What a Week?! đ€Ż
Where's the world's superpower headed?
Look, Iâm just going to say it: watching this week unfold has been like watching someone try to play three-dimensional chess while sleepwalking.
Between a Commander in Chief who seems to be phoning it in from the back nine, Israel continuing strikes in Gaza and Lebanon despite a âceasefire,â Russia launching its biggest aerial assault of the war (653 drones, 51 missilesâin one night), even Cambodia striking Thai Soldiers in the open and a National Security Strategy that reads like it was written by someone who skipped the first day of War College⊠well, letâs just say Sun Tzu is spinning in his grave. đŻ
And then thereâs Secretary of âWarâ Hegseth at the Reagan Forum, declaring America will no longer be âdistracted by democracy building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, woke moralizing and feckless nation-building.â Bold words from a guy whose strategic blindspots you could drive a convoy of school buses through. The new NSS doesnât even name our adversaries. Itâs 33 pages of âAmerica Firstâ without ever explaining who weâre actually competing against. Thatâs not strategy. Thatâs wishful thinking with a binding.
Know your enemy. Or at least acknowledge you have one.
đ What I consumed last Week
The Quantum Leap Youâre Sleeping On đŹ
Peter H. Diamandis and team sat down with Jack Hidary, CEO of @SandboxAQ, and holy hellâif u thought AI was reshaping everything, quantum is about to redefine our limits entirely. Hidaryâs talking about creating digital twins of drugs, generating billions of molecular permutations, and solving problems that current AI literally cannot touch because the data doesnât exist yet. This isnât sci-fi. This is happening. Hidary predicts fully operational quantum computers by 2031-32. If youâre not paying attention to the AQ (AI + Quantum) convergence, youâre going to wake up in 5 years wondering what happened.
Our Broken Relationship With Time â°
Rich Roll s conversation with Oliver Burkeman hit different. Burkemanâs philosophy of âimperfectionismâ is the medicine most of us need but refuse to take. His core insight: productivity is not a moral imperative. Weâve convinced ourselves that if we just find the right system, the right app, the right morning routine, weâll finally feel on top of things. Spoiler: you wonât. And thatâs okay.
The day is never coming when all the other stuff will be âout of the way.â For finite humans, the time for building a meaningful life has to be now.
As a recovering perfectionist myself, that lands. Hard.
Why Every Generation Rediscovers Stoicism đïž
Ryan Holiday and Mark Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fck*) went deep on why Stoicism keeps finding new generations. Manson puts it simply: âWe donât control the world around us, but we know we have some control over ourselves.â
The question isnât whether Stoicism is relevantâitâs why it becomes essential during turbulent times. When the external world feels chaotic (see: everything above), the internal work becomes the only work that matters. From Zenoâs shipwreck to Marcus Aureliusâs plague, humans return to these ideas when the ground shifts beneath them.
Sound familiar? Wonder if Raising Cain or Pete Hegseth are stoics?
Spatial Intelligence Just Got Real đșïž
Speaking of tools that actually matterâIâve been playing with @Marble AI, a new spatial intelligence app thatâs quietly changing how I think about place-based decision making. Whether youâre planning a move, scoping out a business location, or just trying to understand the geography of opportunity, this thing synthesizes data in ways that would have taken a planning staff weeks to compile. Itâs like having a strategic analyst for anywhere on the planet in your pocket. File this under: tech that makes you smarter instead of just busier.
The NSS: A Lesson in How Not to Write Strategy đ
Iâve been blessed with mentors who could make complexity clear. Generals Bob Cone, Mark Hertling , Mark Milley , Ben Hodges , H.R. McMaster@, @Mike Murray @Paul Funk IIIâthese men taught me that if you canât explain your strategy crisply & logically, you donât actually have one.
This weekâs National Security Strategy is a masterclass in how NOT to do that.
Itâs unfocused. Itâs ideological. It picks fights with allies while soft-pedaling actual threats. It spends more ink criticizing Europeâs âcivilizational erasureâ than addressing Russiaâs ongoing assault on a sovereign nation (duh!). It treats China with kid gloves while dismissing the alliances that would actually help us compete.
Strategy requires honesty about threats. You canât win a fight you refuse to acknowledge youâre in.
Onto Another Week đȘ
As a recovering perfectionist, I find being an author immensely trying. Every chapter is a mirror. Every edit is a confrontation with what I thot I knew versus what I actually understand.
So here we goâanother week of getting wire-brushed by my revision editor. Another week of accepting that âgood enough, shippedâ beats âperfect, never finished.â Eric Koester
The table doesnât set itself. Neither does the work.
Set Your Table is coming April/May 2026. If youâre not on the pre-launch list yet, what are you waiting for?
Until next weekâstay strategic, stay grounded, stay in the fight. đ„