Active Recall!

Podcasts, videos, and iPad art

iPad and MacBook shared clipboard

Just testing out a workflow…

I can draw things in Notes on my iPad and then use the shared clipboard to paste right into the Mac. AirDrop was fast but the shared clipboard is just that much less friction.

UntitledImage

Just testing this out but I also practiced some stick figures this morning.

Notecard

This will be the fastest way for me to share sketches and things like that. Which I do want to do here.

The Notepod #12: Reading List April 2021

Going through some recently finished and in-progress books.

Just writing out a list of different books I’ve been reading with some thoughts.

Recently finished

  • Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich — I got more interested in crypto/blockchain through NBA Top Shot and the NFT boom. I had some Bitcoin already, but NFT popularity made me realize how little I know about how it all works. This ended up only having high level explanations of Bitcoin. But the whole story of the Winklevoss twins’ second act was fascinating.
  • Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson — Great read the week leading up to getting married. There’s plenty about getting wealthy, but the happiness chapters were more timely. The audiobook was my companion on a couple long walks in the city. If you want to mainline some of Naval’s thinking, then this is the way to go.

In-progress

  • Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa — Still working on this. I started it in December and just crossed the halfway mark. About 450 pages to go. Somewhat slow going but getting very interesting now. Good reminder to lean into things I might not enjoy but that I’ll learn a lot from.
  • The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo — Continuing to learn mode about crypto/blockchain technology. This book is about the history of Ethereum, which is the main coin involved in the recent NFT a boom. The only history I know of Ethereum is that I wish I had bought some earlier. Just started this but one takeaway is that Vitalik Buterin started by writing for Bitcoin Magazine before building Ethereum.
  • Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr — Mostly here to learn about Amazon’s use of narrative writing instead of PowerPoints. (After seeing @TrungTPhan mention it in this thread.)
  • The Energy Paradox by Steven R. Gundry — I want to get my energy back. Basically: I can rarely stay awake through a full movie after a workday. And when I’m up I just don’t have any, as the book puts it, get-up-and-go (GUAG). I’ve felt better in the past and would love to get back to that.
  • Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the VCR by James Lardner — Combining some learnings from last year’s books (1) I enjoy reading older books about some recent technology (like Michael Lewis’s Next) because it’s fun to re-live that time without it being filtered through a modern lens and (2) I enjoy reading about Hollywood/filmmaking (one of my favorites from last year was Robert Rodiguez’s Rebel Without a Crew).

Next up (maybe… there’s a ton I want to read)

  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez — Continuing the pattern of learning about crypto, I saw this book recommended somewhere. I really should’ve written down where I saw the recommendation because I’ve completely forgot now. Anyway, this is pretty much combining three thoughts: (1) I want to learn more about crypto/blockchain technology and (2) Musashi reminds me that I should read more fiction and (3) I admire Tiago Forte’s thinking and he wrote about the value of reading science fiction.

    Tiago: “I started reading sci-fi to pass the time. I had good memories of reading Jurassic Park as a kid. I continued because I noticed that it gave me something: a stronger imagination, a disrespect for the merely possible.”

  • Two Meals a Day by Mark Sisson — Trying to get my health back in order (I wrote a long post here). I have more information than I need for my goals but reading books does help keep motivation up. And I can try to share good bits and pieces to better frame my own learning and writing.
  • Soundtracks by Jon Acuff — I enjoyed all his previous books. I’m guessing I’ll like this one as well. I tend to overthink so this seemed like something that might help me either (1) stop overthinking or (2) start overthinking in a more useful way.

 

Reading list for April 8, 2021

Just writing out a list of different books I’ve been reading with some thoughts.

Recently finished

  • Bitcoin Billionaires by Ben Mezrich — I got more interested in crypto/blockchain through NBA Top Shot and the NFT boom. I had some Bitcoin already, but NFT popularity made me realize how little I know about how it all works. This ended up only having high level explanations of Bitcoin. But the whole story of the Winklevoss twins’ second act was fascinating.
  • Almanack of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson — Great read the week leading up to getting married. There’s plenty about getting wealthy, but the happiness chapters were more timely. The audiobook was my companion on a couple long walks in the city. If you want to mainline some of Naval’s thinking, then this is the way to go.

In-progress

  • Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa — Still working on this. I started it in December and just crossed the halfway mark. About 450 pages to go. Somewhat slow going but getting very interesting now. Good reminder to lean into things I might not enjoy but that I’ll learn a lot from.
  • The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo — Continuing to learn mode about crypto/blockchain technology. This book is about the history of Ethereum, which is the main coin involved in the recent NFT a boom. The only history I know of Ethereum is that I wish I had bought some earlier. Just started this but one takeaway is that Vitalik Buterin started by writing for Bitcoin Magazine before building Ethereum.
  • Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr — Mostly here to learn about Amazon’s use of narrative writing instead of PowerPoints. (After seeing @TrungTPhan mention it in this thread.)
  • The Energy Paradox by Steven R. Gundry — I want to get my energy back. Basically: I can rarely stay awake through a full movie after a workday. And when I’m up I just don’t have any, as the book puts it, get-up-and-go (GUAG). I’ve felt better in the past and would love to get back to that.
  • Fast Forward: Hollywood, the Japanese, and the Onslaught of the VCR by James Lardner — Combining some learnings from last year’s books (1) I enjoy reading older books about some recent technology (like Michael Lewis’s Next) because it’s fun to re-live that time without it being filtered through a modern lens and (2) I enjoy reading about Hollywood/filmmaking (one of my favorites from last year was Robert Rodiguez’s Rebel Without a Crew).

Next up (maybe… there’s a ton I want to read)

  • Daemon by Daniel Suarez — Continuing the pattern of learning about crypto, I saw this book recommended somewhere. I really should’ve written down where I saw the recommendation because I’ve completely forgot now. Anyway, this is pretty much combining three thoughts: (1) I want to learn more about crypto/blockchain technology and (2) Musashi reminds me that I should read more fiction and (3) I admire Tiago Forte’s thinking and he wrote about the value of reading science fiction.

    Tiago: “I started reading sci-fi to pass the time. I had good memories of reading Jurassic Park as a kid. I continued because I noticed that it gave me something: a stronger imagination, a disrespect for the merely possible.”
  • Two Meals a Day by Mark Sisson — Trying to get my health back in order (I wrote a long post here). I have more information than I need for my goals but reading books does help keep motivation up. And I can try to share good bits and pieces to better frame my own learning and writing.
  • Soundtracks by Jon Acuff — I enjoyed all his previous books. I’m guessing I’ll like this one as well. I tend to overthink so this seemed like something that might help me either (1) stop overthinking or (2) start overthinking in a more useful way.

The “before” story (aka before I hopefully manage to shed some of this fat)

I guess this will be an experiment in learning in public. And public accountability and all that. I started buying a few nutrition books and am going to get back to kettlebells. But first, a quick Q&A on this…

  • Why are you trying to lose this weight?

I got married last weekend (4/3/21) and had an amazing time. Looking back at the photos this week, I could see the amazing time very clearly. What wasn’t clear was my jawline.

  • Wait, aren’t you supposed to diet leading up too the wedding?

I won’t do the “no excuses but blah blah blah”.

I’ll just point out my excuses: got a puppy so I was sleep deprived in jan, bronchitis for in feb, stress leading up to the wedding, and 25 days of travel (SF -> NYC) in March

The wedding was wonderful and it was great coming home to our (much larger) dog. It was all worth it, but I’d love to have skipped the bronchitis. Especially the few days before testing negative where I was definitely sure it was COVID.

  • Wait, couldn’t you have worked out and still watched what you ate during all of that?

Yes, that’s why they’re excuses and not actual good reasons.

But here we are!

  • What’s the actual output goal?

It’s tied to another wedding. In August, I’m officiating my wife’s cousin’s wedding. I’d like to look better and feel healthier for that.

The goal is 150 lbs by August 1. So it’d be trying to lose 20 pounds in 17 weeks. I’d say the first few pounds is travel bloat that can come off somewhat quick then I’ll be trying to lose a pound a week.

It’s a bit of a stretch but maybe if I blog about it then it’ll help me get there…

I’m at an age now where I really mean that feeling good is just as important (and not just something to say to not seem vain). I just haven’t felt healthy this year.

  • What motivated this?

As mentioned, wedding photos.

Then Naval, in a way.

One of my favorite things to do when we lived there was walk around Central Park and listen to audiobooks and podcasts.

I got a chance to do that a couple times during the wedding trip, so I listened to the Navalmanack.

It reminded me of one of my favorite tweets about happiness:

A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought – they must be earned.

We’ve got a good start to the house full of love.

I overthink and have work to do on having a calmer mind.

But the one that’s a disaster right now is “a fit body”.

Hearing that during a long walk and realizing how rare it became for me to have that level of activity was a slight epiphany moment. Or a rain check on the epiphany moment which I’m cashing in now. I wasn’t going to pass up indulging a bit (ok, a lot) with my family and best friends in the city for the event.

  • And what else?

Writing this reminded me of Tim Ferriss writing about putting health first in Tools of Titans

I’m currently typing this at 1:55am so I should go to sleep soon. I’m also typing it on my phone in bed (without my blue blockers on, drat!) so I should work on my sleep hygiene.

  • Whats the general approach going to be?

Food-wise: It’ll probably look paleo-ish. Still working this out, but I’ve started cutting sugar and grains. Only in the past few years did I start to always look for something sweet after meals.

I’ve done paleo with very good compliance before. I always joke is that the worst thing is that it works so well. I definitely felt my best doing it. But it comes with knowing that my favorite foods to eat are also the least healthy.

I’ll do more cooking. One of my favorite fitness re-frames comes from “Fat Loss Happens on Mondays”: if you’re blocking time for 5 workouts each week, it could be better to block time for 4 workouts and 1 grocery + meal prep session.

It’ll also involve some fasting. I already do a 16-hour fast most days. Which might be the only reason I’m only trying to lose 20 pounds and not 50. I’ll continue that eating schedule.

Movement-wise: Kettlebells, walks, rucks, hikes. I’ll aim for daily, but lower intensity.

  • OK, what’s next?

This is a good start to logging this. I’ll aim for a weekly update on this. I’ll share progress and resources. It’ll likely be more useful for me to write it than it will be for any readers. (Unless, of course, I do actually succeed and it becomes a good source of motivation for others starting a health journey.)

Brainstorming possible MMA threads

I was listening to My First Million this morning. At this point, it’s the one podcast that’s stood the test of time over the past year when my listening has gone from probably 4 hours of listening daily to maybe 1 hour per day. It’s the only one I’m still listening to every episode of.

Anyway, on today’s episode “#167: Answering Your Questions On Investments, Businesses and Life” (Spotify), they get a question:

What do you not get a chance to talk about (either because it’s off-topic/lower priority) that you wish you could?

Both Sam and Shaan mention UFC and sports.

I keep up with the UFC so I thought it’d be cool to try to write some threads about mindset and business lesson from the UFC.

The first step to writing these threads would be to brainstorm. And I’ll just try to do that here rather than in Evernote or Roam, which I love to write in but then never publish the things.

So here we go… some rough connections between MMA and mindset things that Shaan and Sam have talked about on the podcast or in their newsletters.

  • Anderson Silva and Chael Sonnen and how you can do everything right and still not win in the end (“Sometimes, someone pulls an armbar out of nowhere”)
  • Being the very best in the world at Tai Chi and how important it is to pick the right game to be the very best at (“The best base for MMA is…”)
  • Dive into BJJ for a few weeks and you’ll learn a bunch of different things the same way as diving into creating content (“You’ll learn a ton as a white belt in content creation”)
  • Be the best at fighting, the best at talking, or a good mix of both. Skill stacking.
  • Your requirements for success can’t be both being the best at standup and the best on the ground. (Don’t make your success criteria to be two very difficult wins.)
  • The Diaz brothers and never winning a belt (You don’t need to be a champion to be popular.)
  • Knockout. TKO. Judges. (There’s more than one way to win.)
  • Flyweight fights. Heavyweight fights. (Understand the kind of fight that you’re in.)
  • Conor McGregor the boxer (The money might be somewhere else)
  • Uriah Faber with the elbows after breaking both hands (Get SCRAPPY!)

Okay 10 sounds good for now.

And I guess something about fighters who can switch stances and how doing this post to think of Twitter ideas is sort of the reverse of the more common path of using Twitter posts to test blog post ideas.