One Quote:

"The reason I've been able to be so financially successful is my focus has never, ever for one minute been money." - Oprah Winfrey

Focusing on money won't make you rich. Focusing on value will.

The Golden Rule: Create value, receive value.

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One Framework:

Gratitude Tennis

Dr. John Gottman is a famous psychologist known for his incredible work on human relationships. I first came across his work via my friend Matt Schnuck.

Most notably, Dr. Gottman has a track record of predicting divorce with 91% accuracy through the identification of specific patterns of behavior and emotion.

The most damning pattern he identified: Contempt.

To fight back against the corrosive effects of contempt on a relationship, Dr. Gottman focused on gratitude. While many people tout the benefits of giving gratitude, scientific study has shown that receiving gratitude has major positive effects.

Dr. Gottman developed a simple game to leverage its power: Gratitude Tennis.

Gratitude Tennis works as follows:

• Person A says something about Person B that they are grateful for.
• Person B returns the gratitude with something about Person A that they are grateful for.
• The process is repeated until a 3-minute timer goes off.

The idea is to give and receive several points of gratitude within a short window.

This exercise is extremely beneficial for strong, healthy relationships, or challenged ones. It's a simple, short game you can play with your family, friends, or colleagues that keeps your relationships fit.

Gratitude makes the world a brighter place to live in. Give it, receive it.

Action Item: This weekend, play one round of Gratitude Tennis with your partner, close friend, kids, or colleagues. Let me know how it goes and what you learned!

One Tweet:

ChatGPT has been all the rage for the last month, but very few people know the origin story of the company behind it. This was a great primer.

A few quick hit items to note:

• The OpenAI parent company remains a non-profit, though the OpenAI LP subsidiary company is a for-profit.
• Microsoft's $1 billion investment in OpenAI had Microsoft Azure becoming the cloud services provider for OpenAI, meaning they are printing cash on this investment already.
• Elon Musk was one of the founders of OpenAI, but stepped down to avoid conflict of interest with Tesla's self-driving program.

I'm truly fascinated to see whether OpenAI remains true to its original mission to "ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity" or if it gets molded and shaped by the beliefs and biases of its founding team.

One Article:

​Repair and Remain​

This is one of the best articles I've read in the last year.

My three key takeaways:

• Repair the small things before they become big things.
• Make the minor upgrades that keep your life feeling fresh.
• Work with what you've got, learn to appreciate what you've got, and don't fall for the "shiny object" trap.

I imagine everyone will experience this in their own way. It's a must read.​

One Podcast:

How to Lose Well — and Why It Matters

An important mindset shift: It's impossible to avoid every loss, so turn your focus to losing well and growing through the losses.

Two important tips that come up:

• Don't focus on what you've lost, focus on what you've found. View every loss as a moment for learning and growth.
• Look in, not out. Every loss is an opportunity to take accountability. Never point the finger.

A good listen as we start the new year and tackle new and challenging endeavors.

Listen to it here.

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