Today is March 13th. Can you remember what you were doing on this day 7 years ago?
No? Me neither. But I can guess.
March 13th, 2014 was a Thursday. And I was in my first year of University.
There’s a very good chance it was a “Blackout Thursday”.
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Irresponsible
I’ve done some very stupid things over the years. Enough to fill this newsletter with nothing else. I’ll save you from the bulk of them but one does concern us here. One of the very stupidest: Blackout Thursdays.
Blackout Thursdays was a simple game. It involved me, my flat mate, and two 70cl bottles of vodka.
Every Thursday night, for a good few weeks, we’d each drink a bottle of vodka and see what happened. We’d blackout. Obviously. The next morning I'd fruitlessly try to piece together the night before.
It was shockingly irresponsible. I’d love to tell you stories about what happened during those night but I don’t have a clue. I rarely remembered past the bottom of the bottle.
This is a flavour of my decade before Unplugged. From 15 to 25 I was an absolute liability. Joining a startup aged 22 was my salvation.
An old friend asked me recently if I regret those years. And you know what? I really don’t.
Lesson Learnt
Why am I telling you this? To drag my name through the mud? Not at all. I’m sharing it because I learnt a lot from those times.
Life is counterintuitive. Time and time again you hear that the worst things that happens to people turn out to be the best.
I can attest to that. Every positive step I’ve made has been off the back of failure. Luckily there’s been plenty of that.
For years I’d wake up disgusted with myself after a big night. What the f**k are you doing with your life? I’d think, head spinning. But in those moments I resolved to be better. To sort my life out. It took a while but bit by bit something got through.
I’m grateful for the fuckups. I’d be living a more timid life if I was a more restrained youth.
As for the problem drinking? Turns out it was solvable. I read this book two years ago and haven’t drunk a drop since. Life changing.
Good
What those years taught me is that there’s something to gain from every situation. We’ve seen it play out time and time again with Unplugged.
Someone recently sent me a video on the topic, from the brilliant Jocko Willink. He says it far better than I ever could.
(thank you for sharing Dave 🙏 ).
Click on the image below. Highly recommended. 👇👇
Things aren’t going the way you wanted?
Good.
Time to get better.
My Week in Books📚
The Founders by Jimmy Soni
So good. This is the story of Paypal. There hasn’t been anything quite like them since. Remarkable characters who have gone onto shape the world of today. Highly recommended.
Fall by John Preston
Reads like fiction. An unbelievable story about the newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell. The book starts with him floating, dead, next to his super yacht, and does not slow down there after. An incredibly talent and flawed in equal measures.
Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Crazy. We understand so little about how the world works. This book an example. All about fungus. It plays a far bigger part in this world than one might think.
I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know! See 2021’s books here.
A Final Thought 💡
"No matter how dirty your past is, your future is still spotless."
- Drake