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

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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

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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?

Stream the movies on Disney+

• 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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• Curated tech news that shapes your career - Filtered from thousands of sources so you know what's coming 6 months early.

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

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Slack was supposed to make work faster.
Instead, it made work louder.

The real problem isn’t the number of messages.
It’s the expectation that everything deserves an immediate response.

When every ping feels urgent, focus becomes optional—and deep work disappears.

What’s actually happening:

1) Slack turns interruptions into defaults
Each message resets your attention. Even a quick glance can derail momentum for minutes longer than you realize.

2) Speed is mistaken for productivity
Fast replies feel efficient, but they often replace thoughtful progress with visible busyness.

3) Context switching is the hidden tax
Answering one message leads to another, then another—until the day is gone and the real work never starts.

A smarter way to think about Slack:
Not everything is urgent.
Not everything needs an answer now.
And not everything needs to be said in public channels.

High-performing teams don’t eliminate Slack.
They design boundaries around it—clear norms, response windows, and permission to go quiet.

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

Silence, used well, is a productivity tool.

— Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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A QUICK ASK

Last week we sent these emails every day (M-F). What’d you think?

Let us know what frequency you prefer 👇

Thanks for getting slightly smarter with us.

— Scott

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

P.S. Keep reading for our March 2026 recap.

FEATURED BOOKS

March 2026

What if the real obstacle isn't your effort, your discipline, or your circumstances, but what you believe is possible?

In Beyond Belief, Nir Eyal reveals one counterintuitive truth: these beliefs aren't facts. They're tools.

Read more

With AI acceleration, social fragmentation, and economic instability colliding… we are entering a volatile new reality.

In AfterShock to 2030, Caroline Stokes provides a guide for leaders who refuse to wait for the future to overtake them—providing the language, mindset, and strategic scaffolding to imagine and build what comes next. Fast.

Read more

SMARTER WELLNESS

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

Every week, he digs into the latest studies to help simplify what the research says so you don’t have to.

Topics covered in March:

• Emotional Wellness 👉 How to successfully handle life’s stresses and adapt to change and difficult times

• Cardio 👉 The strongest predictor of early death is also the most fixable

• Balance 👉 Neuromotor exercise for balance and agility

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

WELLNESS contributor for Slightly Smarter

More wellness topics we covered in March:

• Why the common cold makes some of us sicker than others (Yale News)

• How the flu is different than the common cold (1440 Media)

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“We all go through phases where we know our work is not up to par, even though we are trying so hard to make it perfect.

Keep doing your work, keep focused, and don’t give up!”

^{— Ira Glass, host and producer of This American Life}

MORE FROM IRA

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good… it has ambition to be good… but it’s not that good.

But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.

Everybody I know who does interesting, creative work went through years where they had really good taste and they could tell that what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. Everybody goes through that.

And if you are just starting out or if you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.

I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It takes a while. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.”

— Ira Glass, host and producer of the radio program and podcast This American Life

Watch the 5-minute clip here 👇

I hope this inspired you as much as it did me.

Slightly Smarter isn’t where I want it to be yet… but we are getting more focused. This was a much needed reminder to keep building.

If you also needed to hear this, I’m pulling for you. Don’t give up!

— Scott

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

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Most wellness advice tells you to feel more positive. The research points somewhere different.

Emotional wellness isn’t about having more good feelings. It’s about what you do with all of them. The term scientists use is emotional regulation.

Here are three of the most studied neuroscience findings on the topic:

1/ Reappraisal

Trying to suppress emotions tends to backfire. It increases physiological arousal and impairs memory, without reducing the feeling. ⁽¹⁾

The better strategy? Changing how you interpret a situation.

That might sound like “positive thinking.” It isn’t.

Reappraisal doesn’t mean pretending things are fine. It means finding a different angle that’s also true. “This is hard” becomes “This is hard, and I’ve handled hard things before.”

A 2024 meta-analysis of 55 studies involving nearly 30,000 people found that higher cognitive reappraisal was associated with higher personal resilience across every subgroup tested. ⁽²⁾

2/ Naming your emotions

When you attach a word to a feeling — “I’m anxious” or “I’m frustrated” — amygdala activity decreases. Your brain’s alarm system quiets down. ⁽³⁾

UCLA researchers call it affect labeling. It’s basically: name it to tame it.

3/ Mindfulness

Across 29 studies and nearly 3,000 healthy adults, brief daily mindfulness practice showed consistent reductions in stress, anxiety, and depression, and the effects held weeks later. ⁽⁴⁾

Not massive. Not magic. Moderate and consistent.

AT A GLANCE

• Reappraisal beats suppression. Changing how you interpret a situation is more effective than pushing feelings down. It also doesn’t carry the physiological costs. ⁽¹⁾

• Name it to tame it. Labeling emotions measurably reduces amygdala reactivity. Two words ("I’m angry") can shift your brain’s threat response. ⁽³⁾

• Mindfulness provides moderate, consistent relief. 5–10 minutes daily shows real effects on reducing distress and improving quality of life for healthy adults. ⁽⁴⁾

SOURCES

1. Gross, J.J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39(3), 281–291.
2. Stover, A.D., et al. (2024). A meta-analysis of cognitive reappraisal and personal resilience. Clinical Psychology Review, 110, 102428.
3. Lieberman, M.D., et al. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
4. Khoury, B., et al. (2015). Mindfulness-based stress reduction for healthy individuals: A meta-analysis. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 78(6), 519–528.

FEATURED RESOURCE

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ-30)

Predicts psychopathology and well-being substantially better than the original 2-strategy measure by assessing 10 emotion regulation strategies:

• 5 adaptive (cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, behavioral activation, problem solving, social sharing)

• 5 maladaptive (expressive suppression, rumination, situational avoidance, social withdrawal, distraction)

Free at the Stanford Psychophysiology Lab website:

Source: Preece & Gross, Stanford University (2025)

MORE ON THE TOPIC

Want the full breakdown? In this week’s Smarter Wellness, I dig into the following topics:

• The neuroscience of emotional regulation

• Carol Ryff’s six-factor model of psychological well-being

• Mindfulness vs. journaling vs. gratitude practices

• Common myths (venting, positivity ratios, EQ > IQ)

• A four-step framework you can start this week

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.

Up next from Brian 👉 Social Wellness: why the research on loneliness is more alarming than most people realize.

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You’re optimizing for growth. You need ecom tactics that actually work. Not mushy strategies.

Go-to-Millions is the ecommerce growth newsletter from Ari Murray, packed with tactical insights, smart creative, and marketing that drives revenue.

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

Three ideas to live a happier life:

1/ Invest in real relationships, not deal relationships.
Successful people often have many "deal" friends but few truly close ones. Going from "deal" to "real" relationships is one of the most reliable paths to greater happiness.
📖 From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks (2022)

2/ Relationships matter more than almost anything else, including your genes.
A study found that relationship satisfaction in midlife predicted health and happiness in old age better than any other factor. It also found that loneliness is as dangerous to health as smoking or alcoholism.
📰 The Harvard Gazette / Harvard Study of Adult Development (Robert Waldinger, lead researcher)

3/ Practice gratitude deliberately; don't just go through the motions.
Gratitude is a powerful mindset for improving happiness because happy people naturally call to mind life's blessings. Training your brain to do the same yields real benefits: you feel better, more connected to others, and experience greater life satisfaction.
🎙️ The Happiness Lab podcast with Dr. Laurie Santos (Yale)

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That's exactly why 200K+ engineers working at Google, Meta, and Apple read The Code twice a week.

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• Curated tech news that shapes your career - Filtered from thousands of sources so you know what's coming 6 months early.

• Practical resources you can use immediately - Real tutorials and tools that solve actual engineering problems.

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

All delivered twice a week in just 2 short emails.

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Know someone curious? Forward this email to spread the knowledge.

“This is a call to action. To confront uncomfortable truths, examine gaps,
and move forward. Adaptation is hard, yes. But staying stuck is infinitely
harder—and far more costly.”

^{—Caroline Stokes, AfterShock to 2030}

With AI acceleration, social fragmentation, and economic instability colliding… we are entering a volatile new reality.

In AfterShock to 2030, Caroline Stokes provides a guide for leaders who refuse to wait for the future to overtake them—providing the language, mindset, and strategic scaffolding to imagine and build what comes next. Fast.

Released July 29, 2026

A few big ideas in the book:

1/ The old paradigm is dead: Traditional growth‑at‑all‑costs leadership and rigid planning no longer work in a world of cascading crises; leaders today must…

• reinvent themselves as systems thinkers

• actively shape multiple futures instead of betting on one

2/ Nervous system regulation: In an era of near‑constant shock, a leader’s regulated nervous system becomes a strategic asset which enables…

• better decisions

• clearer communication

• less reactive, fear‑driven behavior across the company

3/ Emotionally intelligent AI: Rather than treating AI as a cold efficiency tool, Stokes makes the case for using AI to…

• help people feel seen and heard

• augment empathy at scale (instead of replacing it)

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR

Feeling a bit rattled about the future?

This book doesn’t sugarcoat the chaos, but it won’t let you stay passive either. It mixes big‑picture realism with practical, human‑centered tools to help you take action.

— Scott

Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter

The free newsletter making HR less lonely

The best HR advice comes from people who’ve been in the trenches.

That’s what this newsletter delivers.

I Hate it Here is your insider’s guide to surviving and thriving in HR, from someone who’s been there. It’s not about theory or buzzwords — it’s about practical, real-world advice for navigating everything from tricky managers to messy policies.

Every newsletter is written by Hebba Youssef — a Chief People Officer who’s seen it all and is here to share what actually works (and what doesn’t). We’re talking real talk, real strategies, and real support — all with a side of humor to keep you sane.

Because HR shouldn’t feel like a thankless job. And you shouldn’t feel alone in it.

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A new study drills down into why some of us are hit harder by rhinovirus (the most frequent cause of the common cold) than others.

Scientists created a nose-in-a-dish, infected it with the common cold virus, and analyzed how thousands of nasal airway cells responded to the infection. (Yale News)

Their findings? It’s not the rhinovirus itself but the body’s early immune response that determines whether the common cold stays mild or flares into something more dangerous.

Foxman and colleagues in the lab

MORE ON THE TOPIC

How the flu is different than the common cold

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 1440

Your weekend words are: unlocks and underdawgs.

Don’t ask: “What’s the hardest thing?”
Ask: “What unlocks everything else?”

Sometimes that’s the hardest task.
Often, it’s a smaller move that creates traction.

Productivity isn’t about suffering early.
It’s about sequencing intelligently.

Do the thing that makes the next thing easier.

^{— Andrew Levine, Co-Founder of Slightly Smarter}

More on leverage in Tuesday’s email

“Calculated as a 200-to-1 shot to win, Butler came this close to beating the heavily favored, perennial leaders of college basketball: the Duke Blue Devils in 2010.

And in 2011, Butler advanced again to the finals, ultimately losing to UConn—but accomplishing so much. Underdawgs tells the incredible and uplifting story.”

^{— David Woods, Underdawgs}

More on March Madness in Thursday’s email

Creators of Slightly Smarter

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💡 Insightful? Share the knowledge.

The NCAA basketball tournament Round of 64 (March Madness) tips off today on CBS.

In today’s featured article, Keith O'Brien argues the annual spectacle really began in 1979, with an electric, raucous game that's largely been forgotten.

Thankfully, he's dredged up the details, and the footage, to help us relive it (The Ringer).

Keith O’Brien is the author of Heartland: A Forgotten Place, an Impossible Dream, and the Miracle of Larry Bird

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH 1440

Smart starts here.

You don't have to read everything — just the right thing. 1440's daily newsletter distills the day's biggest stories from 100+ sources into one quick, 5-minute read. It's the fastest way to stay sharp, sound informed, and actually understand what's happening in the world. Join 4.5 million readers who start their day the smart way.

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The idea is simple: start your day with the hardest task so everything else feels easier. Sometimes that works. Often, it doesn’t.

Here’s the problem:
Hard doesn’t always mean important.
And hard doesn’t always mean ready.

What psychology and performance actually suggest:

1) Momentum beats willpower
Starting with something brutally hard can drain energy before you’ve built any rhythm. Progress creates motivation—not the other way around.

2) Difficulty ≠ leverage
Some tasks are hard because they’re poorly defined, not because they matter most. Starting there can stall the entire day.

3) Timing matters more than toughness
Your hardest task might need clarity, input, or creative energy you don’t have first thing in the morning.

A smarter approach:
Don’t ask: “What’s the hardest thing?”
Ask: “What unlocks everything else?”

Sometimes that’s the hardest task.
Often, it’s a smaller move that creates traction.

Productivity isn’t about suffering early.
It’s about sequencing intelligently.

Do the thing that makes the next thing easier.

— Andrew

Co-Creator of Slightly Smarter

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Your weekend words are: prophecies and fatigue.

In Tuesday’s email, we featured Nir Eyal’s new book, Beyond Belief (available now). Here’s an excerpt:

“Belief operates through three powers:

1. Attention: Seeing What You Believe
   Believing is seeing. Beliefs filter what we notice. When I believed I was destined to be overweight, I noticed every failure and overlooked every success. When my beliefs shifted, I suddenly saw people who succeeded, strategies that worked, moments of progress. The world hadn't changed. My attention had.

2. Anticipation: Feeling What You Believe
   Beliefs are emotional forecasts. When I believed a diet would fail, stress increased, cravings intensified, willpower felt harder. When I believed in a plan, I felt energized. What we expect shapes our biochemistry and our capacity to persist.

3. Agency: Doing What You Believe
   This turns belief into action. When I believed my efforts didn't matter, I couldn't maintain consistency. When I believed my daily choices accumulated into change, I kept going—even through plateaus and mistakes.

Together, these three powers create a feedback loop. What you believe shapes what you see. What you see shapes what you expect. What you expect shapes what you do. And what you do provides evidence that reinforces or challenges your belief.

This is how beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.

The question isn't whether your beliefs will shape reality—they will. The question is whether you'll choose beliefs that expand possibilities or contract them.”

^{— Nir Eyal, Beyond Belief}

⏰ Order by March 16, 2026 to Unlock Exclusive Bonuses (for free)

“Over 20 years ago, I ran my first marathon in Alaska. At mile 18, my legs felt finished. I was certain I couldn’t continue.

I made it to the next aid station. Then the next. Then the finish.

I didn’t speed up. But I finished, which was more than felt possible.

That’s the Central Governor in action. Fatigue is a signal, not a verdict.

The question I ask myself now (in running, and elsewhere) is simple: is this a real limit, or is my brain being protective?

Usually, there’s more in the tank.”

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

More on cardio in Thursday’s email

Creators of Slightly Smarter

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Stay at two world-class golf resorts, courtesy of Great Value Vacations, where championship play meets scenic drives, luxurious relaxation, and spa-worthy amenities across Ireland’s most beautiful regions. Perfect for couples, friends, or anyone seeking an elevated escape—golfers and non-golfers alike.

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💡 Was this insightful? Forward the email to share the knowledge.

This week is brought to you by the book Beyond Belief.

⏰ Order by March 16, 2026 to Unlock Exclusive Bonuses (for free)

The fitness industry sells complexity and guilt, but science offers something simpler and more encouraging.

Here are 3 findings that might inspire you to increase your physical activity.

1.

People with high cardiovascular fitness are 53% less likely to die early than people with low fitness.

Not 53% less likely to get winded. 53% less likely to die.

This finding came from one of the largest research reviews ever conducted on fitness and health, covering 20.9 million people. ⁽¹⁾

2.

Fit people (regardless of weight) had no increased death risk compared to fit people at a “normal” weight.

Fitness matters more than the scale. ⁽²⁾

3.

The 10,000-step target? It came from a 1965 Japanese pedometer marketing campaign.

The benefits of walking actually start well below 10,000 steps / day. ⁽³⁾

The U.S. physical activity guidelines recommend a minimum of 150 minutes per week of moderate activity, and walking counts. ⁽⁴⁾

For perspective, 150 minutes is only 20-25 minutes per day.

AT A GLANCE

• The minimum amount of cardio: 

  • 150 minutes / week of moderate activity OR

  • 75 minutes / week of vigorous aerobic activity. ⁽⁴⁾

• Benefits increase up to a point: After ~300 minutes per week of moderate activity, individuals receive diminishing returns. ⁽⁴⁾

• Something beats nothing. Even below the 150-minute threshold, any increase in activity reduces your mortality risk. ⁽⁴⁾

^{*links to sources at the bottom of the email}

How One Wellness Brand Is Helping America Sleep Better

You know the importance of sleep, but actually getting enough is easier said than done. One wellness brand decided to study the problem and whether CBD could help.

CBD users have long reported feeling calmer and sleeping better, whether taking the compound by itself or with related hemp-derived compounds like CBN and THC. But rumor isn’t research, so CBDistillery conducted two sleep studies: a 2021 study into CBD and CBN, and a 2023 study with technology app Releaf into CBD, CBN and THC.

Study participants who took CBD and CBN reported falling asleep easier and sleeping an hour longer per night, on average. Study participants who took THC as well as CBD and CBN reported improved quality of sleep and waking up more refreshed the next morning.

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FEATURED RESOURCE

This study is the largest review of fitness and health outcomes ever published with insights from 20.9 million people. The findings are hard to ignore.

Lang et al. (2024): Cardiorespiratory Fitness and Mortality

MORE ON THE TOPIC

Want the full breakdown? In this week’s Smarter Wellness Weekly, I dig into the following topics:

• The dose-response curve (how much is enough?)

• HIIT vs. steady-state (settle the debate)

• Does cardio kill your gains? (we bust this myth)

• My “Cardio Fundamentals” plan (what the research actually supports)

SOURCES

1. Lang et al., 2024 — CRF and mortality, overview of 26 meta-analyses (BJSM)
2. Weeldreyer et al., 2025 — CRF, BMI, and mortality meta-analysis (BJSM)
3. Paluch et al., 2022 — Daily steps and mortality, 15 cohorts (Lancet Public Health)
4. U.S. DHHS, 2018 — Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2nd ed.

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.

WELLNESS contributor for Slightly Smarter

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Enter for a chance to win!

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✅ Round-Trip Airfare to Dublin
✅ Rental Car Included (pick-up & drop-off at the airport)
✅ Two Nights at LOUGH ERNE RESORT, ENNISKILLEN
✅ Three Nights at DRUIDS GLEN HOTEL & GOLF RESORT, WICKLOW
✅ Daily Breakfast
✅ One Round of Golf at DRUIDS HEATH

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

“...This is psychological warfare on your negative beliefs…Wonderful book..”

^{—Librarian 1738954 (NetGalley.com)}

What if the real obstacle isn't your effort, your discipline, or your circumstances, but what you believe is possible?

In Beyond Belief, Nir Eyal reveals one counterintuitive truth: these beliefs aren't facts. They're tools.

Released March 10, 2026

The core idea behind the book:

Most people go through life unaware of the beliefs running in the background—shaping every decision, filtering every opportunity, determining what feels “possible.”

Think of beliefs like an operating system.

When you open your computer, you don’t see the OS making thousands of decisions per second. But it quietly determines what the machine can and can’t do.

Your beliefs work the same way. They’re invisible code deciding moment by moment…

• what you’ll notice

• what you’ll try

• what you’ll avoid

• what’s “for people like you”

• and what isn’t

The catch is that your computer’s OS was installed by engineers. Your belief system was installed mostly by accident:

• childhood experiences

• offhand comments

• past failures you over-interpreted

• cultural messages you absorbed without questioning

Beyond Belief upgrades that system, replacing limiting beliefs that kill motivation (“I’m not good at presentations”) with liberating beliefs that sustain it (“I can deliver value even when I’m nervous”).

⏰ Order by March 16, 2026 to Unlock Exclusive Bonuses (for free)

A SIMPLE FRAMEWORK IN THE BOOK

The Motivation Triangle:

1. Behavior: what you need to do

2. Benefit: what you’ll get from doing it

3. Belief: your conviction that the behavior will lead to the benefit

Motivation Triangle (From Chapter 1 of Beyond Belief)

Most people don’t quit because they don’t know what to do (behavior) OR because they don’t want the outcome (benefit). They quit because their belief collapses.

If you can identify the belief that collapses first, you can finally stop repeating the same cycle.

EXCLUSIVE BONUSES

⏰ Order by March 16, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET to Unlock Exclusive Gifts, including the Beyond Belief Journal:

The 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal

Exclusive Bonuses:

• Live Workshop (Mar. 21 @ 12p ET). An interactive training where Nir walks you through the exact system he’s used with leaders at JPMorgan Chase, the U.S. Air Force, PwC, Amazon, and more. Can’t make it live? Full replay + all materials will be sent to you!

• The 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal. Most people read a book, nod along, then do…nothing. This journal helps you implement the strategies with guided prompts, exercises, templates, and places to track evidence supporting your new beliefs.

• Beyond Belief at Work. A set of exclusive video conversations where Nir sits down with leading thinkers in leadership, organizational psychology, and teamwork to explore how beliefs shape performance at work—and how great leaders change them.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

NIR EYAL is a globally recognized authority on behavior change and human potential. His frameworks have empowered millions to build better habits, enhance focus, and unlock greater agency in their lives and work.

A former lecturer at Stanford (GSB and d.school), Nir has collaborated with leaders and organizations worldwide to boost performance through behavior design.

The author of two international bestsellers, Nir’s books have sold over a million copies in more than 30 languages:

• Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

• Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Instagram post

In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, his writing has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, and Psychology Today.

For over 25 years, Nir has worked alongside his wife and business partner, Julie Li.

Slightly Smarter Featured Author

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