Hey there!

Juan has been going out almost every night as an experiment to be as social as possible. He ended up talking to some dude’s girlfriend at a bar in-front of the boyfriend (Juan did not notice the dude). There could have been a fight, but luckily the guy was Dutch and harmless.

Michael and Lina have been busy exploring Seoul. Here’s a giant library we found in the middle of a big mall here.

PEOPLE

The Most Effective Way to Help Someone Who Is Suffering

You might have a friend that is struggling to be healthy. It is often too intimidating to present them with the idea of “Just pick yourself up and go to the gym. Just be healthy”. For them that is like climbing Mount Everest.

One of the most effective things you can do to help people who are truly suffering is to listen and ask questions to uncover their root problem.

But the most important thing is to not assume you, or the person talking, know what the problem is. It is so hard to find the root problem. Once you have the problem specified, you’ve solved 95% of the problem. Are we sure we are addressing the most crucial issue? You have to aim your sights right in the center of the cross.

So, how do you listen?

As the person is trying to describe what they believe the problem is, there will be times when what they’re saying doesn’t make sense. You have to interject and say something along the lines of “You just said this, but you said this other thing 5 minutes ago and they seem contradictory to me”. You’re not accusing the person, you’re just stating that you see an inconsistency in the way they are formulating the problem.

They might get defensive, as if you are confronting them or insulting them with moral superiority. But if you’re asking an honest question, you are helping them lay out a description of the situation that’s not internally contradictory.

This is hard. To lay out the entire problem space and be able to ask the right questions is a hard skill to learn, but a necessary one.

Once all the problems are outlined, you will probably discard 90% of them. Some problems might not even bother them anymore once they said them out loud. Then you can start negotiating a possible solution.

Finding hypothetical cures

Once you have the problem, you ask yourself: “Okay, if my situation could be better, what would better look like”?

So now you have diagnosed the root problem and came up with a hypothetical cure. Now you need a strategy to break down the steps until you find a step they are willing to take.

When people decide to make a move forward, they are presented with all the problems that confront them in the guise of a single problem. It’s all lurking behind it, like seeing the tip of a reptile’s tail outside a gigantic closet and imagining a huge monster.

You have to make the simple even simpler. This is so they can get a manageable grip on the problem. You need to find the minimum step they can take to start progressing.

The straight forward rule to get back on your feet:

“You have to make the task small enough so that you’ll do it, no matter how small.”

One of the impediments of people who’ve had things fallen around them so badly that where they have to start is humiliating. So you need a sense of humility to take that first step.

Once you take that first step, you look the beast in the face and you will start progressing exponentially in speed. It doesn’t matter how small that first step is, because it will start doubling and anything that doubles grows unbelievably quickly.

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— Juan

Happiness

How to Buy Happiness

This last week, while out on a hike here in Korea, I listened to this episode of the Deep Dive podcast, and it was super intriguing. It featured a conversation with a super wealthy guy who shared his thoughts on how spending money can actually lead to happiness. Here's a breakdown of what he said:

The phrase, “Money Doesn’t Buy You Happiness” isn’t entirely true. Like, moneys not required, but it surely helps. It’s definitely more important to find happiness from non-monetary things, but either way, here’s the list of the 4 ways that you can buy some happiness:

#4 Buying Things
Buying things does make you happier. Though that added happiness doesn’t last very long, and also not necessarily that much. To keep it up, you need to constantly be buying things, which probably isn’t all that sustainable.

#3 Buying Experiences
You’ve heard it before: Experiences > Things. But these experiences also give you valuable memories which make that happiness last longer via memory dividends, which I talked about in the Die with Zero post.

#2 Targeted Giving
Donating to causes you care about can give a major happiness boost, especially when you see the impact of your contributions.

#1 Freedom Inducing Things
The number one happiness increasing things you can buy, is anything that frees up your time and energy. Here’s a list of things in this realm that aren’t prohibitively expensive that you can consider:
- Grocery Delivery
- Subscription Meal Kits
- Virtual Assistant
- Hiring a Cleaner
The guy in the podcast also mentioned buying a private jet, but I don’t think any of us are likely going to be able to take that advice…

Anyways, hope there’s something you can take away from this. I need to get more on board with things that free up my time a bit more 🤔.

"While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery." - Groucho Marx

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— 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 who failed that day.
❌ Every day you fail, your money for that day goes to people who succeed.
🗓️ It is 5 times a week. Month-to-month contract. You can join or leave at the beginning of each month.

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

Highlights from Exercise Club: