Welcome back to the newsletter. In today’s issue:

• The Purpose Fallacy: Why thinking about your purpose doesn’t work
• Productivity is downstream of vitality and energy
• Ideas & content from others

This issue is brought to you by The Digital Business Tactics Library and Sales Page Conversion Checklist. If you run an online creator/course/digital product business, check them out. Made by yours truly.

Free resource: My Ultimate List of Books & Articles​

I put together a free Notion database of my favorite books and articles. It’s not entirely fnished (I’m still adding to it), but I wanted to get it out because I kept getting questions about book recommendations.

Ideas I’m Thinking About

The Purpose Fallacy

For more on this, check out my recent video: Stop trying to find your purpose - do this for 21 days instead.​

For many years, I believed that if I simply gained perfect clarity on what it was I was meant to be doing—my life purpose—then everything would fall into place. I’d finally work hard, be disciplined, and experience endless energy and motivation. My self-doubt would fade. I’d execute, achieve, win.

So I spent a lot of time thinking, theorising, dreaming, journalling… trying to capture this elusive clarity of purpose. In my mind, that’s all that was holding me back.

This is what I call The Purpose Fallacy. The faulty belief that you can somehow arrive (by merely thinking and dreaming) at a point of extreme clarity of purpose that causes everything in your life to fix itself.

It’s a faulty belief, because for the majority of people, life doesn’t work this way. Rarely can you think your way to true clarity and purpose, it’s something you discover through taking action in the world.

Even if you could think your way there, it wouldn’t solve all your problems—you still have to do things. That’s why you come across people who are confident in their life purpose, but not acting towards it. They tell you they want to be a writer, but they’re not writing. They have mentally assented to the “idea” of being a writer, but they haven’t embedded their purpose deep within their psyche to the point where it generates real, consistent action towards the ideal.

A better approach is to follow what Phil Stutz calls The Creative Action Cycle (in his book Lessons for Living), where you act on your best instinct, embrace the consequence, and correct course if needed. Then you repeat the cycle, again and again. I talk more about this in the video.

Productivity is downstream of vitality & energy

Productivity hacks are minor optimizations that should be laid upon a foundation of purpose, discipline, energy and vitality.

Unfortunately, many see them as the thing that will change everything, which is why they fall into loops where they seek a new calendar scheduling method or todo list hack, while getting lapped by those simply acting and engaging with the world.

When you cultivate vitality and energy in your life, taking action on tasks and projects becomes something you feel compelled to do. If a productivity hack helps you perform better, then you adopt it, but you don’t see it as the core driver of your output (because it’s not).

This is why I care far more about habits that build vitality and energy, rather than the new software tool or task management method.

• Intentionally leaning into challenge and pain, forcing adaptation and personal growth. Pushing hard physically with lifting, BJJ. Choosing the harder work project, etc.
• Moving more often. Getting outside. How can I expect to feel energized if I sit for 12+ hours per day inside?
• Optimizing circadian rhythm. Getting light in the morning, blocking it at night.
• Avoiding foods that I know make me feel bad. Seed oils, gluten, processed etc. Also alcohol.
• Working on projects that deeply interest me, as much as I can.

Ideas From Others

Content

Article: The Pro-Androgen Playbook by Noah Ryan​

This is behind a paywall. Here’s the cliff notes version:

• The pro-androgen lifestyle produces incredible mental benefits: confidence, decisiveness, mental clarity, stamina & energy, controlled aggression, libido.
• Modern lifestyle & culture are anti-androgen. It’s easy to be docile, to consume. This, along with other factors (like environmental ones), destroys testosterone. “Destroy androgen signaling and you destroy the man.”
• Hormones are mental, not just physical. Your thoughts & behaviors can and do alter hormone levels.
• You can increase testosterone by doing high T activities: Competition, physical exertion, adversity, adventure, risk-taking, social dominance, problem-solving.
• “Testosterone is biologically expensive. Your body won’t produce it unless essential. And modern life has made testosterone utterly unnecessary.”

If you prefer to learn more about this, but don’t want to pay to read this article, check out Noah Ryan’s interview with Dr. Abud Bakri.

Book: King, Magician, Warrior, Lover

I’ve been diving into Jungian psychology recently, and started with this book. I read it many years ago, but this re-read hit different.

If you want to understand yourself better as a man, it’s worth reading.

Podcast/Video: How to Live an Asymmetric Life​

I enjoyed this. Nothing new or novel, but a good reminder. What you want is usually on the other side of difficulty.

Quotes

Great article. Worth reading.

Seeking knowledge can become a devious trap, keeping us far away from taking risk and putting skin in the game. Something I talked about in my video on The Learning Loop.

That’s it for this week!

-Sam

Keep exploring

• Content: You can read past newsletters and articles on my website. I also publish videos weekly on YouTube.
• Coaching: If you’re an entrepreneur or solopreneur looking to improve your performance, energy levels and focus—then reply to this email to enquire about my coaching. I work 1:1 with a handful of clients.
• Run an online business? Check out my Digital Business Tactics Library and Sales Page Conversion Checklist via CreatorScale, my agency & coaching service that helps scale online creator businesses.