Thinking in decades vs days

Happy Tuesday amigos,

Welcome back to Stay Curious — a newsletter where I drop a few bullets about what’s keeping me curious in the world of life and startups.

Since Salena Gomez is killing you with kindness, I’mma try my utmost best to drown you in curiosity.

Okay okay, enough fooling around, Let’s get to the goods.

1) If loving family is one of your core values, put your visits on the calendar: yesterday I got home from a trip to Yellowknife. If you haven’t visited, it’s in the true great white north of Canada where people dog sled to work, ice fish and watch the Northern Lights all in the same day.

But it’s charming, and one of the brave souls who call it home is my older brother, Matt.

After school, he moved up there, and ever since, I’ve felt guilty as heck I haven’t visited. Every time we chatted on the phone, I felt off. I hadn’t seen his home, walked his kids to their favourite park or sat with him in his living room.

I say I “value family”, yet I wasn’t practicing it. My schedule wasn’t reflecting it.

So I chatted with my wife, we got out our calendar and booked a visit. Fast forward a few months, we got home late last night and had a ball.

But on the flight home, it hit me - we stuff our calendar full of work things we need to get done but we’re never on offence stuffing our calendar with family things we want to get done.

2) Thinking in decades vs days: a little while ago I got to spend an hour interviewing Sam Parr. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s the person behind “The Hustle” newsletter which is read by a couple million people each day.

One question I asked him was “how does he operate his life/work differently today vs when he was a founder in his 20s?” His answer?

“Having a longer time horizon with projects.” He now has the luxury (and perspective) to think in decades vs days.

Decades > days

3) The best conversations are when you do something together vs talk about something together

This morning I met with a guy named Lukas. We’d never met in person but we both liked the same things and knew the same people.

Lukas knew I was a nerd about startups and running.

I knew Lukas was a nerd about Instagram and hiking.

We put 2 and 2 together and eventually met up. But instead of meeting “for coffee”, we went for a jog.

The ideas were flowing, our bodies were moving and there were no awkward pauses. I’ve come to believe coffee meetings where you:

• stare at each other

• rattle through questions

• and look at the clock

Are the most life-sucking way to get to know someone new. Instead:

• go for a walk/run/hike

• head to an event together

• play 1 v 1 on pickleball

Meetings that happen shoulder-to-shoulder are more memorable than eye to eye. Also, here’s Lukas’ Instagram if you wanna be inspired to get outside.

Food is my #1 love language, feedback is my 2nd.

If you liked today’s ramble, drop me a note or pass it on to a friend.

Stay curious,

Joel

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