Dave Asprey is perhaps the most well-known biohacker (he's even referenced in Merriam-Webster's definition of biohacker) and the founder of Bulletproof. For those that don't know, a biohacker is someone who uses drugs and technology to make their body/mind function better.
Dave and I shot a video where he discusses life and provides an interesting take on algorithms.
It's not surprising that biohacking has become as popular as it has. In a society that encourages (maybe even necessitates) an impossible balance between work, responsibilities, and self-care - it makes sense to want to increase efficiency.
Biohacking helps you do more with less. Biohacking is popular because you're trying to get peak performance via the path of less resistance.
Having trouble with sleep, but don't want to stop using your phone before bed? Wear blue-light blocking glasses.
While biohacking started as tricks like that - nootropics to help your mind, light and sound machines to decrease stress - it's becoming increasingly tech-centric and augmentation based.
Several months ago, I shared Gartner's hype cycle for 2018. Do-It-Yourself Biohacking was one of 5 encompassing trends for the year.
The future is bringing implants to extend humans past their perceived limits and increase our understanding of our bodies; biochips with the potential to detect diseases, synthetic muscles, and neural implants. - Howard Getson
It's estimated that over 100,000 people already have various types of implants. In Sweden, thousands of Swedes are inserting chips under their skin to speed up their daily routines. They use chips to open locked doors, to store contact information, and to get on to the train. Currently, chips are limited to simple tasks like unlocking doors, holding personal data, and tracking simple to record data.
Longterm, it's likely you'll see it moving toward exoskeletons, AR/XR experiences, and unsurprisingly to sex toys. It's also being used to create artificial organs and counteract memory loss. The two companies that are leading this movement are Neuralink, Biohax International and Digiwell. While it's currently being adopted primarily by fast-movers and technocrats, it's pragmatic to think there will be more widely-adopted versions of this as technology gets standardized and protections are put in place.
For all the excitement, it's necessary to remain skeptical and patient. DIY biohacking raises various ethical issues, especially around data protection and cybersecurity. As a reminder, when it comes to cybersecurity, you "the user" are the biggest weakness.
There's no stopping this train, but there is time to make sure it stays on tracks!
I'm a big fan of picking a Big Hairy Audacious Goal (sometimes called a "BHAG") and taking actions that move you in that direction.
I'm also a big fan of Strategic Coach'sBigger Future exercise. It is a 20-year planning exercise where you plan out your commitments and goals to yourself, your family, your career, and your legacy.
While doing this, I realized that my ideal next 20 years involves taking Capitalogix to the next level (and beyond).
As a result, I recently held a two-hour town hall session with everybody in Capitalogix. You'll find a 5-minute compilation of highlights at the end of this article.
Before I share with you, I want to take time to bring you up to speed on Capitalogix's history. Some may know the story, but many of you are new. It's important context for the video and for Capitalogix's future.
A Brief History of Capitalogix
Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future. - Walt Disney
In the 90's, I left a corporate securities law practice to start a company that was an early pioneer in automation, intelligent agents, and rule-based processing.(it is almost embarrassing to compare that to AI today). Nonetheless, we ended up on the Inc. 500 list, won lots of awards and had a great time. Little did I know how important that would be to what we are doing now.
Life intervened ... and 1999 was a rough year for me. My dad died of cancer, I got divorced, and I sold my company. That year inspired my TED Talk on the Time Value of A Life Worth Living, and has inspired the past 20 years of my life.
I threw myself into trading. At first, I was a fundamental trader. But I quickly threw myself into Elliott Wave theory, technical analysis, quantitative analysis, and everything else I could get my hands on. I spent hours on end marking up charts and creating early algorithmic trading systems - predecessors to how we trade today.
I also hired my first two employees - Gabriel and Sean. My dining room became their office. I started to view trading as a business, rather than a hobby. The thought forms that would become our framework for understanding markets were starting to gel.
By 2015, we had 20+ employees working out of my house, and I realized we'd outgrown my home. Here is a picture from the dining room before the move.
After a brief time with employees in three different offices (including one of our partner's offices) we found our current office.
Moving in to our new office represented a positive shift in culture and focus - and another step toward our goals.
Where We Are Today
The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present. - Eckhart Tolle
We are committed to revolutionizing decision science (making better decisions faster). We're creating the future we've envisioned.
Yet, for all we've accomplished, we're driven every day to be better than we were yesterday. That drive comes from that big hairy audacious goal and that 20-year vision.
It comes from knowing who we want to be tomorrow.
Committing To The Future
It means that we're going to have to have new people and new ways of doing things because the recipe for getting here isn't the recipe for getting there. As much as I respect and love you for "here." I respect and love you enough to hold you accountable for "there." - Howard Getson
It hasn't always been easy - but building Capitalogix has been an intensely rewarding passion.
Over the next 20 years, there are a ton of people I want to impact and a lot of goals I want to accomplish. Capitalogix is the way I intend to do that.
I look forward to you all being a part of it as well.
This year, I spent some extra time thinking about my father - and his influence on me and countless others. It's been 20 years since my last Father's Day with him.
My Dad was incredibly loving and demanding. I recognize how much his vision of what I could become helped shape me.
For example, after winning the State Championship in the shot put, my dad came down from the stands onto the field. He hugged me and told me that he knew I could do it. Then, he looked deeply into my eyes and asked whether I was a little disappointed? "Disappointed?" I asked. "But, Dad, I won." He looked at me and said, "Yeah, winning is great ... but you didn't throw a personal best." He was proud and he loved me. He recognized that winning was important ... but he wanted to remind me that the other throwers weren't my real competition.
In life, to be and do your best, the competition is really with yourself; and we both knew I could do better.
My Dad believed in setting high standards. He taught me that most people's lives are defined by their minimum standards. Why? Because once those standards get met, it is easy to get distracted and complacent.
One of his favorite sayings was "The difference between good and great is infinitesimal." This applies to many things. For example, people who are good take advantage of opportunities; people who are great create them. The point is that setting higher standards is one of the best ways to ensure a better life.
As time goes on, I recognize how much of him is inside me.
Many of the lessons he taught me became the lessons I taught my children - and my company. It's easy to focus on the big stories and the big lessons – but as I look back and consider what had the biggest impact, it was what happened in between ... It was his incredibly consistent and unconditional love and his focus on what was possible.
The standards I hold people to are high, and it can be tough for them to meet those standards. Hopefully, they understand that it's because I love them (as my dad loved me) and that I see the greatness in them and available to them.
June 6th, 1944 ... the day we stormed the beaches of Normandy. It was the largest seaborne invasion in history. The invasion created a foothold that allowed Allied forces to expand through France.
The memorial in France this year was a particularly touching event with the many surviving World War 2 soldiers being well into their 90s.
"A generation whose unconquerable spirit shaped the post-war world. They didn't boast. They didn't fuss. They served" - Theresa May
A 97-year old veteran paratrooper, Tom Rice, commemorated the day by once again dropping into the field he landed in on that fateful night.
Seems like a friendlier welcome than a sea of German soldiers. As an extra fun fact, Teddy Roosevelt stormed the beaches of Normandy at 56 with a heart condition, arthritis, and a cane. He was the oldest man to take part in the invasion.
Our society is built on the backs of many strong men! I'm thankful for their sacrifices.
Theresa May has just announced her resignation as UK Prime Minister. She's faced massive criticism for an inability to come to a resolution on Brexit, and missing two deadlines. A new PM will be appointed in July.
Here are some of the posts that caught my eye recently. Hope you find something interesting.
It means exactly what it sounds like - but also a lot more.
We use A.I. to trade. So, measuring performance is important. But, so are all sorts of production, efficiency, and effectiveness measures.
While there are hundreds of important metrics we track day-to-day, energy affects everything.
Energy affects how you feel, what you do, and what you make it mean. That means it is a great way to measure your values too.
Consequently, even if you don't recognize it, energy has a lot to do with who you hire and fire. It affects where you spend our time. Ultimately, it even affects the long-term vision of our company.
If something brings profit and energy, it is probably worth pursuing.
In contrast, one of the quickest ways to burn out is by fighting your energy. Figuring out who and what to say "no" to is an important way to make sure you stay on path and reach your goals.
Normally, Genius Network is private, and these recordings are for internal use only; but I asked permission to share my impromptu session with you.
Check it out. In the first 5 minutes, I will introduce the scorecard. For the next 10 minutes, you'll get an extra look at the resulting group discussion.
I use this tool to diagnose where we are during meetings, while ranking opportunities, and even for HR and partnership decisions.
Think of each comparison as a spectrum. They're not necessarily "one-or-the-other", but they can help identify where you are on the scale of "what to avoid" versus "what you want".
Blaming <-----> Encouraging
Insistent <-----> Inspirational
Fearful <-----> Abundant
Steadfast <-----> Curious
Clogging <-----> Cleansing
Resentful <-----> Grateful
Zero-Sum <-----> Relational
Small-Minded <-----> Visionary
These words mean something to me, but they may need tooling to work in your company. Changing the names, the order of the comparisons, the number of comparisons, etc. can have a profound effect on the usefulness of this scorecard to you.
I encourage you to think about how you could use this scorecard, and how you can bring attention to those people and actions that best embody the traits that are vital to your business.
Biohacking Gone Wild
Dave Asprey is perhaps the most well-known biohacker (he's even referenced in Merriam-Webster's definition of biohacker) and the founder of Bulletproof. For those that don't know, a biohacker is someone who uses drugs and technology to make their body/mind function better.
Dave and I shot a video where he discusses life and provides an interesting take on algorithms.
It's not surprising that biohacking has become as popular as it has. In a society that encourages (maybe even necessitates) an impossible balance between work, responsibilities, and self-care - it makes sense to want to increase efficiency.
Biohacking helps you do more with less. Biohacking is popular because you're trying to get peak performance via the path of less resistance.
Having trouble with sleep, but don't want to stop using your phone before bed? Wear blue-light blocking glasses.
Not getting enough results at the gym? Work out "smarter" not harder, by using cryotechnology and intelligent lifting machines.
While biohacking started as tricks like that - nootropics to help your mind, light and sound machines to decrease stress - it's becoming increasingly tech-centric and augmentation based.
Several months ago, I shared Gartner's hype cycle for 2018. Do-It-Yourself Biohacking was one of 5 encompassing trends for the year.
It's estimated that over 100,000 people already have various types of implants. In Sweden, thousands of Swedes are inserting chips under their skin to speed up their daily routines. They use chips to open locked doors, to store contact information, and to get on to the train. Currently, chips are limited to simple tasks like unlocking doors, holding personal data, and tracking simple to record data.
Longterm, it's likely you'll see it moving toward exoskeletons, AR/XR experiences, and unsurprisingly to sex toys. It's also being used to create artificial organs and counteract memory loss. The two companies that are leading this movement are Neuralink, Biohax International and Digiwell. While it's currently being adopted primarily by fast-movers and technocrats, it's pragmatic to think there will be more widely-adopted versions of this as technology gets standardized and protections are put in place.
For all the excitement, it's necessary to remain skeptical and patient. DIY biohacking raises various ethical issues, especially around data protection and cybersecurity. As a reminder, when it comes to cybersecurity, you "the user" are the biggest weakness.
There's no stopping this train, but there is time to make sure it stays on tracks!
Onwards!
by the way, I highly recommend the Bulletproof product line!
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