⛅ What would you do if money weren't an issue?
Also, little tweaks yield big results, what do engineers do, and what does America get right?
Shifting the publishing time of this newsletter from Sunday to Monday had an exponentially positive impact on my life. Instead of sweating my Sundays pulling things together while wanting to relax with my fam, now I can enjoy the weekend and hit the ground running Monday morning.
Best decision ever.
Sometimes, little tweaks yield big results.
Let’s get into the newsletter:
When I was younger, one of the things my dad and I used to do was fantasize about what we’d do if we ever won the lottery. We knew our chances were basically zero (at least I did), but it was always fun to imagine the “what if” scenario. We’d talk about buying fancy cars, a big house, giving the United States Postal Service the middle finger (where my dad worked), and eating king crab legs and lobster all day, every day.
As a 14-year-old kid, that’s about all that mattered to me. I’d leave those conversations feeling wildly hopeful and full of happiness, and then I’d come back to the real world and hit the sack early for yet another day of school. Life went on.
Today, at age 32, I sometimes wonder:
“What would I do if money weren’t an issue?”
I don’t think I’d care about buying a fancy car, a yacht, or a huge mansion. I think as long as I could work on whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and could spend my free time with family, friends and doing various hobbies, I’d be pretty f’ing happy.
Funny enough, there’s not TOO much I’d change about my life if I happened to fall into a buttload of cash. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve already won the lottery based on the people I’m surrounded by and the work I get to do.
If you’re in a similar boat — awesome. Keep going. If not, the question “What would I do if money weren’t an issue?” is 100% worth pondering. Whatever comes from it is the direction in which you should point your compass and go.
Five to ten years from now you may just be in that situation (if you play your cards right).
Here are my favorite uplifting stories, tweets, etc. from this past week:
Just in case you’re an engineer like me who always gets asked, “What do engineers actually do?” Here’s a great ELI5-type video that shows the power of engineering (via Legos).
Star Wars fans rejoice — The trailer for The Book of Boba Fett was released last week.
Elon Musk, in a very Elon Musk way, created a poll on Twitter asking his followers to vote on whether or not he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock (~$21 billion). He said he would “abide by the results of this poll.” Chances are high he already had a plan for what he was going to do, but you kind of have to respect the publicity he generates.
Despite how the economy feels, the US job count surged last month adding 531,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped a smidge from 4.8% to 4.6%.
America’s been somewhat of the butt of many jokes over the last several years. This Reddit thread “What does America get right?” reminded me of all the good things this country does/can do.
This week, Alice Lemée (@alicellemee) takes the cake, reminding us that a tiny piece of the pie is enough to fuel a full-time creator.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter. See ya next week!
Best,
Jason