The jig is up

GM 🐣

Here's your daily dose of Andrew's Apples, a small white bag of four fresh *fruits* to nourish your soul and make you feel great. Great like heroin, but without the needle and the brain damage. In under 2 minutes. Let's go picking. 

1. 🥤 Sell what people want. This tweet. It's become an old saw from venture capitalists to tell founders that they should sell what people want, not what people should do. Well, that makes my job hard. VCs hate me. The business of making one look better naked is a business of should-dos. It makes the ambitious assumption that the customer likes to buy shoulds and coulds by the pound and over and over again. I do not care. However, the second I stop problem-solving for you is the same second I shut this mother down. I will not stop. I will keep swimming. I am a junkie. For this stuff. If you keep giving me two minutes in the morning, I will sell exactly what you want. Until we are both in flight.

2. 🧩 The jig is up. The first known use of the words "life hack" was in 2004, and the world eighteen years later is now dumber because of it. Lmfao. You can write cleaner code or use better toilet paper, but some steps are intrinsic to the process. The code still needs writing and your butt wiping. Certain things you can't "hack": a colorful and varied organic diet, electrolit fluids, and doing the burpees that, every time without fail, suck. No app will save you. Dating apps work because you can *date* while at the urinal. This is part of the reason it's so hard to make money in wellness, which is that a lazy-version solution does not exist. Kundalini yoga is really just lazy yoga, and while a potent spiritual and physical practice, you'll still look soft at the end of the hour. Gabby goblins on health twitter will post till their tiny eyes bleed on "tips" "tricks" + "hacks" to 10x your life or whatever. Yikes. It's like learning how to play basketball by launching a baseball from the nosebleeds toward the basket. The "hack" is a hack. The jig is up.

3. 🛋️ Sofa king what! If you haven't noticed, I'm into wordplay. Puns are the highest form of wit, Hitchcock said. Plus my dad doesn't like it when I use curse words in here. Aye aye, Pop! It appears that bovine America is increasingly glued to the couch. The CDC says 25% of US adults are not active at all(!) And ~60% of US adults do not engage in the daily recommendation of 30m of brisk walking or 15m of jogging. Umm, pretty sad standards but it's America damnit. One thing the CDC has clearly not done in a while is Go Outside and Look Around. These numbers desperately need an update because if only 25% of people sit all day long, then David Foster Wallace hanged himself by a spaghetti noodle and everyone drives a monster truck. Work-from-home is just the latest nationwide pledge to sit. For sixteen hours. When your lower back starts to hurt, that's a sign not from God, but from your back.

4. 🙏 Eat Pray Love Eat. Addiction in pop culture is hot. Hot in a way that a car crash is not. But we can't look away from either. From A&E's Intervention to HBO's Euphoria, or from Elvis to Jimi Hendrix... drugs and alcohol and tobacco and gambling comprise the lion's share of addiction episodes that are almost always accompanied by sex. The sex appeal is part of it. "Smoke this, smack that, and you'll get laid, son." Food addiction has a different kind of fanfare. It's not about sex at all, it's just about sadness. An uncontrollable urge to pour calories in, then plugging your ears from those trying to help (but who don't have the words) and, even worse, from yourself. It's wild to see people devote themselves tooth and nail to their careers, hobbies, families, and yet ignore their own plate. Willpower is a finite resource and it kills me knowing that those who most need a hand spend their willpower thinking about and worshipping food. The numbers are getting worse, too. What can I say other than: eat pray love fast.

How do you like them Apples? Suggestions? Hug? If you ever need anything, hit reply. 

Your friend, 

Andrew 🍎 

Share this link to Andrew's Apples 🍎 with other titans of industry: