Curiosity Chronicle

The ABC Goal System 02.06.2026 7min

"Just be consistent."By now, you've undoubtedly heard this advice countless times. So much so that it may even induce an eye roll or sigh.Yes, it’s true, consistency is the difference maker. The common thread behind every major success story.Everyone tells you to be consistent, but no one ever tells you how to be consistent.And let’s be honest, it’s (much) easier said than done. Life gets chaotic. Motivation fades. Discipline wavers. Consistency breaks.I've personally spent thousands of hours wrestling with this exact problem—and I've developed my own ultra-simple approach that works:I call it my ABC Goal System…•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Pratfall Effect 28.05.2026 6min

In 1966, a University of Texas psychologist named Elliot Aronson ran an experiment to examine the role of imperfection on human connection.Aronson recruited 48 college students and had them listen to an audio recording of a candidate supposedly auditioning to be on a "College Quiz Bowl" team (a popular TV format at the time).The recordings were, in fact, staged. The candidate was just an actor working from a script. But the participants believed they were real and that they would be helping evaluate the candidate.The results were fascinating...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

5 Life Learnings From 5 Years of The Curiosity Chronicle 26.05.2026 10min

A few days ago, I was reminded by a reader that May 14 was the five year anniversary of my first Curiosity Chronicle newsletter.Sending that first newsletter, which went out to a few thousand people who had been receiving my tweet threads in email format each week, felt like something of a leap of faith at the time.Fast forward five years and what started with that tiny leap of faith has compounded into something beautiful.I began reflecting on what I've learned through the five years of writing The Curiosity Chronicle and quickly realized that all of it applies well-beyond the bounds of creative pursuits and into any meaningful endeavor in life.I hope these life learnings help you turn your tiny leap of faith into something beautiful...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Eject Button Mentality 21.05.2026 7min

In 2002, Harvard psychologists Daniel Gilbert and Jane Ebert designed a series of studies to test the role of optionality on happiness and human satisfaction.In the first study, the students in a Harvard photography class were asked to make prints of their two favorite photos from the semester.After creating the two prints, they were told to select one that they would get to keep, while the other would be filed in the department archives.But at this stage, the students were split into two groups:The first group was told that the decision was final. Whichever print they selected was their print and they couldn’t change their mind.The second group was told that the decision was reversible. They could change their mind and swap prints in the next few days.In the days that followed, the two groups of students were asked how satisfied they were with their selection, both during the swap window and after it had passed.The findings were counterintuitive...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Most Powerful Decision Making Razors 19.05.2026 10min

A razor is a rule of thumb that simplifies decision making.The term comes from philosophy. A principle that let you quickly cut away unlikely explanations or unnecessary steps was called a razor.Razors aren't perfect. They're shortcuts. But used well, they can be the highest-leverage tools you carry through life. In an age of infinite information, razors can help you stop overthinking and start moving.Here are the most powerful razors I've found...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Powerful Art of Negative Capability 14.05.2026 6min

In 1902, a 19-year-old cadet in an Austrian military academy was silently becoming a bystander in his own life.Franz Xaver Kappus felt trapped. On the track for a life as a military officer, but unsure if he wanted it in the first place. His heart felt pulled in a very different direction.To poetry.When Kappus learned that one of his teachers had taught the famed poet Rainer Maria Rilke when he was a young man attending the same academy, he decided to act. Kappus sent a set of his poems to Rilke, asking for an honest assessment and guidance on his life ahead...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

Dear Son - A Letter to My Son on His 4th Birthday 12.05.2026 7min

My son turns four years old this week.And if I'm being honest, I don't know where the time went.Everyone says this, and I spent most of my life rolling my eyes at it, but my goodness, it goes by fast. With parenting, perhaps more so than most things in life, the days are very long but the years are painfully short.Last year, I started a practice of writing him a letter each year on his birthday.He can't read them (yet), but my hope is that they serve as something of a compass for his journey. Whether I'm here or gone, I hope that they guide him in the direction of a fulfilling life.I know I can't walk the path for him, but maybe I can shine a bit of light to give him confidence along the way.Here is my open letter to my son on his 4th birthday...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Styrofoam Cup Theory 07.05.2026 6min

Last weekend, I had the joy of catching up for a quiet dinner in Omaha with a mentor and friend, Apple CEO Tim Cook.He recently announced that he would be transitioning out of the CEO role at the company after a 15 year tenure.When the news first broke of his announcement, several people asked me how I thought he would handle the major life change and identity shift.My answer was a story from a dinner we shared several years ago—one specific interaction that I'll never forget...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

How to Be More Magnetic 05.05.2026 10min

Over the weekend, I made what has become an annual pilgrimage to Omaha, Nebraska to attend the Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting.The event, which is nominally a business update on Warren Buffett's famed holding company, has become a staple in my annual calendar, mostly due to the incredible density of deep thinkers who drop into the midwestern city for a short window of time.Every year, I seem to find myself in a few rooms that set off my imposter syndrome alarm bells.But one thing I've learned: Good things happen when you put yourself in rooms where you don’t feel like you belong.The real secret isn't getting into the rooms, though. It's what you do once you're in them...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Streetlight Effect: Why Smart People Look In The Wrong Places 30.04.2026 4min

We all fall into the same trap: measuring what's easy instead of what's meaningful, clinging to routines we know instead of adapting ones that work, and asking the questions we can answer instead of the ones we're avoiding.In this podcast, I break down the street light effect — the tendency to search where there's light rather than where there's truth — and share how it showed up in my own career, content journey, and relationships.I'll walk you through 3 questions that changed my approach...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The High Shoulders Theory 28.04.2026 8min

When I was 12 years old, I tried out for a baseball all-star team in our area.I really wanted to make this team. The tryouts were my first adventure beyond the confines of my small town. An opportunity to see how I stacked up against kids from all around the state.When the results came out, the coaches called my house.They were taking 16 players for the team...and I was the 17th on the list.I was devastated...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Michelangelo Phenomenon 23.04.2026 5min

The most famous sculpture in history was almost never created…In 1464, the Opera del Duomo—the committee overseeing the cathedral in Florence—commissioned a massive statue to adorn the cathedral’s roofline.They sourced a single, 17-foot block of marble from the quarries in Carrara, Italy.A sculptor named Agostino di Duccio began work on the project, but after a short stint, he backed out...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The New Opportunity Razor 21.04.2026 6min

A few weeks ago, I had the unique opportunity to attend a small author’s retreat hosted by Atomic Habits author James Clear.To be honest, it was a bit of a ”pinch-me” moment.I was in a room with a group of 15 authors I’ve long admired, who had collectively sold tens of millions of books and left an indelible mark on the world with their ideas and insights.We were each asked to share something that had been working for us, and once I shook off the feeling of imposter syndrome, the thing I decided to share was my framework on opportunity selection.It sparked a deep dialogue and clearly resonated with the group—so I want to share it with all of you today...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Tinkerer's Mindset: How to Win More 16.04.2026 4min

A group of kindergarteners outperformed the CEOs, lawyers, and MBAs.The way they did it has a lesson I've never been able to forget.While in college over a decade ago, I watched a TED Talk by a famed designer named Peter Skillman about an experiment he conducted in which groups of participants were given a challenge...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Real Price of Success 14.04.2026 7min

My entire life changed when I realized that I would never want to trade lives with the people I read books about.Allow me to explain with a story about the richest man who ever lived.In the early 1500s, an enterprising German financier named Jakob Fugger rose to prominence on the European continent...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

Black Coffee Theory 09.04.2026 6min

A few weeks ago, I shared a piece on my Anti-To-Do List and the general merits of using inversion to improve your life.The idea was straightforward:Write down what you want to avoid doing.Avoid doing those things.I've gotten a lot of value from using inversion like this as a tool to provide clarity on my actions and avoid painful mistakes.As the late Charlie Munger famously said, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there."But a few readers replied with an interesting question:Doesn't focusing on what you don't want make you more likely to get it?This raises an important point that I've never addressed directly...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

Just Make the Coffee 07.04.2026 6min

A few years ago, I came across a beautiful story written by a woman named Pam Kearney in a local newspaper.I set a calendar reminder to re-read it every single year.Take 6 minutes and give this a listen. Trust me, it's worth your time...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Spotlight Effect 02.04.2026 6min

For the last decade, I've had a recurring nightmare that I can trace back to my days as a Division 1 baseball player at Stanford...I'm on the mound in a critical situation. All eyes are on me. The entire stadium waits for my pitch.But as I start my motion, I realize I've completely forgotten how to throw the ball. My body moves like it's stuck in mud. Completely paralyzed.Inevitably, I wake up in a cold sweat—thankful that it was just a dream.While specific to my prior endeavors, as it turns out, this type of dream is a rather common one.In fact, I'd be willing to bet that most of you have experienced some variation of it in the last few months.All eyes on you in a big moment. And suddenly, you're completely paralyzed. Unable to perform.It's the byproduct of a very common (and damning!) psychological phenomenon—one that has a tangible impact on the way we show up in every area of life.It's called The Spotlight Effect...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The Personal Quarterly Review 31.03.2026 7min

It's hard to believe that we’re already 25% of the way through 2026.This is an important time of year. The excitement and motivation of your new year planning has likely worn off. You’ve faced the realities of life, probably encountered a few challenges and storms, and developed in your thinking.The ultimate life hack is the ability to reset and adjust.You have new data. New experiences. New insights. New evidence. New constraints.So, it’s time to do just that:Reflect on what happenedReset current priorities and systemsAdjust as needed to realign and accelerate growthI call this process my Personal Quarterly Review...Note: You can download a printable PDF of the review template here.•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

The 85% Rule: A Secret of the World’s Best 26.03.2026 4min

The 85% Rule says that you can achieve more by pushing less.Carl Lewis won nine Olympic gold medals with this strategy.And as it turns out, the general principle here is one that has been recognized throughout history...•••This episode brought to you by:DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.