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Life

Ideas

by jaredbrock

Ideas are cheap. It’s the execution that matters. I have tons of ideas that I’m currently working on executing, but here are some extra ones that I just don’t think I’ll get around to. None are probably fully original, and a bunch are just things on my wish list. Feel free to steal and use any of these. If they really take off, I’m happy to advise and/or sit on the board. And if you make millions, feel free to buy me a house and/or make a huge donation to my charity.

Hormone cocktails
Hear me out. I’d love a daily three-to-five shot regime that balances all those dang hormones that make you fat and foggy: leptin, cortisol, insulin, ghrelin, testosterone, serotonin, plus ketones, etc. This is probably a very unsafe idea.

Tacos El Norte in the actual north
For those who’ve read my list of favorite things, you’ll know that Tacos El Norte, a Chicagoland-based chain of a dozen Tex-Mex restaurants, is my absolute favorite MX food in the world… and I’ve lived in Mexico. I’d love someone with restaurant franchise experience to bring them to Canada, starting with Guelph and Hamilton. I will 100% invest in this and donate the proceeds to charity.

DIYphysiotherapy.com
I’ve spent thousands of dollars on physio. They basically put you in a room with a sheet of printed instructions and you have to do the exercises and then you get to leave. Why not save the commute and the corporate overhead and let me do it all at home?

Inexpensive high-quality orthotics
My last pair cost $625. For a piece of plastic. Online glasses are killing Lenscrafters, and there’s an opportunity to really bring down the insane margins on footcare.

CryptoCheckout
A super elegant, easy-t0-use WordPress plugin that allows users to accept donations and payments in 100+ cryptocurrencies.

Kombucha cocktails
Because who wouldn’t want a Ginger Booch martini?

Are You Smarter Than a Really Smart Person?
A game show that pits everyday people against geniuses with IQs over, say, 180. The catch is that the questions/tasks are all really simple, everyday, mundane, pedestrian, plebeian tasks. Just imagine watching Sheldon Cooper try to do laundry.

HaveAnAbortion.com
A website that connects teens with unwanted pregnancies with couples looking to adopt. While obviously fraught with challenges to overcome for the site’s creator, I’d rather avoid exorbitant adoption fees and put a young woman through university instead.

Actual affordable housing
Not the ghetto/commie-block kind. Well-built, super clean, brilliantly laid-out micro-apartments and eco tiny homes. Alternately, we could just have some courageous, long-term thinking politicians stabilize the market by increasing interest rates, putting the screws to banks, upping the down payment and income requirements, banning foreign ownership of residential property, limiting domestic ownership of residential property, driving out Airbnb, and upping the rental standards so high that scum lords flee the market. I would vote for you.

Actual ethical investing
Let’s face it: most SRIs are still very dirty – I’m shocked when I dig into most of their portfolios. Would love to see a platform that allows people to invest in seriously ethical and meaningful not-for-profit projects like Indwell.

A new type of legal corporation
A not-for-profit investment fund/holding trust. As CEO I can make (hopefully always ethical) investment decisions and grow the fund tax-free for as long as I desire, but I have to give away at least 10% of corporate profits each year, and 100% of the corporate profits have to go to charity in the end. (Governments won’t make any tax revenue on such an entity, but the common good could benefit far greater.)

Book pubs
Let’s face it: physical bookshops are doomed… without alcohol. Why not fill the shelves of every bar, inn, and pub with books? Bare walls become both decoration and income stream.

www.Mentor.Me
A website/app that connects qualified/experienced elders with hungry young folk. Tagline: “Affordable advice to 10X your life.”

Basic apparel
I don’t need fashion, I just want form and function. I don’t want to buy brand names or pay shareholder profits. I just want 100% organic, ethical, sustainable clothing, ideally made by a non-profit, that doesn’t break my bank account. Blue jeans. White tees. Black boxers. White socks. No logos, no brand names, no nothing.

Match.me
A website where people can raise funds for their favorite causes/charities by challenging their friends. (IE, I’ll match any amount you give up to $1000.)

Bits of Legislation
-Every country needs a right to roam act like the U.K. We humans have been hiking for millennia, and no private landowner should have the right to close up a 5000-year-old piece of common good. Give us three feet, it’s all we ask.
-Wales has a coastal walking path around its entire ocean frontage. Let’s think globally. Wouldn’t that be lovely?
-A global ban on plastics, fracking, GMOs, polluting rivers, etc. Obviously, it’s too late for any of these, so perhaps just allocating extra funding for orbital settlement might be prudent.

Direct Democracy
An encrypted online/on-phone tool that uses the blockchain to allow citizens to directly vote in elections, referendums, etc. (No more need to pay the salaries of politicians who ignore us anyway/only listen to their corporate sponsors.) Tagline: “Real democracy is just a click away.” Campaigns would inevitably include “Swipe left on Trump.”

Working on one of these? Have a solution to anything on this list that works for you? Please let me know.

The Tale of Two Pizzas

by jaredbrock

Pizza delivery is a job for desperate men. Five years ago, I was one of them. My wife and I had just come back from a half-year internship with one of my favorite authors. I was an aspiring writer, with few hireable skills. I applied for 60 jobs out west, but just couldn’t find work. I returned home demoralized, broke, and I went to work for Domino’s.

The restaurant game is rigged. Working in food service used to be the one place where a guy or gal without options or an education could get ahead by working long and hard. As the industry consolidated, the big restaurant chains hired lobbyists to exempt them from the standard minimum wage.They got their own special calculation.

Mine was simple: “You’ll start at $5.00 per hour, plus a dollar per delivery and tips,” the owner said. “If you do good work, you’ll get a fifty cent raise in a month. When you’re not on delivery, you’ll fold boxes and do dishes and cleaning. Deal?”

What choice did I have?

“Oh, and by the way,” he said. “You have to use your own car.”

Broke

As I said, pizza delivery is a job for desperate men. My fellow drivers all fit the same profile: Forty to fifty. Tired. Broke. Divorcees trying to make some money under the table. Fathers delivering on the side to pay off debts. Alcoholics, gamblers, ramblers. Lots of immigrants with limited options. And me, so young and aspirational, terrified I’d be stuck there for the rest of my life.

Our boss was cheap. Cruelly so. He owned multiple franchises and multiple rental properties, all paid for by the labor of his underpaid workers. My thirty day trial period passed, and I didn’t see the rate hike reflected in my paycheck.

I pestered my boss for weeks. He kept saying he’d get around to it. Eventually, he did. I’ll never forget seeing my first cash-out after the raise.

“Hey,” I said. “My pay line says $5.15 per hour.”

“Yeah, so?”

“But you said I’d get a fifty cent raise after a month.”

“No I didn’t. You misheard me. It’s a fifteen cent raise.”

I wept as I drove home that night.

Grinding

It wasn’t the only time I wept. Or screamed or punched my steering wheel so hard that it made my knuckles ache.

People, in general, aren’t very generous. When you’re making $5.15 per hour and have to pay for your own car, insurance, maintenance, repairs, and fuel, you need every run to count. But you’re completely at the mercy of hungry strangers.

When it comes to pizza delivery, being nice doesn’t matter. I always did my best to get people their food as quickly as possible. I’d smile, make eye contact, and get people laughing, but it never affected my bottom line. People, for the most part, give you their leftovers. If the order came to $17.01, you were lucky. They’d hand you a twenty and say “keep the change.” You wanted the $17.01 runs. You did everything in your power to avoid the $29.20 ones.

Delivering pizza is like playing the slot machine. It’s never consistent, but every few nights would be good, and you’d think “hey, if I could just keep making eighteen bucks an hour, I’d be solid.” But it was a delusion. When it was all said and done, you never made minimum wage. So you’d just ignore the numbers.

There were houses that purposely didn’t tip. One guy insisted I dole out change to the penny, sending me back to my car to fish through my glove compartment for coins.

Autumn turned cold. My car, wracked with entropy and exhausted from a thousand starts and re-starts, began to break down. A timing belt snapped in the middle of one delivery. I wept. Two days in the shop means two days without an income, but the mechanic still has to be paid.

Winter came and went. I worked evenings and weekends, dashing in and out of homes in the dark and bitter cold, a professional beggar. A few times per week, I’d have two no-tippers in a row. I’d get in my car and scream at the top of my lungs, wrapping my hands around the wheel so hard it would bend. I was a desperate man.

I kept the ticket stubs for every house that didn’t tip. When the stack overflowed my cup holder, I’d transfer them to a plastic bag in my trunk. Soon, it was the size of a pillow. Already prone to depression, I sunk low.

I began to fantasize about egging their houses. I ran and re-ran mental scenarios in which I confronted their miserliness. I wrote a screenplay outline for a comedic exposé of the industry. I seriously considered anonymously publicly shaming non-tippers on social media or by posting ads in the local paper. Above all, I dreamed about setting fire to the store. I wanted my place of work to cease to exist. It was completely irrational, but this fantasy world was the only way I could cope with the constant rejection of the reality I was facing. I was invisible. I was worthless. The callousness of my boss and our customers began to break me. I was in a downward spiral with no way to reverse it.

The Tale of Two Pizzas

By spring, the writing was on the wall. I was too much of an idealistic reformer, and general agitator, and eventually the boss fired me. I contacted his lawyer and threatened to sue for wrongful dismissal. I needed the tide-over money that badly. We eventually settled out of court.

It was ugly, and in hindsight, I’m ashamed of myself. (This is the first time I’ve ever told this story publicly.)

The drivers I worked with were in a near-constant state of conflict with each other, always bickering over who got which run, who got to take a double order, who hadn’t done their fair share of dishes or box-folding, and so on. It was the outer expression of an inner struggle.

I tried to avoid the drama. Whenever I finished my duties, I’d read or chat with the college kids who manned the front-of-house. There was one guy up front who was especially nice. I’ll call him Adam.

Everyone who works in the pizza business does so temporarily. Even drivers who are considered “lifers,” guys who’ve been there ten or fifteen years, they’re just passing through. Not Adam. Adam was different.

Adam was happy. He had a permanent smile etched on his face. While the rest of us grew doughy from our late night pizza suppers, Adam was lean and fit. He was disciplined, organized, driven, and hungry to learn.

He’d do anything for the boss. He’d take a delivery. He’d make a pizza. Answer phones, do the dishes, clear out the walk-in freezer, pick up the boss’s kids from school. When he wasn’t running errands he was in the back office with the boss, asking questions and discussing strategy.

Unlike the rest of us, Adam had a growth mindset. He didn’t let his circumstances get him down. He saw it as an opportunity to gain insight and expand his abilities. He learned marketing, accounting, distribution, management. While we were shooting the breeze or dreaming of our inevitable exit, Adam was leaning in and acquiring a ton of transferable skills.

Not that he went anywhere. The boss was smart. He promoted Adam to manager and eventually brought him in as a partner-owner of a new location. While pizza delivery is now a distant memory/nightmare for me, Adam now runs his own business.

I regret my time in the pizza business, obviously. I wish I’d seen what Adam saw — not so I could turn around and exploit others like my boss had, but to gain the skills necessary to build a company that could make a net-positive product, offer meaningful work at livable wages, and contributes corporate profits to the common good. I could have saved years of work.

I eventually got there, but not until I adopted Adam’s growth mindset. After I got fired, I didn’t know where to turn. So I hit the library. Hard. I read biographies, autobiographies, personal development books, and business manuals, hungry for actionable knowledge to help me find firm ground. They helped me find my footing. After taking some baby steps, I learned to walk. Now, as I create distance from the poverty of the pizza business, I look back and realize I could have started the journey far sooner.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: Don’t wait. Grow now.

Oh, and please tip your delivery guy.


I want you to thrive. Enter this free giveaway for a chance to win 5 of the top books that finally helped me spiral up. You’ll also get my top 60 book recommendations and my eBook The Effectiveness Equation.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends if you think it would encourage them.

The Four Most Important Words You Should Repeat Every Single Day For the Rest of Your Life

by jaredbrock

“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” — Samuel Johnson

When I was 18 years old, I got in my car with three friends and took a monthlong road trip from coast to coast in celebration of our graduation from high school. When we reached Vancouver, I dropped the boys at the airport and drove back home alone.

When I was somewhere in Montana, I stopped at a shop on a Native American reserve. As I wandered the aisles in search of snacks and drinks for the road, I somehow ended up in the jewelry section. In between all the kitschy designs was a simple, unembellished ring. I’m not a jewelry-wearing guy, nor am I a mystical person, but I felt somehow drawn to it.

“That’s real Montana sterling,” the proprietor said. “Local mountain silver.”

“I’ll take it,” I replied.

I paid the man and slipped the ring on my thumb as I returned to my car. As I drove east, listening to music, I tapped my new thumb ring on the steering wheel with pleasure. But why did I buy it?

Within a year, my ring broke. I have no idea how it happened, but one day it snapped, leaving a slight gap. The ring was loose, but I kept wearing it.

I’ve worn that broken ring on my thumb for 13 years. In that time, at least one hundred people have asked me why. The answer has always been the same:

“I don’t know yet.”

The Great Inevitability

I remember when my dad’s dad died. I was maybe ten or twelve. Everyone else was crying, but I remained stoic. People said I was strong and brave.

I wasn’t. I actually felt guilty that I wasn’t crying like everyone else. As the funeral progressed, two things rattled in my little brain:

  1. I didn’t really know my grandfather. We spent a lot of time with him, but he was more interested in watching NASCAR and playing Gran Turismo than hanging out with me.
  2. In my mind, he was old. It was his time to go. Everyone dies. Grandpa died.

I realized then what most people simply cannot accept: While everything else is a variable, mortality is a certainty. Death is a large part of life. As Chuck Palahniuk wrote: “On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.”

Carved On Our Hands

Take a moment to open your hands and take a look at your palms. If you begin to close your hands ever so slightly, most people will see the letter M begin to form in the folds of their skin. In the Middle Ages, monks began their days by staring at those Ms on their palms while meditating on two Latin words: Memento Mori.

Remember you must die.

These are the four words that we should repeat every day for the rest of our lives.

The ancient greats, men from Aurelius to Seneca to Epictetus, carried tokens as reminders of mortality— coins and bracelets, watches and clocks. They hung frescos or skull imagery that reminded them of death. In the 1500–1600s, people started wearing memento mori rings.

When I learned this, I immediately knew why I’ve worn this ring for more than a decade. My ring is my memento mori. It is my constant counselor, my ever-present reminder. (Modern masters like Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss carry coins for the same purpose. It’s also the reason I wear an analog watch and keep a digital clock on my desk as I write these words.)

Remember you must die.

My ring is a potent personal symbol. Now when people ask me why I wear a busted ring on my thumb I say “It’s a reminder that, while life is beautiful, I am going to die. The circle is broken.”

Practicing Memento Mori

I once read through the whole Bible in two weeks, and my favorite verse is definitely Psalm 90:12: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Literally: Realize that life is short and learn to live well.

Practicing memento mori like the monastics of old is a powerful habit. And it’s an idea the transcends culture. Buddhism counsels to “Be aware of the reality that life ends…” The Hagakure makes it clear: “The Way of the Samurai is, morning after morning, the practice of death…”

By regularly meditating about the Great Inevitability, you develop qualities that will vastly improve your quality of life:

Urgency

Time is running out. Don’t fool yourself. We don’t have plenty of it left. When my wife was 19, her best friend died in a car accident. She pulled up to a stop light on a country road. She looked left. She looked right. She pulled out. She got hit by a bus.

“Tomorrow” and “someday” aren’t guaranteed. Practicing memento mori grafts urgency into our life and work. There’s a preacher named Francis Chan who does a lot of speaking at conferences. He pictures the on-stage countdown clock as if it’s a countdown to his death. If you ever hear him talk, his raw, evocative, fearless urgency is palpable. Pablo Picasso put it best:“Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”

Gratitude

Life is unquestionably and undeniably hard. Failure and disappointment are simply unavoidable even at the highest echelons. But we’re still alive, and therefore, there is much to be grateful for. Despite the fact that so much is outside of our control, our attitude isn’t. Neale Donald Walsch put it best:“The struggle ends when gratitude begins.” Life is far too short for ingratitude.

Humility

We’ve been duped, or rather, we’ve naively believed that William Ernest Henley’s poem Invictus is an actual truth and not simply a beautiful platitude. We are not the masters of our fate. We are not the captains of our souls. The Reaper takes us all. Contemplating such a notion should vastly reduce our ego.

Stoicism

When you know you’re going to die, possessions cease to matter. You can’t take them with you, so you make a transition. You begin to “acquire” relationships and experiences, and you use possessions as tools to make contributions to the common good. As Jim Elliot said: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”

Clarity

I don’t mind cliche questions like “If you only had 6 weeks to live, what would you do?” and “If you were diagnosed with inoperable cancer, how would it change your day to day life?” These types of questions clarify what’s actually important. They separate the wheat from the chaff.

Presentness

If the past is gone and the future isn’t guaranteed, then all of life exists at this very moment. Yet, for some reason, we allow distraction and addiction to consume our days. We put ourselves on auto-pilot. As Seneca said: “It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” The wise man wastes no time.

Death in Life, Life in Death

I love cemeteries. They’re always bursting forth with life — flowers, trees, birds, squirrels — wild and free. I make a point of visiting graveyards when I travel. Sleepy Hollow and Bunhill Fields are two of my favorites because they’re packed with people who’ve influenced my life.

That’s the thing about cemeteries: They celebrate life. They honor those who’ve gone before us. They help us remember. They make us ask questions:

Am I living like I’m going to die?

Will the seeds I’m planting outlive me?

Gone

Last night, I lost my ring. I got home very late, it was freezing outside, and it slipped from my cold hands into a snowbank. I searched frantically, in the dark, for almost five minutes, clawing away at the snow and ice, but I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I eventually stopped and stared at my palms and ringless thumb. I began to think about life. Life is like my ring. One minute it’s there, the next it’s gone.

Dust to dust.
Ashes to ashes.
A vapor.
Chasing wind.

Mercifully, I found my ring. I went inside and filled a huge cauldron with near boiling water and melted down the whole area until it flashed with silver.

When it comes to life, we don’t get a second chance. We only get today.

Don’t let it slip away.


Want to start producing exponentially better work in order to leave a meaningful legacy? Check out The Effectiveness Equation, my free, short, highly-actionable eBook.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed it, please share it with your friends so they, too, can begin to seize the day.

Want to live a flourishing, effective, meaningful life? Enter this giveaway to win five of my favorite books. You’ll also receive my top 60 book recommendations for free.

Perennial Wisdom for Everyday Living.

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Timeless ideas for today.

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