Happy Wednesday and Happy New Year, Wise Owl Nation!

This issue is coming out a few hours late today due to some super early morning family obligations.

But have no fear, for nothing can stop the wise owl train from reaching your inbox each Wednesday!

This week I write about how small changes can destroy bad habits over time as well as the power of inertia in our lives.

Then I do my very first product review. I normally don't like reviewing anything other than apps because I am pretty critical, but I have a product for you that has dramatically improved my day-to-day life over the last week, and who would I be if I didn't immediately share it with my favorite people? (You all are my favorite people 🤫).

Let's get into it.

You can find all past issues (including this one) here. 

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🦉💭Wise Owl Thought(s) of The Week: Small changes build inertia

I am someone that is very affected by inertia.

The more I am doing, the easier it is for me to keep doing a lot.

If I stop being productive altogether, the longer I stop being productive, the harder it is for me to start back up again.

The problem for me has always been taking on too much and slowly burning myself out, forcing me to need a break, and starting a cycle of inertia.

My answer to this predicament has been to introduce small changes into both my healthy routines as well as my unhealthy habits.

By injecting a small change into my good routines/habits I avoid burning myself out since the change is small, and the ripple effect on the rest of my day is relatively minor.

On the other end, injecting a small positive change into a bad habit or routine is an EXTREMELY powerful way of slowly disrupting and destroying a bad habit.

For example, I used to order food to be delivered to me most days of the week. The food I would choose was usually not very healthy and had huge portion sizes. This was a problem and I introduced small changes over time to help me reduce the bad habit of ordering out.

1. I started by putting half of each meal into a Tupperware container before I ever ate my food. This allowed me to stop overconsuming, while also giving me an additional meal.
2. One meal a week I would order something explicitly healthy. I'd usually do this early in the week to get it over with.

Over time the number of calories I consumed each day dropped and the habit lost much of its power over me. No longer do I crave a delivered meal.

So now I challenge you to think about your habits.

Do you have any bad habits you can add a small change to that will help you break those habits hold over you in the long term? Experiment with small changes and see what works for you.

On the other side, do you have any good routines or habits you can tweak to add something new to your daily routines?

I recently added the use of a TheraGun tool to most of my sub-routines.

I'll talk more about that in the next section.

🦉🛠️Wise Owl Tool(s) of The Week: The Theragun

Last week I wrote about some cool apps I like to use. This week I finally caved and bought a new tool for my physical health.

The TheraGun. There are tools like this all over the place now, and most of them are cheaper than this product.

This section is going to discuss the benefits I have found with this particular tool, but I am sure you can find similar results with other tools like the TheraGun.

The TheraGun to my knowledge was the first product like this on the market, and as such has a lot of perks that other percussive therapy devices do not have.

For example, it comes with an app that has built-in routines you can use built for all kinds of warm-ups or recovery.

I use the TheraGun and its app for the following routines:

• My morning stretching
• To loosen up my body before I sit at my desk to work
• To loosen up my body before a poker session
• To relax my feet and calves after a run or walk

I've also noticed that the general quality of my sleep has improved, as well as the energy I have immediately upon waking up each morning.

Because I have used it multiple times a day every single day I have owned it, I have to give it a great rating.

My rating - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I have no issues giving a product 1-4 stars if I have any issues with them at all, and honestly, I probably wouldn't waste your time sharing something less than 4 or 5 stars. This tool deserves all 5 stars thus far.

Whether or not you get a TheraGun specifically, these percussive therapy devices have won me over.

I feel so much better, my morning meditations are more productive, and I wake up far easier because my body is less stiff and my sleep was much deeper.

If you're interested in grabbing one yourself, you can find them on Amazon from anywhere in the world using this link.

Quote/Meme of the week:

Happy Wednesday and have a great week!

This concludes our issue this week, I hope it gave you some perspective or injected a little motivation into your life!

If it helped, let me know! I read every newsletter response I receive, and I absolutely love hearing from all of you. This newsletter is for you, so I need your help to make it as great as possible.

If you'd like to show me some love for writing all this free stuff, you can always buy me a coffee.

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

• Check out the Wise Owl Store
• All Wise Healthy Wealthy Articles on Medium
• Start your own Sendfox Newsletter
• Free products to help you level up

Crypto Resources

The Bankless Podcast: This is a link to the bankless podcast on Spotify. Start from the very beginning and learn why I am so positive about the power of Crypto and Ethereum in particular. You can find the podcast easily on the internet, but I am linking to episode 1 on Spotify for your convenience.

Buy your first ETH or BTC:

• On Coinbase - this is the easiest starting place for the newest beginners
• On Gemini - Another great option founded by the Winklevoss brothers. They are based out of New York.
• On Kraken - Kraken has a bit of a harder user interface, but they already have ETH staking enabled with the push of a single button.

Earn interest on your crypto

• BlockFi - Currently, you can earn 4.5% interest on BTC, 5% interest on ETH, and a whopping 8.25% on stable coins like USDC. Use the referral code b09f24fd to support the newsletter.

Other tools:

• Argent Wallet - This is the best mobile wallet for Ethereum, Defi, and all things on the Ethereum network, including staking. They even have plans to implement Layer 2 to remove network fees.
• Ethhub - this is a weekly newsletter that lists out all the interesting news, articles, and tweets that have happened in Crypto that week. It's free and awesome.
• Ethdashboard - A simple dashboard to look at various metrics in the ethereum space. I mainly use this as a quick tool to check ETH gas fees.
• Cointracker - this is one of the better tools for tracking all of your various crypto across all of the various wallets, exchanges, etc. You can also use them to do your crypto taxes each year.
• Metamask - this is a crypto wallet that you can access from your browser and allows you to easily interact with blockchain apps online.