slots
  16. Speed of degradation
  17. This game vs. which game
  18. Attitude reflects leadership
  19. NBA shots and optimization
  20. The Multiplayer game that isn’t
  21. Stress and the mind’s direction
  22. Write it to debate it
  23. Perplexity
  24. Songs, aspirations, reflections
  25. Gaining perspective – 2 activities
  26. Reactive and proactive language
  27. Near-miss
  28. Losing perspective – two signs
  29. Just a little more
  30. The three decisions

March 2024

  1. Prepared to appreciate
  2. Unplug
  3. Learning from experts
  4. When it is never enough
  5. Reframing the job
  6. Machinery skills
  7. Breaking Bad and slippery slopes
  8. One thing
  9. Level of taste
  10. Unreasonable progress
  11. Solving for the broader whole
  12. Potential
  13. Reflections from an injury
  14. V35
  15. Correspondingly huger mistakes
  16. Worry, sorry, joy
  17. Arm circles backward
  18. When a habit becomes so
  19. The biggest problem solving challenge
  20. Downward bumps
  21. Noah highlights – others, doomscrolling, climate, and toward a shallower future
  22. Smart work, hard work
  23. Quality time, quantity time
  24. Learning imprint
  25. Overalls and work
  26. Hitched to everything else
  27. Sideways x priorities
  28. Downhill skiing – a few reflections
  29. Self-confidence
  30. Paths to payoff
  31. Reviewing a pitch/presentation

February 2024

  1. The black belt and white belt
  2. Incentives, then context
  3. Whether or not to accept reality
  4. Safety capacity
  5. Painful trade-offs
  6. Fast Car
  7. The most valuable result of all education
  8. The ensue bucket
  9. Against the wind
  10. Same as Ever by Morgan Housel
  11. Over a bump
  12. The opposite of “sorry folks“
  13. Review and Criticize vs. Build
  14. Anecdotes and measurement
  15. Recirculator pump
  16. Ego 2
  17. Most people won’t
  18. Thrift
  19. A balm for our souls
  20. The wrong map and the wrong game
  21. And whether or not it is clear to you
  22. 3 liters
  23. Greener grass
  24. Days and moments
  25. Elevators and stairs – two approaches to building habits
  26. Great choice, doesn’t work
  27. Wrestling with the great temptation
  28. Learning catalysts
  29. Avoiding ruts

January 2024

  1. Science to art to spiritual nature
  2. The up and down guarantee
  3. Internal weather
  4. Emotions and levers
  5. Counting sit ups
  6. Appealing to logic
  7. The match trick
  8. Make more vs. manage better
  9. Quick fix on the Oregon coast
  10. Costco on Acquired – a few reflections
  11. When failures are stepping stones
  12. Blisters and mountains
  13. Between poses
  14. Differentiating unease
  15. Bottled water is a great way to eat plastic
  16. 4 topics I wish we’d cover in school
  17. Raising a plant
  18. Communicate vs. Perform
  19. Knowing when you have it good
  20. The way you think about pain
  21. Discipline
  22. The arc of clarity
  23. Confusing a satisfying story with a meaningful one
  24. Never rush a hire
  25. 3 reflections on marriage
  26. Rich and famous
  27. Why to what to who to when and how
  28. What you taught vs. how you taught
  29. Leadership and humor
  30. All about the reminders
  31. Life principles v4.0

2023 357

December 2023

  1. Moving goalposts
  2. Internal instability for external stability
  3. Perfect and wonderful
  4. Stories are made together
  5. How we achieved
  6. The suffering antidote
  7. Listening, trust, and video calls
  8. 10 questions – Annual Reflection 2023
  9. Clarity of vision
  10. Making the most of holidays with family/friends
  11. Walking into a glass door
  12. 1940 to now
  13. Vision lock
  14. Getting credit
  15. Exile
  16. Broken down
  17. Attempting to learn something everyday
  18. The Choluteca bridge
  19. Risk
  20. Three phases of good documents
  21. Wealth, measurement, achievement
  22. Framed in new ways
  23. Agreeing with the what
  24. Fan vs. Critic
  25. Wenn schon, denn schon
  26. As they go along
  27. Dear Unknown
  28. Brown skin girl
  29. What they seem from afar
  30. Not about being liked
  31. What you can see

November 2023

  1. The upfront-flexible-judgment loop
  2. Small things and big things
  3. Who don’t and what shouldn’t
  4. Exponential advances
  5. 3 reflections on friendships
  6. Strategy games and choices
  7. Un channeled thoughts
  8. Fastest run, every run
  9. What we do not use
  10. Clarity and energy
  11. The Performance Paradox
  12. Munger’s notes for career success
  13. When things go as per plan
  14. Credit and character
  15. Understanding strategy and culture
  16. Definition of insanity
  17. Competence and character
  18. The home printer that works
  19. Perfect, mistakes, superheroes and saints
  20. Real-time reporting
  21. Amateur
  22. Things to teach
  23. Give what we’re lacking
  24. When learning happens
  25. The post COVID travel backlog
  26. Said right now
  27. Extraordinary lives
  28. The story of the Michelin Guide
  29. On mistakes and enthusiasm
  30. Emergency fund horizons

October 2023

  1. Michelin 3 stars and National Parks
  2. Workouts – making changes, making space
  3. A life success metric
  4. Measurement duality
  5. The learning question
  6. Short cuts and debts
  7. Emotions from any given day
  8. Sun perspectives
  9. Reflections after ending a ~2.5 year run of intermittent fasting
  10. Learning from others’ mistakes
  11. Less
  12. Good leadership, bad leadership
  13. What have you shipped
  14. Those who say it cannot be done
  15. Unpacking a breakdown
  16. Consistency
  17. Beckham
  18. Un-becoming
  19. Age and the past
  20. Imagination suffering
  21. The hundred and first blow
  22. Wu-wei and mindful investing
  23. Outlive by Peter Attia
  24. Add vs. Uncover
  25. Moments of joy
  26. Tall trees
  27. The train, intentions, and forgiveness
  28. Shaped by optimists
  29. A plan and not quite enough time
  30. What are the trade-offs
  31. Our family does X

September 2023

  1. Joy and thank you
  2. Character and leadership
  3. The emergency room
  4. On forgiveness
  5. Narrative and numbers
  6. Grand Teton National Park
  7. Maximizing physical effort per action
  8. Worldspace
  9. Mental strength
  10. Temper and what I’m not ready to hear
  11. Please and thank you
  12. Success and self deprecating humor
  13. Medicine 2.0 to 3.0
  14. Face-to-face and side-by-side
  15. Patterns and learning
  16. Recognizing the need for space
  17. Worrisome stomach aches
  18. The meeting credo
  19. Identifying a thief
  20. Two homes
  21. Optimizations and comfort zones
  22. As good or as bad
  23. The pull approach to new habits
  24. Marinate
  25. Characteristics of conversations
  26. Playing different (stupider) games
  27. Sports and drama
  28. The Murphy Bed
  29. Normalizing adversity
  30. The sweetest bread

August 2023

  1. Course correct
  2. The Big Bang hypothesis
  3. Replacing unhelpful thoughts
  4. The 75% guideline
  5. Never making mistakes
  6. Time horizons and goals
  7. From sand to rocks
  8. Level of equanimity
  9. What makes you happy
  10. The inner game – changing how I teach and thus learn
  11. Connection requests and follow ups
  12. Progress and linearity
  13. Sleep brainwashing
  14. Taking the top fifteen decisions out
  15. Don’t swing at every pitch
  16. Promotions
  17. The passage of time
  18. Positive reviews only
  19. Everything – is Kung Fu
  20. Ambition and energy
  21. Sudden passing
  22. A good deal
  23. Changing how we behave
  24. Regularly scheduled de-cluttering
  25. Uncomfortable conversations
  26. Productivity, goals and dreams
  27. Getting into a good habit
  28. Listening to learn
  29. Giannis and hard earned insight
  30. Goldfish

July 2023

  1. Yellowstone National Park
  2. Timing the market
  3. The true cost of owning something
  4. Doing hard things
  5. The will not engage list
  6. Flawed framing
  7. 6 things – the Exponential view and optimism
  8. You’re probably right
  9. Long term devices
  10. Test of principles
  11. Profound mastery of a basic skill set
  12. Percentage of choices – privilege indicators
  13. Highest RoI forms of therapy
  14. Search share
  15. Energy efficiency – in cars and ourselves
  16. The best fights
  17. When you can’t tell what you desperately need
  18. Twice as hard to annoy
  19. Will this matter
  20. Orchestras and power
  21. Occam’s razor in relationships
  22. Flustered
  23. Specialist styles and strengths
  24. Stimuli and wisdom
  25. Small goal posts and simple shots
  26. Some days you’re the driver
  27. Boundaries and priorities
  28. Lemonade enthusiasm
  29. Choice and perspective
  30. Simple and opinionated

June 2023

  1. To carry or not to carry
  2. Share wifi password
  3. Home conditions
  4. An org chart from the 1300s
  5. The more you take
  6. To the person we want to become
  7. Slow info diet
  8. Mixed bag
  9. Minor discomforts
  10. When to not over correct
  11. 13 lessons from thousands of notes on marriage
  12. 3 observations about corporate politics
  13. Order confirmations
  14. The manager mantra
  15. Extreme POVs
  16. Fishing in muddy waters
  17. Side effect of unpleasant experiences
  18. Inevitable change, optional growth
  19. Roofs in Pompeii
  20. Adults and rulers
  21. It could be better and worse
  22. Sbu
  23. Invisible products
  24. Short run motivation
  25. Bungling an apology
  26. Last pre-K dropoff
  27. Peace
  28. Fixing the map
  29. Consistency and inertia

May 2023

  1. On forgiveness
  2. Grand Canyon National Park
  3. The sedimentary rock
  4. The bent tree
  5. No guarantees
  6. An org chart from the 1300s
  7. The Invitation
  8. Step back to step forward
  9. Markets – how they create and take away value
  10. Schedule it or shelve it
  11. The 3 bedder
  12. An hour before 9
  13. Perspective isn’t given
  14. Driving change like water
  15. The most challenging issues
  16. No right decision
  17. The debts always come due
  18. Generative AI as productivity technology
  19. Keeping the friction
  20. Your ruler
  21. 15 years
  22. Insight about what matters to us
  23. The public endorsement
  24. Language and culture
  25. April Site stats report
  26. The hardest kind of honesty
  27. The future and the present
  28. Better
  29. Choosing what to be stupid about
  30. Saying things you think you cannot say
  31. Emergent priorities

April 2023

  1. Incentives and intent
  2. Empathy from experience
  3. Asking am I happy
  4. Workouts and discomfort
  5. The 30 feet rule
  6. Feedback – both sensitive and numb
  7. 3 questions to get unstuck with a group
  8. Quick fixes and systemic changes
  9. Difficult moments and defining ourselves
  10. Compass, not a map
  11. Ithaka
  12. Define success and constraints
  13. Acting to thinking
  14. Even this I get to experience
  15. Me vs. who they think I am
  16. System thinker muscles
  17. Paint reality, give hope
  18. Spoon fed – a few reflections
  19. Disneyland – a few reflections
  20. Events and experiences
  21. Reasons to complain
  22. The real competition is the water
  23. Voting with their feet and rooftops
  24. Comparison of one state with another
  25. Motion is lotion
  26. Getting to the easy stuff

March 2023

  1. Fitness, resilience, constructiveness, and perspective
  2. Relaxation and reservoirs of speed
  3. Sitting with problems
  4. The world map
  5. Vocal exercises
  6. Aligning groups
  7. The cost of being great at something
  8. Culture can’t be taught
  9. The darker the sky
  10. Satya on careers and leadership
  11. The two sentence summary
  12. V34
  13. At the very edge of chaos
  14. Remembering the styrofoam cup
  15. The answer to more productive relationships
  16. Paid not to understand
  17. Planning travel with ChatGPT
  18. One way to think about magic
  19. The fence and fire
  20. Instant perspective and reminders
  21. You get what you tolerate
  22. Risk taking and millionaires
  23. Being hyper aware of what to avoid
  24. The best bottles
  25. Modern loneliness
  26. The one armed judo champion
  27. Enthusiasm and optimism
  28. Great cultures
  29. Keeping a sense of humor

February 2023

  1. Seriously but not literally
  2. 95% Mentality
  3. Responsibility and accountability
  4. So… I’ve thought a lot about this
  5. Wealth – not what one has
  6. Persistence and determination
  7. Hard to listen
  8. Potential learning and learning
  9. Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara
  10. Stepping on my glasses
  11. Sitzfleish
  12. How well you bounce
  13. Putting the restaurant first
  14. The constructive feedback playbook
  15. Emergent priorities
  16. Failure and systems
  17. Praise and criticism – 3 guidelines
  18. Brave and afraid
  19. The system you work on or with
  20. Building good habits – in shorthand
  21. Easy come, easy go
  22. Negative feelings -> learning -> action
  23. Attitude reflect leadership
  24. 300 to 3
  25. Naming your problem
  26. Conflict
  27. Walking into a dark room
  28. Why double opt in intros matter

January 2023

  1. Consistently good enough
  2. I’m blue to I’m good
  3. The voice of the gut
  4. Bare necessities
  5. Grace periods
  6. Short term messy
  7. Babysitter or parent
  8. The energy impact
  9. The sideways day
  10. Breaking existing patterns of thought
  11. Gratitude and the circle of influence
  12. Landing a message on-the-fly
  13. The voice of conscience
  14. Changeless and change
  15. The Cory Muscara thread
  16. The 7 Habits again and less is more
  17. Standards
  18. “Tell them I’ll fix this”
  19. Change and the 2 questions
  20. Reflecting on Messi and Mbappe
  21. Don’t aim for the moon
  22. When the best leaders walk into a room
  23. Why did it take so long?
  24. The extreme weather side-by-side
  25. Maturity
  26. The 3 year exercise construction project
  27. LinkedIn jobseeking experience feedback
  28. Analyzing the Southwest meltdown
  29. To understand boundaries
  30. You don’t belong here
  31. Doing the simple things
  32. The first 10 versions

← 2019–2022