Dickie's Digest - Category Pirates, Quantitative Meditation, Stoicism, Growth Hacks, and NFTs
Happy Sunday my friends.
A handful of things from me this week:
On Tuesday, Nicolas Cole and I launched Write The Ship, an online writing course teaching a fundamentally new, data-driven approach to writing online. If you’re interested in taking your writing game to the next level, we’d love to have you. Here’s the launch thread.
It’s best as a follow-up to Ship 30 for 30, which Digest readers can get $50 off enrollment in the March cohort using this link. We’d love to get more Digest readers involved!
That’s it from me! In this week’s Digest:
🏴☠️ Category Pirates: Breaking Down the Businesses Shaping the World
🧠 Diving Into Resonance Breathing and HRV Training (Quantitative Meditation)
Have an epic week!
Dickie
🏴☠️ Category Pirates: Breaking Down the Businesses Shaping the World
One of my favorite new business newsletters is Category Pirates. Every Wednesday, they publish a newsletter breaking down what separates legacy businesses (those stuck in their ways, failing to move forward and innovate) versus the Category Creators, the ones who are avoiding competition by playing an entirely new game.
In the winner-take-all business world, those that create their own category are rewarded heavily by the market. And once you split the business world into those creating a category and those defending an old category, you start to see things differently.
I’m obsessed with their Category Design Scorecard concept, splitting businesses up into those who are trying to be the winner, be the best, and be different. With man businesses blinded by trying to be the winners and trying to be the best, the ones trying to be different are storming ahead.
If you’re into geeking out on business strategy or public markets investing, I highly recommend checking this one out.
And a good question to ask for anyone working at a company: are you working for a Category Creator? Or are you working for a company stuck defending a Legacy Category (and on the slow path to an inevitable decline?
Read more: Category Pirates: Breaking Down the Businesses Shaping the World
🧠 Diving Into Resonance Breathing and HRV Training (Quantitative Meditation)
My latest foray into the world of health and wellness is the rabbit hole of Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and Resonance Breathing.
Here’s the TL;DR. When we breathe, our heart rate accelerates when we inhale and slows down when we exhale. Heart Rate Variability is the difference between how high your heart rate goes when you inhale and how low it drops when you exhale. High Heart Rate Variability indicates a body primed to adapt to strain (hard workouts), better deal with emotions like stress and anxiety, and all in all better health.
Now, we can train our HRV like we train our bodies in the gym. We do this through Resonance Frequency Breathing (a fancy way of saying aligning your breath and heart’s frequency). By breathing at our resonance frequency, we can improve our HRV and unlock all of the benefits having a high HRV creates.
I’ve been an on-and-off meditator for years. And I finally found out why it’s been so hard to stick to: there’s no way to measure success. I’m outcome and objective-driven. I like to see my results in some form or another (rather than “feel them”).
And that’s the beauty of HRV training. It’s like quantitative meditation. Every day, I spend 20 minutes breathing at my resonance frequency, and it feels just like meditation. But now I have something to measure: how much my HRV is improving. I’m two weeks in and I already feel calmer, I’m sleeping better, and my workouts are going well.
If you’re interested in this rabbit hole, here’s my stack of what I use and how I’m learning more:
Read this article for a good overview
For an excellent HRV primer + the 12-week program I am on, pick up a copy of Heart, Breath, Mind, Train Your Heart to Conquer Stress and Achieve Success.
I track my HRV using my Whoop band (one month free with thank link) and a Lief patch (I use the Lief patch because it lets me track my HRV on-demand whereas Whoop tracks it only at night)
I use this breathing app for my training sessions.
If you like to geek out on health and wellness and enjoy feeling good, handling stress, and performing like a well-oiled machine, I highly recommend diving into the world of HRV.
Read more: How To Use HRV Training to Combat Anxiety and Increase Performance
🔥 Last week’s most popular link
🧵This Week in Threads
Sahil Bloom explains Memento Mori
A much-needed reminder that our time here on Earth is limited (and that’s a good thing). This is one of my favorite Stoic concepts, and one I need to think more about. And as always, Sahil describes it better than anyone else.
Growth Tactics 8 Essential Tactics
@GrowthTactics is one of my new favorite accounts on Twitter. In this thread, they break down eight essential tactics on SEO, email marketing, copywriting, and more. Well worth a follow.
🎧 This Week in Podcasts
Tim Ferriss with Steven Pressfield [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
The most impactful book I read in 2020 was The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Once you learn about the Resistance, you start to realize every day is a simple battle - you versus the Resistance. And in this episode, Tim and Steven chat about the battle of the daily creative process.
Tim Ferriss with Katie Huan [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
This was one of the coolest episodes of the Tim Ferriss Show I’ve listened to in ages. Katie Huan was a federal prosecutor who worked on the famous Silk Road case. Now, she works for a16z and is a master of all things Bitcoin, crypto, NFTs, and the Creator Economy. Truly one of the most fascinating interviews I’ve heard in a long time.
🧠 Tweet of the Week
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