Hi friends,

One of my core principles is: "Go to the Source." Whenever I'm interested in a movement, I travel to where it began and meet people who can teach me about it. Sometimes, that means traveling across international borders. So, I'm off to Florence for a week to learn about art history, the Renaissance, and Italian aesthetics, which have inspired my favorite art (and my favorite city, Paris).

A few things from me this week:

1. Making Friends on the Internet: Writing online is special because the people you meet will become real-world friends. Don't take my word for it though. Take it from my students.

(You can watch it on Twitter too).

2. Amp It Up: A core philosophy that I come back to every day at Write of Passage: Increase the tempo, raise the standards, and narrow the focus. Here's my full article.

3. Surrender to Your Nature: The most miserable people I know are fighting to overcome their nature instead of surrendering to the person they actually are. Or, as Einstein said: "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." (My short article | My short video)

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Today's Finds

Jeremy Giffon: One of my closest friends and the first guy I call whenever I get stuck with something. He was one of the first employees at a company that sold to Workday and was a General Partner at Tiny Capital when they went public. And he's in his 20s. A few things stick out to me from this podcast episode. First, good ideas are easy to justify. As an investor, his best deals smacked him in the face. They got everybody excited in a few sentences, while the worst ones came from multi-week debates and "rigorous" thinking. Second, one big idea is all you need. The writer who nails the one-sentence slogan has more influence than the one who nails the 900-page book. If you want something to stick, distill it into the shortest and most memorable phrase you can, and say it over and over again. You see this in the way great entrepreneurs repeat themselves without losing intensity or passion. How many thousands of times has Jeff Bezos told his team to focus on the customer? Here's a list of things I've learned from Jeremy. (Listen to the podcast: Apple | Spotify )

​Chapter 2 of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: How has religion influenced capitalism? Weber argues that our contemporary work ethic and beliefs about material success are inspired by non-market phenomena. Weber argues that the capitalist ethic comes from the Puritan sects of Protestantism, which had people striving for profit as a way to earn their salvation. Puritans were driven by the anxiety of not knowing whether they'd be saved and go to heaven. And so, they embraced hard work. They saw it as a duty, not just something you do to make money. I like this chapter, which paints Ben Franklin as the archetype of the capitalist ethic. The Protestant ethic contrasts the attitudes of more traditional economies. In Florence, for example, the obsessive pursuit of profit was considered "morally questionable." But for Franklin, the pursuit of profit was seen as morally good and a noble end to serve.

John Marsh: There was a time in his life when he was addicted to drugs, ~$1 million in debt, and on the brink of divorce. But John turned his life around, and today, he's a relationship counselor who manages more than $2 billion in real estate. This podcast with Brent Beshore is a good window into his story. John is the master of one-liners. Last time we spoke, he told me that he asks the same questions to everybody he meets: How has failure shaped your life? What are three things to always do, and three things to never do? Who do you know that I should know, and would you introduce me? To learn about his story, I recommend his interview with Brent Beshore and this short documentary about his company, Marsh Collective.

​7 Powers: Out of everything in this book, the idea of "counter-positioning" stuck with me the most. Counter-positioning is when a company jumps into an industry with a new and superior business model that the incumbents can't mimic. Think of the way Netflix's DVD-by-mail product made Blockbuster's physical stores irrelevant, and how Blockbuster couldn't replicate the Netflix model without sacrificing its existing, profitable business. Or, think of how digital cameras made the need for film obsolete. Companies like Kodak, which invested in film, weren't able to shift to digital. Other examples include Uber vs. taxis and Amazon vs. brick-and-mortar retailers. One way to counter-position today is to openly share information in industries that've traditionally been guarded. This is why I'm such a fan of writing online. One example is the way A16z has embraced online publishing to compete with secretive venture capital firms like Sequoia and Benchmark. To learn more about the main ideas, I recommend this review.

​Season of No: Nearly every outlier I know is extremely focused. They have a clear list of priorities and say "no" to just about everything else. If you're struggling to focus on what really matters, Alex Hormozi suggests a "Season of No." Start by writing down your goals. Keep it to one. Maybe two. Definitely not three. You know you're on the right track if you're pained by the things you've said "no" to. For a season of your life (anywhere from three months to three years), say "no" to anything that doesn't support your goals. Creating a To-Don't list is as important as creating a To-Do list, because avoiding distractions gives you space to focus on the most important things in your life.

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P.S. I'll be speaking at the Main Street Summit in November.