I noticed it in the most subtle way. Two friends asked me to review their writing. Had this been 10 or even 5 years ago, I would have welcomed it. And honestly, I would have been excited more than just doing it as a favor. Now it feels like a favor, and I think to myself, “I don’t have the time for this.”

But the funny part is that I do. I actually do. It’s not that I don’t have the time. It’s the mental bandwidth. It’s the idea of one more idea, concept, book going through my head feels like it will overdose. Oh sure, I have plenty of time for the latest Ai news, but a good friend's deep personal work? Get it out of here!

I had to sit with that a sec. To actually think about how and why I have become such an asshole. And rather than take personal accountability, I think it’s much more entertaining for both of us if we look at the societal factors that impact our relationship (read: value) to time.

Time is Money. Money is Time.

At a basic level an investment simply means taking a resource, locking it in, and adding time.

Buy a house. Wait… Boom.

But what is the value of that time?

Well traditionally you could literally buy other people’s time. That’s called employment. You get their time, so it’s like you’ve got more to deploy. That’s called being a CEO. But now even that is changing as Ai may be selling that time. And all of the sudden we have no buyers.

Value is tied to perception.

So let’s talk about the subjective relationship to value:

One part is subjective to the individual. If you took one man back 50 years in time it might his heaven or his hell.

But then there’s the subjective to the culture itself. How do we as a society relate to time?

I would propose that due to many causes, we as a culture believe that:

1. Time is moving faster.

We all know that time moves faster every year as you get older, but there are many TikTok and Instagram videos showing people saying that it’s different this time. They say it’s moving extra fast, and I would agree.

The way everything is becoming more and more short-form, and people growing up with technology as an almost primary interface to life with constantly changing pixels. It changes the way we encode memories.

The funny part of this is that if you’re enjoying your life you really don’t care. But if you’re not then you think, “Oh shit! I don’t have much time to get my shit together!” So that means people will need help getting their shit together. Yeah, I wish I knew what I meant by that, but it’s very personal and in the shadows at this point. Try to tap into it.

2. Time is running out.

With the metacrisis and poly crisis, everything seems like it’s on fire all the time, and there’s this sense that something much bigger and much worse is coming, but that low hum of anxiety since you don’t know when. Yet I would say most people say that time span would be no more than five years.

In that sense, you kind of have two markets - Those who believe it and those who don’t. They each have very different needs.

3. I (personally) don’t have enough time.

There’s the larger timeline, and then there is my own timeline. The irony is that if I believe this, it means my entire strategy is wrong and usually includes trying to do everything at once.

The solution is prioritizing. This means saying no to things and to people (and to our own wondering desires and distractions). It all comes down to choosing, but there are so many options that it’s not easy. It’s easier to daydream about it. To chat with ChatGPT rather than real customers, readers, listeners.

So what does that mean?

Buy and Sell Time

This is the frame. For any product or service.

Can you demonstrably show that you save me 10 minutes, every week? That’s worth something. Especially if there are many of those products or services.

Can you help me make better use of the time I have?

Can you help me decide how to even use the time?

As you can see, this goes from the mere mechanical to the deeply spiritual. In fact, I would do your best to focus on those extremes - On one side, go as close to the earth and the human body, and physical things as you can. On the other side, focus on the deeply meaningful, beautiful, awe-inspiring elements of life.

That’s how we’ll keep our humanity.

I first heard about it, reading this book by a Meta Researcher, Abi Awomusu. (Click for her great substack).

She said that in coaching her executives she saw a pattern - Their state changed the results.

So I thought I’d try it out.

I was in a pretty good mood, and I felt like taking a gamble. And it certainly is a gamble to scroll because you may see things that totally bring you down.

Of course, the algorithm does something to get you hooked - it mixes them all up! Happy, sad, frustrated, confused. And of course, the ever elusive value in feeling like you’re in on some kind secret (like a conspiracy theory that resonates).

So you get flooded with all kinds of feelings, and they become your entertainment.

And there’s a cost…

Of course there’s your time.

But also your brain chemistry is getting wired for cheap dopamine, making it hard to motivate for bigger (healthier) things.

Back to the story…. I’m in a good mood, so here we go. Let’s roll the dice.

The first one was this, and it blew my mind.

This was so on point for me (and without many likes, this wasn’t really a viral one). It resonated - It’s like it tapped into that feeling of guilt I had watching the reels, but it invited me to convert it.

I decided to get up right then, and start writing, and oh my God, it kept going and going.

And then I got on the whiteboard to capture even more.

Did you watch it? Did it motivate you?

Let me know if you decide to gamble too.

1. No one is productive all day.

2. Creatives often max out at 4 hours of focused work.

3. Productivity increased when Henry Ford reduced the workday from 12 to 8 hours.

4. Diminishing results after lunch.

5. Poor decision making occurs when people are tired.

And speaking of tired:

AI is causing a new type of mental exhaustion known as "AI brain fry" or AI fatigue. Recent studies show that high-intensity oversight of AI tools causes cognitive overload, leading to mental fog, headaches, and slower decision-making. While AI boosts productivity, it often leaves users feeling more drained due to managing multiple tools and constant, high-stakes supervision. (Source: Gemini)

1 Hour Email, 4 Hours Focused Work. No screens for the rest of the day.

It’s still quite early but I’ve done three of them, and so far I’m loving it, because:

• I produce more knowing my time is more scarce now.

• I’m enjoying more time with my girlfriend.

• I’m not as moody.

• I don’t feel as guilty for when I’m not working.

• My sleep has been better.

(I didn’t expect this one) For some reason I have way less interest in social media and news, so I don’t really need willpower to stop it.

If anything, remember this: President Obama said he doesn’t make decisions after a certain hour, and President Clinton said every mistake he made was when he was tired!

If you want to try this 5 hour work day with me, give me a hollar!

Nope.

Not even close.

The opposite actually.

The day mostly became reading Ai newsletters. I went down a seemingly productive chat with Ai, only to feel exhausted afterward. And it’s through this experience that I realize, more time only exacerbates my current habits.

But….

Less time will force me to change them.

Fewer projects will make me focus.

Reducing inputs (news, social media, etc) will slow down the new ideas that are interrupting my execution on the ideas I already have.

Even Ai, which tries to keep you engaged, told me to GTFO:

Try that prompt some time after a long session.

Here’s to less. Wish me luck.

Marc Randolph said this, talking about all the other startups he launched that didn’t go anywhere. He said he had no idea that Netflix would be the one. And yet it seems so obvious in retrospect.

I would add to his statement. It’s not just doing. It’s creating something that you can:

Ship, Use, and Test.

Here is what could be called the “toxic mimic”… Ai gives you the power to create anything digital, in minutes. That means output is not the measurement, because you can constantly put out crap. Instead, the best employees will create artifacts that have verifiable value. That means three requirements:

Shippable

Is it in a state where someone can understand the value proposition? Quickly? Do they immediately connect it to their work/life or will they get confused and walk away. The trap here is you never ship because it keeps getting "perfected.” Oh how everything is so perfect and beautiful in our minds!

Usable

Is it intuitive? Will I know what to do with it? Do I have to learn a lot? Or does it require so much explanation and caveats that it slows everything down.

Testable

Did it actually solve a problem, or lead to a result (determined in advance).

I think about that for myself as I’m currently working on a “no-app” dating app (I need a new word!), and I definitely find myself getting lost in all the ideas and research. In other words… I’m writing this to myself.

What have you been thinking a lot about, but not shipping?

Value Vectors

1. Ai as Therapist

More and more people are using it for this reason, especially the non-technical people. An Ai therapist is not only extremely good; it’s basically free, available 24/7, no travel required and they’re not judgmental.

2. Flood of Content

Ai generates content at exponential speed, and a lot of it is actually good. But that means people are overwhelmed by it too. It’s harder and harder for signal to get through noise, especially with changing algorithms and inefficient advertising (What has been called the “Enshitification” of platforms).

3. The Race to Intimacy

Yuval Harari said we are no longer in the age of attention. We are in the age of intimacy. Ai is allowing for massive personalization at scale. So the companies, products and services that make people feel understood, acknowledged and appreciated are the ones who will survive.

4. Distribution is more important than product quality

Now everyday people can create software that would have costed 6 figures less than a decade ago. Everyone can easily create apps, write books, and produce films. In other words, much more supply than demand.

And here are the value plays:

1. Anything highly personalized

This means developing trust, acquiring relevant information, and exceeding expectations through surprise and delight.

2. Distribution through text-based mediums

Compared to email, text based communications are almost always read. While this is an opportunity, if it is too sales-heavy or low-value, then too many unsubscribes can kill your service.

3. Domain expertise + Passion + Fun

We are still in a window where Ai has intelligence but is low on wisdom and taste. People will still trust the people they know, as well as those with great energy in their delivery (and not necessarily high energy).

4. Nervous system regulators

With more and more change, prices rising, and potential catastrophic events, people are on edge. Anything that helps them ground and calm down will be very valuable. That includes: Anything body oriented, dating, and new drugs.

5. Art that breaks boundaries

Compared to past decades, there is very little that differentiates art now. If you can find a way to break from expectations, this will gather attention you can leverage. My expectation is people will do what looks like a business, but do it for free as experimental culture art.

6. Exposure via newsletters and small communities

Email lists with a subscriber base that matches your target customer will be much more effective than advertisements. So any kind of gatekeepers to customers, community or engaged media subscribers. Sponsoring a Substack or small communities online will entice power users and passionate consumers.

7. IRL

Events, analog products, games… Really anything that has passionate buyers for something that does not involve the screen

8. Food-based products

While the market may be crowded, there will always be a need, especially if your product is convenient and/or cheap.

How about you? What are your predictions?

To the business operator, this bowl of spaghetti looks like a dream - eliminating pesky humans and having robots run 24/7. But anyone who knows the state of these tools knows it’s not just “set it and forget it.”

A friend got high on these ideas to automate his entire business, and his email sounded like a meth-induced diatribe to prove it. Here is (part of) my response:

- The agents aren’t bulletproof. They break.
- Prompts can have different answers at different times.
- Extensive testing is required to figure out the edge cases.
- API’s can throttle, no-code platforms go down, or they can time out or do a partial execution. All at 2 in the morning.
- Do you have a backup plan? A sandbox? A simulation mode? Do you have rollbacks for each stage?


Even if all of this works, it’s just robots talking to robots (what could go wrong?).

Now that anyone can vibe code anything, I believe “look and feel” will be more and more important. Eventually all these tools will become democratized and cheap, so the question then becomes - what apps do you actually enjoy using?

I took that approach to scratch my own itch.

I wanted to mix a to-do list with my calendar, to plug in work when I have spots available. There are a few that already do this but they don’t feel good to me (and I would have to pay).

So instead I took the analog planner I created, as the basis for the digital one:

MomentumPad.com

Here is what I created (using Emergent.sh)

It has the exact look and feel I’m going for, plus a seamless integration with Google calendar.

I’d love for you to try it out: www.MomentumPad.com.

What do you think needs an elegant solution.

I managed the flow by using browser extensions to hide the feeds from me, so that I don’t go through doom scrolling. And yet... sometimes I get around them.

Then I looked at my most productive and enjoyable days, and I saw a pattern.

It’s extremely simple but just takes self-control at two key moments.These are the most influential moments of our lives. The ones that imprint to memory:

So when we check social media/news/etc first, then we miss a big opportunity.

The thing about consuming social media is it makes time disappear.

Everything is so quick that you barely even remember the exact content one minute after you watched it.

I won’t tell you what to do with your morning routine. I’m just telling you what not to do, from experience. It’s hard, it’s a total habit change.

But it works better for our dopamine production, because dopamine is the drug of anticipation. And when we spend all that anticipation on something so ultimately meaningless, we don’t have that kind of motivation to do the important things.

So simply don’t consume social media right at the beginning and right at the end of your day.

That’s it.

Then we can really start engineering experiences.

I used to think the problem was change. That if things would just slow down, we’d all feel a little less insane.

But change has always been with us. What’s different now is that nothing carries forward.

We’re living in a world that updates like an app. Rules, norms, platforms, jobs, relationships, identities—everything ships new versions constantly. And if you’re not paying attention, life starts to feel like waking up each morning inside a brand-new reality, expecting us to perform like we’ve been training for it your whole life.

Here’s what I’ve noticed, both in myself and in the organizations I’ve worked with: continuity is quietly becoming one of our highest priorities. Not stability in the sense of nothing ever moves. Not nostalgia. Not “let’s go back to how things were.”

Continuity is something more useful. More urgent.

Continuity is coherence over time.

It’s the thread that stays intact while everything else moves.

Agency comes after continuity

Before this, I thought the highest emerging value would be agency. But agency needs a coherent self to do the choosing.

When the “who” is unstable, “what I do” becomes mostly a reaction to whatever is loudest, newest, or most emotionally charged. That’s not agency. That’s being programmable.

Memory is the medium of continuity. If you can’t connect decision to consequence, you can’t accumulate wisdom. You keep paying the price of the same lesson because it never gets stored in a form you can retrieve when it matters.

You’ve seen this in organizations: the company “learns” something in one quarter and forgets it in the next reorg. The work doesn’t compound; it resets. Not because people are stupid—because nothing carries forward.

The same is true personally. If you don’t keep a record of what you tried, what happened, and what you learned, your agency becomes a slot machine: pull the lever, hope for a better outcome, forget what you learned last time, repeat.

In some ways, we are actually not prepared for true agency.

The modern paradox: more options, less usable agency

We are living inside a strange paradox: the world is handing us more choices than ever, while simultaneously attacking the systems that make choices coherent—attention, memory, long arcs, shared reality.

So many people feel like this: “I can do anything… and I can’t do anything.”

The Real Scarcity

Information is everywhere. Opinions are everywhere. Content is everywhere. “New” is the cheapest substance on earth.

But coherence? That’s rare.

Coherence is what lets you trust a person. It’s what lets you learn without constantly starting over. It’s what lets a relationship deepen instead of stagnating or resetting. It’s what makes progress compound instead of evaporate.

Without continuity, life becomes a pile of moments that never add up.

And you can feel that cost. It shows up as anxiety, because your brain can’t predict the environment. It shows up as decision fatigue, because everything feels like the first time. It shows up as goal drift—you keep “getting serious” every Monday. Your story becomes a slideshow instead of a narrative.

The world doesn’t have to become calmer for you to have continuity. Continuity is what you build so you can stay human inside the chaos.

The Three Continuities

If continuity is coherence over time, humans usually need that coherence in three places:

Identity continuity: I’m still me. Not the same mood. Not the same energy. But the same core.

Memory continuity: My past is still usable. Not perfect recall—usable meaning. The ability to carry lessons forward instead of paying to learn them again.

Goal continuity: I’m still headed somewhere. Not rigid plans—direction. A thread of intention that survives contact with real life.

You can lose any one of these and still function. Lose all three and you feel like you’re living someone else’s life, in someone else’s feed, for someone else’s agenda.

Why This Matters More Now

A few forces are converging that make continuity feel less like a nice-to-have and more like a survival skill.

The world is updating faster than the nervous system. We’re running ancient hardware on continuously updating software. Your body is tuned for seasons and migrations, not notifications and terms of service updates. When the rules keep changing, your brain spends more time scanning for danger and less time creating meaning. Continuity becomes a form of psychological shelter.

Fragmentation isn’t just distraction—it’s identity erosion. The feed doesn’t only split your attention. It splits your self. When your inputs are fragmented, your inner world tends to fragment too. You think in clips, feel in bursts, choose in impulses. You become vulnerable to whatever is loudest, newest, most emotionally charged. Continuity becomes an act of self-possession.

Continuity used to be the default setting. Now we have to design it. For most of human history, continuity was baked into life: family proximity, stable communities, shared rituals, fewer choices, slower change. Now we’re mobile, remote, dislocated, personalized, sorted into niche realities. The new default is churn. Continuity becomes a craft—something you build intentionally, not something that happens to you.

When the tools are ubiquitous, and startup costs minimal, follow-through becomes priceless. Automation and AI are turning a lot of production into a commodity. When everyone can generate, the differentiator becomes: can you carry a thread? Can you sustain a relationship? Can you maintain a point of view? Can you build something across time? Can you keep promises—especially the quiet ones you made to yourself? In a world of infinite content, continuity becomes credibility.

Adaptive Continuity

I want to be clear about something: continuity is not rigidity. It’s not refusing to change. It’s refusing amnesia.

The version worth building is what I’d call Adaptive Continuity. Stable core, flexible edges. Values stay steady while strategies change. Identity deepens while goals evolve without evaporating.

Think of it like version control in software: you can revise, but you don’t lose the history or intent.

You’re allowed to pivot. You’re allowed to change your mind. Continuity isn’t “never change.” It’s “change without losing yourself.”

Where You Actually Have Agency

Here’s something useful: we don’t have equal control over every kind of continuity.

You have less control over emotional continuity than Instagram implies. Moods shift. Bodies fluctuate. Life hits you. Trying to maintain consistent feelings is a recipe for frustration.

But you have meaningful agency over three things:

Goal continuity (high agency). You can pick a direction and keep choosing the next honest step. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control whether you keep showing up.

Identity continuity (medium-high agency). Not by “deciding who you are” once, but by practicing who you are repeatedly—especially under stress. Identity is a verb, not a noun.

Memory continuity (medium agency). External systems—notes, rituals, reviews—can dramatically increase continuity even if your brain is busy being a brain. You can build scaffolding that remembers when you forget.

If you want a shortcut: stop trying to be consistent in feelings. Be consistent in values and next actions.

The Continuity Stack

Here’s a framework that turns the concept into something you can actually build:

Values continuity – the rules you live by, the things you won’t compromise

Memory continuity – what you’ve learned, what you’ve decided, what you refuse to pay to learn again

Goal continuity – where you’re headed, the thread of intention

Ritual continuity – practices that keep the thread alive, even when motivation fails

Relational continuity – people who remember you when you forget

That top one matters more than we admit. Humans outsource continuity to each other. Communities are shared memory. Friendship is a living archive. Leadership, at its best, is continuity at scale.

Continuity > Consistency

There’s a lot of hype around habits, but I think continuity goes deeper.

• Consistency (rigid): “Do the same thing the same way.”

• Continuity (adaptable) “Carry forward what matters—even if the method changes.”

Consistency is fragile. It breaks with travel, illness, chaos weeks, family emergencies and changing markets.

Besides, you can be consistently busy and continuously lost. If you’re consistent at the wrong target, you get better at the wrong life.

Continuity keeps you aligned to what matters (values, identity, direction), which lets you change tactics without losing yourself.

Practices That Actually Work

Here’s where this gets practical. None of these require a monastery or a complete life overhaul.

Decision logs. Write down: “We decided X because Y.” This prevents re-litigation and protects sanity. It creates memory continuity for individuals and teams. When you revisit a decision six months later, you’ll remember why you made it—and you won’t have to relitigate it from scratch.

Anchor rituals. A tiny daily practice that says, “I’m still me.” Not a performance. A thread. Ten minutes of writing can do it. The content matters less than the consistency.

Weekly review. Fifteen minutes. Look back, pull forward. Ask yourself: “What do I want to carry into next week?” That question alone is continuity. It bridges the gap between who you were and who you’re becoming.

Minimum viable day. When life is chaos, you don’t abandon the thread—you shrink it. What’s the least you need to do to have you look back and say it was a great day?

Continuity prompts. Three questions worth asking regularly: What is still true? What are we carrying forward? What loops are we stuck in? What did we learn that we don’t want to pay to learn again?

The Thread

I think continuity is becoming a human need because we are entering an era where the outside world is increasingly discontinuous by design—economically, culturally, technologically. The systems around us profit from our fragmentation, from our constant resetting, from our inability to carry anything forward.

Continuity is how we stay whole.

The question isn’t whether things will keep changing. They will. The question is whether you’ll still be you on the other side.

That’s the game now.

(What do you think? I’d love any and all feedback)

I just wasted so much time on a vibe coded app that hit an error loop.

But the failure taught me something - I didn’t need an app. I realized that to pitch the concept, all I really needed was a screenshot of the interface. The rest was highly intuitive or could be easily explained. In other words, I didn’t need a working app. All those hours were wasted.

What do you really need next?

We think it’s an app, or a strategy, or a marketing plan. But what we need (as fast and cheap as possible), is figure out if we’re right or wrong in our basic assumptions on value. And there are some very creative ways to do that.

Your app doesn’t need to “work”

When Fireflies.ai started their product, they created an account named “Fred from Fireflies.ai” which would join customer meetings. While on mute (with no video), one of the founders would manually sit through the entire meeting and type out notes by hand. After the call ended, they would email the “AI-generated” notes to the customer within ten minutes

Validate Your Hypothesis Before Going Full Development

What assumptions are you going on? In other words, what - if untrue - would derail all further development?

I wrote up a big spec on a dating app I’m working on, and then realized that what I actually need before moving forward is to see if the algorithm works. But that posed a problem. Since this predicts long-term success, it would take months of dating (or even years in a relationship) to verify it.

Then I realized I can backtest it with current happy couples to see if my predictors matched their success.

So my next step isn’t an app, it’s a “Yes” to an invitation

My next step is to ask people to take their information and run it through my “app” - which is actually just me on the backside, doing it all by hand.

In business development I have this concept called “Stringing the yes’s.” The idea is this:

Make it so easy for the client or customer, that all they have to do is say “Yes.” If they have to do any more thinking then you lose or confuse them.

This gives you leverage on time.

Leverage = Low input, high output.

Is your value proposition clear?

Of course, we all think yes, but have you sat someone down and watched them, in total silence? Often the response is… “What? What do I do?” What’s clear in your head does not come through on the screen.

I’m developing a habit app, realizing I need to be much clearer. It’s in development here: Superfantastic.app

I think about it in layers:

• What is the development layer you need to get you to the next step?

• What do you need to validate your hypothesis?

• What do you need to show someone to either get a yes or a check?

Here is a chart to help you figure it out:

Hope this helps! All feedback welcome.

Facebook reneged on its promise to connect us with our friends, and now people have stopped casually posting. (I think it’s part of a larger trend of exhaustion with much larger implications, but let’s focus on entertainment for now).

First, my predictions on what will fall out of fashion.

1. Podcasts

I used to be addicted to podcasts. I couldn’t go to bed without them, walk my dog, clean my house. If I’m being honest - it felt like having friends with me. But something happened after I took a break. After several weeks I re-installed the app and started listening. That’s when it hit me:

I know, it sounds dramatic, but it’s all their agendas! I have no idea where they’re going, and so they fill up my head with all kinds of thoughts I just don’t need. I feel liberated from devoting my brain space to whatever it is they want to talk about.

This is its own form of entertainment as YouTubers like Podcast Cringe document what they call the downfall of comedy podcasts. I think they’ll go the way of late night TV.

2. Long Form Fictional Entertainment (ie - movies and TV)

The waves of nostalgia are not inexhaustible. There is only so much content they can pull from to do remakes. There will be occasional breakthrough hits, like the K-Pop Demon Hunters, or the movie versions of Romantic Fantasy Fiction, but most of it will just feel… meh.

Speaking of the exhaustion trend, everyone is tired of endlessly browsing through options. In a world where it’s always NOW, 30 minutes feels like a big investment.

3. Dating

Yes, it’s definitely a form of entertainment. It has to be. Otherwise why would we…. Oh. Yeah. It’s not. The amount of effort that goes into swiping, matching, connecting, scheduling, prepping, meeting - on top of all the energy of being charming and graceful while somehow still being authentic? All of this with an 80% chance of sucking.

Nope. It’s out.

The Predictions:

YouTube surges as other platforms plateau

The comedy / podcast bubbles come to an end as they implode over political differences and audience exhaustion. YouTube takes off even further as people want to feel the intimacy of a podcast but with the focus of a good rabbit hole they’re into.

Super Analog

The younger generation will finally get fed up with technology itself. They’ll want the physical, the sensual, thirsty for anything real. Staying off your phone becomes the status symbol. Time get filled up with, well, everything that’s not digital - Board games, dinner parties, road trips, drugs, concerts, challenges, hikes, walks.

That is, for those who achieve escape velocity. For everyone else, the future may look like Wall-E…

Musicals are back as old entertainment becomes new

Musicals come back at a local level with the help of Ai-assisted song-writing and background imagery. Burnt out B-list actors and musicians realize they’re not going anywhere, so might as well try to have fun. They do it, celebrities eventually see the fun and get involved, crossing over with the cosplay / Comic-con scene. Everyone feels like they’re back in band camp, and the best musicals are picked up to become the new K-Pop Demon Hunters.

4D Fan Fiction

Fan Fiction goes from novels to full videos, shows and movies as people figure out ways to break through copyright entanglements. Some brands learn to take advantage of the situation by providing the tools for their fans to do so.

Off-brand secret societies

You won’t know about them, by definition. But they’re happening. Not the vanity of a skull and bones, nor the control of Scientology. Just small but expanding secret clubs, men’s groups, group texts turned real.

Those are mine. What do you think? What are yours?

This is the text thread I read after a friend posted a singles event:

“No thanks.”
”I’m out.”
”Yeah, no singles events for me. I’m in “Man-o-pause.”

Honestly, at first I judged them. Why not make the effort? Everyone hates the dating apps. Meeting people IRL has so much depth. (Side note: That’s just one of the reasons I got off the apps. Attraction just doesn’t shine through. I’ve met plenty of people who are attractive but when I looked up their online photos, I would have definitely swiped left).

I went to the event. I had a great time. A woman actually asked me out. We went out several times on interesting dates (hiking, a game night, improv show). We had a great time and I laughed a lot. Had good chemistry. But then it hit me…

It didn’t feel good, and I don’t even know why. I would feel heavy every time I made plans. And I felt anxious in the confusion. When I finally told her that I had a lot going on, it wasn’t that I felt relieved not to see her. I felt relieved when I finally gave myself permission to stop dating entirely.

So I not only stopped judging my friends. I started agreeing with them and asking more about how they felt.

“Dating feels like work. You have to do a lot to get ready. You have to bring your A-game and put on the charm. It just doesn’t feel worth it.”

While that would indicate low effort, I do think there’s a positive side to all of this. I’ve noticed that my friends and I are actually very engaged and excited with the various projects we’re working on. But it does beg the question - What does the future of dating look like?

Introducing the Ai Matchmaker

I mean really, why not? It’s not like perennially single people make the best choices. And the human matchmakers cost thousands of dollars.

Companies like Sitch are figuring out the balance - not thousands of dollars, but also not cheap - about $100 a month, which I think is great. (You know you’ve spent way more and gotten way less, and what’s the market value of a soul mate???).

I think they nailed the interface. If everything is going the way of prompts and chat, then this is a great UI design.

The Game of the Dating Game

There are new apps that are adding what are essentially, layers, rules and challenges. Apps like Cerca even allow people to play matchmaker. It will be interesting to see how they incentive and reward behaviors.

Cuffed limits you to talking to only one person at a time, so you actually give them a chance. Members are vetted, and of course there’s Ai, because Ai.

The Total Ai Disruption

By disruption, I mean total annihilation. The dating apps are programmed based on metaphors that de-humanize people:

And while there are better metaphors that are more natural (I’ve taken a stab at designing one), the problem is actually that we are just too human. We make decisions based on unconscious factors and then wonder why things don’t work out.

While we are not yet at Black Mirror Level Dating (watch this one. It’s fantastic)…

… I do believe something amazing is coming…

Dating based on Body Data

While the founder of Bumble talks about Ai coming in as a dating coach, the real disruption will happen when a contender figures out how to combine the incredible advances in voice analysis and facial recognition technology. I don’t know how. It’s above my pay grade. But I’m sure of it.

With just a few samples, the Ai will know everything and predict matches, because it skips the conscious mind (i.e. - the one talking to that AI coach, bullshitting everyone in the process, including themselves).

The Culture of Dating is: Me

Me as in me, me as in you, me as in everyone.

Oh the irony - Love is all about our care for another and yet, the trends are showing that we are all just focused on ourselves.

David Brooks writes about how over decades, moral values have been replaced by “therapeutic values” (well-being and psychological adjustment). Add that consumer/convenience culture that will “produce narcissistic individuals — self-absorbed, fragile and desperate for recognition.“

See me. Hear me. Feel me.

At the end of the day, this seems to come down to acknowledgement. Here are quotes from the original source, on people saying why they fall in love:

“I fall in love when someone sees me in a way I didn’t know I could be seen. Not just compliments, but like—recognition. As in: I see the version of you that’s still trying… And I like her.”

“Falling in love is like seeing yourself reflected in someone else’s mind.”

“I fall in love when I don’t feel like I’m performing competence - when someone sees you in the absolute mess of it — your pain, your pettiness, your unpaid parking tickets.”

Boy does this seem like good news for narcissists looking to manipulate someone through their needs for validation. But on the positive side, I really hope we all learn to see and acknowledge people better. How will that work when we’re all in our little bubbles? (more on that in a later post).

Until then, I calling my shot on the future:

Future Buzzwords:

“Sensationships”

Sensationships will be based on pleasure instead of romance.

Uncertainty of the future + annui means people are not as concerned about shared beliefs and political views. They just want to have a good time.

Connections will be based on unique shared pleasures. (And suddenly a bunch of what used to be “icks” are now passable). This is the “eat dessert first” school of thought, prioritizing the most sensual over the most sensible.

So yes, not only will a left-leaning hippie connect with a right-wing conservative connect over their obsessive love of rock climbing in exotic locations - they actually might make a fetish of it.

But that does mean compromises:

“Ish Factor” > Ick Factor

“Ish” essentially means good enough. As in…

”Is he hot?”
”ish. He’s hot-ish.”

I think this will be great. Not so much about lowering standards as it is about lowering requirements. I only recently realized I have a couple red flags (that I discovered through a dinner party where I brought out my cards with intriguing questions). It was very humbling as I did feel a bit high on myself before that conversation.

(PS - If you want to know the truth from your friends, just use these exact words: “Would you please tell me what you think I don’t want to hear?”).

“The New Power Couple”

Husband and wife business teams have been around for awhile, but I think we’ll see a new wave of them. They’ll be rare, but a lot of people will have it on their vision boards under “Couple Goals.” I think you’d have to get all three to qualify:

1. Shared Values - Obvious, until you realize most people don’t know their values.

2. Shared Vision - Working together on the same goal from different, complementary angles (as opposed to two strong people working on different things).

3. Shared Sharing - They don’t just live it. They express it, online, together. They share their lessons, advice, the behind-the-scenes, and even current challenges. They are part private, part public and their fan base may not even be customers (though most likely future customers).

What’s not on this list? Beliefs. Or even agreement on reality. Both of these things can easily change over time, and (I believe) it will be healthier not to connect or judge others based on beliefs, but by their character and the value they provide.

What about you? What do you think is the future of dating and relationships?

You may have already started to feel that vacuum of what I can only call the lack of “the real.” You know you’re lacking the real when you start to notice:

• How much time you spend in front of screens

• Shows are replaced by scrolling

• You spend a lot of time just going through titles on streaming services

• Hours or even days go by and you’re don’t have a great memory of them

• It’s harder to focus. Watching a full movie (start to finish) feels like an accomplishment

• Fact and Fake are blurring. A news flash one day could be debunked the next day

• It takes a lot of energy and effort to leave the house

• Basic things like errands feel like a big pain in the ass

Many others have said it, but of course it’s a combination of social media, convenience culture and a rate of change and news cycles coming at us at light speed.

So what’s the consequence of this? I think we’re missing out on memory creation, and that comes down to encoding feeling tones.

What is a feeling tone?

Think of a time period in your life you really enjoyed that was really memorable. It probably involved the senses (like music and your surrounding environment), people and a lot of presence.

And so the difference between feeling tone and feeling is the difference between flavor and flavor profile.

The first one is common (sweet or savory, chocolate, etc), but the feeling tone - well, it can’t actually be described. It’s like asking someone to describe the color blue without using any examples or metaphors. There just aren’t words for it.

Other ways you have a memorable experience with feeling tones:

1. Presence - You were very present, not distracted, and not thinking about many things at once.

2. Realization - You may have had insights, lessons, aha’s, etc.

3. Synchronization - You’re in sync with people around you. For example, you’re all cooking dinner together.

4. Integration - Post experience. It’s the drive home, the time alone when you feel satisfied and miss it at the same time.

5. The Story keeps being re-told - You enjoy telling it and others enjoy living it.

So that’s how we can reverse engineer it:

How to Create new memories (feeling tones)

1. Listen to new music (stop the nostalgia)

2. Get with people you love and/or new people

3. Pick a relaxed time of day or week - nothing you need to be doing.

4. Optionally substances (wine, coffee, cannabis)

5. Create something together (a meal, a project, a vacation, a road trip)

6. Have a destination or a goal (something to celebrate together)

Or, just go back to scrolling and enter the void.

My big goal is to finish this book by the end of the year: The Make it a Game book.

My montage design includes:

• Cold plunge in the morning (if you don’t have one, try a shower. Instant caffeine!)

• Working out with weights

• Writing at least 1 hour per day

• Studying game books

• Drawing out and designing games

• Playtesting with a group

• No screens after 8pm

• Reduced social media diet (See article here)

My belief:

My belief is that we’re going to need things like to stay sane. A sense of continuity in the hyper now. A development of the will power muscle in the face of full convenience. Adding friction in a world designed to reduce it.

What about you?

Do you have a big goal?
Would you like a montage? I can help you design it.

But in my experience as a corporate culture strategist (and in a piece I wrote for the New York Times), I’ve come to believe this philosophy has limits.

Encouraging people to bring their “whole selves” often becomes an invitation to bring every unfiltered frustration, insecurity, or unresolved past conflict into a professional environment. On the other end of the spectrum, asking people to check themselves at the door and bring only a curated, sanitized version of who they are doesn’t work either. It stifles creativity, discourages connection, and eventually breeds burnout.

There’s a third alternative — one that I’ve seen unlock potential, resolve workplace drama, and transform teams. Instead of asking people to bring their whole self or their partial self, what if we invited them to bring their future self?

The “future self” is the person you aspire to be — not an idealized fantasy, but the next version of you that’s more courageous, more compassionate, more competent. It’s the self that wakes up with purpose, shows up with clarity, and makes decisions with intention.

This mindset shift reframes work as a developmental dojo — a place to practice being the person you're becoming. And something remarkable happens when a team adopts this lens: the workplace transforms from a stage for grievances into a laboratory for growth.

Suddenly, feedback becomes fuel, not a threat. Deadlines become opportunities for integrity, not stress. Petty conflicts fade when viewed from the perspective of “who am I becoming through this?” People begin to encourage not only their own growth, but the growth of those around them — and that’s the foundation of a truly high-performing team.

The future self model doesn’t ignore the present; it integrates it. It acknowledges that we all have stories, challenges, and emotions — but it asks: Who do I want to be on the other side of this? That question is inherently empowering.

In a time when workplaces are grappling with burnout, identity politics, generational divides, and post-pandemic disconnection, perhaps what we need isn’t just more authenticity — but more aspiration. Because when we bring our future selves to work, we don't just change our careers. We change our culture.

Getting more done doesn't start with systems. It starts with eliminations.

I'll show you how to do it, right here.

Just remember, this is all about getting real and honest with yourself on where you're at, where you want to be, and the things that distract you from that journey.

But here's the payoff - It feels freakin amazing.

I'm listing these in steps because I found that it's more sustainable to do it this way, kind of like Everest climbers get used to each camp level's air before moving to the next. So be careful not to upgrade too quickly!

Are you ready? Here we go....

📱Level 1 - Your phone is not your friend.

"Do you realize that our best friend is actually... our phone?" I asked my friend.

Sure, you could say that it connects you with real people, but at the end of the day, you're just pushing buttons on a piece of plastic while looking at shiny lights. The phone is literally and figuratively closer to me than any thing or person. I found that scary. So this had to stop.

Step 1 is to take the interesting apps off the phone.

Don't freak out just yet! You can still access them on your computer.💻

And for apps that must be in the iOS / Android system (e.g. a dating app), I recommend using an 📱iPad or tablet (the older the better because it's less addictive when it's slow and choppy).

🔊Level 2 - Your content consumption is not as great as you think.

Delete the News, Podcasts and Youtube apps.

You'll see that you're actually not missing all that much. But the real payoff is that without that satisfaction, you get the desire to either read things that are better for you (like books), or get productive.

As days/weeks go by, consider which ones you really miss, vs which ones you felt you "should" consume, or ones that you notice only drain and distract you with no upside. You can add them back if you'd like. But if you've followed the steps so far and given yourself a little time, you may find they are not nearly as interesting.

🚦Level 3 - Put on the breaks

Now that you are only viewing social media content on your computer, you may find you are still getting stuck there with all its bells and whistles.

The solution is to limit (not stop) your consumption. And you can do that with the Newsfeed Eradicator on Google Chrome. This plug-in hides the feed on many sites, which means you still get access to your messages and notifications.

This is a fantastic way to wean yourself all the dopamine distraction of feeds.

🚦Level 4 - Escape Velocity

By this point you'll get a taste of how much more time and energy you have. Would you like even more??

The next step - Just block sites entirely on your workstation.

This way you haven't (yet) deleted your social media accounts. You're just putting them in time-out. If you have a spare laptop you can use this for fun, but again, best that it's inconvenient and slow. You're still getting benefits because it's not going everywhere with you on your phone!

🚦Level 5 - Super on Point

I know, you think I'm going to tell you to nuke all of your social media. Nope! I mean all the power to you if you do. (If you look for videos about leaving social media entirely, you'll see some very peaced out and productive people).

This is a technique to still access your messages, without any buttons to take you to other places. It's a message consolidator called Beeper.

Beeper gives you one Inbox for all of these:

• WhatsApp

• Instagram

• Facebook Messenger

• Twitter/X

• Google Messages (SMS/RCS)

• Telegram

• Signal

• Discord

• LinkedIn (this doesn't work well, and I think more time on Linkedin isn't so bad)

The amount of peace and time I've experienced as a result of these steps has been profound. I'm also taking action on things I've procrastinated for a long time.

Try it and let me know how it goes!