Week 18 of 2024 has arrived. I don't know that there is anything better than a dog laying in the grass on a warm spring day.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square.  Done?

I was listening to The Tim Ferriss Podcast with Martha Beck this week, (5 stars, highly recommend) and she is describing an out-of-body experience she had during surgery, where she was one with truth, god, the Universe, whatever your name is for it...

As I was driving on the highway at the time, and surprisingly I got a little teary, and the thought that accompanied the misty eyes was "It's not fair! I want to have an experience where I get to witness the light like that!"

And then I felt like a toddler, jealous that the other kid in the sandbox got the "good truck" to play with.

I'm still a bit jealous. Which is probably keeping the light at bay.

Reminder: As a 4K Weeks newsletter reader, you always get 10% off your order.  Just email me and ask for a code.

Accountability and Coaching Group.

There is still room for 10 more people in the new group.  Here is the info from last week:

I don't know if it will last, I don't know if it will stay free, or have a subscription one day, I don't know if you want it, and I don't know if you need it. All I know is that I wanted to try it.  And so, I have started a community on Skool.com. 

I am looking for 25 10 people who are interested in talking about the journey of continuous self-improvement, looking for daily accountability, daily encouragement, etc. I think this could be the start of an awesome community focused on helping all of its members continue growing into the kind of humans we all want to live in the world with.

If you think that is you, send me an email with a daily goal you would like to be held accountable for, and why you think you would be an asset to our nascent virtual mastermind group.  I envision this group growing, with courses, digital extras for 4K Weeks products, daily inspiration to stay the course, etc. And... as a thank you to the founding group, it will be free for them as long as it is active.

If you are interested and motivated, let's see what it becomes. 

Thanks for being here and reading. These emails help me "Sharpen The Saw" and hopefully help you to sharpen yours!

The 4K Weeks Brightsider... For the colorful among us.

The 4K Weeks Fade to Black - Memento Mori, Anyone?

The Original 4K Weeks... A Striking Visual of Your Life

Remarkable Weeks

Week 18 of 1961, Harper Lee, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. She was 1,826.71 weeks old (35.03 yrs). 

Week 18of 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, CERN scientist, introduced the World Wide Web to the public domain. He was 1,768.57 weeks old (33.91 yrs).

Week 18 of 1997, Garry Kasparov, Russian chess grandmaster, faced off against Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer. He won the first match in 1996 and lost in 1997, showing the implications of AI and its relationship with human intelligence. He was 1777 weeks old (34.07 yrs).

This Week's Quote

Allow the world to live as it chooses, and allow yourself to live as you choose. -Richard Bach

I can't state this strongly enough.  You don't know enough to tell someone else how to live.  (Wait, did I just tell you how to live? Oh, the landmine of nuance!)

Each of us is fighting every day to stay in tune with our true self, and our true path of being.  When you start focusing on how someone else isn't on the right path, you take your eyes off your own path.

As long as they aren't telling you how you should live, let them fly their flag.

I feel like this quote reaction was inspired by the Martha Beck-Tim Ferriss podcast from this week. (More on that below.)

What I am Consuming This Week

Tim Ferriss Show, Martha Beck Super interesting, and wide ranging podcast. They each get a little "fanboyish" about each other in parts of it, but Martha Beck is a conundrum to me... I both like and am unsure about her... Kind of like the first bite of a desert, when I don't know if it is too sweet or not...

Three books, with Neil Pashrika, Cal Newport is the Guest.  I really liked the discussion of David Allen's GTD... and how the understanding has evolved... that has happened over the course of my professional life, so I feel like I have lived it... Also the Kids screen time talk was eye opening, and I can't not mention the discussion about podcast hosts and ads, etc... something to mull over.

Skip the Flip, Hayden Crabtree. One of the guys I play Basketball with recommended this book. I'm about 3/4 of the way through it. It's an in the weeds real estate investing book. pretty good, nothing earth shattering, but a good beginners guide.

Freakonomics Radio, How to Pave the Road to Hell. Interesting discussions about the side effects of good intentions.

The Daily, The Supreme Court Takes up Homelessness.  How to solve this problem... I think income inequality at has to be a big part of this... as more money is concentrated with us at the top, there squeeze at the bottom is unavoidable.  reminds me of this Will Rodgers quote: "Mr. Hoover was an engineer. He knew that water trickles down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will reach the driest little spot. But he didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellows hands."

Insta Nuggets:

• learn to tolerate and enjoy the discomfort.
• doesn't seem stupid...
• The breathing works...
• Simple, but not easy, but not rocket science either.

What I am Thinking About This Week

Telling Stories.

In the 4K Weeks Skool community this week I wrote a post about how we are storytellers, and how we can use that to our advantage.

That reminded me of how I first used storytelling to my advantage.

I was in my early twenties.  I had been in a band for 2 years, and it had become clear that we likely weren't going to become rockstars any time soon.

We would go out to bars regularly and everyone would ask the #1 sorting question of our culture: "So, what do you do?" 

I didn't love my answer to this question... "Well, not much... I work part-time for a friend's dad's company wiring the computers for Hallmark and Sprint stores, while desperately wanting to be a rockstar."

All my friends (other than the guys in my band) were starting to get established in their careers, making what seemed like silly huge amounts of money, and it seemed like I was falling pretty far behind.

One day I decided that when someone asks the question "What do you do?"  you aren't legally required to only share with them the thing that puts the most money in your bank account.

So, I decided to start telling people I was a sculptor.  My degree was in sculpture, and as the shine was wearing off the dream of rockstardom, getting paid to sculpt seemed like a pretty good way to live, and something I could be proud of telling inquiring minds.

For years before it was my primary source of income, that's what I told people.  It took a long time to make the story I was telling myself match the reality I was living in, but I firmly believe that the successful struggle was rooted in my willingness to first tell myself a story that I wanted to be true.

It's not magical thinking if you are striving to make it true every day.

So... what do you do?

Have a great week!

Thanks for being a part of the journey with us! Please tell me if you liked/disliked the blog this week. Ask my wife... those are the only emails I like to get!

Spencer, Owner of 4KWeeks.com

Dad Joke O' The Week

What sits on the seabed and has anxiety?

A nervous wreck.