When people think about longevity, they usually think about exercise. Or nutrition. Or sleep.

Those are all important. But over the past year I’ve become increasingly interested in something much harder to measure.

Mental energy.

Not the kind of stress caused by major life events. The smaller, quieter kind. Looking for your keys. Worrying whether one of the kids has lost theirs. Unloading the dishwasher. Folding laundry. Deciding where something belongs.

None of these things matters much on its own. But together they create hundreds of tiny moments of friction every week.

So during the renovation, we kept asking a question that had nothing to do with interior design:

“How can this house ask less of us?”

Five decisions made the biggest difference. Starting at the front door.

1. The Front Door Recognises Us

This is probably my favourite feature in the entire house.

Instead of using keys, our front door unlocks with palm recognition. You walk up, hold out your hand and the door opens.

It sounds like a small thing. But it’s an interaction you repeat every single day.

The kids don’t lose keys. Nobody stands outside wondering who has the spare. After a while, you stop thinking about it entirely.

Which is exactly the point. Good design removes problems before they become problems.

Takeaway: The best conveniences are the ones you stop noticing.

2. Two Dishwashers Eliminated One Household Chore

Whenever people visit, this is the feature that surprises them most.

“Why would you need two dishwashers?”

The answer is that we don’t. We need one less household chore.

One dishwasher stores the clean dishes. The other collects the dirty ones. When the second one is full, we run it and swap them over.

That’s it. We’ve almost eliminated the task of unloading dishes into cupboards.

Does it save a lot of time? Not really. Maybe a few minutes a day. But that was never the point. What we’ve removed is a repetitive task we’d otherwise perform almost every day for the next twenty or thirty years.

Some people optimise for minutes. We were optimising for mental load.

Takeaway: The goal isn’t to save time. It’s to reduce the number of decisions your home asks you to make.

3. We Swapped a Live-In Helper for Part-Time Cleaners

For many years we had a live-in helper. She was wonderful, especially while the kids were younger.

As the children became more independent, though, we realised something. We didn’t just have a helper. We had another household to manage.

Schedules. Leave. Healthcare. Accommodation. The countless little decisions that come with another person living under your roof.

Eventually we switched to part-time cleaners. They clean the house. They fold the laundry. Then they head home.

We still get almost all of the benefit of a clean home, with a fraction of the mental overhead.

Takeaway: Sometimes the simplest life isn’t the one with the most help. It’s the one with the least complexity.

4. Two Fridges, Two Different Jobs

One thing we planned particularly carefully: two refrigerators.

The fridge in the dry kitchen stores food that’s ready to eat. Fruit. Greek yoghurt. Kimchi. Drinks. Ice cream. The things people reach for throughout the day.

The fridge in the wet kitchen stores raw ingredients waiting to be cooked.

It’s a surprisingly small change. But because everything has a logical place, the kitchen simply feels easier to use. Nobody wonders where something belongs.

Good organisation doesn’t just save time. It reduces thinking.

Takeaway: A place for everything means less time deciding where everything goes.

5. We Optimised for a Home That’s Easy to Maintain

One thing we kept coming back to during the renovation was a simple question:

“Will this create work for us in the future?”

That question influenced more decisions than I expected.

It’s why we didn’t build a private swimming pool.

It’s why we chose an under-sink water filtration system instead of another appliance sitting on the kitchen bench.

It’s why we preferred solutions that quietly looked after themselves instead of demanding our attention.

I’ve realised that every feature you add to a house has a maintenance cost.

Sometimes it’s money.

Sometimes it’s time.

Very often, it’s mental energy.

If we weren’t convinced something would improve our lives every day, we usually left it out.

Takeaway: Every feature has a maintenance cost. Choose carefully.

Final Thoughts

Looking back, this was the biggest surprise of the entire renovation.

We often think of longevity as adding things to our lives. Another supplement. Another workout. Another health habit.

This renovation taught me that longevity can also come from subtraction. Removing unnecessary decisions. Removing repetitive chores. Removing the tiny moments of friction that quietly drain your energy every day.

None of the ideas in this article is particularly dramatic. A different front door. Two dishwashers. Part-time cleaners. Better organisation.

Individually, they don’t change much. Together, they’ve created a home that simply feels calmer. It asks less of us. And that leaves a little more energy for the things that matter.

That’s the end of the tour. A house that nudges us to move, an environment our bodies quietly benefit from, and a home that asks less of us every day.

If you take one idea from this series, make it this:

Design your environment, and it will design your habits.

When people renovate, they naturally spend most of their time on things they can look at. The kitchen. The flooring. The bathrooms. The furniture.

We did all of that too.

But we spent a surprising amount of time (and money) on things visitors will never notice.

The water we drink. The air we breathe. The light we live under. The room we sleep in.

The more I read about longevity, the more I realised these are the things our bodies interact with every single day. Unlike a marble benchtop or a designer sofa, they’re not there to impress anyone. They’re there to quietly improve everyday life.

Here are the five environmental decisions we’d make again without hesitation:

1. Every Drop of Water Starts Clean

One of the first things we installed isn’t visible at all.

Before water enters the house, it passes through a whole-house reverse-osmosis filtration system. Every shower, every tap and every sink starts with filtered water. Drinking, brushing teeth, showering: everything begins the same way.

For drinking water, we went one step further and installed an under-sink filtration system. One thing I really wanted to avoid was another appliance sitting on the kitchen bench. Instead, all you see is a clean, minimalist tap. Press a button and it instantly dispenses filtered water at room temperature, 45°C or boiling.

It’s one of those features you stop noticing after a week.

Which, to me, is exactly what good design should feel like.

Takeaway: The best systems quietly disappear into everyday life.

2. Lighting Is the Most Underrated Part of a Home

If I were renovating again, I’d spend just as much time on lighting as on choosing furniture.

Almost every room in our house uses warm 3000K lighting. The living room. The bedrooms. Even the lights outside where we park our cars. After a late-night drive home from Singapore, walking into that warm light immediately sets the mood for bedtime.

The only rooms with cool white lighting are the bathrooms, where practicality matters more than ambience.

Lighting doesn’t usually make the shortlist when people talk about their favourite renovation decisions. I think it should. It quietly shapes how a home feels every single evening.

Takeaway: Don’t just choose your furniture. Choose how your home will feel.

3. We Designed the Bedroom for Sleep

We spend roughly a third of our lives asleep. It seemed strange to spend months choosing kitchen finishes but almost no time thinking about the room where our bodies recover every night.

So we worked backwards from a simple question: what would an ideal sleeping environment look like?

Temperature came first. Every bedroom has an air conditioner capable of making the room genuinely cold. I sleep noticeably better in a cooler room, so we made that the default rather than something we occasionally achieved.

Next, keeping the rooms cool and dark throughout the day. Every bedroom window is double-glazed, tempered and tinted. Less heat from the sun, better insulation, and noticeably quieter rooms.

Then there’s the tiny detail: the blackout curtains in every bedroom overlap in the middle, so there’s no strip of morning light leaking through the gap. Nobody notices it during the build.

You notice it every single morning.

Inside the room, every bedside lamp uses warm lighting, and we keep a red light on hand for even softer light before bed. The pillows took far longer to find than I expected: slow-rebound memory foam with a cervical curve that properly supports the neck. Considering we spend around eight hours a night on them, the search felt like a worthwhile investment.

Finally, I sleep under a weighted blanket. Whether it’s the gentle pressure or simply the feeling of being cocooned, it makes it easier to relax and fall asleep. It’s the one thing I miss whenever I’m travelling.

None of these decisions is remarkable on its own. Together, they create a bedroom that’s cool, dark, quiet and comfortable.

That’s exactly what we wanted.

If you’re interested, I’ve written separately about the habits and routines that improved my sleep outside the bedroom as well.

→ Read: How to Sleep Better (Even When You Have Kids)

Takeaway: Sleep isn’t something you do. It’s an environment you create.

4. Clean Air Shouldn’t Require Thinking About

We have an industrial-grade air purifier in the main living area, quietly running HEPA filtration in the background.

HEPA filters capture the particles you’d never see. Dust, pollen, smoke, and the fine particulate matter known as PM2.5.

PM2.5 is the air metric I pay the most attention to, because it’s the one most closely tied to longevity. These particles are small enough to slip past the lungs and into the bloodstream, and long-term exposure is one of the strongest environmental predictors of cardiovascular disease. The WHO recommends keeping annual exposure below 5 µg/m³. Most cities in this region don’t come close, and indoor air is often dirtier than people assume.

So we don’t guess. The purifier tracks the air quality in real time, and on a normal day the PM2.5 reading indoors sits comfortably low.

Most of the time I barely notice the machine is there. That’s the point. It’s on the days the haze rolls in, when the outdoor numbers climb, that it earns its place: the indoor reading stays clean for the family while the rest of the neighbourhood is closing windows.

Like many of the decisions in this renovation, it’s something we hope rarely to think about. Good design often works that way.

Takeaway: The best health investments are often the ones you forget you made.

5. Small Choices Compound

Finally, we’ve reduced plastic and teflon wherever it’s practical. Most of our leftovers go into glass containers. The kids carry stainless steel lunch boxes instead of plastic ones.

I’m not trying to eliminate every possible source of plastic exposure. That’s neither practical nor realistic. But when there’s an easy swap that requires almost no extra effort, we’ll usually make it.

I’ve come to believe longevity isn’t about making perfect decisions. It’s about making slightly better ones, consistently.

Takeaway: Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for better defaults.

Final Thoughts

One thing this renovation taught me is that the most important parts of a home are often the ones you can’t photograph.

Clean water. Fresh air. Warm lighting. A bedroom that’s cool, quiet and dark.

Guests don’t compliment these features. Your body experiences them every single day.

I don’t know whether any one of these decisions will meaningfully extend my lifespan. I do know that together they make good sleep easier, healthy choices more convenient and everyday life a little more enjoyable.

That’s enough reason for me.

Design your environment, and it will design your habits.

Coming in Part 3, the most unexpected lesson from the entire renovation - how removing tiny moments of friction can dramatically reduce stress. It includes the one feature that surprises every single guest: why our kitchen has two dishwashers.

This series is the house tour.

But I should warn you: it’s not the usual kind. There’s no marble island reveal, no walk-in wardrobe moment. The features I’m proudest of are the ones visitors either question or never notice at all.

A three-storey layout people assume we regret. A swimming pool we deliberately didn’t build. A “wellness membership” without paying monthly subscription fees.

We didn’t set out to build a luxury home or a smart home. We wanted a home that quietly made healthy living easier. Looking back, almost every decision fell into three themes: movement, environment and stress reduction. This first article is about movement.

When people think about longevity, they usually think about nutrition, exercise or supplements. They’re all important. But over the last few years, I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest influences on our health isn’t what we know.

It’s the environment we live in.

Someone living beside a park will walk more than someone living next to a six-lane highway. Someone with a standing desk will stand more than someone without one. Someone whose kitchen is stocked with healthy food will eat better than someone surrounded by ultra-processed snacks.

The environment quietly nudges our behaviour long before willpower gets involved.

That idea became the guiding principle behind our renovation. We kept coming back to a question inspired by James Clear’s famous idea in Atomic Habits:

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”

So we asked ourselves:

What would a house look like if it were designed as a system for healthy living?

Our goal wasn’t simply to own a beautiful home. It was to make healthy choices feel automatic. The house itself had to become the system.

Every design decision flowed from one question:

How do we make healthy movement the path of least resistance?

Four decisions made the biggest difference. The first is the one visitors question the most.

1. Stairs Are a Feature, Not a Bug

The moment visitors realise the house has three storeys, the same comment arrives:

“Doesn’t that get annoying?”

I always smile, because I see it completely differently. The stairs might be the healthiest feature of the house.

Every day I’m walking up to grab something from my office, checking on the kids, heading down for coffee, climbing up to bed. None of those trips feels like exercise. That’s exactly why they work.

It’s one of the things that fascinates me about the world’s Blue Zones. Nobody there wakes up thinking about getting a workout in. They walk to the market, carry groceries, work in the garden and climb hills because that’s how the day is structured. Movement isn’t an activity. It’s a by-product.

I suspect climbing these stairs every day for the next ten or twenty years will do more for my health than all the gym programmes I’ve enthusiastically started and quietly abandoned.

Takeaway: If movement is built into your home, it no longer depends on motivation.

2. We Chose the Neighbourhood as Carefully as We Chose the House

One of my favourite features of our home isn’t actually part of the house.

It’s the lake beside it.

One lap is exactly one kilometre, which turns out to be surprisingly useful. Need 10,000 steps? I know exactly how many laps to walk. Want a 35-minute Zone 2 run? I step out the front door and start running.

No driving somewhere first. No deciding where to go. No friction.

The path is lined with trees. There’s fresh air, fish in the lake, and enough greenery that it never quite feels like exercise.

I’ve realised the best workout isn’t the one with the perfect programme. It’s the one that’s easiest to begin.

Takeaway: Don’t just choose a house. Choose a neighbourhood that makes movement easy.

3. We Chose Access Over Ownership

We didn’t build a swimming pool. We could have…I’ve owned one before.

That’s exactly why we didn’t.

A private pool looks impressive, but it comes with cleaning, chemicals, repairs and maintenance. Eventually you realise you’re spending more time looking after the pool than swimming in it.

Our estate has a beautiful communal pool a short walk away. When the kids were younger, they were in it constantly. As they grow older, they will probably use it less. Either way, we get all of the access with none of the upkeep. Nobody spends a weekend maintaining something that sits unused most of the week.

It’s made me rethink ownership more generally. Sometimes we don’t need to own something. We simply need easy access to it.

Takeaway: Access is often better than ownership.

4. The Recovery Zone

The additions I looked forward to most was the sauna and cold plunge.

Not because I think they’re magic. And not because I believe everyone needs one. I wanted to remove the friction around recovery the same way we removed it around movement.

If I have to drive somewhere to use a sauna, I’ll go a handful of times before life gets in the way. If it’s upstairs, I’ll use it several times a week.

That’s exactly what’s happened. The sauna has become part of my evening routine because it helps me unwind and sleep more deeply.

The cold plunge...I’m still trying to convince myself to enjoy.

Whether these ultimately extend my lifespan isn’t really the point. They’re easy enough to become habits rather than aspirations.

Takeaway: The easier something is to do, the more likely it becomes part of your life.

Final Thoughts

The biggest lesson from this renovation is that movement shouldn’t begin with willpower.

It should begin with design.

We often think healthy habits are the result of discipline. I increasingly think discipline is overrated. Most of us don’t fail because we lack motivation. We fail because our environment quietly encourages the opposite behaviour.

A house with stairs instead of lifts. A lake instead of another shopping centre. A pool we can use but never maintain. Recovery that lives upstairs instead of on the calendar.

None of these things will dramatically change your health on its own. But longevity has never really been about dramatic changes. It’s the accumulation of small decisions, repeated consistently over decades.

That’s what we were trying to build. Not a house with a gym. A calm house that quietly encourages movement every single day.

Design your environment, and it will design your habits.

Coming in Part 2: I’ll share the environmental decisions behind our Longevity House. From whole-house water filtration and lighting to the bedroom we designed specifically for better sleep.

Four forms of leverage:

* Labour

* Capital

* Code

* Media

The idea was simple.

Labour lets you do more through other people.

Capital lets money work for you.

Code lets software work for you.

Media lets ideas work for you.

Combine them, and you build something that scales without you.

I still think that map is right.

But AI has quietly redrawn it.

Not because Naval was wrong.

Because the ground underneath the map moved.

Here’s the shift that changes everything: AI made production almost free.

Writing code used to be hard.

Now anyone can generate thousands of lines before their coffee gets cold.

Content used to need writers, designers, editors.

Now one person ships what used to take a whole team.

Even labour is bending.

Research, support, copywriting, project management, outreach - work we used to hire people for is getting handed to AI agents that run on their own.

The old forms of leverage didn’t disappear.

They just got easy to reach.

And when something gets easy to reach, it stops being the thing that holds you back.

So what’s the new bottleneck?

It isn’t better prompts.

It’s better judgement.

Knowing what to build.

Knowing who it’s for.

Knowing how to position it.

Knowing how to reach the people who’d pay for it.

AI can hand you a thousand ideas.

It still can’t tell you which one deserves to exist.

If I rewrote Naval’s list for today, it would look like this.

1. Capital

Money still compounds.

Nothing about that changed.

Allocating capital well is still one of the highest forms of leverage there is.

2. Distribution

The internet pays the people who own attention.

Newsletter, YouTube, SEO, community, a product that spreads on its own - the channel doesn’t matter.

Own distribution, and you stop renting customers from someone who does.

3. Taste

This is the one almost nobody talks about.

Taste is knowing what people want before they do.

The right market.

The right feature.

The right design.

The right timing.

The best founders I’ve met weren’t the best engineers.

They just had better judgement.

4. AI Agents

Labour grew up.

Instead of managing ten employees, one founder can now run ten agents.

They don’t sleep.

They don’t forget.

They don’t need weekly one-on-ones.

As AI gets better, execution stops being the limit.

Orchestration becomes the limit.

5. Code

Software is still incredible leverage.

But writing it isn’t the moat it used to be.

The value moved.

It went from writing software to deciding what software should exist.

6. Media

Media still matters. Maybe more than ever.

But AI can now produce endless content.

So content isn’t the scarce thing anymore.

Trust is.

People don’t follow whoever publishes the most.

They follow whoever consistently has something worth saying.

Look at that list and a pattern jumps out.

Three of these are turning into commodities:

* AI agents

* Code

* Media

Three are getting more valuable:

* Capital

* Distribution

* Taste

The bottleneck moved.

For most of history, the win went to whoever could produce.

Now production is almost free.

The win goes to whoever can choose.

Choose the right market.

Choose the right problem.

Choose the right customer.

Choose the right story.

AI can build almost anything.

The real leverage is deciding what’s worth building.

Not net worth.

Not income.

Not the number that appears when you open your brokerage account.

I’m starting to think we’ve been measuring the wrong thing.

I’ve met people worth tens of millions of dollars who seemed permanently exhausted.

Their work drained them.

Their relationships drained them.

Their health was deteriorating.

Their success had become something they were constantly trying to maintain rather than something they genuinely enjoyed.

By every conventional definition, they were wealthy.

It didn’t feel like wealth.

That made me wonder.

What does true wealth actually look like?

I’ve come to think wealth has surprisingly little to do with money.

Money is simply one form of stored energy.

True wealth is whether your life generates energy…or consumes it.

Take work.

Some people finish a day of work feeling depleted.

Others finish feeling excited to do it again tomorrow.

The difference isn’t always the hours.

It’s whether the work gives them energy or takes it away.

The same is true of relationships.

There are people who leave you lighter than when you arrived.

You laugh more.

You think more clearly.

You become more optimistic.

And there are people who leave you completely exhausted.

The relationship may look identical from the outside.

Your nervous system knows the difference.

The same applies to health.

Exercise looks like spending energy.

It isn’t.

You’re investing energy today so your body can generate more tomorrow.

The same is true of sleep.

Nutrition.

Time outdoors.

Almost everything that makes us physically healthier is really an investment in future energy.

Even investing has started to look different to me.

Most people invest in financial assets.

I increasingly find myself investing in the systems that power civilization itself.

Energy.

Commodities.

Semiconductors.

Infrastructure.

The things that enable every other industry to exist.

The economy ultimately runs on energy, whether it’s electricity powering an AI data centre or food powering the people who build it.

Perhaps wealth does too.

When I look back at the best periods of my life, they all had one thing in common.

I was surrounded by people who gave me energy.

I was doing work that gave me energy.

I was looking after a body that gave me energy.

And I was allocating capital toward things that created more energy.

Everything compounded from there.

Maybe that’s what wealth really is.

Not accumulating more.

But arranging your life so that every important part of it produces more energy than it consumes.

Happy.

Healthy.

Wealthy.

In that order.

Because happiness gives you the motivation to keep going.

Health gives you the capacity to keep going.

And wealth gives you the freedom to choose where to go next.

Most people think it’s about making more money.

I don’t think that’s true.

Money matters, but only because of what it buys. And the longer I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve realised that money is only one kind of freedom.

I’ve met wealthy people who couldn’t leave their jobs because their lifestyle depended on the income.

I’ve met executives who couldn’t move countries because too much of their financial life was tied to one place.

They were all making rational decisions.

But they weren’t entirely free.

That made me wonder.

What does true freedom actually look like?

I’ve come to think there are four kinds of freedom.

The first is financial freedom.

This is the one everyone knows. It’s the point where money stops occupying your mind. You don’t worry about unexpected expenses, and you don’t hesitate before ordering what you actually want from the menu. Financial freedom removes an enormous amount of stress.

But it doesn’t necessarily make you free.

Money can buy comfort.

It can’t always buy choice.

The second is time freedom.

This is where life starts to feel different. You wake up and decide what your day looks like. You work because you choose to, not because you have no alternative. You can spend a Wednesday afternoon with your children without feeling guilty, or disappear for a month without asking permission.

Money buys comfort.

Time buys life.

The third is location freedom.

For most of history, this barely existed. Today, it’s one of the greatest advantages technology has given us.

You can choose where to live, where to build your business, and where to raise your family. Your career is no longer anchored to a single office in a single city.

The world becomes an option instead of a constraint.

The fourth is the one I think about the most.

Sovereignty.

Not political sovereignty.

Personal sovereignty.

The ability to make decisions that are genuinely your own.

It’s realising that every system wants your loyalty.

Airlines.

Hotels.

Banks.

Governments.

Employers.

None of them are evil.

Most of them provide genuine value.

But every one of them is designed to make leaving just a little harder.

A few reward points here.

Elite status there.

A discounted mortgage.

A tax incentive.

A cashback offer.

Individually, they’re harmless.

Collectively, they shape your behaviour.

One day you wake up and realise you’re no longer making decisions based on what’s best for you.

You’re making decisions based on what you’ve already committed to.

That’s dependence.

Not freedom.

The older I get, the less interested I am in optimising rewards.

I’d rather optimise optionality.

I’d rather choose the airline because it’s the best flight.

The hotel because it’s the best hotel for me.

The bank because it’s the best bank for me.

Not because I’ve spent years accumulating points, status, or switching costs that make leaving feel expensive.

Because I think freedom is measured by one question.

How easily can you walk away?

Walk away from a job.

Walk away from a city.

Walk away from a bank.

Walk away from debt.

Walk away from any system that no longer serves you.

Most people think wealth is about accumulating assets.

I’m starting to think it’s equally about eliminating dependencies.

The goal isn’t to become rich enough to buy anything.

The goal is to become free enough that nothing can buy you.

But I was still doing one thing the slow way.

Typing.

In 2026, that feels like dial-up in a fibre world.

Voice is more natural. Faster. Lower friction. And with today’s AI transcription accuracy, it’s finally reliable enough for serious work.

And my near-term goal is to build a native iOS app using nothing but my voice.

So I switched.

Here’s how I evaluated the two main tools - and why I chose one.

I installed a voice transcription app because speaking is simply faster than typing. With modern AI models, transcription accuracy is now good enough for real work - including dictating prompts into LLMs.

After researching the space, two names kept coming up: Superwhisper and WhisperFlow. Both offer free trials.

My criteria were simple:

• Lifetime pricing

• Install across multiple devices (MacBook, iPhone, Mac mini)

• High transcription accuracy

• Structured output and formatting after transcription

I downloaded the macOS app for Superwhisper first and ran the free trial.

The accuracy was strong. More than good enough for daily use.

Then I looked at pricing.

This was the real decider.

Superwhisper offers lifetime pricing.
WhisperFlow runs on a monthly subscription with no lifetime option.

Superwhisper 1. WhisperFlow 0.

If voice becomes my default input method - especially for AI workflows - I prefer set-and-forget tools. Buy once. Install everywhere. Move on with life.

I’m able to install Superwhisper on multiple devices on the lifetime option.

I did see Reddit threads claiming WhisperFlow has lower latency and better automatic formatting.

So I checked whether Superwhisper covered that.

It does:

• Default Mode - transcribes as-is

• Message Mode - removes filler words like “um” and “uh”

• Super Mode - lets you structure text with voice commands (“new line”, bullet points, etc.)

For my workflow, that’s enough.

Pricing mattered so much that I didn’t even download WhisperFlow.

When you realise you can think out loud instead of type - and it just works - it’s hard to go back.

Typing feels like friction.

Voice feels like leverage.

p.s. this blog post was initially started just by talking using SuperWhisper :)

The uncomfortable takeaway is this:

If intelligence is now cheap and abundant because of AI, what actually matters anymore?

That question hits differently when you’re a parent.

Because if we don’t know which jobs will exist in 10-15 years (we don’t), then what exactly are we preparing our kids for?

The Wrong Question

Most parents ask:

• What should my child study?

• Which skills are future-proof?

• Which jobs are safe from AI?

I think those are the wrong questions.

The better one is:

What kind of person thrives no matter how the world changes?

I keep coming back to one answer: agency.

Why I Keep Coming Back to Agency

Job titles decay.
Industries rotate.
Prestige expires.

But the ability to notice a problem, take responsibility for it, and move things forward without waiting to be told compounds in every environment.

That’s high agency.

If I had to pick a small set of traits to prioritise for our kids - traits that survive uncertainty - this would be at the top.

High Agency vs Low Agency Traits

This table is the entire post. It shows the difference between low-agency and high-agency traits:

Once you see it, you start noticing it everywhere - at work, in school systems, in relationships, and uncomfortably, in yourself.

What I’m Trying to Teach My Kids (Quietly)

You don’t teach agency with lectures or nagging.

You train it by:

• Letting kids struggle instead of rescuing

• Rewarding initiative, not just outcomes

• Asking “What do you think we should do?” instead of giving answers

• Letting inaction have consequences

It’s uncomfortable.
It’s slower.
It looks messy.

But it builds something more durable.

The Real Divide Going Forward

I don’t think the future splits into:

• STEM vs arts

• Technical vs non-technical

• White-collar vs blue-collar

I think it splits into: people who wait - and people who move.

High agency doesn’t guarantee success.
But low agency almost guarantees stagnation.

That’s why this matters.

I don’t know what jobs my kids will have.

But I’m making a quiet bet.

That in a world where intelligence is abundant and instructions are automated, the people who do well will be the ones who don’t wait to be told what to do.

So that’s what I’m looking to train - not loudly, not perfectly, but consistently.

Agency first. Everything else can be learned.

I’d still take the $10k. Every time.

Why? Because I’d rather spend my active energy chasing asymmetric upside - subscription software, cashflowing assets, anything that can scale beyond my time and effort.

Here’s the problem: a high-paying 9-5 job isn’t success. It’s modern day wage slavery dressed up as “career advancement”.

Whether you’re earning $20k or $50k a month, your lifestyle doesn’t change much. Maybe you upgrade your apartment, buy property, or splurge on a car. But now you’ve got a fatter mortgage and bigger bills to pay. Same hamster wheel - just running faster.

And here’s the kicker: the more you earn, the heavier the chain.

Climbing the corporate ladder means more responsibility, more stress, and often less time for health, family, or creative pursuits. I’ve been there. The higher you go, the more accountable you are for the company’s P&L. And the higher you rank, the bigger you are as a cost centre to the company. And when the economy turns? High earners are expensive to keep…and first to go.

What shocks me most is how many people who’ve “made it” in corporate life are still trapped.

That’s why the vehicle matters.

Someone quietly growing a SaaS product or a cashflowing asset is compounding month after month. Customers accumulate. Cashflow stacks. Meanwhile, many top corporate performers I know could be building their thing - but instead, they’re building for someone else.

Freedom doesn’t come from wages. It comes from ownership.

And no - starting a one-man consultancy isn’t the answer if it just means working longer hours for the same trap. That’s trading one cage for another.

That said, working a 9-5 can make sense - if it’s a means to an end. Your take-home pay is ammunition. Use it to buy assets that generate $10k/month in passive income, and you’re buying your future freedom. The danger is when the job becomes the plan instead of the stepping stone.

Yes, there are exceptions. RSUs, ESOPs, partnerships, CEO seats with equity. But they’re slow, political, and rare. RSUs only pay on a liquidity event (if it ever happens). Partnerships take a decade of billable-hour grind. And CEO seats? Usually drenched in office politics (yuck!).

You can play their game…

Or you can build something you own, where your upside isn’t capped by your salary.

I spent the early years of my career as an investment manager. Passed the CFA back when the Institute was still called AIMR (yep, that’s how long ago it was). Worked alongside some of the sharpest value fund managers in Australia. Studied all the legends, like Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, and Benjamin Graham.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth I’ve realised: even the best active managers don’t really know where the market’s going.

If you had relied solely on fundamental analysis over the past 15 years, you would’ve struggled to make sense of the market and drastically underperformed in a world flooded with printed money. I've come to realise traditional models are broken. Beyond fundamental analysis, you also need to account for:

• Market sentiment and narratives

• Capital rotation

• M2 money supply growth

• Geopolitics and new world order cycles

These are now major vectors to consider for any serious asset allocation strategy.

Why the Traditional 60/40 Portfolio Is Long Dead

The traditional 60/40 portfolio allocates:

• 60% to equities (for growth)

• 40% to bonds (for stability)

It was the go-to model for decades.

But post-2008 when we had the Great Financial Crisis and the US bailed out the banking system, this model is long outdated and completely irrelevant. When central banks print trillions, inflation rises. Higher inflation means higher interest rates. And higher rates crush bond values.

One of the fundamental tenets you learn in the CFA curriculum is the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM):

Expected Return = Rf + β(Rm − Rf)

Where:

• Rf = risk-free rate (typically government bonds)

• β = beta (volatility relative to the market)

• Rm = expected market return

• (Rm − Rf) = market risk premium

In other words, if you want more return you need to take more risk.

But here’s the catch: government bonds are no longer “risk-free”.

If you invested 40% of your portfolio in government bonds over the past few years, you might’ve collected a 3-5% yield, but your principal dropped by 20-30%. Whoops. There goes your "safe" return. Instead of being a “risk-free return”, bonds are more like “return-free risk”.

In other words: owning bonds today might be riskier than owning stocks.

The US Today (July 2025): Still Risk-Free?

Let’s look at the facts for the US today:

• Sovereign credit rating: AA+ (S&P), Aa1 (Moody’s) - no longer AAA

• National debt: $37+ trillion, while GDP is $30+ trillion/year

• Debt-to-GDP: ~120%

• Annual interest payments: >$1 trillion (more than 20% of federal revenues)

• Current account deficit: ~$800 billion/year

Now ask yourself: does this sound like a risk-free nation?

And that’s without even mentioning America’s eroding ability to project power, as China gains control over strategic resources like rare earths that are so critical for defense and technology.

US Treasuries are no longer risk-free. Bonds are no longer “safe.”

Ramit Sethi's Diversified Investment Portfolio: A Simpler Framework

I’ve always admired Ramit Sethi’s minimalist approach. He advocates:

• 90/10 allocation (stocks/bonds) for younger investors

• Slowly increasing bond exposure as you age (e.g., 55 = 69/31, 65 = 53/47)

• Instead of picking individual equity stocks, use 2-3 market ETFs instead (US, international, bond)

• Automating contributions and rebalancing once a year

It’s clean. It’s simple. There’s a certain elegance to just buying the S&P 500 index fund, paying very low expense ratios, earning around 9-11% annually, and casually outperforming most active fund managers after fees. Add in the Rule of 72, and with the magic of compounding, you’re doubling your money roughly every 7 years.

But even this clean, passive framework is starting to feel incomplete in today’s macro environment. At a market nominal growth rate of 9-11%, this simply matches the rate at which M2 global money supply is growing. You're not building any real incremental wealth, you’re just meeting the market beta benchmark.

Jeff Park’s Radical Portfolio

Enter: The Radical Portfolio Theory by Jeff Park.

Instead of 60/40 in stocks and bonds, Park proposes a new lens:

• 60% Compliance: Traditional, state-aligned assets like equities, real estate, and institutional holdings

• 40% Resistance: Decentralised or state-resistant assets - Bitcoin, physical gold, art in private custody, biotech IP, even Pokémon cards, sports betting, and prediction markets

This portfolio is designed for a world where fiat systems are increasingly unstable and centralised control is tightening. In Park’s words, resistance assets preserve optionality and independence.

I like the split between compliant and resistant capital. I like the inclusion of Bitcoin which provides significant alpha to any portfolio by being state-resistant.

But what I don’t love is the illiquidity of many “resistance” assets. Pokémon cards, fine art, or prediction markets often require niche domain expertise to value correctly. If you’re deeply engaged in these domains, then great. But if not, you’re competing without an edge.

Personally, I prefer assets that are liquid, transparent, and accessible - where you can enter and exit without friction, and don’t need to be an expert to avoid overpaying.

My Current 75/25 “Contrarian Portfolio”

The Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) was developed in the 1960s, well before the era of aggressive central bank money printing - which started in 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis. As such, in a world of rampant money printing, we need to redefine this formula and re-think the risk-free rate.

The risk-free rate is no longer the yield on a 10-year US Treasury. It’s the rate at which fiat currency is being debased - measured by M2 money supply growth.

Since 2008, that’s averaged 9-11% annually. As shown earlier, the S&P 500 has compounded at a similar rate over the last 15 years - so that would just match the rate of monetary debasement, let alone beating it. So this should be the minimum hurdle your portfolio should aim to beat, not just a US treasury yield.

So here’s my updated rule:

Your portfolio must beat the rate of monetary debasement.

And there’s only one asset that sits outside the fiat matrix - with a fixed supply, no dilution, and no central control:

Bitcoin.

Everything else, stocks, fixed income, real estate, etc sits on a fiat foundation that is melting at the rate of monetary debasement.

In a strange way, Bitcoin may now represent the true "risk-free rate" and minimum hurdle rate. It’s both growth and defence. Not because it’s without volatility, but because it’s the only asset that isn’t melting underneath you. It represents the risk-free rate, because it doesn’t sit on a fiat foundation that gets debased. And it also represents the highest alpha security, because fiat has no ceiling (unlimited demand) and Bitcoin has a fixed supply.

Here’s how I’ve constructed my own investment portfolio:

• 70-80%: Outside the Fiat Matrix (i.e. the “don’t touch” long term portfolio)

  • Hard monies (Bitcoin and gold)

• 20-30%: Inside the Fiat Matrix (i.e. the “itchy-finger” short term portfolio)

  • ETFs, stocks (thematic investing, swing trading and options trading)

• Any excess returns from the 30% get funnelled back into Bitcoin/gold or used to pay for large discretionary lifestyle expenses (e.g. travel, TVs, and house renovations)

My investment thesis today reflects a barbell approach between long-term conviction and short-term flexibility. 75% of my portfolio sits “outside the matrix” in assets like Bitcoin and gold that are resistant to state intervention, inflation, and monetary debasement. This is my “don’t touch” portfolio.

The remaining 25% is “inside the matrix” - a more active, liquid mix of ETFs, equities, and options. This is my “itchy-finger” portfolio, where I take calculated swing trades and hunt for alpha. Any excess returns from this portfolio either get funnelled back into Bitcoin/gold (which is always the main goal) or used to fund lifestyle upgrades - like travel, tech, or home improvements. This structure keeps me both grounded and agile.

Living on the Bitcoin Standard

Of course, these weightings can be tweaked up or down depending on your tolerance for risk. One could live on the Bitcoin Standard and keep 100% of their net worth denominated in Bitcoin. Their incomes are converted to Bitcoin and they can borrow a loan against their Bitcoin to cover daily living expenses without selling their Bitcoin.

For me personally, I only keep an “itchy-finger” portfolio because it’s fun to swing trade for short term profits (I know myself) and it’s a fun challenge to accelerate returns to ultimately grow my Bitcoin stack.

Why I like this portfolio theory:

• It has the passive elegance and simplicity of Ramit’s portfolio, but rather than dollar cost averaging (DCA-ing) into ETFs, you DCA into Bitcoin instead

• It has the non-fiat resistance inclusion from the Radical Portfolio Theory, but with the resistance assets of Bitcoin and gold being liquid

• To the “layperson”, it’s probably unpopular, and very contrarian - which ironically gives me more comfort

What about yield?

If you’re looking for income in your portfolio, here’s what I’d avoid:

• US 1-year Treasuries: ~4% nominal yield → negative real returns after inflation and monetary debasement

• Singapore savings bonds or high-interest rate savings accounts: ~2.3% nominal → again, negative real returns after inflation and monetary debasement

What about dividend stocks?

It depends. Yes, you can find 5-6% yields in banks and REITs, but that yield alone won’t protect you from inflation nor monetary debasement. More importantly, dividend stocks aren’t true income securities, the underlying equity value can go up or down, and your “income” can vanish overnight if the business falters. You’ll need to be selective e.g. like looking for signs of dividend per share (DPS) growth, etc. This requires extra work if you have the bandwidth.

And even then, structural headwinds loom:

• Banks may be at risk in a new world of stablecoins and decentralised finance

• REITs could suffer if AI and remote work lead to a permanent reduction in white-collar office demand

That said, I’d make an exception for quasi-government entities like DBS. In major market dips, you could potentially lock in a 7%+ yield, and if you hold long enough and reinvest your dividends, the equity appreciation + dividends might net you a 20%+ CAGR over time. Yum yum.

A Note on Real Estate

I haven’t included real estate in this portfolio because it’s highly country-specific.

For example, Singapore’s housing system subsidises mortgages for first-time local buyers - making it a savvy buy in most cases. But in general, I’ve typically preferred a “rent-vesting” approach, where you:

• Rent the place you live in (typically pay a 2–3% rental yield)

• Invest in rental properties with higher yields (4–5% depending on leverage)

• Refinance those investment properties once they appreciate, and extract equity to redeploy into higher-returning assets

That said, I don’t fault anyone for buying their own home. It’s often more of a lifestyle decision than a financial one. During disruptive times like Covid-19, having a stable place to return to and being with people you love, can be invaluable. And the freedom to live on your own terms without being at the mercy of landlords and worrying about rent hikes or sudden lease changes - you simply can’t put a price on that.

“Work your ass off to get very good at something that you care deeply about, or are obsessed with, that allows you to serve not only yourself but other people.”

I’m not sure who said it (Tim Ferriss?), but when I heard it I immediately thought: wow, this is a brilliant life manifesto!

The problem with “find your passion”

“Find your passion.” “Find your calling.” It’s way too much pressure. Like there’s one perfect magical job out there waiting for you, and if you don’t find it by 30, you’ve failed at life.

But the truth is, most people stumble into it. Obsession doesn’t usually arrive with fireworks. It creeps in. It finds you.

You try stuff. You get curious. You get better. You just show up everyday. Then one day you realise: Hey, I actually care about this. And people seem to care that I care. That’s the spark.

Start with ikigai

I’d also show my kids ikigai - the Japanese concept of purpose at the intersection of:

• What you love

• What you’re good at

• What the world needs

• What you can get paid for

You don’t need all four right away. Start with one and build from there. The more dots you connect, the better - and it’s way less pressure.

Don’t know what you’re good at? Ben Kuhn (CTO at Anthropic) once said: “What does it seem like everyone else is mysteriously bad at?”, which I translate that to:

What does everyone else suck at, but you don’t?

J.K. Rowling wrote wizard stories on napkins during train rides while she was broke. She just couldn’t not write it.

Oprah got demoted for being “too emotional” on TV as a journalist. That flaw became her superpower when she shifted to daytime talk shows.

Howard Schultz was a marketing guy who visited Italy, fell in love with espresso culture, and convinced Starbucks to pivot from selling beans to serving coffee. Passion came after exposure.

So yeah, find your thing. Doesn’t have to be flashy. Could be baking bread, building software, teaching, lifting heavy things for fun, or making people laugh.

Whatever it is - go deep. Get excellent. Share it. Serve people.

That’s how you discover your place in the world without losing your soul in the process.

And dear child, if none of this makes sense to you yet, that’s fine. You’re still early in the game.

One day, when you’re older and drinking your third coffee while questioning everything, maybe this will come back to you.

No matter how clean I eat or how often I train, if I don’t sleep well, I would literally feel like sh*t the next day.

But when I do sleep well? I’d wake up feeling unstoppable - like Bradley Cooper in Limitless. Honestly, it’s the closest thing I’ve found to a legal performance-enhancing drug.

I used to think health was just nutrition + exercise.
But sleep is the foundation. The key to longevity. Everything else builds on it.

Now, it’s the #1 thing I optimise - for myself and my family.
And the goal is simple:

Get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night.

What Helped Me Sleep Better

I’ve tested a lot of things to improve both the quantity and quality of my sleep. These are the ones that genuinely made a difference:

Sunrise

• Get morning sunlight within 30-60mins of waking

• Regular exercise

• Taking magnesium glycinate daily

• No alcohol

• No coffee at least 8 hours before bed (for me, this means no coffee after 2pm. Caffeine has a half-life of about 8-10 hours for most adults. This means it typically takes 8-10 hours for your body to completely clear caffeine from your system.)

Sunset

• The 3-2-1 Rule:

  • No food 3 hours before bed. This is to lower your resting heart rate before bed. As Bryan Johnson puts it: “The single strongest predictor of sleep quality is how low your resting heart rate is before bed.” As a family, we aim to have dinner at 6pm.

  • No drinks 2 hours before bed (so you’re not waking up to pee).

  • No screens 1 hour before bed (This one’s the hardest. If I’m working or reading something intense, my brain gets too fired up. But something light, like a comedy, is usually fine.)

• Avoid bright artificial lights after sunset (go full vampire mode after 8pm, dim lights or red bulbs work great)

• Hot bath, shower or sauna in the evening

• Cold room temperature (18-19°C is my sweet spot)

• A completely pitch-dark room

• Use a weighted blanket (I have a separate blanket to my wife so she doesn’t accuse me of stealing her side of the blanket 😂)

Underrated Sleep Hacks No One Talks About

These might sound unusual, but they’ve helped me personally:

• Applying lymphatic drainage oil on my face and neck - especially around lymph nodes. One of the deepest sleeps I’ve had came right after I started using this.

• Rubbing magnesium gel on the soles of my feet before bed.

• Sprinkling Epsom salts in a warm bath - simple and surprisingly effective.

• Having calm music ready to go - if the kids are fighting or have a melt down before their 8:30PM bedtime, I’d put on some calm music to help de-escalate the chaos (this is my go-to). Otherwise, their resting heart rate spikes, and so does mine :)

👉 A Quick Note

I don’t use any fancy biohacking gear - no Eight Sleep bed, no red light panels, no mouth tape, no HEPA filters. I haven’t even tried a sleep mask.

Just a regular king-sized bed, an Apple Watch to track my sleep, and a few low-tech, old-school habits that work surprisingly well.

I might experiment with the other stuff down the line. But for now, I’m keeping it simple.

My Top 4 Sleep Protocol (80/20 Formula)

If I had to strip it down to the minimum effective dose, these are my top 4 daily non-negotiables that almost always guarantee a good night’s sleep:

1. Get in bed by 10:30 PM
   I wake at 7:00 AM. Count back 8 hours for sleep + 30 mins to wind down = in bed by 10:30. 9 times out of 10, that’s enough to hit my 7.5-hour target. Figure out your own “get-in-bed” time.

2. No food 3-4 hours before bed
   The longer the gap, the better. It helps digestion settle and keeps my resting heart rate low.

3. Keep the room cold
   18-19°C works best for me. Servicing the A/C regularly helped more of a difference than I expected.

4. Take magnesium daily
   This is the one supplement I’ve consistently felt a difference from, especially in calming my nervous system.

Fix your sleep and you fix everything.

I’m always testing and tweaking my sleep protocol.
Curious, what’s worked for you?

do i have time to write? probably not…but let’s see