Sunday

Happy Sunday!  

This has been a truly fulfilling week for me: the studio is now partially set up (setting up a production studio is exhausting >< ), the team is hired, and I’ve finally gotten back to weightlifting – 2 h, 4d/w. 

We often underestimate the power of time. I’m now putting in roughly 8 hours of exercise a week and the difference – in energy, mood, everything – is huge.  

And here’s my little Sunday takeaway:  

1. W. Somerset Maugham on criticism:  

“People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.”  

2. Value is mostly about anticipation  

Take food as example: the pleasure we get often isn’t 100% driven by the objective taste or quality of the food itself, but by the gap between what we expected and what we actually experience.  

It’s kind of fun to hack your own brain once you realize this. You can trigger higher satisfaction with objectively less food just by managing expectations. Think of that tempting cake – I’d say most pleasure comes from the first 1–3 bites, because that’s enough to fulfill the anticipation. You really don’t need to finish the whole slice.

(That’s why the savviest partners either keep flowers rare and surprising or switch to a different love-language gesture once the expectation curve flattens.)