The Long Game 103: The Hispanic Paradox, Walking the World, Changing Behavior is Hard, Mental Health & Building a …
The Long Game 103: The Hispanic Paradox, Walking the World, Changing Behavior is Hard, Mental Health & Building a Startup👫 Dating, Embedded Education, Javelin, Deepfakes, Archive Today, Abysmal Knowledge, and Much More!Hi there, it’s Mehdi Yacoubi, co-founder at Vital, and this is The Long Game Newsletter. To receive it in your inbox each week, subscribe here: In this episode, we explore:
Let’s dive in! 🥑 Health🧐 The Hispanic ParadoxFirst, what is the Hispanic Paradox:
What’s happening here? There were a lot of proposed explanations, but I found this one particularly interesting:
This brings us to the importance of words, the mindset of people, and their impact on health. We know, for example, that optimism is associated with exceptional longevity. On a personal level, I fixed my chronic back pain with a simple book and a change of perception. Many people will call BS on this, but I’d bet we’ll uncover a lot at the intersection of beliefs and health in the next few decades. 🌱 Wellness🚶 Why I WalkAs you might know by know, I’m a big proponent of walking. It helps you feel better, think better, discover your city and burn extra calories. This two parts series about walking is excellent and will hopefully convince you to walk more!
I find walking to be directly correlated to my mood, it's a deterministic way to feel better (& be healthier.)
Try it for yourself, get 13k+ steps per day, and witness peace of mind.
The sweet spot is usually around 13—15k steps on average for me. Joe Vennare @JoeVennare The benefits of walking are almost endless: improve cardio promote brain health lower blood glucose reduce cancer risk help sleep quality relieve stress & anxiety lower blood pressure strengthen immune system boost creativity & productivity reduce all-cause mortalityPair with: Although very good for your overall health, the benefits of short walks tend to be overblown. ⌚🚶♀️ PS: If you’re an Apple Watch user and want to walk more by participating in our Vital walking challenge, sign up here. 🧠 Better Thinking↪️ Changing Behavior is Extremely DifficultI remember listening to Daniel Kahneman a few years ago. I still remember that with all the research he did on biases, how humans think, and how to think better, he said he doesn’t believe it helped him think significantly better. He once said:
I think Kahneman exaggerates a bit (otherwise, he wouldn’t write non-fiction books about it), but you get the point: changing how you think & act is very hard. Here are a few ideas that can help:
On this last point, it’s tempting to try to reduce everything to an algorithm. Still, the most critical decisions are often impossible to reduce to an algorithm, and intuition is essential in those cases. Pair with: Alan Watts - How to trust intuition and develop self-confidence? On a slightly related note, this is a good piece on why you can outsmart your own nature and why rituals matter. It made me think of Tradition is Smarter Than You Are. ⚡️ Startup Stuff🧘♀️ Managing Your Mental Health While Running a StartupI enjoyed this piece by Okta co-founder Frederic Kerrest on managing your mental health while running a startup. I generally think this is an under-discussed topic, and it might well be the most important for long-term success. There are so many traps it’s easy to fall into that I think it’s helpful to be aware of at the beginning of your journey.
Another prevalent trap is trying to “keep up with the Joneses.”
To prevent this, don’t read funding announcements, don’t read Techcrunch, mute everything distracting you from your mission on Twitter, and simply focus on your users and your team, and stay alive for as long as it will take to make the magic happen. Also, get used to the rollercoaster; this one will never go away 😂 📚 What I Read🎓 Embedded EducationEmbedded education is the future of learning, one more opportunity for vertical social networks:
Verticalized social is the next generation of social:
• Matter: social x reading
• Public: social x investing
• Saturn: social x calendar
• Strava: social x running/cycling
• @joinvital: social x health optimization 📚 Abysmal KnowledgeOn writing online:
👫 the agony of eros: datingA great dating piece by Ava:
🍭 Brain Food💤 The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalizationI came across this fascinating paper about dreams by Erik Hoel: The Bigger Picture:
Summary
🎥 What I’m Watching🚀 The Insane Engineering of the Javelin🧑🎨 This New AI Makes DeepFakes... For Animation Movies!The paper "Stitch it in Time: GAN-Based Facial Editing of Real Videos" is available here. 🔧 The Tool of the Week📁 Archive TodayTired of the incessant paywalls of news websites? Archive today lets you access an archived version of the page you’re trying to read for free. 🪐 Quote I’m Pondering
— Kevin Kelly If you enjoyed this newsletter, make sure to subscribe if you haven’t 👇 👋 EndNoteThanks for reading! If you like The Long Game, please share it on social media or forward this email to someone who might enjoy it. Podcast reviews are also gratefully received. You can also “like” this newsletter by clicking the heart just below this, which helps me get visibility on Substack. Feel free to email me or find me on Twitter if you have any feedback or questions. Until next week, Mehdi Yacoubi PS: Lots of newsletters get stuck in Gmail’s Promotions tab. If you find it in there, please help train the algorithm by dragging it to Primary. It makes a big difference. If you liked this post from The Long Game by Mehdi Yacoubi, why not share it? |
Older messages
The Long Game 102: The Gym Business, Why Teens Are So Sad, Magical Products, Analyzing vs. Doing, Social Apps
Monday, April 25, 2022
🇵🇭 Filipino Sailors, Zenly, Australia's Plan to Green the Outback, Communism, American Seriousness, Starship, and Much More!
The Long Game 101: Endemic Pathogens, Extreme Ownership, Creating Something From Scratch, Myth of the Well-Read
Monday, April 18, 2022
🤳 Selfies as a Second Language, Steve Jobs, How a High-End Classic Car Goes Electric, Cosmos, Collapse, Urbit, and Much More!
The Long Game 100: Air Quality & Cognitive Performance, Less Information, Rippling, Forecasting
Monday, April 11, 2022
👨🎨 Dall•E, The Electric Car Pre-Order Problem, Heresy, Relentless, Startupy, ISS, and Much More!
The Long Game 99: Readiness Scores, From Deep Dives to Simplicity, News, Company Culture
Monday, April 4, 2022
🚢 Global Supply Chains, To Infinity and Beyond, Partial Reprogramming, Population Collapse, Campground, and Much More!
The Long Game 98: Strength Training, Teens & Social Media, How People Think
Monday, March 28, 2022
🌾 Food Supplies, The Russian Aviation Industry, Hard to Work With, Prestige, System, and Much More!
You Might Also Like
🚿 A story as satisfying as those power washing videos…
Thursday, April 25, 2024
He's building THE biggest power washing business (from Hollywood to washing wood) Can he build the world's biggest power washing business? Hey Contrarians, Whatever preconceived notions you may
One-Day Facebook Groups Promo • Posts Book to 250K+ FB group readers
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Group Posts to 250K Facebook Readers Facebook Reader Group Promos for Authors & Publishers Promote Your Book & Yourself to HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF READERS! If you're looking to have your
[Now I Know Offers] Learn a New Language with Babbel!
Thursday, April 25, 2024
It's a great day to start something new!
3-2-1: How to connect with others, what causes old age, and the recipe for success
Thursday, April 25, 2024
3 ideas, 2 quotes, and 1 question to consider this week.
Ahrefs’ Digest #180: Content marketing conferences, how to be an SEO lead, and more
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Our meme of the week: 📰 News & updates Google confirms links are not that important: No one believes them. Google delays third-party cookie demise yet again: This is the third time Google has
🧙♂️ NEW Partnerships: Phillips 66, La Mexicana, Blue Ribbon, Clicked, and many more [Apr 25]
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Plus secret research on Farm Boy, Upside, and Mack Weldon
Everyone wants growth
Thursday, April 25, 2024
But it needs to be sustainable We have 4 updates for you this week: 1. Unlock Sustainable Growth Everyone wants growth. But to scale your business, you need more – you need sustainable growth.
Meet the “Squishy Love Ball”
Thursday, April 25, 2024
What happens when you show your true colors
The Prison Manual That Was Key To An Escape
Thursday, April 25, 2024
... and why did the let an inmate have jewelry-making equipment?
Fear is Your Companion, Not Your Enemy
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Instead of trying to avoid fear, embrace it as an indicator of the importance of what you are about to share. Writing honestly and authentically means sharing despite fear. View in browser Write of