What's the most woo-woo hippy idea do you think is probably true? Here's mine: Language shapes reality WAY more than most think. Swapping the word "problem" for "puzzle" moves me from anxiety to curiosity. Problem activates my amygdala and puzzle activates my prefrontal cortex. Just David Ogilyv'd my reality by changing the copy.

Before you check your phone in the morning: Lick a toad or eat a frog. Toads are activities that delete your sense of self: Meditation, surfing, MMA. Frogs are the biggest bottleneck in your life. No scrolling or news until you’ve put something that croaks in your mouth.

Dating advice to my younger self: When I was younger, I’d go on first dates like a dynamic Instagram ad. I'd update my personality based off what I thought she liked. I was aiming for a 100% conversion rate of getting them to like me. Inevitably I'd fail, and assume I didn't market myself well enough. As I got older, this became exhausting so I thought more about what I wanted in a partner, and went to the date looking for that. I'd try to spot if they were the type of person I'd want to be with. I went from wanting a 100% conversion rate to a 0.1% conversion rate. Ironically, my conversion rate went up.

A critique I've heard of high agency is main character syndrome. Thinking you're the main character of everyone else's life is narcissistic. But being the main character of your own life isn't. Being an extra in your own life is the common denominator of regrets of the dying.

Your phone is always whispering. Even on silent mode in your pocket, your subconscious can feel the pull of digital crack. "Check me!" like a baby crying in a distant room. Out of sight, but never out of mind. It's only when you go for a phoneless walk do you notice the silence.

I’ve been working with an IVF startup, @herasight, that has already screened hundreds of embryos. Today we come out of stealth with a paper showing that our predictors for 17 diseases — validated within-family — beat the competition, with improved performance in non-Europeans🧵

Bullshit artists are fluent in the language of vagueness and allergic to the language of specificity.

The single biggest cause of vague thinking is avoidance. You can waste years in passive mode ruminating on problems that could be solved with one day of specific focus. If you stare into vagueness hard enough, specificity stares back into you.

The word anxiety has roots in the latin verb "angere", meaning "to choke". This is fascinating because the physical sensations of anxiety mirror the feeling of being choked. When you’re having anxious thoughts, it feels like being in an endless shallow exhale.

What’s a life altering meme you’ve seen on the internet? A meme so good it lodged in your brain weeks after seeing it.