Welcome to the Curiosity Chronicle Week in Review—a quick roundup of this week's ideas to help you build a high-performing, healthy, and wealthy life.
Speaking Announcement: I've spoken at events for Google, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, YPO, and more. I'm currently closing out my schedule for 2026 and 2027. If you’re interested in having me speak at your event, please submit more information here.
Week At A Glance:
Weekly Wisdom: Active Optimism
Wednesday: Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)
Friday: The IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
Wisdom Worth Sharing:
Major cheat code for life: Always assume things will work out, then do the work to make it true. It’s a mindset of active optimism. Earned faith. It creates a quiet confidence that allows you to tolerate the uncertainty of life better than anything else.
Wednesday: Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)
"So, what's your 5-year plan?"
That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in finance.
Climbing slowly up the mountain, I had started to wonder if it was the wrong one.
If you had asked me then to predict 100 different scenarios for where I'd be in July 2026, I would have given you 100 plausible-sounding answers, and not a single one would have been even remotely correct.
The problem wasn't that I was bad at planning. The problem is that when you try to plan your future, you're not really imagining a new future. You're just extrapolating from your past.
On Wednesday, I wrote about what to do instead. A concept from theoretical biology called the Adjacent Possible.
It completely changed the way I think about my future and may change the way you think about yours...
In 2014, I signed my first solo apartment lease on a tiny 400 square foot studio.
It was in Palo Alto, so I'd be paying way too much for way too little, but I was thrilled. I got the keys on a Saturday, and immediately made the first apartment pilgrimage to the local IKEA to get a few pieces of furniture.
I spent the rest of that Saturday building all of the items. I'm not particularly handy, so I can't say I did the best job, but I got it done.
That night, in the middle of the night, I woke up to my bed shaking violently. But after a few seconds, it stopped, and I fell right back asleep.
When I woke up the next morning, I had about 100 unread texts from my parents. Evidently, the shaking had been a 6.0 magnitude earthquake that had rocked the area.
I looked around the tiny apartment, saw that all of my janky furniture was still standing, and felt an immense pride settle over me.
I built that. Earthquake proof.
As it turns out, there's real science behind what I felt. Researchers found that people place significantly more value on things they put effort into creating.
They call it the IKEA Effect, and the idea extends well beyond furniture.
On Friday, I explored why it's the underlying foundation behind everything you treasure in life...
It's crazy that people will work out daily, eat clean foods, optimize their sleep, and then completely ignore skin health. It's the largest organ in your body, but also the most commonly neglected.
You need a routine for your skin health, because people who treat their skin well end up looking younger and healthier well into their later years.
But most skincare products are filled with junk. Just try to read a label and see how many ingredients you can't pronounce. If you wouldn't put it in your body, you shouldn't put it on your body.
That’s why I created the Wild Roman Face Routine. 100% natural. Simple, science-backed ingredients your grandparents would understand. We've scaled to thousands of customers and have a 4.93 star average review.
