The 30-for-30 Challenge

Welcome to the 1,070 new members of the curiosity tribe who have joined us since Friday. Join the 100,000 others who are receiving high-signal, curiosity-inducing content every single week.Thank you to all the subscribers that have joined me on this journey. 100,000 is an amazing milestone—but to be honest, I feel like we’re still at the starting line. Let’s go!Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Flatfile!Personally, I have spent enough time in spreadsheets to get my excel PHD. This also means I’ve spent enough time pounding my face into my keyboard in frustration while trying to import spreadsheets.Data onboarding is a MASSIVE headache. Flatfile fixes this.Flatfile is an unmatched toolkit for data import that is helping teams save precious time to focus on the business tasks that matter. Instead of staring at cell D47 and wondering how a missing comma just caused you to miss your lunch break, Flatfile does the work for you and sends you on your way. With over $44 million in funding and blue chip clients like Square, Zuora, and Clickup, Flatfile is making serious waves. To level up your data onboarding and improve your customer experience, schedule a risk-free demo of Flatfile today!Today at a Glance:Our minds tend to overcomplicate the process required to achieve forward progress. We incorrectly assume that it requires herculean effort or intensity.The reality? Giant leaps forward are simply the macro output of tens, hundreds, or thousands of tiny daily steps.The Seinfeld Calendar Framework: (1) Hang a big calendar on the wall; (2) Use a big red marker to put an X over every day that you complete your daily habit; and (3) Don’t break the chain of Xs!The 30-for-30 Challenge: Choose the arena, commit to 30 days of 30 minutes per day, create pressure loops by stating your intentions publicly, and use a calendar or tool to track your daily execution.If you’re interested in being a part of a 30-for-30 Challenge community, fill out the form here to get exclusive first access when it’s launched.The 30-for-30 ChallengeI spend a lot of time thinking about progress.I find happiness and fulfillment in progression—in the feeling of being one step further down the path from where I was yesterday.I’m not quite sure where that path is headed, but I am sure that the only way I want to progress along it is forward.Over time, I’ve observed that our minds tend to overcomplicate the process required to achieve this forward progression. We incorrectly assume that it requires herculean effort or intensity.The reality? Giant leaps forward are simply the macro output of tens, hundreds, or thousands of tiny daily steps.My goal with my writing is always the same: take the complex and make it simple. So today, I’d like to share my simple, tactical approach for making forward progress.Seinfeld’s SecretJerry Seinfeld is an absolute legend—an inspiring figure to study for creatives and non-creatives alike.He is considered one of the top comedians of all time and has amassed a reported financial fortune of nearly $1 billion. He earned a total of $100,000 for the entire first season of Seinfeld. By season 9, he was earning over $1 million per episode.Jerry Seinfeld is impressive in many ways, but perhaps most impressive is the fact that he has exhibited such tremendous creative consistency over the years. As he is quick to point out in a number of interviews, this was not some gift he was simply born with.It was—at least partially—engineered.An up-and-coming comedian named Brad Isaac had a famous interaction with Jerry Seinfeld that revealed his strategy for hacking consistency and growth:He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day.He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker. He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day.“After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.”I call this the Seinfeld Calendar Framework:Hang a big calendar on the wall.Use a big red marker to put an X over every day that you complete your daily [insert habit]. The habit should be simple and manageable to complete.Don’t break the chain of Xs!Importantly, it was not about the writing or jokes being high quality—it was about the consistency of the daily practice.The beauty in this system was in its sheer simplicity. It emphasized a manageable daily practice that would compound effectively.Seinfeld knew: With daily practice comes long-term prowess.30-for-30 ChallengeAfter reading about Seinfeld’s calendar hack, I adapted it to create my own improvement approach.I call it the 30-for-30 Challenge: 30 days, 30 minutes per day.The mechanics are simple:Choose your aren...