Mike McCready

Tag: life

  • On Accidentally Becoming the Kind of Person Who Says “Marvelous”

    On Accidentally Becoming the Kind of Person Who Says “Marvelous”

    The other day, I horrified myself.

    I told someone something was marvelous. Not ironically. Not as a bit. Just… marvelous.

    I heard it leave my mouth and felt my internal timeline shift. Since when do I say marvelous? When did that replace solid, killer, or the all-purpose cool? At what point did my vocabulary quietly file for social security?

    For most of my life, there were words I avoided on principle. Words that signaled softness, pretension, or—worst of all—enthusiasm. Words that would get you gently, but decisively, bullied by your friends in a bar.

    Apparently, my fear of that judgment has expired.

    This is what aging actually looks like. It’s not gaining wisdom; it’s just caring less about the performance. You slowly realize you’ve earned the right to use words that sound like they belong to a retired British colonel.

    I’m trying a few on for size. No commitment yet. Just a trial period. Here is the current inventory:

    “Lovely.” This word used to belong exclusively to grandmothers and people who own ceramic cats. And yet, here we are. It turns out “nice” is lazy. “Lovely” does the job.

    “Delightful.” I don’t use it often, but when I do, I mean it. Which is unsettling. Nothing delights you by accident. To call something delightful is to admit you are having a good time, which is a dangerous precedent.

    “Pleasant.” An underrated power move. Calm. Unambitious. In a world screaming for attention, “pleasant” is a relief. I used to think it was faint praise. Now I realize it’s the goal.

    “Rather.” As in, “I rather enjoyed that.” This one worries me. It sounds like I’m about to order sherry. But it feels precise. And precision is intoxicating.

    “Sensible.” This one hurt. The first time I described a pair of shoes or a decision as “sensible,” I felt 25-year-old me shake his head and walk out of the room. He’s right to leave. He wouldn’t get it.

    “Content.” Not happy. Not thrilled. Content. This word has no interest in impressing anyone. It’s the linguistic equivalent of staying home on a Friday night because you want to.

    What’s interesting is that none of these words are flashy. They don’t try to win the room. They sit there, comfortable with themselves, wearing a cardigan.

    Maybe that’s the point. Maybe I’ve simply reached the age where I can say marvelous without instinctively checking to see if anyone is rolling their eyes.

    I’m not abandoning cool entirely. I’m not a monster. But if something is marvelous, I’m saying it.

  • Why It’s So Hard To Change Someone’s Mind

    Why It’s So Hard To Change Someone’s Mind

    I used to believe facts were currency.

    If I put enough solid data on the table, I assumed the other person would eventually look at the pile, nod, and cash out their wrong opinion.

    This belief lasted longer than it should have. About as long as I believed eating cereal for dinner was a phase, not a lifestyle choice I would later defend vigorously.

    Here’s the uncomfortable reality:

    Facts don’t compete with other facts.

    They compete with identity.

    Most arguments fail not because the evidence is weak, but because the argument is aimed at the wrong target. We assume people are trying to be correct. Usually, they’re just trying to belong.

    Beliefs aren’t opinions.

    They’re uniforms.

    When you challenge someone’s belief, you’re not disputing a fact. You’re challenging their tribe, their past decisions, and the role they’ve been playing for years.

    That’s not a debate.

    That’s a threat assessment.

    This is why evidence loses to belonging.

    Once something becomes tribal, truth becomes secondary. Agreeing with the “wrong” fact isn’t growth — it’s defection. And people don’t defect casually, especially not in public, and especially not online.

    At that point, the argument is no longer about truth.

    It’s a loyalty test.

    This also explains why correcting people rarely works.

    Correction doesn’t feel helpful. It feels like exposure. The brain doesn’t hear new information — it hears you’re in danger. Curiosity shuts down. Defenses go up.

    The cleaner the correction, the harder people cling to the position. From the outside, this looks like stupidity. It usually isn’t.

    It’s self-preservation.

    Changing your mind is expensive.

    It costs pride.

    It costs status.

    Sometimes it costs relationships.

    Admitting you were wrong doesn’t update a belief. It rewrites a story. It forces you to revisit things you said, shared, defended — and sit with the possibility that you were wrong.

    Most people would rather be wrong than embarrassed.

    So bad arguments survive. Not because they’re persuasive, but because they’re safe. They keep you in good standing. They let you avoid that quiet, unwelcome realization — usually late at night — that you might have been played.

    I’m not exempt. I’ve held losing positions far longer than I should have because exiting felt like admitting defeat. Doubling down feels like strength, even when it’s just damage with confidence.

    Facts still matter.

    Just not on the timeline we want, and not in environments where being wrong carries a social cost. Facts work when accepting them costs less than ignoring them.

    Most public arguments fail for a simple reason.

    They think they’re debating information.

    They’re negotiating identity.

    And until we’re honest about that, we’ll keep wondering why the facts were solid…

    and the argument went nowhere.

  • I Fed My Entire Life Into ChatGPT and All I Got Was… Insight? Closure? Mild Humiliation? Hard to Say.

    I Fed My Entire Life Into ChatGPT and All I Got Was… Insight? Closure? Mild Humiliation? Hard to Say.

    At some point in adulthood, a man has to confront the paper trail he’s been leaving behind since childhood — the journals, the planners, the frantic lists written in moments of optimism and panic. Most people shove theirs in a box and wait for their kids to one day throw them out.
    I, on the other hand, uploaded mine into ChatGPT.

    Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:
    If you give an AI 40 years of your handwriting, it will happily psychoanalyze you without even blinking.

    And yes, ChatGPT can read handwriting now.
    Let me repeat that for the people in the back:

    ChatGPT. Can. Read. Handwriting.

    Cursive. Print. Scribbles.
    The stuff I wrote in 1986 when my hormones were louder than my personality.
    The frantic 1991 Barcelona planner pages that read like I was being chased by creditors, self-doubt, and the ghost of my future obligations.
    The Day One digital entries chronicling my existential crises, business collapses, emotional resurrections, and occasional triumphs.

    It gulped it all down and said, essentially:
    “Thanks, Mike. Delicious. Here’s your life.”

    Apparently other people are doing this too.

    I thought I was being innovative — the first man to hand his entire autobiographical archive to a machine.
    Turns out, no.

    People across the internet are feeding their diaries, old letters, family archives, grief journals, therapy notebooks, and even high-school love notes into GPT. Some want closure. Some want clarity. Some want to rediscover who they were before life flattened them into mortgage-paying, sleep-deprived adults.

    We’re all out here saying, “Hey AI, decode me,” like it’s the world’s weirdest confessional booth.

    And honestly?
    It works.

    The Throughline of My Life, According to My AI Biographer

    After reading everything from my baby book to my Barcelona meltdown years, ChatGPT came back with a diagnosis I didn’t expect:

    I am a man who has been trying to get his life together since 1981.

    Not in a sad way.
    In a charming, heroic, repetitive way — like if Sisyphus had a Franklin Planner and high hopes.

    Every notebook, every decade, every entry seems to include some variation of:
    “Tomorrow I get my shit together.”

    It’s practically my family crest.

    The other throughlines didn’t surprise me as much:

    • I reinvent constantly.
      Apparently I have shed more skins than a reptile with commitment issues.
    • I archive everything.
      Why live a life when you can also footnote it?
    • I’m brutally hard on myself.
      If anyone else talked to me the way 1991 Mike talked to me, I’d block them.
    • Beneath all the ambition is a tender streak.
      Who knew? Not me.
    • I care too much and forgive too slowly.
      A winning combination if you enjoy emotional turbulence.

    But the most unexpected observation?

    Despite everything — the failures, the reinventions, the wrong turns — the same hopeful, restless kid is still in there.
    The one who wants to do something meaningful.
    The one who believes tomorrow’s list might actually work this time.
    The one who thinks the next version of himself might finally be the one who sticks.

    The Unlikely Threads

    Every life has themes. Mine has… tangles.

    Here are a few of the threads GPT pulled on — the ones I didn’t notice until a machine laid them out like evidence:

    1. The Eternal Reset Button

    I am the human embodiment of “Okay, starting Monday.”
    This has been going on for forty years.
    Consistency is my inconsistent superpower.

    2. The Archivist Instinct

    I documented my life long before influencers made it fashionable.
    Except I did it with spiral notebooks and regret instead of ring lights.

    3. The Geography of Reinvention

    Nebraska → Spain → New York → Barcelona → My companies → The Music Industry → Trading → Writing → Whatever’s next.
    My life story reads like someone was trying to outrun themselves — and accidentally became interesting.

    4. The Reluctant Optimist

    Every time I wrote a harsh entry, there was always this little shimmer of hope.
    Some people have grit; I have recurring optimism with a head injury.

    5. The Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility

    My journals reveal that I’ve been blaming myself for global events, interpersonal dynamics, and weather patterns since adolescence.

    So… was it worth it?

    Honestly, yes.
    Handing my life to ChatGPT didn’t break me, ruin me, or reveal that I’m a secret sociopath.
    Instead, it gave me something I’ve never had before:

    A clear view of the narrative arc beneath the noise.

    It showed me the patterns I repeat.
    It showed me the parts of myself I carry from decade to decade.
    It showed me that the kid who wrote, “I hope I become someone someday,”
    actually did.

    Not perfectly.
    Not cleanly.
    But unmistakably.

    Tomorrow I’ll try to get my life together again.
    Some traditions shouldn’t die.

  • What Makes Trump Bad at Business, Life, and As President?

    What Makes Trump Bad at Business, Life, and As President?

    I don’t build companies anymore. I may go back someday. When I found myself with time on my hands, I decided to learn a new skill. Now. I trade gold on the financial markets.

    When I first made that shift, I was terrible at it. Worse than most. Because I came in wired like an entrepreneur—obsessed with control, allergic to surrender. In business, that mindset serves you. You see what isn’t there yet, and you make it happen. You bend the world until it fits your plan.

    But markets don’t bend. Gold doesn’t care about your plans. It doesn’t care who you are. The market humbles everyone eventually.

    Even back when I built companies, though, I never lied to myself about the numbers. You could spin the story, but the math still had to work. That was the line between ambition and delusion.

    And that’s where Donald Trump went off the rails.

    Trump was never really in the real estate business. His true product was himself—the myth, the name, the attention. The buildings and casinos were just props in a lifelong campaign for validation. When your ego is the business, you can’t afford to face reality.

    That’s why he’d make a terrible trader.

    When the world doesn’t fit his story, he simply changes the story. When a recent jobs report came in weak, he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and called the numbers “phony.” When intelligence briefings on the Iran strikes contradicted his claim that America had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, he dismissed the analysts and replaced them with loyalists. Each time, he traded truth for ego protection.

    It’s the same reason his casinos collapsed. The Taj Mahal was financed with nearly $700 million in junk bonds at 14% interest—a structure that guaranteed failure unless fantasy-level profits rolled in. When the math didn’t work, he doubled down instead of cutting losses. That’s not risk-taking. That’s denial.

    In trading, denial kills faster than bad luck. You can’t fire the chart. You can’t rebrand a losing position as “fake news.” You take the loss, you adapt, you move on.

    When I started trading gold, I had to unlearn my old wiring—the instinct to fix what’s outside my control. The market doesn’t reward force; it rewards alignment. You win when you stop fighting the tape and start listening to it.

    Trump never learned that lesson. He can’t. His entire existence depends on never admitting he’s wrong. He’s trapped inside the one product he can’t afford to discount: himself.

    That’s why he was a bad businessman.

    It’s why he’d be a disastrous trader.

    And it’s why he’s a dangerous president.

    Because on the world stage—where power, pride, and perception collide—his refusal to face reality doesn’t just cost him money. It costs nations time, credibility, and lives.

    In the end, the markets always find the truth. So does history.

    And the truth always settles the account.

  • What Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Means for America

    What Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Means for America

    (And why it should terrify us—not along party lines, but as citizens.)

    Charlie Kirk, was assassinated today at Utah Valley University. This comes just weeks after a shocking double assassination in Minnesota—two state legislators gunned down in what’s now being investigated as a politically motivated attack. You’d be forgiven for losing track. That’s how fast the temperature is rising.

    Before anything else, I want to express my deepest condolences to Charlie Kirk’s family, friends, and supporters. No matter where you stand politically, no one deserves this. And no country should normalize it.

    But what this isn’t—what this cannot ever be—is just another political tragedy we scroll past. This is unfiltered desperation and failure seeping into our public life.

    We’ve had assassination attempts before—on Trump, on members of Congress—but killing a political influencer in broad daylight on a campus? That’s crossing yet another line.

    We need to stop pretending that violence is a random accident or “outlier.” Hatred isn’t burbling under the surface—it’s flooding the streets. Killings like this don’t just raise eyebrows; they expose how far tribalism has eroded civility.

    Meanwhile, the very infrastructure meant to prevent this—our domestic terror intelligence—is being dismantled. The FBI has slashed staffing in its Domestic Terrorism Operations Section and shuttered its tracking database on hate crimes and school shootings. Prevention is now reactive.

    You feel the threat more clearly each day. You wonder: if someone like Charlie Kirk can be killed in public view, are you next? Are we?

    This wouldn’t be happening if people believed the system still worked. But they don’t. Polls show falling trust in elections, in the press, even in whether your vote matters. Add in constant messaging from the top that institutions are rigged—or worse, that they’re enemies.

    When people believe their voice can’t be heard they begin to feel violence is the message.

    I’ve seen people openly whisper and tweet about civil war. That used to sound unhinged. Now it sounds like something that could happen. And that’s the most dangerous whisper echoing across this country.

    So Where Do We Go from Here?

    If you want to say this is just “rhetoric,” know this: it is already worse than rhetoric. It’s violence.

    If you want to say the FBI or justice system can handle this alone, know this: they’re being de-funded and starved of resources.

    If you want to say elections still matter, ask yourself: what message are you sending when you don’t defend them?

    We need to demand more than prayers. We have to demand two simple things:

    1. Rebuild counterterrorism infrastructure. Money. Personnel. Tools. No more willful ignorance. Don’t allow this to be the beginning of events that give a certain someone the excuse he’s seeking to declare martial law.

    2. Restore faith in institutions. Hold elected officials accountable for their rhetoric. Defend objective fact. Support independent media.

    Because right now, we’re living in what feels like a slow-motion breakdown—not of ideas, but of the very architecture that held democracy together. And when that collapses, violence becomes communication.

    So, yeah: Civil war talk? It’s not crazy anymore. It’s proof that our political ecosystem is cracked open.

    And if that isn’t a moment when decent people across all divides come together—voting, organizing, standing in unified outrage—then what exactly were we saving democracy for?

  • Gen X: We Were Supposed to Be Too Sharp for This Sh*t

    Gen X: We Were Supposed to Be Too Sharp for This Sh*t

    There’s a very specific kind of shame in watching a country fall apart and realizing your generation was supposed to stop it.

    We were the skeptical kids. The “don’t fall for it” crowd. We grew up with irony, sarcasm, and a healthy distrust of institutions. We made fun of cults. We rolled our eyes at televangelists. We knew better.

    At least, we thought we did.

    We were the last analog generation—and the first digital one. We knew how to rewind a cassette and reboot a modem. We brought the internet into being, and with it, the promise of better information, smarter systems, and a more connected world.

    We gave the world Google, Amazon, YouTube.

    We gave it Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, the Wu-Tang Clan.

    We built the platforms. Designed the interfaces.

    We were supposed to be the bridge between what was and what could be.

    But now?

    We’re watching the whole thing buckle—and pretending we’re just observers.

    We post memes about how great it was to grow up drinking from hoses, while an entire generation can’t afford rent, let alone a mortgage.

    We forward videos about “the good old days” while Gen Z drowns in debt, climate fear, and medical bills for anxiety disorders they inherited from watching us lose the plot.

    And who’s in charge now?

    Trump. Again.

    President 2.0.

    This time with fewer guardrails, more power, and even less shame.

    And standing right behind him, RFK Jr.—now Secretary of Health—gutting the CDC, firing career scientists, and rebuilding America’s public health policy around gut feelings and internet comment sections.

    We used to point at the USSR and say, “Those poor people don’t get real news—just government propaganda.”

    Now we’ve got half the country cheering for our own state-run media, rage-bait headlines, and “alternative facts,” while willingly ignoring everything they know is true.

    We’re not living in 1984. We’re living in something dumber.

    A self-inflicted propaganda state where people know it’s bullshit—and eat it up anyway.

    And Gen X?

    We were supposed to be immune to this.

    Too jaded. Too sharp. Too allergic to fascism.

    We were supposed to be the firewall.

    But we ghosted.

    No Gen X president because the boomers.

    No major Gen X political movement.

    No defining generational stand.

    We just kept scrolling.

    Kept reposting.

    Kept telling ourselves we were “above it.”

    But the truth is—we’re blowing it.

    We were there when the rot was setting in.

    And we didn’t stop it.

    We let the dumbest grifter of our lifetime sell America a cheap hat and a fake war on reality.

    We watched as housing became a luxury, healthcare became a subscription plan, and truth became a punchline.

    We let RFK Jr. cosplay as a truth-teller while he dismantled actual science.

    And now, with AI about to automate our jobs, scrape our souls, and deepfake us into oblivion, we’re busy sharing memes about the 80s while billionaires plug themselves into immortality servers.

    We were supposed to be the generation that didn’t fall for bs.

    Instead, we’re managing the collapse like theme park actors refusing to break character while the rollercoaster catches fire.

    And yeah, I’m a bit crispy about all of this.

    Not just at Trump. Not just at RFK Jr.

    But at us.

    We were supposed to be too sharp for this sh*t.

    We were supposed to know better.

    We were supposed to do better.

    And if we don’t wake up—right now—history won’t even remember our failure.

    It’ll be too busy documenting the fallout.

    So come on Gen X. It’s time!

  • After Late-Stage Capitalism: Where Do We Go From Here?

    After Late-Stage Capitalism: Where Do We Go From Here?

    You don’t need a PhD in economics to feel that something’s off.

    Groceries cost more, jobs feel more fragile, housing looks like a luxury product, and half the tech CEOs sound like they’re pitching a video game plot instead of running real-world companies. Meanwhile, billionaires are racing each other to space while your rent races you into a corner.

    This is what people mean when they talk about late-stage capitalism. It’s not an end date on a calendar. It’s a mood. A vibe. A phase in the life cycle of an economic system that feels increasingly disconnected from reality.

    So What Is Late-Stage Capitalism, Really?

    It’s the point in a system’s evolution where:

    • Markets are no longer free, just engineered
    • Wages stagnate while productivity and profits soar
    • Basic needs become “subscription services”
    • Work is precarious, but shareholders are thrilled
    • Governments serve markets instead of citizens
    • Every crisis gets monetized—healthcare, climate, war, education

    It’s Uber drivers with master’s degrees. Teachers driving DoorDash. People crowdfunding insulin while the stock market hits record highs. It’s burnout, hustle, and “grindset” culture masquerading as freedom. It’s a society that treats rest like laziness and wealth like morality.

    In short: it’s the moment when the system stops pretending it’s for everyone.

    So What Comes Next?

    That’s the question. And we’re all going to have to answer it—whether we want to or not. Because systems don’t last forever. They evolve. They collapse. They mutate. Or, sometimes, they’re dragged kicking and screaming into something new.

    Here are five directions we might be headed:

    1. State Capitalism

    Same market, new driver.

    In this version, governments take a more active role—not to help you, but to strategically control markets. Think China’s model: heavy surveillance, controlled growth, and national champions in tech and energy. Markets are tools, not ideals.

    Upside: Infrastructure might actually get built.
    Downside: Dissent gets a lot more expensive.

    2. Technocratic Feudalism

    You’ll own nothing—and still pay monthly fees.

    Imagine a future where democracy erodes, but Amazon has great customer service. Where mega-corporations are the de facto governments, and your social credit score determines what you can access.

    Think: smart homes, dumb laws, and “Terms of Service” that rule your life.

    Upside: Efficiency. Innovation. Personalized everything.
    Downside: No exit button. No real power.

    3. Eco-Social Capitalism

    Capitalism with a conscience—and a carbon cap.

    This is the idealists’ version: a restructured economy that prioritizes sustainability, equity, and long-term thinking. Maybe we get universal basic income. Maybe we regulate tech. Maybe we stop treating the planet like an ATM.

    Upside: Human dignity. Ecological survival.
    Downside: Short-term disruption. Lots of angry billionaires.

    4. Decentralized Utopia

    Crypto, co-ops, and code-based governance.

    This one’s for the web3 dreamers. Power moves from central institutions to decentralized networks. DAOs replace corporations. You vote with tokens, earn through participation, and store your wealth outside the banks.

    Upside: Radical autonomy and transparency.
    Downside: Scams, fragmentation, and the occasional rug pull.

    5. Collapse or Authoritarianism

    When the lights flicker and the flags get darker.

    Not the feel-good option, but one we can’t ignore. If inequality keeps widening, climate shocks intensify, and trust erodes further, we could see the rise of hard borders, strongmen, and failing institutions.

    Upside: None.
    Downside: All of them.

    What Do You Want to Come Next?

    This isn’t just an academic exercise. What comes after late-stage capitalism depends on us. On the stories we tell, the systems we build, and the power we choose to either accept or reject.

    You don’t have to be a policy wonk to start imagining alternatives. You just have to look at the world around you and ask: Is this working? And if it’s not, what would?

    Because the next chapter is being written right now—by corporations, by governments, by you, and by me. And the question isn’t just what comes next.

    It’s who gets to decide.

  • I Tried to Stay Quiet. But Apparently We’re Doing Tanks Now.

    I Tried to Stay Quiet. But Apparently We’re Doing Tanks Now.

    (originally posted on my Facebook page)

    I’ve been taking a break from posting on here. You’re welcome.

    It’s been nice, honestly. Less doomscrolling, fewer arguments with people I went to high school with, and a brief, beautiful window where I could pretend that maybe things were just… normal. But then I saw the day getting closer: Trump is throwing himself a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue this weekend.

    Yes. Tanks. Planes. Flags. The whole third-world-dictator aesthetic. And I figured, alright—time to crawl out of the bunker and say a thing.

    The excuse is that it’s the Army’s 250th birthday, which is technically true. But it also happens to be Trump’s 79th birthday. So… yeah. It’s less “honoring the troops” and more “celebrating Dear Leader with flyovers and a cake shaped like Trump Tower.”

    But hey, if you’ve ever looked at D.C. and thought, “What this place really needs is a little more North Korea,” your moment has arrived.

    And just to make the timing extra bleak, this is happening one week after Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles—over the objections of California’s governor. First time that’s happened in sixty years. Back then, it was LBJ sending troops to protect civil rights marchers. This time, it’s Trump sending troops to protect… his reputation. From protesters.

    You know, real freedom-loving stuff.

    And the executive order he used to do it? Doesn’t even name LA. Doesn’t have to. It’s written vaguely enough to let him send troops anywhere that doesn’t clap on the one and three.

    So no, this isn’t just about Los Angeles. This is a test balloon. See how far he can go, how many people shrug, and how many cameras he can get pointed at himself while the Constitution quietly wheezes in the background.

    And I know how this sounds. I really do. If you had told me ten years ago I’d be writing about a U.S. president using the military to intimidate his own population, I’d have assumed I’d finally lost the plot and was living in an asylum somewhere yelling at soup cans. But here we are.

    ICE is already ramping up raids. The deportation push is real. The mass roundups? They’re not a scare tactic. They’re part of the plan. Trump’s asking for $185 billion for immigration enforcement—which is more than the UK and France spend on their entire militaries. That’s not border security. That’s infrastructure for authoritarianism.

    Stephen Miller—who still looks like he was carved out of cold deli meat—is already talking about deporting 3,000 people a day.

    The thing that makes this moment so dangerous is how normal it all feels now. A few years ago, something like this would’ve sparked national outrage. Now it’s just another Tuesday. Another broken norm. Another test to see what we’ll tolerate. And spoiler: it’s a lot.

    Democrats are out here debating whether it’s too “alarmist” to use the word fascism, while Republicans are busy making sure they’re not the next ones to get publicly humiliated by Trump’s Truth Social posts. At this point, he could replace the Lincoln Memorial with a sculpture of his meme coin and they’d all show up to applaud.

    Anyway. I didn’t want to break my non-posting streak for this. I was trying to keep the blood pressure in a manageable range and pretend the world was just weird, not dark. But the tanks are coming. The flags are flying. The script is writing itself. And if we’re not careful, we’ll look up four days from now and realize we just watched the next chapter of American decline roll down the street while we argued about gas prices.

    Happy almost-birthday, Mr. President. Hope your little party goes great. I’ll be over here, quietly panic-Googling “how to spot the early signs of soft authoritarianism” like a normal person.

  • When to Walk Away: A Business Lesson from the Trading Terminal

    When to Walk Away: A Business Lesson from the Trading Terminal

    There’s a moment in business—just like in trading—when your thinking brain quietly exits the building. It doesn’t slam the door or send a calendar invite. It just disappears. And suddenly your emotional brain lights a cigarette, rolls up its sleeves, and says, “Relax—I’ve got this.”

    Spoiler: it does not have this.

    This week, that moment cost me $895 in trading—one bad trade across multiple accounts for a total of an $11,635 loss. But this isn’t about trading. It’s about the universal impulse to stay in the deal too long.

    Read the full post on my Substack here.

  • My Struggle with Stupid People

    My Struggle with Stupid People

    Let’s get something straight right off the bat—I’m not talking about people with below-average IQs. Intelligence isn’t the issue here. Some of the smartest people I’ve met couldn’t change a tire or balance a checkbook to save their lives, and some of the most practical, insightful people I know wouldn’t do well on an IQ test.

    And I don’t hold myself up as some kind of genius. Believe me, I’ve made my share—and probably some of your share—of dumb decisions. Decisions that would make the Three Stooges look like Nobel Prize winners. But here’s the thing: I am not stupid.

    Because stupid isn’t about IQ—it’s about refusing to think critically.

    So, let’s run a quick litmus test for critical thinking:

    When was the last time you heard a better argument than the one you had and thought, ‘Damn… I might be wrong’? If you can’t think of a single time, that’s a red flag.

    Do you ever get new information and just… ignore it? If your instinct is to double down instead of reconsider, congratulations—you’re human. But critical thinkers push past that reflex.

    Here’s where I struggle: I have to work hard to feel empathy for people who have all the information they need to make good voting decisions but still choose to vote against their own interests.

    It’s one thing to be misled. It’s another to be willfully ignorant. And when people keep making choices that actively harm themselves—and the rest of us—it’s hard not to be frustrated.

    The truth is, democracy depends on people actually thinking. And if we can’t do that, we’re in real trouble.