Hi friend!

Here's your forever-free email I send at 7 am every Friday.

Each week, I send you something cool you can watch, read, use, and listen to.

If you dig it, or if you have any suggestions, reach out to me and let me know. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you hate it, cancel anytime. If you hate me, cancel me anytime...

Here's something for you to...

1) watch.

How to become financially free.

By one of my favorite YouTubers and filmmakers, Matt D'Avella.

In another captivating and beautiful video, Matt tells the story of how he climbed out of $117,000 of debt in four years.

These are the principles and strategies he used. As someone with massive student loan debt (with no degree to show for it!), I find lessons like these refreshing and insanely helpful.

2) read.

Embracing their 70s with the UN: a tale of two senior UN Volunteers

A lovely story of two UN volunteers, Carmen and James Huddow. The United Nations turns 75 this year. So does James.

One of my best friends wrote this piece! It's her first article as a professional writer.

Not only is this a delightful read, but seeing my friends pursue their interests and things they find scary is incredibly inspiring to me.

Go out and do shit.

3) use.

Atomic Habits

A crazy easy way to approach building strong habits and breaking weak habits. From James Clear's masterful book, Atomic Habits.

Every single habit loop:

1) Cue

2) Craving

3) Response

4) Reward

Example:

Cue - You walk into a dark room and can't see.

Craving - You want to be able to see and walk through the room.

Response - You turn on the light.

Reward - You can now see and walk through the room.

Result - You associate a dark room with turning on the light.

How to build a strong habit:

1) Cue: Make it obvious (set your floss on the counter where you can see it)

2) Craving: Make it attractive (write down what your life would be like if you maintained this habit)

3) Response: Make it easy (become a member at the gym you can walk to, not the one 20 minutes away)

4) Reward: Make it satisfying (read your guilty pleasure novels to build a reading habit)

How to break a bad habit:

1) Cue: Make it invisible (don't buy junk food, so it's not in your house)

2) Craving: Make it unattractive (look at pictures of yourself when you were at your heaviest--if you're trying to stay fit)

3) Response: Make it difficult (keep your phone in the other room while you're working so you have to get up if you want to check it)

4) Reward: Make it unsatisfying (tell your friend to call you out every time you smoke a cigarette)

4) listen to.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

There's no other way to put it...this book is amazing.

Here's my GoodReads review of this masterpiece.

Please listen to this book.

Extras.

Favorite blogs.

Do Cool Shit; Don't Take Pictures

On experiencing things for yourself, not other people.

My Identity

Instead of asking "What do I want to do," ask, "Who do I want to be?"

Bonus!

Last week, I accidentally used a local image file (tell me I'm smart) for a plant diagram. Meaning, anyone who tried to click it got an error message.

Here it is! I promise :)

Bonus bonus!!

If you can't tell, I absolutely love writing these newsletters every week. Whether it's 1 or 1000 people opening them and enjoying them, I don't plan on stopping.

Having said that, if you've been enjoying these, I encourage you to spread the word. It'll be worth it.

In fact, use the referral link at the bottom to refer friends you think would also like The Friday Four.

If you refer 3 people, I'll send you a personalized video of me, singing and dancing about how much I love you.

I'm not kidding :) Off to the races!

Quotes.

“You will become more competent by embracing your own incompetence and by learning from every experience.”

-Henry Kimsey-House

“The thing about a gun is you can decide to pull the trigger. But with a phone, someone else is pulling the trigger and sending little bullets to your brain that make you happy or sad or anxious or depressed.”

-Alexandra Pelosi

“It is better to see once than to hear a hundred times.”

-Mikhail Gorbachev 

Thank you as always for the support, friends! If you enjoyed this newsletter, I encourage you to forward it or invite your friends to subscribe. I hope you all are happy and healthy!

Much love.

Dill 💙