Analog Action by Matt Ragland

Hey Reader, I was watching the college baseball regionals with my son on Friday. (Go Gators!) Somewhere around the third inning he turned to me and said, “Dad, it’s tough to be the hitter. You don’t know where the ball is going.” “True,” I said. “But the pitcher has to throw in the strike zone. Four balls and the batter walks.” He nodded and went back to his snacks. He’s 11, so he did not stand up and start clapping, saying “great life lesson, Dad!”. But our little chat stuck with me, and...

Hey Reader, I spent most of this week dealing with a fever and sore throat (Sunday morning update, it’s strep!). One of those bouts of sickness that old-me would have pushed straight through—same hours, workouts, schedule—because I was worried about falling behind on something. I could never really articulate what that something was. Just a vague, low-grade dread that if I stopped, I’d lose ground I couldn’t get back. As I write this, I realize I still may have done too much… it did become...

Hey Reader, Ever caught yourself frustrated about not performing the way you wanted to... even when the situation didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things? How do you balance holding yourself to a personal standard against not letting a bad showing get in your head? I was dealing with that question Friday morning. I'd played two softball games Thursday night, didn't get to bed until midnight, was up with the kids at 2, and somehow still dragged myself to jiu-jitsu at 6am. Where I...

Hey Reader, I just got back from two days at Michael Hyatt’s AI Business Lab Mastermind, and I want to share what’s been rattling around in my head since I left. It’s a pretty nerdy room: founders, brands, and solopreneurs running 7-8 figure businesses, all comparing notes on how they’re actually using AI day to day. And the conversation that surprised me most wasn’t about prompts or tools. It was about what I shared in last week’s WRAP. I told the group what I’d written about: that if AI...

Hey Reader, I don't know about you, but I've been using AI for just about everything lately. Personal goals coach, budgeting, building little apps and tools, turning my shower thoughts into email drafts. I've probably doubled or tripled my output in the same number of hours I've always worked—probably even working a bit less. Problem is... I'm still staring at a screen most of the time. I'm still running prompts, tweaking commands, thinking about how to squeeze more out of the machine. It's...

Hey Reader, I was standing in Ryan Holiday’s bookstore in Bastrop, Texas a couple months ago—a place called The Painted Porch—when I picked up a book titled Rules for a Knight. The book is a final letter written in 1483 from a knight to his children, penned the day before his eventual death in the Battle of Slaughter Bridge. And I can tell you with near certainty that Amazon would never have recommended it to me based on my purchase history. It wouldn’t show up in an Audible suggestion. No...

Hey Reader, We’re planning year-end assessments for our oldest this week. He’s in fifth grade, we homeschool, and part of the process is figuring out where he stands compared to other kids his age. So my wife and I did what we do—talk about it in 3 minute bursts between meals, diapers, baseball practice, laundry, and bedtime. We talked about what should a ten-year-old actually know at the end of fifth grade? And more importantly… does the answer to that question even matter the way it used...