Steli Efti

Just relax. You’re not behind on anything. No door is closing on you. You’re not missing out. You’re not too late. Take a breath. Replenish. Refresh. Refocus. And you’ll discover that you can easily get ahead in the right state of mind.

Scientists put kids through 100 hours of reading, then scanned their brains. New wiring had physically grown inside the language regions. Communication between brain areas sped up by a factor of 10. Kids who didn't read showed zero change. That was a 2009 Carnegie Mellon study. It gets wilder. In 2013, Emory University scanned 19 students every morning for 19 straight days while they read one novel chapter each night. Mornings after reading, the brain areas responsible for understanding other people's emotions lit up with new connections. So did the region that processes physical sensation. Their brains were simulating what the characters felt, as if it were happening to them. Those changes stuck around for 5 days after they finished the book. Now flip to scrolling. A massive review published in Psychological Bulletin last September pulled together 71 studies covering 98,299 people. Heavy short-form video use (TikTok, Reels, Shorts) showed a clear pattern: worse attention, weaker self-control, and more anxiety. Consistent across teenagers and adults, across every platform tested. Oxford didn't name "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year for nothing. A 2024 brain wave study found that people hooked on short-form video had weaker activity in the front of the brain, the part that controls focus and impulse control. Separate brain scans showed the same thing: heavy scrollers had less activation in the exact regions that deep reading strengthens. UCLA neuroscientist Maryanne Wolf has been studying this for decades. Humans were never born to read. There's no gene for it. Reading is something we invented, and it hijacked neurons that were originally meant for recognizing faces. Over time, it built entirely new brain circuits connecting language, vision, and emotion. But those circuits only survive if you use them. Stop reading, and they fade. Wolf's conclusion is simple: screens built for speed produce a speed-wired brain. Books built for depth produce a depth-wired brain. One honest caveat: most of these studies are snapshots, not long-term tracking. People who already struggle to focus might just prefer short videos. But the same pattern showing up across nearly 100,000 people is hard to shrug off. The tweet repeats the line seven times. The research backs it up with brain scans, EEG data, and white-matter imaging across tens of thousands of people.

No one tells you that parenting is just relearning the world through someone who thinks worms are friends & birds are miracles. It’s the most healing thing I’ve ever done. My daughter looked out the window this morning & said, everything is green & growing. I told her, you too. And something inside me whispered, so are you. Now I’m watching her hold flowers up to the sun while the light bends like it recognizes her. It’s funny, every spring I think I’m teaching my child about the world & every spring she proves she’s the one teaching me how to see it.

A huge, huge part of a founder's job is to simply inject (1) energy / optimism (2) clarity (3) urgency into EVERYTHING they are involved in. Every email, every meeting, every walk & talk, every slack thread, every whatsapp chatter.

@alex_william22 you're not alone. happens to all of us at times. stopping and re-assessing is a blessing.

@Steli "It's a hamster wheel and not a motorcycle" just rewired something in my brain. I've been running full speed on that wheel convinced I was making progress. Turns out I was just getting tired in the same spot.

The mindset of anxiety, of being left behind, of missing out, of working out of a deficit, is slowing you down more than it is helping you get ahead. It's a hamster wheel and not a motorcycle

@BPD1776 🥰🙏💪

They say there’s no tone in email and for YOUR emails, that’s probably true But that is wrong for one particular type of person: ->People who record and publish videos in their own voice I read this email in my head as if the author is speaking it in his voice, with his energy and excitement, and genuine interest in my success, because that’s what I experience in his videos. If you’ve ever watched content from Steli, you are reading the words in the picture below in his voice, you can hear him, right? @Steli

No life without problems. Make sure your problems are real and worth solving and living for

Lessons learned are quickly forgotten unless they were learned in terror, or sorrow, or shame. Wisdom can always be rented for free, but it must be purchased with pain.

@alphacolin @CustomerIO Incredible journey and work Colin!!!! 💪

13 years ago, 5 customers paid us $10/month based on a promise. Now @customerio has over $100M in annual recurring revenue. To the 8,000 companies who trust us with your customer relationships: truly, thank you 🙏 Your feedback shaped every feature. Delivering success for you drove every decision. We're not stopping here either. This is another step on our journey to serve you better.

@johnowolabi_ 🙏🙌

@Steli Your product is amazing btw. The user experience is up the roof. Your blog on cold-call sales pitch is super insightful. Keep doing what you do!

Will make this zero clicks soon 😎

Beware of those who sell you that it's good to be terrible to other human beings

This

The scariest thing in your life are your thoughts

@JoshuaSteinman Try close.com :)

It’s time we get a CRM. But I’m dreading getting locked into salesforce. AI bros: what’s the most cutting edge CRM out there?

Whatever you think you're getting away with, you're not remember that

@TomAutomates @close

Thanks for the dark mode guys 🙏 @Steli @close

Turn the podcast off and listen to yourself

Eric Hoffer, evergreen