Curiosity Chronicle

Why do you value the things you build yourself so much more than anything you can buy?
In this episode, I share a personal story from my first apartment and break down the fascinating science behind why effort is the secret ingredient to a meaningful life.
•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

"So, what's your 5-year plan?"

That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in finance.

Climbing slowly up the mountain, I had started to wonder if it was the wrong one. I just didn't seem to have the same energy for the work as most of my colleagues.

All of the future mountains I envisioned were (at most) one degree of separation from the mountain I'd been climbing.
As I reflect back on that moment now, in July 2026, at the endpoint of that five year plan my mentor asked about, I have an interesting realization...

•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

On January 27, 1986, just 16 hours before the Space Shuttle Challenger was set to launch, an engineer named Roger Boisjoly presented data showing a catastrophic risk with the shuttle's O-rings in cold temperatures.
His warnings were overruled. The next morning, 73 seconds into its flight, the Challenger exploded, killing all seven crew aboard.

Sociologist Diane Vaughn coined the term Normalization of Deviance to describe what had happened—not a single moment of negligence, but a slow, systemic drift where unacceptable practices became accepted because they were repeated without immediate consequences.

In this episode, I explored how this concept applies directly to our lives. The minor repair you ignore. The hard conversation you avoid. The missed workout when you don't feel motivated. No explosion. No catastrophic failure. So you convince yourself they're fine.

But each day, with each tiny slip, you reset your own standard to a new, slightly lower baseline...

•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

I’m increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence.

The most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new information or evidence. It's not that they lack conviction in their beliefs, but more so that they've developed enough self-awareness to understand what it would take to change them.

The world will pressure you to stubbornly resist such change. To cling to every belief as though it might be your last. But there's immense power in resisting that pressure.

I like to think of it as a software update. The update is never perfect, but it's an improvement upon the older version. It's a reminder that the goal isn't to be right, but to slowly, consistently get closer to the truth.

When I'm getting to know people, I often ask them what they've changed their mind on recently. It's an interesting way to go deep in a conversation.

A friend recently flipped the question on me.

After a bunch of thought and reflection, here's my reply:

7 things I've changed my mind on recently...

•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

Last week, I ​wrote a piece​ about reinvention. Specifically, the myth of too late and how to reinvent your life at any age or life stage.
It clearly struck a chord.

I received thousands of replies in the days following the piece. One reader reply referenced a two-decade-old newspaper advice column segment that had resonated on the subject.

Me being me, I decided to try to find the column. After all, if something was still etched into my reader's memory 20+ years later, it must have been good.

​I did​, and it was even better than advertised...

•••
This episode brought to you by:
DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. 
Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place.
Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed.
Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.