One Quote:

"It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol." - Brene Brown

Embrace the role of free time and rest in your life.

It’s not about a “break” from productivity. It’s an integral part of your productivity.

(Share this on Twitter!)

One Framework:

Alive Time or Dead Time

I recently saw a tweet from Ryan Holiday that sparked my interest.

The tweet makes reference to a concept from renowned author and strategist Robert Greene that he calls Alive Time vs. Dead Time.

The idea is that there are two types of time:

1. Dead Time: Time where you are passive, waiting and letting things happen to you.
2. Alive Time: Time where you are active, in control and making things happen for you.

Importantly, your environment and circumstances do not control the type of time you experiencing. You cannot be forced to experience Dead Time—your attitude and energy in that moment is what determines your course.

As an example:

Say I feel stuck in a job that I hate. It would be easy to say that this is Dead Time—that I'm letting things happen. But that would be removing my agency in the situation—I have the power to flip that script, I am in control.

I might be stuck in a job that I hate, but there's a lot I can do: I can observe and learn from the negatives to inform how I want to operate in the future, I can read and study for an eventual pivot, I can build on the side to have an escape hatch, etc. I can take that Dead Time and make it Alive Time through my own actions and energy.

The key point here: We are all in control of how we experience time. We can let time happen to us OR we can make time work for us.

So the choice is yours—How will you experience your day: Alive or Dead?

Since this is a rather important concept, I'd love to hear from you:

• How do you take control of your time?
• What activities feel like Dead Time that you can eliminate or mold into Alive Time?

One Tweet:

Val Katayev might be the most interesting man you've never heard of.

He cracked the code on how to make money and manages to execute on the core principles in whatever arena he enters. Seriously, Val has made money doing just about anything you can imagine.

This thread was really interesting, as he hits on a strategy for thriving through a recession by spending on advertising while others pull back.

It made me think of one of my favorite quotes:

"Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." - Warren Buffett

For most people, this is a soundbite (or a tweet). If you have the guts to live by it, you may find yourself making a fortune.

One Article:

​How to Have Fun Again​

This was such a fun NYT opinion piece—on the topic of having fun again.

According to scientist Catherine Price, we experience "fun" at the center of three states: playfulness, connectedness, and flow. As the illustrator points out, social media is basically the antithesis of all three states.

As the article so playfully highlights, there are a lot of ways to reclaim fun in your life (and most of them involve slowing down and disconnecting):

• Lie in the grass and stare into space.
• Climb a tree (or sit under one).
• Observe the clouds.

As I often encourage in my writing, slow down. In addition to being good for your mental and physical health, you'll find more fun along the way!

One Podcast:

My First Million: Sahil Bloom Left Private Equity To Make Millions As A Content Creator & 3 Profitable Businesses To Start Now

Shameless plug for my recent appearance on My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri.

This was a really entertaining discussion that covered a lot of ground:

• How people make so much money in private equity
• Economics of my creator revenue streams
• Framework for making a big life change
• 3 cash flow generating business ideas

I'm a bit biased, but I think it's worth a listen!

Listen to it here.

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