Why Your Morning Coffee Isn't Working(unless you are Marc Andreessen)
Most energy drinks just dump caffeine in your system to block adenosine. You feel alert for a bit, then your cortisol spikes and you crash. Not ideal.
Better move: pair caffeine with L-theanine. It promotes alpha-wave activity, which means you get the boost without feeling like you're vibrating. Matcha does this naturally: slower uptake, fewer jitters, steadier focus throughout the day.
Here's what actually helps:
Citicoline keeps your attention sharp
Bacopa helps with memory (takes a few weeks to kick in)
Lion's mane supports nerve growth (still early research, but promising)
Rhodiola and cordyceps help you handle stress without frying your nervous system
Add some turmeric and vitamin C to deal with oxidative stress. B-vitamins keep your cells running...
The best ready-made formulation I've found which achieves this and more is Magic Mind, it packs all of this into one shot (matcha, L-theanine, nootropics, adaptogens, the complete package). It's designed for mental performance without the crash or the pill fatigue.
LLMs learn from everything, not just the best of everything
Analogy: if you learned to play soccer from everyone who has ever played soccer, you would be quite bad at soccer, because most people are bad, the same is true with writing
The simple solution is to tell the LLM to only consider writing that is most widely considered great and credible
Cultures do not always adopt trends or technologies the same way
Asian people have higher phone usage than Western people, meaning they are often early adopters or exclusive users of certain technologies
A hike, a jog in the sand, or rucking while listening to a podcast
More about mental reset than physical gains
Neck is a game-changer: years of neck training are one reason why Huberman never had ??????? or ?????? cuff issues, despite having long arms that would normally predispose him to them
Upgrade to Premium to Get 3 Premium Notes Every Week, the Full Newsletter, Playable Timestamps, AI Powered Answers, Unlock 500+ Premium Posts, No Ads and MORE
NF quote: “the mind is a powerful place and what you feed it can affect you in a powerful way”
Shopify founder Toby Lutke used to fear public speaking… he fixed it by writing “I love public speaking” 100 times a day for a week or two, he literally changed his brain
Mental model: “sofa friends vs treadmill friends,” some people drain you enough to lie down, others energize you enough to want to go run
Apply the same test to content, ask if a creator’s videos leave you feeling abundant or bitter and looking for enemies
Senra says his own information diet is deliberate, he reads old books and talks to smart, interesting people, and cuts out anyone pessimistic
You already control what you eat for your body, do the same for your mind, don’t just let an algorithm dump whatever it wants into your head
Failure is a privilege of progress
“The loudest boos come from the cheapest seats,” a line Senra got from Dana White, someone he calls a phenomenal communicator
Dana’s mantra: “making mistakes is a privilege of the active,” mistakes mean you’re actually doing something, not evidence of failure
Dana owns his mistakes publicly and immediately instead of deflecting or hedging
Don't solve problems, just avoid them!
Charlie Munger: “wisdom is prevention”
Munger went through his son’s leukemia diagnosis and a divorce in his late 30s, one of the worst periods of his life
Takeaway: some problems are unavoidable, but most controllable ones can be avoided by choosing who you spend time with and what work you commit to
Keep a small circle of high quality people, find great work, stick with both, and most avoidable problems disappear