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Welcome to the 134th issue of Open Loops, a weekly newsletter on clarity, growth, and building a life that feels like yours.
My name is Reza and each week, I sift through 100+ books, articles, podcasts, and (way too many) tweets to bring you the best in this newsletter.
Anthracite Coffee Roasters, Seoul
Life is short, but you act like it’s infinite.
You answer emails the moment they land.
You sit through meetings that could have been a note.
You handle tasks for others before touching anything that matters to you.
You tell yourself you’ll get to the workout later.
You’ll write tomorrow.
You’ll take that trip when things calm down.
But things rarely calm down on their own.
Time keeps moving, even when you’re not.
The real turning point is noticing the part of your day that keeps disappointing you.
And choosing to stop letting it run the show.
If you’re craving more clarity right now, I put together something you’ll love ↓
Foundation 33 is my curated list of the 33 books that shaped how I think about identity, direction, and building a life that actually feels like your own.
These are the books that grounded me during pivots, unlocked perspective when I felt stuck, and helped me redefine what “meaningful work” even is.
Grab it and let one book shift something in you.
Listen.
Every time you’re given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else.
Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.
Knowing that I could be painfully wrong and curiosity about why other smart people saw things differently prompted me to look at things through the eyes of others as well as my own.
This allowed me to see many more dimensions than if I saw things just through my own eyes.
Resistance will do anything to keep you from doing your work.
Resistance arises second. The dream came first.
Get the first version done from A to Z as fast as you can.
Good things happen when we start before we’re ready.
Fill in the gaps, then fill in the gaps between the gaps.
The fact that you “can’t do” something can be embarrassing.
But if you are “learning to do” something that is admirable. There are only tiny baby steps between can’t and learning.
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Till next time 👋
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