Good morning, friends!

My husband and I were recently discussing the power of sharing a meal with someone whose company you enjoy. Whether it’s friends, family, or total strangers, food can bring people together.

Anthony Bourdain understood this better than anyone. The late renegade chef believed that breaking bread with strangers around the world had the power to unite us. He visited more than a hundred countries, and he spoke with the locals, tried to understand their culture, and offered us a new perspective on a country often mischaracterized by many.

He reminded us that the dish you're eating is nowhere nearly as important as where you are sitting when you eat it and who you're eating it with.

So a few years ago, I compiled 10 thought-provoking questions that will spark conversation at the dinner table. I hope you enjoy:

1. In something he calls the “theory of maximum taste,” columnist David Brooks says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit — the best content that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming. How did you improve your "content diet" this year?

2. Malcolm Gladwell says there are 3 three things we need for work to be satisfying: 1) autonomy, 2) complexity, and 3) a connection between effort and reward. He adds, “Hard work is a prison sentence only if it does not have meaning.” Do you feel this way about your work today?

3. Research shows that seemingly trivial social encounters — chatting up a person in the elevator, making small talk with the barista, or even just smiling at a passerby — can have profound positive changes in your mood. When's the last time you did this?

4. Some of the world's most successful (Beyoncé, Adele, LeBron James) adopt an alter ego when they have to perform. It's a psychological tool that helps people reason & see the situation from a slight distance. When have you used an alter ego to reduce anxiety and gain confidence?

5. None of us are ever really bored anymore. Anytime you have a small window where your heart rate isn't spiking, you open your phone for a dopamine hit. Boredom can actually enable creativity by allowing the mind to wander and daydream. When is the last time you felt bored?

6. The Roman Emperor Charlemagne once said: “To have another language is to possess a second soul.” Research shows that the language we speak can influence our thinking, giving us wildly different perspectives of the world. How has the language you speak shaped your identity?

7. Happy couples have a ratio of 5 positive interactions to every negative interaction. “A smile, a head nod, even just grunting to show you’re listening—those are all positive,” John Gottman says. How many positive interactions have you and your partner had today?

8. Our society labels people as fixed characters — ones incapable of change. Entire swaths of people are labeled as "addicts," "racists," "socialists," & "criminals." Every time you label someone, you filter what you see. Who is someone you can see through a lens of nuance?

9. When we set goals, we're told to be realistic. So, they tone down their ambitions. Chef Grant Achatz decided he wanted to open the best restaurant in the country. "Anything else would be a failure." What is the biggest, boldest, most ambitious goal you could conceive of?

10. The Theseus Paradox posits whether an object which has had all its components replaced remains the same object. Same goes for identity. Is it your body or mind that defines you? Which ‘you’ is the real you? The person you are today? Five years ago? Five years from now?

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THE PROFILE DOSSIER: On Wednesday, premium members received The Profile Dossier, a comprehensive deep-dive on a prominent individual. It featured Katie Taylor, the Irish fighter dominating the sport of boxing. Become a premium member and read it below.

The Profile

The Profile Dossier: Katie Taylor, The Irish Fighter Dominating the Sport of Boxing

As a kid, Katie Taylor wanted to be a boxer. She began training with her dad, but women’s boxing was banned in Ireland at the time. There were no sanctioned amateur fights in the late 1990s in the entire country. Taylor didn’t let that stop her, even pretending to be a boy under the name “K Taylor” so she could get around some of the restrictions and par…

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4 days ago · 5 likes · Polina Pompliano

✨ A WORD FROM OUR PARTNER ✨: On Deck Founders (ODF) is a community of more than 2,500 founders who are starting companies together. Join to explore what’s next, validate ideas, meet a co-founder, build your MVP, or get support to raise your next round. Applications are open now so apply today!

PROFILES.

— The girlbosses of fertility [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The founder who built a frozen food empire
— The chewing gum heir who fell in a sticky situation
— The cult follower
— The most visited porn site in the world
— The sneaker company that won the cultural marathon

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The girlbosses of fertility: Fertility coaching is a growing field in which practitioners offer advice, educational material, and emotional support to those experiencing difficulty conceiving or carrying a child. While these services purport to address a gap in women’s health care, they can just as likely exploit it. What a fascinating look into the world of fertility coaching (New York Magazine)

“Getting pregnant is not a matter of will or grit.”

The founder who built a frozen food empire: Daily Harvest’s founder and CEO Rachel Drori quit her job in 2015 to start making smoothies in a kitchen in Queens. Now at 39, she’s worth $350 million thanks to her plant-based frozen meal delivery service. Here’s how Drori wants to reinvent the food industry one meal at a time. (Since the publication of this article, Daily Harvest has recalled certain products due to gastrointestinal emergencies.) (Forbes)

“I created Daily Harvest to reimagine how food can nourish both humanity and the planet.”

The chewing gum heir who fell in a sticky situation: William “Beau” Wrigley Jr. envisioned building a weed empire that would one day rival his family’s legendary chewing gum business. The former CEO of the Wrigley Company — which was sold to Mars for $23 billion in 2008 — led a $65 million investment in 2018 in Surterra Wellness, which primarily did business in Florida’s fledgling medical marijuana market. Shortly thereafter, Wrigley took over as Surterra’s CEO, but the path forward would prove to be very, very messy. (Politico)

“I think this can be bigger than the Wrigley company.”

The cult follower: When he was 19, Jeff Gross fell under the sway of the charismatic, fifty-one-year-old Mildred Gordon and spent more than half his life in an "intentional community" they built together. It turned out to be much, much more than that. If you are fascinating by cults, this one’s for you. (Esquire)

“Ultimately, my purpose is to brainwash you. To change your thinking to my thinking.”

COMPANIES TO WATCH.

The most visited porn site in the world: Pornhub is one of the largest pornography sites on the internet. At one point, it hosted some fourteen million videos, including studio-produced adult films and user-generated content, and it is one of the most visited Web sites in the world. But what happens when people find videos of themselves posted to the site without their consent? (The New Yorker)

“Why are we assuming these are legal and consensual videos?”

The sneaker company that won the cultural marathon: Nike, named for the Greek goddess of victory, has become not just the most valuable apparel brand in the world (worth more than twice as much as Adidas, its closest sportswear rival, and ahead of Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Chanel). It is part of the movies we watch, the songs we hear, the museums we frequent, the business we do; part of how we think about who we are and how we got to here. Here’s how Nike became the iconic brand it is today. (The New York Times)

✨ This installment of The Profile is free for everyone. If you would like to get full access to all of the recommendations, including today’s audio and video sections, sign up below.

AUDIO TO HEAR.

Laurie Santos on the elusiveness of happiness: As humans, our biggest aim is to be happy — yet, so few of us actually are. In this episode, Yale's 'Happiness Professor' **offers her clinical insight. "Our minds lie to us about the things that make us happy," she says. "When you get one of those things, like buying a new house, it feels good—but it doesn't feel as good as you anticipated neither does it feel good for as long as you hoped. When we fall into this pattern, we find that we repeatedly set ourselves up for disappointment." (Link available to premium members.)

Trung Phan on the protagonist syndrome: We've all been there. That anxious state just before we hit 'publish' where we wonder what the world will think of our work. To the creators who can never seem to move past this mental block, Bloomberg writer and Twitter meme lord, Trung Phan offers the perfect advice: No one cares. "People's memory of you is fuzzy at best," Phan says. "Nobody is thinking about you 100%. They have other stuff going on in their lives." (Link available to premium members.)

VIDEOS TO SEE.

Bartosz Ostałowski on the intricacies of footwork: Bartosz Ostałowski is a racecar driver who lost his arms in an accident, so he learned how to drive a car with only his feet. In this video, Ostałowski walks us through his Nissan Skyline R34 and shows us the modifications that make drifting possible for a double-amputee. (Link available to premium members.)

Gurwinder Bhogal on the law of large numbers: With so much reportage of crime being pumped into the news cycle, it's easy to assume our world is getting less safe everyday. This couldn't be more untrue. Contrary to what the media may have you believe, the rate of violent crimes in the US has dropped by 47.44℅ since 1990. This distortion of reality is what Gurwinder Bhogal, a programmer-turned-writer, explains.  "A million-to-one odds happen eight times a day in New York City," he says. "The world hasn't become crazier—we are just seeing more of everything." (Link available to premium members.)