Last week’s challenge report:

My picks for next week:

Report in a week.

Nobody buys expensive things for status anymore.

That would be embarrassing.

Now we buy them for quality.

For craftsmanship.

For focus.

For hydration.

Every expensive object comes with a respectable explanation.

The Rolex is for telling time - about $5 per glance.

The $4,500 La Marzocco Linea Micra, plus the grinder it apparently requires, is for saving money on coffee at home.. Somehow.

The Moleskine notebook is for writing more, not for sitting untouched on a desk looking expensive.

The Yeti bottle is for drinking more water.

The Herman Miller chair is for posture (although at $1,800 I also expect personal growth).

The Crate & Barrel oak table is for “the space” (phrase that has never made anything cheaper).

Sure.

These things are useful.

They also make us feel better about the person we are trying to become.

A premium notebook says I take writing seriously.

Minimalist furniture says my house is calm, organized and... modern!

A very expensive chair says I care about my back. It says nothing about how I actually sit.

I get it because I am highly susceptible to this nonsense.

Full disclosure for anyone new here who has not yet learned how much sarcasm I use: I do not own any of these things. Yet…

But put a well-made object in front of me and I immediately imagine a better version of myself.

Calmer.

Sharper.

More organized. (The kind of person who has a drawer in a kitchen that opens without resistance!)

The object is never just the object.

But that does not make the purchase fake or stupid.

Sometimes you use it every day.

Sometimes it genuinely improves your life.

And sometimes you simply love it.

Ramit Sethi has a good rule for this: spend extravagantly on the things you love, and cut costs mercilessly on the things you do not.

The problem is that my “I LOVEEEE this” and my wife’s “No, this is clutter” are often about the same thing.

In our house, she has been very helpful in deciding what we love.

Looking back at 2025, we had no trouble spending money on a couple of “family” vacations.

“My family” went away and had a great time. I stayed home with my wife’s beloved Yorkie. Yorkies are essential in every household. At least, that is what she has persuaded me to believe.

We also decided it was important to replace our $30 AeroPress with an espresso machine (I am embarrassed to admit this).

This made perfect sense if you ignored the fact that I drink about two liters of green tea every day.

La Marzocco?

She wishes.

I sleep well knowing she has not researched that one yet (Ha, honey. We already have an espresso machine. Too late now. I hope… Be mercy?).

The things we apparently did not love were a sauna, a cold plunge, or doing anything useful to the backyard (I am still surprised the front-yard curbing made it through the approval process. Apparently, looking good to the neighbors counts as something we love).

Glad to see our money went exactly where it mattered.

And at exactly the right time.

The espresso machine arrived around the same time two of my wife’s best friends bought one.

The official position is that nobody influenced anybody.

So no, we do not buy expensive things to impress people.

We buy them because they fit the person we think we are becoming.

Or, in our case, the person my wife’s friends became about three weeks earlier.

The good news is that we are done buying expensive things now.

Right, honey?

If there is no newsletter next week, she read this far.

Hopefully, till next time.

P.S. All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to actual people in my household is purely coincidental. That is the official position.

Solitude Is a Skill - 9 min read.

Solitude is not loneliness. It is also not watching seven episodes because you “needed to decompress.” This article explains how to spend time alone without wasting it.

A Few Stories About Big Decisions - 5 min read.

Eight short stories about decisions that seemed strange, unpopular, or irrational at the time. Yup, all of them worked.

Time Confetti and the Broken Promise of Leisure - 6 min read.

Ever finish an evening with no idea where it went? This article explains “time confetti”: the tiny interruptions that make an hour off feel like you never stopped working. Now that I know the term, I notice it everywhere.

Ken helped create some of the original iPhone’s most familiar features. The book shows how great products were actually made: constant demos, blunt feedback, and many great ideas killed before lunch. In case you do not remember, the first version of iOS did not have a copy-paste feature! Steve Jobs liked to say “no” a lot more often than “yes”.

Sometimes, this is enough. Very often it’s more than enough.

Ask to Be Tested: When Michael Ovitz applied to William Morris, one of Hollywood’s biggest talent agencies, he was told its training program took three years and had a waiting list. He proposed a deal: give him three months to learn the business, and if he failed, he would repay everything they had paid him during that time. He just gave them a low-risk way to test it.

Study the Boss’s Schedule: Sam Weisbord, the president of William Morris, often returned after dinner to work through his mail. Ovitz noticed, stayed late, answered calls, and organized what Weisbord needed. At 22, he became Weisbord’s assistant. Within six months, he was an agent.

Competitive Habit Check: As a trainee, Ovitz kept useful research to himself because the other trainees were his competition. When he later co-founded CAA, he reversed the rule and pushed employees to share information. What helped him get ahead alone would have caused problems inside his own company.

Shared-Client Rule: At most agencies, one agent controlled the client relationship. CAA sometimes assigned three, four, or five agents to the same important client. Ovitz wanted clients connected to the company, not dependent on one person who might eventually leave.

Proof-of-Receipt Rule: CAA agents passed around paper notes called buck slips. The recipient had to mark the note, answer it, and send it back. Until then, the update was not complete. “I sent it” was not accepted as proof that communication had happened.

Scan First, Read Sunday: Ovitz subscribed to 210 magazines, but he did not read each one from beginning to end. He scanned headlines, images, and opening paragraphs, pulled out the useful pieces, and saved them for Sunday.

Cash-Flow Order: CAA began with television instead of film because television clients were paid every Thursday. That gave the new agency regular commission income. The founders cleared about $100,000 in debt within six months and waited until 1978 to put serious effort into movies. Logic + math = winning combo.

Second-Look Test: Ovitz says he reviews about 200 artwork images a day. When one interests him, he saves it and looks again several days later. The second viewing tells him whether the interest lasted or it was something in the moment and therefore irrelevant for most people.

Capture Now, Research Later: When Ovitz finds something interesting through Instagram, Google, Perplexity, or another source, he prints it and adds it to a research pile. He investigates selected items later, usually at night. The question gets saved without taking over whatever he was already doing.

A memory can feel completely accurate and still be wrong. This clip explains how your brain stores experiences, then changes them each time you remember.

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