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The Power of the Negative Pilot Most people approach personal growth like a hoarder. They think that by adding more habits, more supplements, and more productivity apps, they will finally reach their potential. But the most profound lesson from 2021 is the concept of the **negative pilot**. Inspired by Essentialism by Greg%20McKeown, this strategy involves identifying a task or habit you currently perform and deliberately stopping it to see if anyone—including yourself—actually notices. We often fall into the trap of performing 'cargo cult' productivity. We meditate because we are told to, or we maintain a complex gratitude journal because a guru suggested it. However, if stopping a habit for a month results in zero negative impact on your well-being or output, you’ve just regained precious time and mental energy. Subtraction is often more powerful than addition because it reduces the friction in your daily system. Choosing What You Want to Suck At One of the most liberating insights for the coming year is the advice from Oliver%20Burkeman, author of Four%20Thousand%20Weeks. He argues that we must proactively choose what we are going to fail at. The myth of the 'maximalist' approach—where you can be a world-class athlete, a high-earning entrepreneur, a present partner, and a polyglot all at once—is a recipe for burnout and mediocrity. When you focus your attention on one north star, you must accept that other areas of your life will inevitably slip. If you are rehabilitating an injury or launching a business, your physical conditioning or your social life might suffer. By choosing this failure in advance, you mitigate the **FOMO** (Fear Of Missing Out) and the guilt that usually accompanies a lack of progress in secondary areas. It allows you to pay the 'entry price' for greatness in your primary pursuit without looking back. Mitigating the Anxiety Cost of Open Loops We often talk about opportunity cost, but we rarely discuss **anxiety cost**. This is the mental tax you pay every minute you spend thinking about a task you haven't done yet. Whether it is paying a parking fine or buying a birthday gift, the time it takes to actually perform the task is usually negligible compared to the hours of ruminative thought spent worrying about it. Every 'open loop' in your brain consumes RAM. By doing the small, nagging tasks immediately—what some call the two-minute rule—you stop the leak of mental energy. The anxiety cost often grows over time; a parking fine literally doubles in price if left too long, but the psychological price of a cluttered to-do list is far more expensive. Professionalism isn't just about high-level skills; it’s about closing loops so your mind remains clear for deep work. The Moral Lens and the Death of Nuance 2021 was a masterclass in polarization. To understand why friends and family members suddenly turned into ideological warriors, we look to the work of Jonathan%20Haidt and The%20Righteous%20Mind. Haidt posits that we have six 'moral taste buds'—such as care/harm, authority/subversion, and liberty/oppression. When a crisis like a pandemic hits, it triggers these buttons simultaneously but differently for everyone. For some, the 'liberty' button is the only one that matters; for others, it is 'care.' Once a topic becomes part of your moral identity, you stop seeing reality and start seeing loyalty. Adopting an extreme view becomes a 'badge of honor' to signal your belonging to a tribe. Recognizing these moral lenses doesn't necessarily change the facts, but it does provide a bridge of compassion for those who have reached radically different conclusions. Systems Over Goalposts Morgan%20Housel, author of The%20Psychology%20of%20Money, reminds us that the only way to win the game is to stop moving the goalposts. Many high achievers suffer from **hedonic adaptation**—the moment they hit a financial or fitness milestone, they immediately set a new, harder one. They are running toward a horizon that moves with them. True satisfaction comes from the 'mini-wins' and the joy of the system itself. If you only permit yourself to feel successful when you reach the summit of the mountain, you will spend 99% of your life feeling like a failure. The outcomes are the byproduct of the life you live, not the reason for it. As the saying goes, it doesn't get easier, you just get better. The weight on the bar still feels heavy; you’ve just developed the strength to carry it. Conclusion: Building a Life, Not a Checklist As you head into the next year, stop trying to brute force your habits and start building a life that fosters the outcomes you want. If you want to read more, don't just set a goal; place a Kindle on your desk so it becomes your default 'holding pattern' activity. If you want to be more productive, protect your sacred headspace and focus on making three high-quality decisions a day rather than clearing five hundred low-value emails. Growth happens one intentional step at a time, and often, that step involves letting go of the things that no longer serve you.

The Architecture of Ancestral Health Human biology exists in a state of profound mismatch with the modern world. For over two million years, our ancestors evolved under conditions of scarcity, physical demand, and strict adherence to light-dark cycles. Today, we live in a world defined by the exact opposite: caloric abundance, sedentary lifestyles, and the ubiquitous glow of artificial light. Robb Wolf, a former research biochemist and a leading voice in Ancestral Health, argues that our greatest health challenges—from chronic metabolic disease to neurodegeneration—stem from this environmental deviation. Ancestral health is not a call to reenact the lives of hunter-gatherers or live under a bush. Instead, it serves as a sophisticated hypothesis-generation engine. It asks how the environment in which we evolved might inform the way we manage our biology today. Since roughly 2004, humanity has experienced a historic shift: more people now die from chronic degenerative diseases than from infectious diseases and starvation. This reversal marks the first time in 2.5 million years that abundance, rather than scarcity, is the primary threat to human survival. The Catastrophic Cost of Sleep Deprivation Perhaps the most neglected pillar of our well-being is the circadian rhythm. Modern society treats sleep as an optional luxury—a buffer between periods of work. However, the biological reality is far more severe. The Guinness Book of World Records has notably banned unbroken sleep deprivation challenges because participants don't just collapse; they often face fatal consequences between the nine and eleven-day mark. Even minor sleep debt carries heavy penalties. A single hour of lost sleep can result in a 25 percent increase in heart attacks and motor vehicle accidents during daylight savings shifts. More insidiously, we habituate to sleep deprivation. We lose the ability to judge our own cognitive impairment, assuming a diminished state of performance is our "new normal." This has massive implications for high-stakes professions. Research indicates that 85 percent of excessive force cases in policing occur within 24 hours of a significant shift change. When we are sleep-deprived, the prefrontal cortex—the seat of executive function and emotional intelligence—goes offline, leaving us at the mercy of impulsive, reactive behaviors. Strategies for Restorative Sleep To reclaim our sleep, we must address both metabolic and environmental factors. Robb Wolf highlights glycemic load as a primary driver of sleep quality. Overly refined diets can cause blood sugar fluctuations that trigger nighttime awakenings. Addressing electrolyte balance, particularly sodium, is often the missing link for those on low-carb diets who struggle to stay asleep. Digital hygiene is equally critical. The stress of constant social media interaction creates a baseline of psychological arousal that is incompatible with deep rest. Decoupling from the digital world—removing social media apps from mobile devices and limiting intake to "broadcast-only" modes—can dramatically lower cortisol levels. Interestingly, research suggests that e-readers like the Kindle are relatively benign on the paperwhite setting, provided brightness is kept low, making them a viable alternative for evening relaxation without the blue light disruption typical of smartphones. Solving the Protein Deficiency Paradox In the realm of nutrition, the most common error is chronic protein under-consumption. Despite the availability of food, many individuals are 25 to 50 percent under their ideal protein intake. This deficiency sabotages body composition goals and muscle retention. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient; it is nearly impossible to overeat when the diet is centered on whole-food protein sources. For a 200-pound individual, hitting a target of 200 grams of protein per day requires intentionality. Success lies in the "food matrix"—varying seasonings and fats to prevent palate fatigue. Mixing proteins within a single meal, such as pairing beef with shrimp or chicken, bypasses the sensory-specific satiety that makes eating large quantities of a single meat difficult. Whole foods remain superior to shakes due to nutrient density and the metabolic cost of digestion. By anchoring every meal in a diverse protein base, we align with the high-nutrient-density diet of our ancestors while managing modern hunger signals. Training for Longevity and Sarcopenia Prevention Physical fitness in an ancestral context focuses on functional resilience rather than aesthetic vanity. As we age, we face a 100 percent risk of sarcopenia—the age-related loss of muscle mass, strength, and power. Resistance training is the only effective hedge against this decline. Robb Wolf, having spent decades in the CrossFit community, now advocates for a more sustainable, joint-centric approach. While high intensity has its place, the priority for most people should be a full-body strength session twice a week, focusing on fundamental movements: pressing, pulling, hinging, and squatting. The Role of Joint Mobility Strength is useless if the joints cannot articulate properly. Think of a car out of alignment; even if it has a powerful engine, the tires will shred within days. Mobility work, specifically systems like Functional Range Conditioning, ensures that joints track correctly. This prevents the repetitive stress injuries common in endurance athletes and aging lifters. Integrating mobility work into social or sedentary time—stretching while listening to an audiobook or chatting with family—makes recovery a low-friction habit rather than a chore. Reevaluating Supplementation and Nootropics Most modern supplementation is poorly targeted. High-dose multivitamins often provide b-vitamin ratios far beyond what the body can use, potentially interfering with delicate methylation pathways. Instead, we should focus on underused compounds like Creatine, which offers neuroprotective and antioxidant benefits even for non-athletes. Vitamin D remains the most critical deficiency. While oral supplements help, they don't fully replicate the immune-modulating effects of sunlight, such as nitric oxide release and beta-endorphin activation. In northern climates, smart UV lamps may offer a superior alternative to pills. Perhaps most controversial is the use of Nicotine as a nootropic. Standing apart from the carcinogens in tobacco, nicotine itself shows promise in neuroprotection. Studies have noted a significantly lower incidence of Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's Disease among smokers, likely due to nicotine’s effect on dopamine regulation. When used in small, controlled doses like mints or gum, it can serve as a potent tool for cognitive focus and even gut health improvement in cases of ulcerative colitis. The Path Forward: Intentional Biology Navigating the modern world requires a conscious rejection of its defaults. We cannot rely on our instincts, as they were designed for a world that no longer exists—one where we were wired to eat more and move less to survive. Reclaiming our health demands an intentional reconstruction of our environment: prioritizing sleep as a non-negotiable foundation, anchoring our nutrition in protein, and maintaining the structural integrity of our bodies through strength and mobility. By viewing our modern struggles through the lens of evolutionary biology, we don't just survive our environment; we learn how to thrive within it.

Your greatest power lies not in avoiding challenges, but in recognizing your inherent strength to navigate them. Growth happens one intentional step at a time. Too often, we look for a single, monumental shift that will fix our productivity or happiness, when the reality is that life is a collection of micro-decisions. We are the sum of our habits, our tools, and the mental frameworks we use to filter the world. In this session, we are exploring a series of rapid-fire strategies designed to refine your efficiency and protect your mental energy. These aren't just "hacks"; they are intentional adjustments to your environment and psychology. By optimizing the small things—from how you consume digital content to how you treat your physical body—you create a foundation where excellence becomes the path of least resistance. Digital Boundaries and the Economy of Attention We live in an era where our attention is the most valuable commodity on earth, yet we treat it like cheap pocket change. Reclaiming your focus starts with recognizing where your digital environment is draining you. One of the most significant shifts you can make is removing the friction of interruptions. YouTube Premium might seem like a luxury, but consider the cognitive cost of a mid-roll advertisement. When you are deep in a learning state, an ad for life insurance or a grocery app doesn't just take six seconds; it shatters your flow state. Removing ads isn't about saving time; it's about protecting the sanctity of your focus. Furthermore, how we use our digital tools defines our speed of thought. If you are a Mac user, tools like Alfred serve as a nervous system for your computer. Instead of hunting through folders, you use short bursts of keystrokes to bridge the gap between intention and action. It's a way of moving as fast as you think. This philosophy extends to mobile usage. If you struggle with social media addiction, look at how you consume content. Using the Brave browser or specific apps like Typefully to draft Twitter threads allows you to be a creator without being sucked into the endless scroll of a feed. You want to use the internet as a tool, not be used by it. The Psychology of Physical Performance Resilience isn't just a mental trait; it's physically reinforced. When you step into the gym or your garage to train, you are practicing the act of overcoming resistance. Your environment should facilitate that victory. Many people find that the "clean" version of an experience isn't always the most motivating. In training, the energy of a live music performance often outweighs a polished studio album. There is something primal about the crowd noise and the slight imperfection of a live set—whether it’s Architects at Reading or the high-velocity chaos of Frenchcore. It provides a sense of shared struggle. You aren't just lifting alone; you're part of a collective energy. Physical maintenance is equally vital. We often ignore small discomforts until they become injuries. If you lift heavy, your hands are your primary interface with the world. Products like WOD Welder aren't just about vanity; they are about maintaining the skin’s integrity so you can return to the bar tomorrow. Using lanolin-based creams and pumice stones to manage calluses is a form of self-respect. It’s the same logic applied to nutrition. If you find the traditional "milky" whey protein unappealing first thing in the morning, switching to MyProtein Clear Whey removes a barrier to your goals. You are more likely to stay consistent when the process is enjoyable, or at least, less repulsive. Mental Reinforcement and the Power of Memory Learning is useless if you don't retain the insights. We often read a book, feel inspired for twenty minutes, and then lose those lessons to the ether of daily life. This is where the concept of spaced repetition becomes a superpower. Using a service like Readwise to redeliver Kindle highlights to your inbox every morning forces you to confront the wisdom you’ve already found. It keeps the insights of authors like James Clear or Greg McKeown at the forefront of your mind. This mental reinforcement also applies to how you view your own life. We are often our own harshest critics because we forget our victories and fixate on our failures. Periodically reviewing your Apple Photos or your calendar isn't just an exercise in nostalgia; it's a data-driven review of your growth. When you look back at your year through your photo reel, you see the highlights that your cynical brain often glosses over. By tagging people and locations, you create a searchable database of your own successes. This is how you build a narrative of capability. You aren't just someone trying to get better; you are someone who has already achieved a series of small, documented wins. Habits, Identity, and the Choice of Becoming The most profound realization you can have is that you are always practicing something. There is no "off" switch for habit formation. When you snooze the alarm, you aren't just getting ten more minutes of sleep; you are practicing the habit of being a person who compromises on their own promises. As the mantra goes: "Don’t practice what you do not want to become." This shifts the perspective from a single day’s failure to a lifetime’s trajectory. To combat the inevitable boredom of the "process," focus on mini-wins. Instead of obsessing over a weight loss goal of 13 kilos, obsess over the "new low" on the scale this morning. These small dopamine hits keep you in the game long enough for the results to compound. Whether it’s hitting a new personal best in a lift or maintaining a meditation streak, these metrics are the fuel for your consistency. Growth isn't about being perfect; it's about being slightly more intentional than you were yesterday. Reflect on the systems you have in place. Are they serving the person you want to become, or are they leftovers from a past version of yourself? Use these strategies to prune away the friction and double down on what works. Growth is a choice, and it happens one intentional step at a time.

The Strategy of Progressive Summarization We often treat reading as a passive activity, a relaxing way to spend an evening before sleep. But if your goal is to grow, passivity is your greatest enemy. To truly integrate the wisdom of others into your own life, you must approach consumption with a tactical mindset. This begins with **progressive summarization**, a system developed by Tiago Forte that transforms a simple list of highlights into a layered, accessible map of a book’s core arguments. The process starts with the raw material: your highlights. When reading on a device like the Kindle, you should mark anything that resonates, even if the reason isn't immediately clear. These are your signposts. However, raw highlights are often too disorganized to be useful months later. The second layer involves bolding the most critical fragments within those highlights. This forces you to identify the specific nerve center of the author’s point. By the third layer, you highlight only the most essential parts of the bolded text. This creates a visual hierarchy. When you return to your notes in Evernote years later, you don't need to re-read the entire book or even the full list of highlights. Your eyes naturally gravitate toward the most concentrated wisdom. For the most impactful works, an executive summary at the top serves as the final distillation. This isn't just a productivity hack; it's a way of building an external brain that grows more valuable as you age. It allows you to build a foundation of knowledge that you can actually use to create new content, solve problems, and make better decisions. Challenging the Mastery Myth in Learning There is a seductive trap in the world of personal development: the promise of the "hack." We are bombarded with methods to learn a language in a weekend or master a complex skill in a fraction of the time it takes others. This obsession with shortcuts often masks a deeper problem. Many people spend more time researching how to learn than they do actually doing the difficult, often boring work required for true skill acquisition. Anders Ericsson, the author of Peak, argues that true mastery comes from **deliberate practice**, not clever shortcuts. Deliberate practice is uncomfortable; it requires pushing just beyond your current capabilities and receiving immediate feedback. When we look for the "80/20" hack for every skill, we often end up with a shallow simulacrum of knowledge. We might know enough to sound clever in a conversation, but we lack the deep, intuitive understanding that only comes from immersion and repetition. If you want to learn, you must be willing to be bad at something for a long time. The desire to look clever is frequently the enemy of actually being clever. True growth requires the humility to admit what you don't know and the persistence to engage with the material directly. Whether it's speaking a new language or understanding a complex scientific theory, there is no substitute for time on task. Five Books to Reframing Your Reality If you are ready to move beyond the bestseller list and engage with ideas that challenge your worldview, consider these five recommendations. Each offers a unique perspective on human resilience, social structures, and the nature of thought itself. 1. **Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool** This is the definitive guide to how we actually get better at things. It moves past the idea of "innate talent" and focuses on the structured way we develop skills. It’s a call to action for anyone who feels stuck in their progress, providing a roadmap for how to move from amateur to expert through intentionality. 2. **Endurance by Alfred Lansing** The story of Ernest Shackleton and his crew’s survival in the Antarctic is more than a history lesson; it is a masterclass in leadership and psychological resilience. When we feel overwhelmed by the minor stressors of modern life, reading about men who survived two years in the ice without supplies provides a necessary perspective. It reminds us of the incredible capacity of the human spirit to endure the unthinkable. 3. **The Sovereign Individual by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg** This book is having a massive resurgence because it accurately predicted the rise of the Bitcoin economy and the shift toward digital sovereignty. It explores how the transition from the industrial age to the information age changes the relationship between individuals and the state. It challenges the assumption that our current centralized systems are permanent fixtures of human history. 4. **Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter** A deeply intellectual journey, this book weaves together mathematics, art, and music to explore the nature of consciousness and self-reference. It asks fundamental questions about how "meaning" arises from inanimate matter. It’s a challenging read that requires active engagement with the physical layout of the book, making it a perfect candidate for those who want to stretch their cognitive limits. 5. **The Denial of Death by Ernest Becker** Becker’s central thesis is that almost everything we do—our pursuit of fame, our creation of art, our building of monuments—is a response to our terror of mortality. We create "immortality projects" to ensure that something of us survives after we are gone. Understanding this drive can be deeply liberating, as it allows us to see our motivations through a clearer, albeit more morbid, lens. The Psychology of Tribalism and Polarization In the modern world, our identities are increasingly tied to our political tribes. We have lost the ability to have nuanced discussions about complex issues because we view every argument through the lens of "us versus them." This tribalism is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history; we need to feel part of a group, and often, the easiest way to strengthen that bond is to identify a common enemy. This leads to a phenomenon where we accept a "package deal" of beliefs. If you know one or two of a person’s stances, you can often predict their entire worldview. This suggests that many of us haven't actually thought through our beliefs; we have simply adopted the scripts provided by our chosen tribe. Issues like gun control or reproductive rights are incredibly complex and require drawing difficult, often arbitrary lines. When we simplify them into slogans, we close the door to true understanding. To grow as individuals, we must be willing to step outside these boxes. We should seek out the most generous versions of the arguments we disagree with. If you cannot explain the other side’s position in a way they would agree with, you don't truly understand the issue. Resilience, both intellectual and emotional, comes from the ability to hold conflicting ideas in your mind and examine them without becoming triggered. Building an Intellectual Legacy Your reading list and your notes are not just for your own benefit; they are a legacy. By curating your knowledge and making it accessible, you create a resource that can inform your future self and others. Whether you are building a business, like Growth Machine, or simply trying to navigate the complexities of your own mind, the quality of your inputs determines the quality of your outputs. Stop consuming for the sake of completion. Start consuming for the sake of transformation. Growth happens when you take the insights you’ve gathered and apply them to the challenges you face today. Use the systems available to you—progressive summarization, deliberate practice, and diverse reading—to build a life of intention and depth. The journey of self-discovery is ongoing, and it is paved with the books that made you think.

The Digital Hijacking of the Human Experience We live in an era where the smartphone is no longer a tool; it is a permanent appendage that dictates the rhythm of our daily lives. The statistics are staggering. The average person checks their device 200 times a day, translating to roughly six hours of screen time. For teenagers, that number often climbs to ten hours. From a psychological perspective, this is not a natural evolution of communication. It is a radical departure from the way human brains are wired to process reality. When we spend the majority of our waking hours staring at a backlit rectangle, we are sacrificing the depth of our physical existence for the shallow breadth of a virtual one. Kai Wei, CEO of The Light Phone, suggests that we are currently facing a crisis of humanity. We have become so blindly willing to give up the world in front of us for the digital stimulation in our pockets. This isn't just about losing time; it’s about losing the capacity for presence. Every notification is a micro-interruption that fragments our focus, making it nearly impossible to enter the "flow states" necessary for deep work, creativity, and genuine connection. The smartphone has effectively become a hacker in our pockets, manipulating cognitive biases we barely realize we have. The Psychology of the Attention Economy To understand why we struggle to put our phones down, we must acknowledge the forces working against us. This isn't a failure of willpower; it’s the result of an asymmetrical battle between your brain and the world’s most powerful supercomputers. The Attention Economy thrives on your time on screen because that time is the primary driver of revenue through advertising and data extraction. App developers use persuasive design techniques to ensure you stay trapped in an infinite scroll loop. Designers are tasked with making every step within an app enticing. They create "habit loops" where a trigger leads to an action, followed by a variable reward. This is the same neurological mechanism found in slot machines. When we see a notification or a like, our brain releases a hit of dopamine, reinforcing the behavior. This business model is what drives the addictiveness of technology. As long as revenue is tied to time spent on screen, companies will continue to treat human attention as a resource to be mined rather than a life to be respected. The Light Phone aims to disrupt this by offering a product designed to be used as little as possible. Reclaiming the Power of Boredom One of the most profound casualties of the smartphone era is the loss of boredom. In contemporary society, we treat a moment of silence or inactivity as a problem to be solved with a quick swipe. However, psychology teaches us that boredom is a vital fertile ground for the human mind. It is during periods of under-stimulation that our brains engage the "default mode network," leading to self-reflection, creative problem-solving, and the formation of a stable identity. When we numb every moment of awkwardness or stillness with digital noise, we lose the ability to have a conversation with ourselves. We become reactive rather than intentional. By intentionally seeking a "light" lifestyle, users are forced to confront the question: What do you do when there is nothing to distract you? This space allows for the emergence of "silly" or "stupid" questions that actually define our humanity. Reclaiming boredom isn't just about productivity; it’s about maintaining the mental health required to navigate a complex world without constant external validation. The Light Phone: A Tool for Intentional Living The Light Phone 1 was born out of a design research project at a Google incubator. The goal was to create a physical object that inspired action—specifically the action of disconnecting. It was never intended to be "anti-technology," but rather a "human-first" approach to tech. The device is the size of a credit card and, in its first iteration, only made and received calls. It was designed to be a secondary device—something you take when you go for a walk, head to the beach, or spend time with family. Because of its limited functionality—saving only nine speed-dial numbers and offering no internet or social media—it removes the anxiety of the "infinite choice." When you carry it, you aren't a slave to the notification. The second generation, The Light Phone 2, evolves this concept into a primary device by adding essential utilities like SMS messaging, an alarm clock, and potentially directions, while still maintaining an E-ink display that is easy on the eyes and devoid of addictive visual stimuli. It functions as a "Swiss Army Knife" of essential tools without the baggage of the attention-grabbing ecosystem. The Social Signaling of Disconnection Beyond personal well-being, the choice to use a device like The Light Phone carries a significant social weight. Research has shown that the mere presence of a smartphone on a table changes the nature of a conversation. It signals that the participants are open to being interrupted, which shallows the level of discourse. By choosing to go "light," individuals are planting a flag for presence. This movement has turned into a lifestyle symbol. People are increasingly proud to show that they have reclaimed their time. It’s akin to choosing different clothes for different occasions. You wouldn't wear a tuxedo to the gym; why would you bring a high-powered multimedia computer to a sunset? By matching our technology to our environment, we protect the sanctity of our experiences. This isn't about moving backward to a pre-digital age; it’s about moving forward to a more mindful integration of technology where the human remains the master of the tool. Conclusion: The Path to Digital Resilience The future of our relationship with technology hinges on our ability to set boundaries. While systemic changes in ethical design are necessary, they are slow-moving. Real change happens at the individual level through intentional choices. Products like The Light Phone represent a necessary pushback against the encroachment of the digital world into every crevice of our lives. By choosing to step away from the screen, even for a few hours a day, we begin to build digital resilience. We learn that we can survive—and thrive—without constant connectivity. The goal is to reach a destination where technology serves our goals rather than dictating our desires, allowing us to live more vivid, present, and intentional lives.