FS | BRAIN FOOD
May 17th, 2026 - #681 - read online - Free Version
Welcome to Brain Food, your weekly signal in a world full of noise.
Tiny Thoughts
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Urgency is the best predictor of personal success.
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Self-care creates impact.
Your body and mind are the most valuable tools you have to produce anything. Neglecting them puts a ceiling on everything else.
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Plan your future in detail. Imagine it. Break it into goals. Make them tangible. Write them out.
Now, pick the 3 most important goals and break them into timelines: 10 years, 1 year, 1 month, 1 week, and 1 day.
Every night, look at what progress you made toward these 3 goals and write down the one thing you can do tomorrow to make progress toward each.
Repeat.
Goals set direction, but only execution moves you closer.
Insights
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McDonald's Ray Kroc with some wisdom:
“There are things money can’t buy and hard work can’t win. One of them is happiness.”
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Steve Jobs on thinking:
“I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking. People would confront a problem by creating a presentation. I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the table, rather than show a bunch of slides. People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”
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Star NFL Player Maxx Crosby on the microscope and the telescope:
“The microscope is the day-to-day. That's the most important. Over 90% of the time, you're focused on the microscope.”
“The telescope is the future - 2 to 3 years from now. What's your ultimate goal? What do you see yourself becoming? How am I gonna get to that point?”
“You just peek at that from time to time. You think about it at night a little bit, you think about it in the morning, think about it after a workout. Like, 'That's why I did that. That's why I push myself 'cause I'm getting to that.'” “But majority of the time, I'm in the microscope.”
[...]
“I've learned and realized that I can be so much more productive just by being present instead of worrying about, 'Oh shit, where do I go next?' Just be where you're at.”
The Knowledge Project
My guest this week is Winston Weinberg, the CEO and co-founder of Harvey, the AI platform built for the legal industry.
We discuss how to say no, how to put blinders on, where stress really comes from, the principles of good decision-making, and how he runs his life and company from a simple Google doc.
This is our second episode under our new producer, and I'd love to hear what you think of the pacing, the density of wisdom, and the visuals. Simply hit reply to this email.
Listen and Learn on YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Web / Transcript
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Thanks for reading. I'll see you next week.
— Shane Parrish
P.S. The floor is lava, for adults.
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