Hey there! Iâm Robert. Welcome to a free edition of my newsletter. Every week, I share my story of building my dreams in public with bootstrapping a startup in AI, Alignment, and Longevity. These newsletters include my reflections on the journey, and topics such as growth, leadership, communication, product, and more. Subscribe today to become the person and leader that people love, respect, and follow.
âI just donât have time for that.â
Itâs such a common phrase that we rarely stop to question it.
But if you zoom out and listen to what it really means, itâs never about time.
Itâs about priorities.
And often, I have found itâs a mask for avoidance.
I used to say that a lotâespecially when it came to my health.
When I was in my early 20s grinding the corporate ladder and side projects, I had built an identity around being the guy who could go without sleep.
The guy who powered through with caffeine and willpower.
I believed that if I just worked harder than everyone else, Iâd win.
Health?
That was a âsomedayâ thing.
I figured Iâd fix it later, once I had more success, more money, more time.
But then something happened that shattered that illusion.
Rival Cults
8 years ago, my brother James, who had always been eccentric and creatively brilliant, began showing signs of deep paranoia.
He talked about voices.
He couldnât sleep.
He became convinced that people were out to get him.
I checked him into the mental hospital. It was terrible.
For seven years, we thought he had schizophrenia.
Literally SEVEN years.
To give you an example of how bad this was: he went missing last year, and before that he had several calls with me claiming that he knew weâve both been in rival cults all our lives.
(News flash: I didnât know that)
I had to take a couple days off to handle that situation.
THIS is how crazy your mental health can get, if you neglect your physical health.
Just this last year, we got a different diagnosis from another psychiatrist.
The more they dug into it, the more the story didnât quite add up (at least, at this point in time).
They thought it was actually insomnia-induced psychosis, NOT schizophrenia.
What my brother was experiencing was actually a perfect storm of sleep deprivation, poor diet, isolation, and zero exercise.
These all compounded into a core issue: he wasnât giving his brain the fuel it needed.
His mitochondriaâthe energy factories of the brainâwere broken.
When I read Brain Energy (which I write more about here), I realized the symptoms I was seeing with my brother made so much sense:
Mental disorders of the brain are metabolic disorders.
Meaning, maybe he doesnât have schizophrenia, he just has an unhealthy brain because of his unhealthy bodyâand thatâs fixable?
Meaning⌠he lost 7 years of his life, because of his poor health choices?
Meaning⌠he quite literally went insane, because he skipped the gym and ate poorly?
Thatâs what I learned.
I saw firsthand what happens when you ignore your health.
It doesnât just break your bodyâit breaks your mind.
Your MIND.
2007, Freshman Year of High School
Letâs zoom out a bit, back to 2007. I was trying to make the basketball team as a 14 year old.
The year of my first lesson.
Up until that point, I had always believed that you could out-work and out-willpower anyone with just your mental faculties.
That I could outthink, out-hustle, and out-strategize anyone.
I was the kid who skipped sports because I told myself I was more âbrainyâ than âbrawny.â
I thought lifting weights and doing cardio were for athletes, not tech leaders.
But I had it backwards.
I had never met a goal that demanded I go be an athlete, until I failed to make the basketball team.
I remembered being 14, skinny and unsure of myself, desperately wanting to make the basketball team.
I didnât make it. I failed miserably.
The pain of failure was so much, I decided I would lean into training even though I hated it.
That year, I decided to try lifting weights and running, even though I hated it.
A year later, I made the team and started. I wasnât really good at basketball. I made it simply because I showed up and gave it consistent effort.
Day after day.
Set after set.
Mile after mile.
That moment taught me a powerful lesson: effort works.
And that lesson applied to more than just fitness.
Whether it was school, startups, or communityâeffort over time created results.
The body, the mind, the career, the communityâtheyâre all systems.
And systems respond to consistent input.
Model Drift: âI donât have time for thatâ
Still, even with that lesson under my belt, I found myself drifting back into the old âI donât have timeâ loop as I got older and busier.
(Sound like you?)
I told myself I had âtoo manyâ meetings.
âToo manyâ people depending on me.
âToo manyâ fires to put out.
âI donât have time for thatâ, I found myself saying about workouts.
Health, once again, was on the back burner.
But when I revisited what had happened to my brother, when I saw the deterioration of someone I loved deeply and admired intellectually, I realized that ânot having timeâ wasnât a scheduling problem.
It was a prioritization failure.
Founders, product leaders, and execs love to talk about strategy.
But everyone has a life strategy, whether they admit it or not.
Mine used to be: grind until you make it.
Now?
My strategy is this:
Live the longest, happiest, healthiest life I can.
Grind for THAT.
Be the best version of myselfâphysically, mentally, emotionallyâso I can show up for the people I love, build products Iâm proud of, and live with no regrets.
That includes being the best entrepreneur, partner, climber, and one-day father I can be.
That means I say no to things that steal from my long-term vision:
junk food,
burnout,
skipping workouts,
toxic people.
And I say yes to things that reinforce my foundation towards the future better self I want to become:
reading books,
working hard (but balanced),
working out,
going to therapy,
eating well,
sleeping well,
getting in sunlight,
spending time in nature.
Resilience?
I think a lot about this idea of âresilience.â
Most people think resilience is just about being tough.
Grinding harder.
But resilience is actually about stress capacity, and the ability to bounce back from being overstressed.
Your ability to stay grounded and high-functioning under pressure is directly tied to your biology.
If your body is broken, your capacity and ability to bounce back is capped.
You canât run a car if you donât give it oil and gas (or with EVs, electricity). You must take care of the engine.
When I take care of my engineâmy bodyâmy thinking sharpens.
My emotional regulation is better.
I becomeâŚ
a better product strategist,
a clearer communicator,
a more patient leader.
My throughput of effective decision making is noticeably higher.
I recover faster from stress.
I bounce back quicker from terrible things.
Iâm not saying this from a place of perfectionâI still mess up.
But instead of falling off the wagon for a month, itâs a day or less.
I no longer say, âI donât have time.â
Because itâs a complete lie.
Because health is not a side quest. Itâs the foundation.
Showing up for your health doesnât require a total lifestyle overhaul.
You donât need to become a fitness monk or meditate for two hours a day.
Start small.
Walk during calls to get your steps in.
Eat whole foods 80% of the time to treat your body well from the inside.
Set a bedtime alarm and actually wind down, to help your mind and body recover.
Go outside and feel the damn sun!
These are compounding habits.
Each one a vote in the right direction for your future self.
And if you fall off? Thatâs fine.
Get back on.
The people I admire most arenât always the smartest.
Theyâre the most resilient.
They show up when itâs hard.
Because they built systems that protect their energy.
So now?
I block 30 minutes a day to move my body.
Some days itâs a run.
Other days, itâs climbing.
Sometimes, itâs just stretching.
But I donât skip.
Because every session is a vote for the future dad I want to be, the founder Iâm becoming, and the long game Iâm committed to winning.
Final Thought
If youâve been telling yourself, âI donât have time,â ask:
âWhat am I saying yes to instead?â
Is it important?
Or is it just familiar?
You donât need to do everything today.
Just start.
One walk.
One healthy meal.
One night of sleep.
Repeat.
Youâre building a system that lets you show up as your best self, over and over again.
Thatâs my strategy.
Whatâs yours?
Life Updates - Note To My Readers:
Iâm trying something new with my writing today: less pictures and graphics, and just plain writing.
Iâve found that I want to write on many topics to explore and clarify ideas, but not all of them do well with my traditional ABC format. Iâve been feeling a bit trapped by the structure I created, so Iâm testing breaking that mould here.
There are a few topics I plan to explore soon, here are some examples:
What does intentionality mean?
Dealing with loneliness in the founderâs journey.
Boundaries with family and dreams.
What does AI mean for the future of my life?
What are we becoming?
Can AI really be conscious?
Let me know what you think of this essay format!
Question For My Readers - Free Learn AI Workshop?
Would you want to join a free live AI Workshop where I teach you how to use AI in your personal and work life? (respond to this email if yes)
Background: I recently ran an AI workshop for executive leaders (VP, SVP, Staff ICs). The workshop is designed to get you up to speed on practical AI for product teams in a short amount of time. I had several folks tell me that I saved them dozens of hours and they already are so much more efficient, after just a few hours of learning whatâs possible with me.
I realized, many people are overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff out there about AI that they donât even know where to start. So they donât. And then they get left behind.
I spend my nights and weekends on AI twitter, lurking, and building projects. So naturally Iâm already weeding through the noise to find the good stuff.
Iâm getting a LOT of demand to run it for more people.
It made me realize that more people than I realized in the tech space are uncertain about the future and their place in it, especially with how much information overload there is on AIâhow to use it for daily life, for your job, what tools are the best, etc.
I have a firm belief that the best thing we can do for our planet is free education.
And right now with this AI era fully upon us, I believe nobody should be left behind.
So Iâm asking to test demand: would you want to join a free live AI Workshop where I teach you how to use AI in your personal and work life? (respond to this email if yes)
0 coding / AI skills or knowledge required.
Video / Social Media Update
Lately Iâve been quite busy trying to figure out my video creation engine. Iâm going to be making more and more videos as the direction for my ventures. Iâve started posting those on my social media accounts. Check them out if youâd like! I made a recent video testing an AI Doctor live from a product taste, error analysis, and AI evals perspective:
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P.S. If you havenât already checked out my other newsletter, ABCs for Building The Future, where I reflect on my founderâs journey building a venture in the open. Check out my learnings on product, leadership, entrepreneurship, and moreâin real time!
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