Michael Santarcangelo

Chase Hughes drops the wildest self-improvement hack: Become so self-forgiving it’s almost delusional. “Most people look back with regret and shame… Get so forgiving of everything you’ve ever done that it’s like delusional to the point where it’s just crazy. You get to a point where everything is fine and it’s just hilarious. If you do that, your ability to stay in the present and not get stuck in the past will 10x overnight.” Clip from this 39-second mind-flip — radical self-forgiveness as the fastest path to actually enjoying the moment. Have you ever tried forgiving yourself so hard it felt ridiculous… and suddenly the past lost its grip? Your experience — drop it below 👇

"Eat at a local restaurant tonight. Get the cream sauce. Have a cold pint at 4 o’clock in a mostly empty bar. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Listen to someone you think may have nothing in common with you. Order the steak rare. Eat an oyster. Have a negroni. Have two. Be open to a world where you may not understand or agree with the person next to you, but have a drink with them anyways. Eat slowly. Tip your server. Check in on your friends. Check in on yourself. Enjoy the ride." Anthony Bourdain

A pattern I’ve noticed: The higher the level, the more basic the questions. I’ve advised Fortune 100 CEOs and 8-9 figure founders, and the conversations aren’t exotic. They’re about delegation, time, hiring, clarity, stress. The deeper you go, the more you realize that mastery is disciplined repetition of fundamentals. The amateurs chase hacks. The elite protect the basics.

WTF! - Welcome to Florida! 😎 70 MPH speed limit in Florida is less of a rule and more of a polite suggestion that nobody agreed to follow. Too slow? You’re getting tailgated by a lifted Silverado with LED headlights bright enough to interrogate you. Too fast? Doesn’t matter, there’s already a guy in a beat up Altima doing 95 weaving through traffic like he’s late for something extremely illegal. You try to hold a respectable 75. Immediately passed on both sides. One car has no headlights. Another has its hazards on for no reason. Somehow both are going faster than you. And then, out of nowhere, Brake lights. Not gradual. Not polite. Just a full interstate wide decision to stop all traffic flow for 30 seconds. No accident. No construction. No explanation. Just vibes. You finally get moving again and think, "Okay, we’re good." Wrong. It starts to rain. Not normal rain. Florida rain. (IYKYK) The kind that erases the road, your mirrors, your sense of direction, and any belief you had in visibility. Wipers on max, still losing the fight. Meanwhile, someone flies past you doing 85 like they’ve got sonar. And just when you think you’ve seen it all, there’s a gator in a retention pond right next to the highway, watching traffic like it’s judging your driving choices. No toll booth warning. No buildup. Just vibes and consequences. Your GPS says "arrive in 2 hours." Florida says, "Depends, you surviving the storm or the drivers?" And somehow, through all of this … There is STILL someone camping in the left lane going exactly 70 like they’re honoring the Constitution. Welcome to Florida highways. Where speed limits are optional, weather is aggressive, and every drive feels like a group project with people who did not read the instructions.

A friend of mine used to say: "Confidence isn’t built by thinking positive thoughts. It’s built by doing difficult things while your brain screams at you to stop." Damn, was he right.

The first part of your life: you learn The second part of your life: you earn The third part of your life: you return -Denzel Washington

Marcus Aurelius wrote this over 1800 years ago: “When you arise in the morning think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

I need to rant about something because I keep seeing the same brain-dead take over and over again. "AI is going to take all our jobs." No. No it is not. AI is not going to make people work less. It's going to make people work MORE. I know this because I'm living it. Right now. Today. I am working more hours than I have at any point in my life. Not because I have to. Because I literally cannot stop. I'm doing it voluntarily. Happily. Obsessively. This is also true of everyone I know that is deeply involved in AI. When you sit down and realize you can go from idea to execution in HOURS with no dependencies on anyone else — no designer queue, no engineering sprint, no "let's circle back next week" — your brain breaks in the best possible way. You just keep going. You build one thing. It works. You build the next thing. That works too?! And suddenly it's midnight and you don't care because you just brought five ideas to life that would've taken you 3 MONTHS six months ago. Every builder I know is experiencing this same addiction right now. We're all sleeping less and producing more and enjoying every second of it. The value of one hour of human input has gone up by an order of magnitude. So what happens when your input becomes 10x more valuable? You don't do less of it. You do WAY more. Because the incentives are insane. The "AI takes jobs" crowd is making the same mistake people have made with every single technology in history. They're assuming there's a fixed pie of work. There isn't. There never was. The pie grows. It always grows. And AI is about to make it grow faster than anything we've ever seen. More work. More jobs. More builders. More opportunities. More humans doing more ambitious things than they ever thought possible. This is the beginning of the most productive era in human history and most people are too busy doom-scrolling to notice. Bookmark this.

Claude Code: "You've hit your limit · resets 7pm" Me from 5-6.59pm

The smartest people are all self-taught, even if they went to school.

Procrastination promises relief but delivers regret.

Most of problems come from lack of sleep, sitting inside all day, no exercise & eating shitty foods.

I don't know who needs to hear this but you need to lock the fuck in. Find a mission. Dedicate your life to it. Eliminate distractions. Quit your vices. Commit to deep work. Each day do 3 things that move you toward your goals. Success is determined by focus. Lock the fuck in.

This stretch should be mandatory for people who sit at desks: It's called the Couch Stretch and it will change your life. Here's how you do it: 1. Get on all fours and put one foot up on a couch or chair and another 90 degrees in front to support. 2. Bring one arm up and lean back until you feel tension. 3. Hold this stretch and breathe deeply. The further back you lean the harder the stretch gets. The more you go forward the easier it becomes. Go at your own level. When you sit for long periods your legs are stuck at bent angles for up to 8 hours a day. This causes your hip flexors to shorten by limiting their range of motion. This can create pain in the low back and hips while causing you to become weaker. The couch stretch counteracts this by mobilizing your hip flexors back to their natural range of motion. Do this every day for 30-60 seconds and watch your body feel better.

Pick any problem in your life. Now imagine you have an evil twin with a moustache. This evil twin is making it their sole focus to solve this problem before you do. What are they doing differently to you? Write this down. And then try to beat them. Hurry. They've already started.

You're not a loser if you keep fighting and trying to improve your life. It's a mindset. The minute you decide that being out of shape, broke, and lonely is a fine way to go through life, THEN you've lost. Then you're a loser. Then, there is no pity because you have no hope.

@TXVB What's next in your journey

And here I (honestly) thought it was just me...

“Never, ever, tell anyone about your problems. 90% of the people really don't care. The other 10% are glad you have them.” —Charlie Munger