“Here is a book with a life-changing message: we spend too much time managing the wrong things. . . ."

^{—Kamini Lane, President & CEO, Coldwell Banker Realty}

Book spotlight:

In The 25th Hour, Neal Schore reveals how our emotional reactions quietly eat away not just at our time but also at our energy.

Out Today (August 11, 2026)

Our problem is…

• the unproductive worrying

• the anxiety that blooms and spirals

• the decisions we make based on fear

• the obsession over other people’s actions and behaviors

All those complicated emotional dynamics that we so rarely address.
More than anything else, we get in our own way.

This book offer a simple, practical approach to addressing what really costs us so much time and energy: our uncontrolled emotional responses.

A few ideas in the book:

1/ The one question you should always ask yourself: “Why is this person telling or asking me this? What’s their real intent?”

2/ When life isn’t going as you’d hoped: How to reset after a distracting or tough experience has left you in a miasma of self doubt.

3/ How to reach new levels of achievement and efficiency: Fire your fears, break with your automatic responses, and fight back against imposture syndrome (with creative tools that will make you smile as you put them to work).

Note from the editor:

This book reminded me that simple concepts practiced regularly—like Schore’s “What’s the Intent?”—can have a huge impact.

If you’re like me and have a tendency to get in your own way, check out this book.

— Scott

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

Why do so many restaurants serve bread before the meal?

At first glance, it seems like an odd business decision. Why give away free food before customers order more?

The answer isn't just generosity—it's centuries of economics, hospitality, and psychology.

In Consider the Fork, food historian Bee Wilson explains that bread has long been the universal symbol of welcome. Across Europe and the Middle East, offering bread to a guest wasn't simply about feeding them; it was a public signal that they had entered a place of safety and hospitality. The gesture became deeply embedded in dining culture long before modern restaurants existed.

There's another layer. Behavioral economists have shown that first experiences disproportionately shape how we remember an event—a phenomenon known as the primacy effect. A warm basket of bread arriving within minutes quietly changes the emotional tone of the meal before the first entrée even appears.

Bread also solves a practical problem. It gives diners something to do while the kitchen works, smoothing over the one part of the restaurant experience that would otherwise feel like waiting.

So the basket on the table isn't really about bread.

It's an opening sentence.

It's the restaurant's first opportunity to say, "You're welcome here."

The most enduring traditions aren't always the most obvious. Often, they're invisible pieces of human psychology that have survived because they make people feel something—even if they can't explain why.

Just one more reminder that the ordinary is usually a lot more sophisticated than it looks.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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It’s the last week of July, so we’re revisiting a few of the ideas we featured this month.

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One of the oldest debates in business—and life—is surprisingly simple:

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For most of human history, long hair wasn't a "women's thing."

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Short hair for men became common because…

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This is a post about hair… just stick with me for a second.

For most of human history, long hair wasn't a "women's thing." Men and women across ancient Greece, Viking societies, many Indigenous cultures, and even European nobility often wore their hair long. Short hair for men became common largely because it was practical—soldiers couldn't have enemies grabbing it, sailors and factory workers found it safer, and later, modern militaries made cropped hair the norm.

Women's long hair, meanwhile, became tied to ideas of beauty, fertility, and status. Maintaining long hair signaled time, health, and resources. Over centuries, what began as practical differences slowly hardened into cultural expectations.

Historian Kurt Stenn explores this evolution in Hair: A Human History, showing how hair has always been about far more than appearance—it's been a signal of identity, power, religion, class, and belonging.

The takeaway? 

Culture has a remarkable ability to disguise itself as biology. Many things we assume are "natural" are actually customs that have been repeated for so long they simply feel inevitable.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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One of the oldest debates in business—and life—is surprisingly simple:

Should you be nice?

Many people believe the world rewards the ruthless. Nice people finish last. Winners do whatever it takes.

There’s some evidence for that view. More than 500 years ago, Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince, arguing that leaders sometimes need to prioritize results over being liked. The book remains controversial precisely because parts of it still feel true.

But modern research points in a different direction.

In Give and Take, Adam Grant found that people who consistently help others often outperform their peers over the long run—not despite their generosity, but because of it. Strong relationships compound.

Similarly, in Humankind, Rutger Bregman argues that humans are far more cooperative than we're often led to believe. Trust, kindness, and reciprocity aren't weaknesses. They're part of what allowed societies to flourish in the first place.

So who's right?

Maybe the problem is the question.

The real choice isn't between being nice and being successful.

It's between being kind and being a pushover.

The most effective people tend to combine warmth with boundaries. They're generous with their time, but not endlessly available. They're willing to help, but they're also willing to say no.

In other words, they aren't nice because they want something in return.

They're nice because it's a good way to live—and it often turns out to be a good way to succeed.

The takeaway:

Be kind. Be useful. Have boundaries.

The combination is harder than being ruthless, but it may be more effective.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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It’s the last day of June, so we’re revisiting a few of the ideas we featured this month.

Keep reading for our June 2026 Recap 👇

But first…

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June 2026 Recap

This morning, my daughter gave me the perfect excuse not to make my bed.

She spilled milk in it.

Which got me wondering: if making your bed is such a small thing, why do so many accomplished people swear by it—and just as many dismiss it?

That question sits at the center of one of the most enduring debates in personal development. Should you make your bed every morning?

To answer that question, we looked to authors who make the case for it and the case against it. Here’s what we found…

The 2024 Lancet Commission on Dementia found that approximately 45% of dementia cases worldwide could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors.

Low education is a risk factor on that list. Not because smart people don’t get dementia, but because lifelong intellectual engagement builds something called cognitive reserve — the brain’s capacity to tolerate damage before symptoms appear.

At a glance:

• Novelty is the variable that matters.

• Cognitive reserve is real and buildable.

• Brain training apps mostly don’t transfer.

Summer gets a reputation for killing productivity.

People take vacations. Kids are home. The office is half-empty. It's easy to feel like nothing gets done.

But is that actually true?

A couple of books suggest summer's slower pace may be an advantage. But we found another book that makes the case for the opposing view. So who’s right?

Does Summer Actually Make You More Productive?

In 1951, Jack Bogle wrote his Princeton thesis arguing that mutual funds could not reliably beat the market after costs.

Nobody in the industry believed him. His idea sat for 25 years.

Then, in 1974, he was fired from the firm he had built. Bogle used the forced exit to finally act on his thesis, and he launched the first index fund for individual investors.

That is how Vanguard started…

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In 1951, Jack Bogle wrote his Princeton thesis arguing that mutual funds could not reliably beat the market after costs.

Nobody in the industry believed him. His idea sat for 25 years.

Then, in 1974, he was fired from the firm he had built. Bogle used the forced exit to finally act on his thesis, and he launched the first index fund for individual investors.

Critics called it un-American.
Wall Street called it "Bogle's Folly."
The fund only raised $11 million against a $150 million target.

But Vanguard was born.

Today Vanguard manages over $12 trillion, owns roughly 10% of every company in the S&P 500, and manages assets for 50 million clients. It has saved investors an estimated $500 billion in fees.

Takeaway 1: Novelty and heresy come together.

Paul Graham wrote an essay that explains the phenomenon Bogle faced. In it, he says "If you discover something new, there's a significant chance you'll be accused of some form of heresy."

The mockery wasn't evidence that Bogle was wrong. It was almost evidence that he was right.

Takeaway 2: There isn’t a perfect time to get started.

Bogle held his conviction for 25 years before he had the conditions to act on it. His idea was nearly a generation ahead of its time.

Most people abandon an uncomfortable idea long before the world catches up to it. Bogle didn't.

For more on Jack Bogle’s story, check out this ACQUIRED episode about Vanguard.

Thanks for reading,

Scott

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter®

Summer starts here (free gummies!)

The sun is here and we're back outside!

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Summer gets a reputation for killing productivity.

People take vacations. Kids are home. The office is half-empty. It's easy to feel like nothing gets done.

But is that actually true?

A couple of books suggest summer's slower pace may be an advantage.

In Rest, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang argues that periods of recovery aren't separate from productive work—they're part of it. Many great thinkers alternated intense effort with deliberate downtime, using quieter periods to recharge and generate new ideas.

Similarly, in Deep Work, Cal Newport makes the case that meaningful progress comes from sustained concentration, not constant activity. A lighter summer schedule can create more opportunities for the kind of uninterrupted thinking that's hard to find the rest of the year.

Then there's the opposing view.

In The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Chris McChesney, Sean Covey, and Jim Huling argue that results come from maintaining focus on a few critical goals regardless of distractions, seasons, or circumstances. From this perspective, summer is just another excuse. The people who make progress are the ones who keep executing while everyone else slows down.

So who's right?

Probably all of them.

Summer may not be the season to work harder. But it might be the perfect season to work more intentionally—using the extra space to think, while still moving the important things forward.

The question isn't whether summer helps or hurts productivity.

It's whether you use it on purpose.

Thanks for reading,

Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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The 2024 Lancet Commission on Dementia reviewed the evidence on modifiable risk factors. Their conclusion:

~ 45% of dementia cases worldwide could be prevented or delayed by addressing 14 modifiable risk factors. ⁽¹⁾

Low education is a risk factor on that list. Not because smart people don’t get dementia, but because lifelong intellectual engagement builds something called cognitive reserve — the brain’s capacity to tolerate damage before symptoms appear.

Think of it like this:

Two people can have identical levels of Alzheimer’s pathology in their brains.

• The one with more cognitive reserve may show no symptoms.

• The other may be significantly impaired.

The pathology is the same. The brain’s ability to compensate is not.

In an era when information has never been more abundant or easier to access, the question isn’t whether you can find answers. It’s whether you can evaluate them.

A 2024 review of long-term studies confirmed:

Cognitive activities across the life course are independently associated with reduced dementia risk. Not just education in childhood. Continued engagement through midlife and late life. ⁽²⁾

But here’s the part the brain training industry doesn’t want you to know:

Most brain training apps don’t build cognitive reserve. They make you better at brain training apps.

The training effect is highly specific and doesn’t necessarily transfer to general cognitive function. In 2016, Lumosity paid $2 million to settle Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charges for overstating benefits. A consensus statement from 70+ scientists found no compelling evidence these games prevent cognitive decline. A 2025 review of 14 brain training apps found that all 14 claimed cognitive benefits, but only one cited any empirical research. ^{(3, 5)}

There is one exception worth knowing about. Speed-of-processing training.

A 20-year follow-up of a large National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded trial found that one specific type of training — speed-of-processing training — reduced dementia risk by 25% over two decades. Memory training and reasoning training did not. The exercise is now sold commercially as part of BrainHQ, which is made by the company that acquired the original research tool. ⁽⁴⁾

That distinction — between a specific finding from a rigorous trial and the marketing claims of an entire industry — is exactly the kind of difference this series is built to help you see.

What else builds cognitive reserve? Learning genuinely new things. Activities that require sustained effort, novel problem-solving, and engagement with unfamiliar domains. The harder the thing you’re learning, the more protective it may be.

AT A GLANCE

• Novelty is the variable that matters. Activities that genuinely challenge you with unfamiliar material appear to protect your brain more than practiced, comfortable mental activity. Doing a crossword is not the same as learning a new language.

• Cognitive reserve is real and buildable. Lifelong intellectual engagement reduces dementia risk across the life course, independent of education level at any single point. ⁽²⁾

• Brain training apps mostly don’t transfer. Most improve performance only on the specific tasks they train. One exception: speed-of-processing training showed a 25% reduction in dementia risk, but memory and reasoning training in the same trial did not. ^{(3, 4)}

FEATURED RESOURCE

Dementia Prevention, Intervention, and Care: 2024 Report of the Lancet Standing Commission on Dementia. — Livingston et al., The Lancet (open access)

The most authoritative current synthesis of the dementia prevention evidence. Identifies 14 modifiable risk factors, including low education, that together account for approximately 45% of global dementia cases. Readable executive summary available without a subscription.

MORE ON THE TOPIC

Want the full breakdown? The full Smarter Wellness article covers:

• Cognitive reserve theory

• The growth mindset research (and where it actually holds up)

• The brain training exception (and the commercial conflict of interest you should know about)

• A practical framework for genuine intellectual engagement that doesn’t require going back to school

Available at → https://www.appliedwellness.co/media/smarter

WELLNESS contributor for Slightly Smarter

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Brian S. Dye, Ed.D., is the founder of Applied Wellness, an evidence-based wellness education platform that helps people access, understand, and apply credible wellness information. Learn more at appliedwellness.co.

SOURCES

1. Livingston, G., et al. (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet, 404(10452), 572–628.
2. Liu, Y., et al. (2024). Cognitive reserve over the life course and risk of dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, 16, 1358992.
3. Stern, Y. (2012). Cognitive reserve in ageing and Alzheimer’s disease. Lancet Neurology, 11(11), 1006–1012.
4. Edwards, J.D., et al. (2026). Speed of processing training and dementia risk: 20-year follow-up of the ACTIVE study. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.
5. Sutton, E., et al. (2025). Practice makes perfect, but to what end? Psychological Research, 89(2), 75.
6. Yeager, D.S., et al. (2019). A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature, 573, 364–369.

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🙂 Know someone who could benefit from these ideas? Forward this email to spread the knowledge.

This morning, my daughter gave me the perfect excuse not to make my bed.

She spilled milk in it.

Which got me wondering: if making your bed is such a small thing, why do so many accomplished people swear by it—and just as many dismiss it?

That question sits at the center of one of the most enduring debates in personal development.

Make your bed every morning.

It's advice that has inspired bestselling books, commencement speeches, and countless morning routines.

So, should you?

THE CASE FOR IT

In Make Your Bed, Admiral William H. McRaven argues that making your bed is a small daily act that builds discipline, creates an early sense of accomplishment, and sets a positive tone for the rest of the day. The lesson isn't really about the bed—it's about proving to yourself that you can follow through on commitments.

THE CASE AGAINST IT

In Atomic Habits, James Clear makes a slightly different point: not all habits are equally valuable. If making your bed doesn't meaningfully contribute to your goals, it may simply be a ritual that feels productive without creating real progress. The key is choosing habits that produce outcomes you actually care about.

TUESDAY TAKEAWAY

Making your bed isn't important because of the bed. It's important if it serves as a keystone habit that helps you become the type of person who takes action. If it doesn't move the needle for you, find a different small habit that does.

What's your vote: make the bed or skip it?

Thanks for reading,

Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

The New Trick to Reducing Stress Without Losing Focus

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Each serving contains 50mg of CBG, a non-intoxicating compound derived from hemp, formulated to support calm and daytime focus.

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Keep Your Cool

A QUICK UPDATE

After two years of sending Slightly Smarter without missing an issue, Andrew and I took a month off to reflect.

We decided that moving forward, we’ll send these emails once a week, as opposed to 3x per week (or daily, like when we started).

This aligns with the results of the poll many of you responded to last month:

• 16% voted for a Daily frequency

• 37% voted for a 3x / Week frequency

• 47% voted for a Weekly frequency

Want to receive Slightly Smarter more frequently than once a week?

Click here to let us know 👇

If we get enough responses, we’ll consider sending it 3x per week or daily again.

Thanks for being a part of our community.

— Scott

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

P.S. Keep reading for our April-May 2026 recap.

BOOK OF THE MONTH

New This Week

Eric Ries’ first book, The Lean Startup, was the playbook that built Big Tech.

But he misjudged what would happen next. (Read more from Fortune)

His new book, INCORRUPTIBLE, is the antidote. Eric argues that the hyper-growth toolkit of the Lean era leaves companies vulnerable, and that Incorruptible governance is the solution to protect an organization's core mission.

He also makes the case that trustworthiness is the most underrated asset in all of business today.

Why? “We’ve entered an age of temporary operators, managing temporary organizations for temporary owners.”

Eric’s post on LinkedIn

“Whether you’re starting a company, choosing where to work, or simply deciding which organizations deserve your trust and money, the goal of this book is to offer a clear, concrete alternative to today’s ‘best practices’ so that you will have a choice when the time comes.” —Eric Ries

A few more ideas in the book

SMARTER WELLNESS

We teamed up with Brian Dye, the founder Applied Wellness, to create a limited series exploring the various aspects of wellness.

Topics covered in April:

• Social Wellness 👉 Why social connection is a survival need, not a lifestyle preference — and what the research says actually protects you.

Want more? Read Brian’s full companion articles that dive deeper into the evidence to help you know what works and why.

WELLNESS contributor for Slightly Smarter

SMARTER GROWTH

Are you working—or Just Responding?
When everything is urgent, focus disappears.

A Smarter Way to Think About Slack

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

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“[We’ve all watched] something we love turn into something we hate. But we lack the vocabulary to call it what it really is. ‘Mission drift’ sounds like a navigation error. ‘Bureaucracy’ sounds like paperwork.

Neither captures the gut punch of betrayal when something precious is corroded beyond recognition.

So I call it by a simple, old-fashioned name: corruption."

^{—Eric Ries, Incorruptible}

Eric Ries wrote The Lean Startup, the book that taught a generation to replace extensive upfront planning with rapid, iterative experimentation.

His new book, INCORRUPTIBLE, addresses a more difficult topic: once a company succeeds, how does it stay true to what it set out to do?

Out Today (May 26, 2026)

Whether you are…

• starting a company,

• choosing where to work, or

• simply deciding which organizations deserve your trust and money

“… the goal of this book is to offer a clear, concrete alternative to today’s ‘best practices’ so that you will have a choice when the time comes.”

A few ideas in this book:

1/ Assume drift is the default. The bigger something gets, the harder it pulls away from WHY it was built. Not because anyone turned bad. Growth quietly changes what gets rewarded, and people follow the rewards. If you run a team, a project, or a company, don’t assume the original mission is safe. “Financial gravity,” as Ries calls it, quietly bends companies away from their original purpose.

2/ Corruption is a design flaw. Rather than an ethical or character flaw, failure is often a result of poor structures (which means it can be prevented). When ownership, incentives, and accountability are poorly designed, even principled leaders are pushed toward outcomes they never wanted.

3/ Governance is a creative act. Ries reframes corporate governance not as bureaucracy or a compliance chore, but as a creative and strategic act. Done right, it’s the design work that decides whether a mission survives its own success.

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Eric’s first book had a huge impact on me early in my career, so I was thrilled when I got an uncorrected proof of Incorruptible a few months ago.

It’s worth the read for the endless stories about past companies and the challenges their founders faced, which I found fascinating. But the book also gives a reason to be optimistic, and a roadmap to get there.

If you’re building something worth protecting, this is the manual.

— Scott

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

Your weekend words are: dreams and agency.

“The one thing I would say to my daughter Poppy that is sitting over there, ‘Never give up on your dreams. Never, ever give up on your dreams.”

— Rory McIlroy on winning the Masters & his emotional speech  🎤🥹

More on the Masters in Tuesday’s email

“High agency is, in my opinion, the most under-discussed and most important idea in the 21st century. It’s one of those ideas that once you see it, you can’t quite unsee it. It’s everywhere. But the problem with it is it’s quite hard to define.”

^{— George Mack, Author of High Agency}

To help explain high agency, George tells a story about “the most apex high agency guy. A guy named Wilbur.”

Revisit another essay from George Mack in Thursday’s email

Creators of Slightly Smarter

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Why do some people die at 80 and feel like they’ve lived 30 years?

And why do others die at 80 and feel like they’ve lived 300 years?

That’s what this essay (by George Mack) is about.

But first, let’s go back in time to 1933 and meet a boy called Henry.

1.

In 1933, Henry Molaison is 7 years old, and is playing outside on the streets of Connecticut.

A man riding a bicycle doesn’t see Henry, cycles into him and knocks him unconscious.

Henry is never quite the same again.

It starts with minor seizures, and by the age of 27, Henry is having twenty epileptic fits per day.

Desperate to cure his crippling condition, he volunteers for experimental brain surgery. As Henry wakes up from the operation, life delivers him some good news, bad news, and awful news.

The good news is that the surgery has largely fixed his crippling epilepsy.

The bad news is that he won’t remember the good news, because of the awful news.

The awful news is that the surgery has destroyed his ability to form new memories.

For the next 55 years of his life until Henry dies at 82, every day, every hour, and every minute of his life is forgotten.

His psychiatrist visits him daily and gets to know him well over the years. Whereas Henry meets his psychiatrist for the first time each day.

The most tragic detail of Henry’s life was found in his mirror: Henry would get out of bed, go to the bathroom, look in the mirror and be confused at why his reflection looked so old.

The problem with amnesia is not only do you forget, you forget that you forget.

If Henry forgot every minute of his life, did he have a life?

Henry had a rare condition — but it’s not rare to forget large portions of your life. It’s one of the most common human experiences for time to disappear as you age.

Let’s call it Henry’s Mirror. When you see an older face staring back at you in the mirror, and wonder: Where did the time go?

2.

One of the explanations given of why time speeds up as we age is Janet’s law.

When you’re 5 years old, a year is 20% of your life. And when you’re 50 years old, a year is 2% of your life. Janet’s law states that you experienced roughly half of your perceived life by 20 years old.

Or to put it another way: The summer for a 5 year old feels as long as the 10 years from 40 to 50 years old.

It’s more useful to view time in three dimensions:

1. Clock time - How time ticks on a clock.

2. Experience time - How time feels in the moment.

3. Memory time - How much time you remember.

One hour in clock time is always one hour on clock time — but it’s not always one hour in experience or memory time.

Your flight gets delayed by one hour, and it feels like five hours staring at the departures board, yet you struggle to remember it weeks later.

Or that hour long sunrise walk laughing with friends speeds by. But one year later you remember that sixty minutes more clearly than the entire month of April where you stared at your laptop.

In Henry’s 82 years, he had lots of clock time. 2.6 billion seconds, 4,278 weeks and 29,951 sunrises. But Henry’s life flew by because it was 0 minutes in memory time.

When people say time is moving quickly, what they are actually saying is they don’t remember where the time went.

Memory is why the first 18 years of your life feel so slow in hindsight. New experiences are encoded into memory. The first day at school, the first time you drove a car, your first kiss or first heartbreak.

It’s why every married couple can remember their first date — but few can remember their 37th date, unless it was novel.

If you don’t break this pattern, soon you’ll catch an older face in the mirror and wonder: Where did the time go?

3.

If you were to compress thousands of scientific journals on increasing human life span, you get the following Three Laws For Living A Long Life:

1. Exercise
2. Don’t smoke
3. Sleep 7-8 hours per night

But in Chapter 7 On The Shortness Of Life, Seneca said: “You must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long.”

So what if you want to exist AND live longer?

Unlike Henry, we have agency over this.

Here’s the Three Laws of Remembering Your Life:

Law 1 - Seek Novelty

How many days do you remember from last year?

The typical answer is about 10-20 of the 365 days.

That’s about 95-98% of the year lost to Henry’s Mirror.

Look at the days you remember. Stare into their soul. What do they have in common? You’ll notice some novel event happened where you broke out of routine and that day got encoded into memory.

In the micro, never let a day go by where you don’t do something novel — no matter how small. It could be a new route to work, a conversation with a stranger, a book opened at random.

In the macro, create at least one genuinely novel day every fourteen days — a day so different to your past thirteen days that future-you will be able to find it when you go looking for it.

Law 2 - Optimise for the best story

How many social media posts do you remember from yesterday?

The average person sees 300 novel posts in a single scroll. If novelty is the only variable for memory, those posts should be unforgettable. And yet hours later, they’re gone.

Now think of a great movie you watched years ago. You can probably recall the plot, the turning points, and maybe even specific lines of dialogue. Why does one great movie from years ago outlast tens of thousands of social media posts you’ve scrolled past since?

Social media is a random series of events, no cause and effect, no escalation, no resolution. A great story is a designed series of events with a clear structure that taps into our emotions. That’s why we remember it.

This is also why university tends to feel longer in memory than other periods of life. It’s split into multiple years (parts) and each year is split into semesters (chapters). There’s a clear progression of the plot towards the finale.

If your life feels like a great story, you’ll remember more of your life. If your life feels like a boring story or a random social media scroll, you’ll forget your life.

A good rule of thumb when you’re making a decision is to ask yourself: What makes the better story?

Even if the decision goes wrong, time will slow down as your plot thickens. And as Entrepreneur Amjad Masad says: “You’ll at least be fun at dinner parties”

Sit down and look at your life story so far. If you were watching a movie, what would the hero do next?

Do that, and you’ll remember more of your life.

As Dostoevsky said in White Nights: “But how can you live and have no story to tell?”

Law 3 - Marvel at the smallest details

You can’t maximise novelty and your life’s plot every single second of the day.

You will wake up in the same bed as your partner most days, take your children to school most days and you walk the dog most days.

When you’re doing repetitive habitual events, squint and marvel at the small details so your brain slows down the perception of time.

When you look at your partner, can you spot a freckle on their face you’ve never consciously noticed? When you look at your child, try to see a new depth to their eye colour. When you listen to your favourite song, is there an instrument you can notice that you’ve never heard before?

In Japanese culture, this idea is called Ichigo Ichie, that every moment, even when it feels repetitive, is unique and will never be repeated again.

When you’re at dinner with old friends, notice how it’s the first time you’re all this exact age, in this exact month, with this exact weather, eating this exact meal — never to be repeated like this ever again in the history of the universe.

Your morning coffee is never the same coffee. The temperature is slightly different, the first sip lands differently, your mood is different, the light comes through the window differently. Look for those small marvellous differences.

One of the best ways to notice the small marvellous details is to view today through the lens of your 85 year old self in a care home. What are the small details they’d notice if they could go back in time to this moment?

Do not go gentle into the good night of forgetting your life. Rage, rage against the dying of the light by marvelling at the impermanent details.

4.

The good news is that you’re not a passive victim of time like Henry. You don’t have to forget your life.

If you live your life on autopilot, you may die at 80, but feel like you died at 30.

If you take agency over your life, you may die at 80, but feel like you died at 300.

If you seek novelty, create stories and marvel at the small details, when you see an older face staring back at you in the mirror, you won’t wonder: Where did the time go?

You’ll say: “Oh, I’ve got so many stories to tell.”

If you enjoyed George Mack’s essay above, he’s putting together a list called anti-slop — the list of the best 50 resources — books, movies, podcasts he’s ever consumed. Get it by putting in your email below.

Put your email in and subscribe to George Mack’s newsletter: High Agency.

Author of High Agency

Your weekend words are: forever and connection.

“How long is forever? Sometimes just one second.”

^{— Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland}

More from the book in Tuesday’s email.

“When I moved to Columbia, SC I knew almost no one. I’d spent years in environments where community came with the institution — the college, the organization, the role. Stripped of that scaffolding, I realized I’d been confusing proximity with connection for a long time.

What the research helped me understand is that what I was missing wasn’t more people. It was chosen people. Specific people who knew the actual version of me and showed up anyway. The difference between a full calendar and genuine belonging is exactly what the literature describes as the gap between structure and quality.

Building that kind of connection deliberately, without the institution providing it automatically, turned out to be one of the more important things I’ve done. It’s slower. It requires more intention. And the research is clear that it’s worth it in ways that go well beyond how it feels.”

^{— Brian Dye, Wellness Contributor for Slightly Smarter}

More on social wellness in Thursday’s email

Creators of Slightly Smarter

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AT A GLANCE

• Loneliness is a mortality risk factor. Social isolation increases mortality risk by 32%. Loneliness increases it by 14%. Both independently, across more than 2.2 million people studied. ⁽²⁾

• Isolation and loneliness are different. You can be socially isolated without feeling lonely. You can feel lonely in a crowd. Both are problems. Neither is the same as the other. ⁽³⁾

• Quality beats quantity. The number of relationships matters less than their depth and diversity. One close, reciprocal relationship is more protective than a large shallow network. ⁽⁴⁾

Half of U.S. adults report feeling lonely.

That’s not a mood statistic. It’s a health statistic.

The U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic in 2023. The evidence behind that declaration has been building for decades.

Here’s the number that stops people: lacking social connection increases mortality risk as much as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. ⁽¹⁾

Not sitting too much. Not eating poorly. Smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

A 2023 review of 90 studies across more than 2.2 million people confirmed it:

• Social isolation increases risk of dying early by 32%.

• Loneliness increases it by 14%.

• Both independently. ⁽²⁾

But here’s the distinction the research keeps making that most people miss:

Isolation and loneliness are not the same thing.

• Isolation is objective — the actual number and frequency of social contacts.

• Loneliness is subjective — the gap between the connection you want and the connection you have.

You can be isolated without feeling lonely. You can feel profoundly lonely in a full room. ⁽³⁾

Both predict poor health outcomes. But they require different responses.

And quality matters more than quantity. A 1979 study that launched the field found that what predicted mortality wasn’t the number of social contacts — it was the diversity and depth of the network. ⁽⁴⁾

SOURCES

1. Office of the Surgeon General. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; 2023.
2. Wang, F., et al. (2023). Social isolation, loneliness and mortality. Nature Human Behaviour, 7, 1339–1351.
3. Holt-Lunstad, J., et al. (2015). Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 227–237.
4. Berkman, L.F., & Syme, S.L. (1979). Social networks, host resistance, and mortality. American Journal of Epidemiology, 109(2), 186–204.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation

U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023 — free, publicly available

The most comprehensive government review of the social connection evidence ever published. Covers the mortality data, the mechanisms, and a six-pillar national framework. Worth reading even if you just read the executive summary.

MORE ON THE TOPIC

Want the full breakdown? The full Smarter Wellness Weekly article covers:

• 3 elements of social connection (structure, function, quality)

• The biological mechanisms linking isolation to mortality

• Does digital connection count?

• How to audit your own social health without overhauling your life

Available at → https://www.appliedwellness.co/media/smarter

WELLNESS contributor for Slightly Smarter

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR

Brian S. Dye, Ed.D., is the founder of Applied Wellness, an evidence-based wellness education platform that helps people access, understand, and apply credible wellness information.

Learn more → appliedwellness.co

Next from Brian 👉 Intellectual Wellness. Curiosity as a health behavior, and what the research says about keeping the mind sharp.

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Three ideas from Alice in Wonderland:

1/ “If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is certain to disagree with you sooner or later.”

2/ “How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another.”

3/ “Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.”

— Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Illustrated by Salvador Dali

RATHER WATCH IT?

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• The 1951 animated classic

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In Thursday’s email, Andrew made the case that silence is a productivity tool.

“Focus isn’t about ignoring people. It’s about protecting the work that actually matters.”

A Slightly Smarter reader said the “message is counter cultural but accurate and needed to be said.”

To triple down on the message, here are 3 books that share a similar sentiment:

“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance?

What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”

^{— Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (2014)}

“A better strategy for shifting other’s expectations about your work is to consistently deliver what you promise instead of consistently explaining how you’re working.”

^{— Cal Newport, A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload (2021)}

“Convenience culture seduces us into imagining that we might find room for everything important by eliminating only life’s tedious tasks. But it’s a lie.

You have to choose a few things, sacrifice everything else, and deal with the inevitable sense of loss that results.”

^{— Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021)}

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• Research papers and insights decoded - We break down complex tech so you understand what matters.

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Your Boss Will Think You’re an Ecom Genius

Optimizing for growth? Go-to-Millions is Ari Murray’s ecommerce newsletter packed with proven tactics, creative that converts, and real operator insights—from product strategy to paid media. No mushy strategy. Just what’s working. Subscribe free for weekly ideas that drive revenue.

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The best HR advice comes from those in the trenches. That’s what this is: real-world HR insights delivered in a newsletter from Hebba Youssef, a Chief People Officer who’s been there. Practical, real strategies with a dash of humor. Because HR shouldn’t be thankless—and you shouldn’t be alone in it.

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