You are a smart curious person but short on time and surrounded by noise. The Curious Mind tries to offer the best signal to noise ratio across markets, technology and the good life. We hope to even surprise and inspire you with new beautiful ideas.
An apology: Somewhere in the last few months, I lost my writing voice. Maybe it was because I began to take this weekly email too seriously, maybe because I forgot who I was writing this for in the first place, but nonetheless the combination of that combined with my experiments with AI to help synthesise and connect ideas crossed the boundary of using these tools to tell the stories to writing the words that I should have been writing.
This is my mistake and I am thankful to the people who reminded me to just be me. Please accept my apologies. I have seen first hand how these tools can permeate one’s life and mind.
I will seek to return this publication to the authenticity it used to have before these experiments.
Quotes I Am Thinking About:
“Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”
- Will Durant
“All appears to change, when we change.”
- Henri-Frederic Amiel
“Wisdom flows into the humble man like water flows into a depression”
- Lao Tzu
“Freedom is being disliked by other people. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles. Conducting yourself in such a way as not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living.”
- Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga in ‘The Courage to be Disliked”
A Few Things Worth Checking Out:
A. How To Be Lucky
Napoleon is quoted as saying:
“I would rather have a general who is lucky than one who is good”.
If you’d like to invite more luck in your life, this George Mack piece titled: How to become a luck engineer is a great place to start.
These are my favorite 3 out of his 13:
Avoid boring people - This has two meanings. Avoid people who bore you. And avoid being the boring person in the room. Interesting people get more luck, not because they’re necessarily smarter, but because they’re memorable. When someone has an opportunity to share, interesting people are the first ones that pop up in their mind.
Proactively make introductions - If friend A and friend B can get value from each other, introduce them. It’s a 30-second email for you, and it may change their lives forever. Maybe they will start a company together. Maybe one hires the other. Maybe they fall in love, have three kids and become soul mates. Networks are unique because they don’t divide when you share them -- they multiply. There’s no higher ROI on any other 30-second activity. (Note — do not confuse this with making introductions where only one side gets value from it)
Work on your introduction - This could be the least British advice I will ever give. I can hear my ancestors spinning in their graves at the thought of what I’m about to say. In British culture, we’re taught to play down everything that we do. “I just do marketing stuff”. The problem with this is that people you meet don’t understand what you do or how they can help you. When you have a clear introduction that describes what you do: “I create Super Bowl-level commercials for fintech companies on social media”, they can now realise ways they can help you: “Oh, my friend Barry is the marketing director at Amex. Let me introduce you!”. Being a great luck engineer is turning yourself into a simple API that people can connect into.
Which one is your favorite?
B. Only Paranoid Survive
A book I think about regularly is the late Andy Grove’s “Only the Paranoid Survive”. It is particularly relevant today with the pace of change and the need for businesses to adapt and change.
The book was pivotal in business strategy that delved into the concept of strategic inflection points—those crucial moments when an organisation must pivot in response to significant changes in its competitive environment.
The book drew from his transformative leadership at Intel, particularly during the company’s bold transition from memory chips to microprocessors.
He argued that a proactive mindset, marked by a healthy dose of paranoia, is essential for leaders to identify and respond to potential threats.
The 2 BIG IDEAS:
Strategic Paranoia: Watch and understand the strategic inflection points in your industry. What is the 10x force trying to destroy you. Ask questions, look at what others are doing and see how others are adapting. Don’t be closed and insular. When in doubt, ask you yourself, if you were fired and they brought in a replacement, how would that think and evaluate the business.
Accepting Reality: Once you see and accept the change coming, don’t dither or hesitate. Act immediately. Focus only on dealing with change. Fix the issue. There will be anger, but its better to handle it early. With all interactions, people, work, ask yourself: “Is this helping me deal with change?”, if so then do it, if not then do not.
C. How To Live An Interesting Life
What if the truest compass in work and life isn’t passion, success, or purpose, but simple, genuine interest?
This reflection from Oliver Burkeman invites a return to curiosity as our most reliable guide: the quiet pull toward what feels alive, not what seems impressive.
It reminds us that meaning doesn’t come from mastering life’s problems but from engaging deeply with its mysteries. When we follow what truly intrigues us, our days grow more vivid, our work more resonant, and our lives, perhaps for the first time, feel like our own.
Many of our struggles—procrastination, burnout, restlessness—may stem from neglecting our own sense of fascination. Jungian therapist James Hollis, cited, reframes psychotherapy’s goal not as fixing life but making it more interesting, to help us meet the riddles within ourselves with curiosity rather than conquest. That shift, Oliver argues, is profound: life isn’t a problem to solve, but a mystery to experience.
Following what truly captures your interest requires courage—it resists the urge to impress or conform. Yet doing so often generates its own magnetism. People sense vitality in someone engaged with their own curiosity; that inner spark becomes contagious. Conversely, chasing external approval leads to “type 2 burnout”—a fatigue born from working against one’s natural inclinations.
What fascinates you that you should be spending more time on today?
