Hey there!

So Michael is on duty writing this newsletter again. Two weeks ago I shared that I was going to work on avoiding all short-form video content, and so I kept track of each reel-type video that I (mostly accidentally) watched, and until yesterday I had watched a total of 11 💪, but then last night I got in a bored-doom-scrolling loop and spent too much time watching them 😅. Anyway, overall this has given me a lot more concentration, and time back, so I’ll be continuing this habit via our Digital Minimalism group.

Outside of that, I didn’t read Juan’s newsletter until he sent it out, and I feel the need to reluctantly admit that he did beat me 1v1 in badminton 🥲… but he’s rejected every offer of a rematch so I’ll try to take that as some kind of win for myself. Also, one friend that I added to the newsletter sent me a message after reading last week’s one saying that he’d “like to know more about Juan, the undefeated one”, so.. I guess that’s Juans title now 😂.

Anyways, this week’s content is my absolute favorite, and actually was the whole goal of what to base this newsletter around initially, so I’ve been excited to share this. Since it’s already so long, I’m taking the space that we were going to use for Juan’s section also.

Michaels Content

How to Live

This summer, I was obsessed with this book: How to Live: 27 Conflicting Answers and One Weird Question by Derek Sivers, who is an entrepreneur-author-philosopher. It offers unique exploration of diverse life philosophies. This has been one of the most inspirational books that I’ve ever read, so I felt the need to share it with you all (and likely already have with many of you).

How to Live challenges the conventional life paths, by describing distinct life strategies and then showing what it would look like if someone dedicated themselves to the singular focus of living this way.

He shows how some sensible advice can be packaged to become overly extreme:

• Try new things → Never think the same thought twice

• Learn from different cultures → Have a child from someone from each continent

• Declutter → Reject materialism entirely

Sivers doesn’t necessarily suggest we do these things. Instead, as you read through these different ways, you piece together from each different method some aspects of each life strategy that you want to incorporate in your own life. Then you build the qualities of what your dream way of living is, and then the result, I imagine, can be exemplified by a spider chart like the image below.

One of the parts of this book that I love the most, is when he describes the benefits and drawbacks from living in different cultures. Here’s an example from that section:

• From Brazil, learn to live in the present, and embrace every stranger as a friend.

  → Leave before you forget about the future.

• From Germany, learn rationality and direct, honest communication.

  → Leave before you start scolding strangers.

• From America, learn expressive rebellious individualism.

  → Leave before thinking you’re the center of the world.

The takeaway in the end is to show that the world is so full of incredible possibilities. So decide what you want, and make sure you do what you can to progress towards it.

To put this all together, and make this more interactive, here is a Poll showing each of the ways of living that the book describes, along with a 1-sentence summary of what it means. Select up to 6 ways that you want your dream life to be described as, and you’ll be able to see what other people have selected also.

Lastly, a quote from Lina when I asked her for suggestions on what to say about the book: “Being present is how to live”

— Michael

TAKING ACTION

Sign up to our Accountability Clubs

Want a community to keep you accountable? Willing to put your money where your mouth is? 😂

How it works:
💸 Everyone makes the same deposit at the beginning of the month.
✅ Every day you succeed, you get paid back a small amount from your deposit PLUS the money from others that failed that day.
❌ Everyday you fail, your money for that day goes to people that succeeded.
🗓️ It is 5 times a week. Month-to-month contract.

Clubs you can join:
🏋️ Exercise 5 times a week.
⏰ Wake up early during weekdays.
📵 Digital minimalism during weekdays.

Signup here to join the March group

Updates:

The February group starts tomorrow (on Monday, February 5th), we have 12 people total, with 4-6 people per group 💪, should be fun.