Hello everyone,

This email is going to be short - as will the next few until I figure out a better format.

Living like Cato: Reflections

I rewrote this section 8 times. Each day, I'd have more reflections and my thoughts would change. It allowed me to gain insights on being content, discomfort, gratitude, thinking time and Cato as a whole. I'm putting together a longer post on all of these on my blog - I'll link it when its ready.

Short version though: The week gave me a massive boost in productivity, health - physical and mental, and general well-being. Stoicism works, it's genuinely that simple.

My advice for everyone:

Have a cold shower. Just try it, turn the water to the coldest after your normal shower. Yes, it sucks the first time - but the feeling of self-control you have after it is worth it. You want to see how much you lack control over your own mind? Wait until you see how it tries to convince you out of having the cold shower.

Complain less. This week I did my best not to complain at all - to others or myself. Forcing myself to do this made most problems not grow out of control since I wasn't trying to paint them in the worst light. I could either fix the source or accept it. Way better.

Test some Stoicism. Bruce Lee summarised the best approach to self development: “Absorb what is useful. Discard what is not. Add what is uniquely your own." Try some Stoic philosophy - odds are you probably have a very skewed view of it. You can read Meditations or just start real light and watch some videos from the Daily Stoic youtube account.

Monitor your own thoughts. Practicing Stoicism forces me to constantly reflect on my own thought patterns. Just ask yourself when confronted with a negative thought: Is this true? Is this accurate? Is this helpful? Is it in my control? Can I see it from another point of view?

Test your Toughness. Deprive yourself of some comforts - even for a day. Notice how it really isn't that different. Sleep on the Ground if you want bonus points (you'll realise that besides waking up more often, there's not a crazy amount of difference).

On Ideas.

My idea implementation rate is now at 1.68%, compared to 0.42% last week.

It's definitely not great, but that's a 4x increase in a week (5 to 20).

The thing that I found most helpful with was just picking ideas to implement and going after them with the lead bullet mindset. Sticking post-it notes on the mirror kept me in line, since it allowed me to keep them constantly in mind.

On that note, massive shout out to Elijah who was not only inspired by last newsletter, but actually made podcast episode where he came up with his own idea list live. Baller.

I also had an insight that I think is pretty cool: You can have drafts of ideas.

I had an idea to do a Cato Week in January of this year but put it off until it the idea was perfectly thought out. Instead, I ended up just going forward with a fast version because I wanted the benefits.

While the week wasn't perfect, as mentioned above, it was a huge win for me. Then I realised I would probably want to do it again, so I made an idea list on how to improve it next time.

This means I'll be implementing the same idea twice (or more) but if they keep on getting better (through review and ideation), they get a bit closer to that Silver Bullet. My first Cato week was great, but a tenth one, with 100+ improvements, would be near flawless.

Ask yourself: What idea can you start on now, and improve later?

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That's all for this week. Thanks everyone for reading - hope I've encouraged you to go after your ideas and practice some Stoicism.

Let me know if you want me to breakdown the ideas I test (best and worst) so that you can learn from them or use them yourself.

Looking forward to your responses!