Hi friends,

This week, I've been wondering about habits, but not how to develop the good ones; rather, how to eliminate the "bad," surreptitious ones. Now, before I go ahead, it'll be helpful to define what's "good" and what's "bad." For me, a good habit is anything that gives me type II fun (something I talk about in my previous newsletter here), and a bad habit is anything that gives me type I fun.

We're often directed by our friends, family, and mentors to develop "good habits" — you know, the likes of meditating, doing yoga, going to the gym, having a routine and journaling. But in developing good habits, we forget to specifically eliminate the bad ones that might actually be making all the difference.

So, I evaluated a few of my own bad habits. Whenever I have meals by myself, I tend to waste about 25 minutes or so on YouTube. I have a bike, but at times, I choose to walk because I love listening to one song on repeat. (Walking takes me about 20 minutes more to get from point A to B than biking.) I am yet to find other bad habits, but I think these convey the point for now.

Eliminating bad habits is as essential as cultivating good ones, mainly because these bad habits develop especially when we're not cognizant of them.

It was after a long time I realized that I was actually wasting ~50 minutes of my time per day on some occasions, by watching YouTube with both my meals.

Thus, the remedy I propose: I suggest taking a day off and observing exactly what we do and whether that yields type I or type II fun. I also suggest being more aware of evaluate why we do specific actions throughout the day. Doing this will shed more light on our incorrect (or bad) habits and lifestyle, and remedying that would yield far greater benefits than just cultivating good habits.

Have a great week!
Abhinav

Video of The Week

In this "content-content-content" video, I share two ways explaining how and why I produce different forms of content. I've realized the quality of my videos still needs to improve, but since I had already published this, I thought of sharing it with y'all.

Podcast of The Week

Followership, Hierarchy and Strength | Lessons from an Entrepreneurial Swiss-Army Knife

In this extremely candid conversation, Luke Kim, an entrepreneurial swiss-army knife shares his insights into why leadership is unnecessarily overemphasized; his life principles like loyalty, integrity and consideration for others; his ability to hustle; and why you should try to get screwed over if you want to learn as much as you can.Luke has a really interesting story. He is originally from Tokyo & Seoul. He studied comparative history of the USSR and EU, East and the West, Russia and the US at UC Berkeley and also has a certificate in Concentration in Engineering Leadership from the Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at Berkeley as well. His first startup was in Estonia, in European Innovation Academy. He has traveled to 25+ countries as a digital nomad. Luke is fluent in Japanese & Korean and is currently getting an Estonian e-Residency. He loves to travel, loves to be connected and make connections, and is a really fun person to talk to.Luke's radical and contrarian viewpoints, backed by his lessons from diverse experiences and ups and downs of life, would make you rethink many axioms you've intuitively taken for granted. Tune in for a candid conversation.

I think my podcasts have gotten better. Feel free to share any feedback!

Article of The Week

Silicon Valley Broke All Its Promises. This article's title conveys the point, but I'll let you discover The Atlantic's take on it.