Dru's Notes

I launched a product a day and burned out 17 days in, because the habit counted launches and rewarded nothing else. An Output Habit counts what you finish and an Input Habit counts the time you put in. Bill Atkinson, Jonathan Coulton and Ed Whitlock show what each one rewards, and three questions pick the type for your own habits. Featuring: Bill Atkinson, Jonathan Coulton, Ed Whitlock, Upton Sinc...

Comedians get better after a bad night because whatever happens to them becomes stories for the next set. Trevor Noah tries new things knowing they'll either work or give him comedy. Massimo Bottura turned a dropped lemon tart into one of his signature desserts. Featuring: Trevor Noah, Esther Perel, Massimo Bottura, Takahiko Kondo, Carrie Fisher Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you b...

Reddit priced the Apollo app out of business, Kayla Newman was never paid for "on fleek," and Nipsey Hussle bought the strip mall he once sold CDs in front of. Why I post every essay on a site I own first, then share it on X. Featuring: Christian Selig, Kayla Newman, Nipsey Hussle Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets and opportunities. HeadsUp : K...

Bryson DeChambeau's first year of bulking bought him about 20 yards. His second bought him less than two. Anatoly Karpov led Garry Kasparov 5-0 in the 1984 world chess title match, then lost about 22 pounds and watched his lead shrink to 5-3. Featuring: Bryson DeChambeau, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Kabir Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc : Discover new markets a...

A man from Poland and I each had five minutes to checkmate the other. He took one of my pawns. He was still up on points when he lost. Featuring: Lindsey Jacobellis, Tanja Frieden, Harry G. Summers Jr. Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=sponsor HeadsUp: Know when your competi...

Before Li Shufu spent $1.8 billion on Volvo, he asked 20 other Chinese founders in his club to argue about it. Paul Jarvis, Nathan Barry and Warren Buffett each had a few people who met with them regularly. Featuring: Li Shufu, Liu Chuanzhi, Paul Jarvis, Justin Jackson, Jarrod Drysdale, Nathan Barry, Barrett Brooks, Caleb Wojcik, James Clear, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Napoleon Hill Read the...

Calcium makes bones stronger only once they carry weight, and what you learn builds a skill only once you try to use it. Jim Koch had three Harvard degrees and had never sold anything until twenty bars a day taught him how to sell. Featuring: Jim Koch, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends...

One of the rules I read each morning could have saved me three years: don't force it. In 1846 Peter Panum found the old people of the Faroe Islands stayed healthy through a measles outbreak, because their bodies kept a record of the last one. Your rules for living work the same way, but only when you remember them. Featuring: Peter Panum, George Santayana Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brough...

Grace Groner bought three shares of Abbott Laboratories for $180 in 1935. When she died at 100 they were worth more than $7 million. A business, a skill, a friendship and a habit compound the same way if you keep showing up for years. Featuring: Grace Groner, Jeff Bezos Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_...

The first founder to build in a market tends to prove demand, then watches someone who came in later take it. Pebble, Snapchat and Ahrefs show how it plays out, and why marketplaces and networks are the exception. Featuring: Eric Migicovsky, Dmitry Gerasimenko, Sam Walton Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&...

I just heard someone explain the biggest misconception about Transcendental Meditation: that you're supposed to stop thinking. In TM you silently repeat a word called a mantra, your mind wanders and you come back to it. Featuring: Thomas Keating, Simone Weil, Swami Vivekananda Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=pod...

Pieter Levels runs two apps alone on one server. April Dunford's fees stop the week she does. WeWork raised round after round until it filed for Chapter 11. Eleven plants map to eleven kinds of business. Pick the one your temperament will keep alive. Featuring: Washington Irving, Pieter Levels, Markus Frind, Patrick McKenzie, April Dunford, Jim Buckmaster, Shaun Hill, Andy Yen, Thomas Frank, Dan N...

To prove my friend wrong about habits, I sent him a photo of Thai chilies. His meme said discipline makes each day look the same, and one of my habits is to run experiments each day. Featuring: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ferran Adrià Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=sponsor HeadsUp: Know when you...

Tim Ferriss kept a jar of awesome, slips of good moments he read when he felt down. I keep a highlight reel, a list of my wins, and read it each morning. Olympic diver Laura Wilkinson watched a video of her best dives before each meet and won gold months after breaking her foot. Featuring: Tim Ferriss, Laura Wilkinson Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opport...

You can run a marathon and still dodge a hard talk with your wife. Courage comes in three kinds: mental, social and physical. Bravery in one kind stays in that kind. Featuring: Alex Hormozi, Jia Jiang Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=sponsor HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before...

In 2012 I gave a side project two hours of deep work each morning before my day job. It failed and I dropped the habit with it. METR grades AI models by the longest task they can finish, and a person with chopped-up attention is stuck where GPT-2 was. Featuring: Ken Thompson, Llion Jones Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https...

A week of easy runs had me ready to make an hour my new floor. Then I remembered the run my rule asks for first. Seán Quinn's 35 years of wins ended in a €3 billion loss on one Irish bank. Featuring: Seán Quinn, Carl Sagan Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=sponsor HeadsUp: Know when your com...

I looked up dozens of people who got rich before 50 and what they did each day. When I went looking for people with the same habits who never got rich, I could barely find any. Featuring: Ben Goldacre, Warren Buffett, John D. Rockefeller, Galeazzo Ciano Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/?utm_source=podcast&am...

I love to bike, but I run instead, because on foot I feel safer. After cars killed more than 3,000 people in the Netherlands in 1971, the Dutch kept biking and changed their environment instead. Featuring: Vic Langenhoff Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your...

Scored on the finish, my one thing shrank until it took a few minutes. The work I cared about barely moved, until I heard Gary Keller say he blocks four hours a day for his. Featuring: Gary Keller, Raymond Chandler, Alex Hormozi, Cal Newport, Charles Darwin, Haruki Murakami Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know whe...

Buzz Aldrin spent 21 hours on the moon and the next decade fighting depression and alcoholism. Some goals give you a high and fade. Others make each ordinary day better after you reach them. Featuring: Buzz Aldrin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Pete Adeney Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know when your compe...

A goal needs a system to reach it. A system needs a goal to give it direction. Featuring: Maurice Ashley, Bill Walsh, Seneca Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. https://headsup.bot Multi: Turn any content into a YouTube video. https://makemulti.com Chapters: (...

I spread one daily marketing block across 8 products and each one lost momentum while I tended to the other seven. With 8 products sharing that block, each one got marketing time once or twice a week. Featuring: Serena Williams Watch on YouTube Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Befor...

Each day I reach out to 13 people, do 8 courage challenges and run 34 minutes. As my habits grew, I tightened my anti-habits. Haruki Murakami went to bed at 9pm to buy his 4am writing start. Formula 1 brakes let drivers stay at speed longer before each corner. The more aggressive your habits are, the more aggressive your anti-habits need to be. Featuring: Shonda Rhimes, Haruki Murakami Brought to...

Chegg lost about 99% of its market value while electricians got busier. Markets take the same five routes species take through an ice age: gone, hurt, unchanged, thriving and new. Featuring: Elizabeth Kolbert Read the full post Brought to you by: Trends.vc: Discover new markets and opportunities. https://trends.vc/ HeadsUp: Know when your competitors move. Before your customers do. https://headsup...