Nat Eliason's Blog

... then I did a bunch of mushrooms and realized the whole thing was super inauthentic so I quit.

I'm still only a few months along but people keep asking me this and there aren't many articles so here we are!

Is putting Oatly in your coffee every day, or drinking it straight, a good idea?

A Schrödinger Claim is a statement that could be true, or false, depending on "what's in the box."

What happens when the wrong thing works?

There has never been something so valuable that’s so utterly useless.

What an odd time of year to have a birthday.

Accidentally predicting the (most recent) Bitcoin peak.

If COVID wasn’t enough of a wakeup call that bad things can suddenly happen that we’re not prepared for, the Texas meltdown should absolutely be.

Newcomers to social media and influencer marketing naively assume that if they can build a big following, those followers will buy from them.

Try to be a legitimately interesting person with all the varied things you find fascinating, and don't worry if it takes longer than the growth you see from others.

Everything I hope to do and stay aligned on throughout this year, with monthly updates along the way.

Health, happiness, connection, community, the most important things in life do not happen behind a laptop.

By far the most extensive, and most useful, annual review I've ever done.

Once your art becomes a business, it stops being as artful.

Coming into 2020, I had a goal: turn Growth Machine into an actual business that could grow and thrive without me.

Keep going until you're left with the few core things you need to, and want to, be doing.

Why get rich slowly?

Instead of relying on Willpower, or even Habits, I use the Stupid Monkey model: how do you get a stupid monkey to not do something it really wants to do?

We can apply all of the same principles to changing the behavior of people around us, and we’re already doing much of it whether we know it or not.

In the fall of 2020 I went on my first elk hunt.

I don't "do" email anymore.

What makes the systems mindset so powerful, how we can use it to be more effective in our personal and professional lives, plus some common challenges with using it and how to overcome them.

If you're not familiar with Everything, it is the future of online publications.

Following the 75% rule can ensure you’re always getting closer to early retirement as your salary increases.

Industrial meat production is causing significant harm to the environment.

How to remember more of what you hear with audio highlights that automatically export into your note taking app of choice.

What do you want to be doing in 30 years?

I can’t guarantee following what worked for me will get you to the same place.

Having an opinion should require seriously thinking about something.

No one will pay $50,000 a year to watch Zoom lectures.

If you can come up with a clever tweak to make customers happier or more successful, you could have a huge business on your hands.

Today's my 27th birthday!

My guide on how you can use the "smart notes" or "zettlekasten" method to get more out of every book you read, and turn that knowledge into your own creative works.

You can have work that is high in wealth creation or work that is high in income generation, and typically they’re different kinds of work, but both are worth having.

Roam has a learning curve, but after a few weeks of playing with it I already love it much more than Evernote and Notion.

Having money is unlikely to make you happy.

The 40+ best articles I read last year, plus a few favorite books and the best things I wrote.

If you can set annual goals and hit them on the expected timeline, you’re not thinking big enough or you work in a factory.

Because happy hour is such an easy default, replacing it takes effort, but I’ve found some good ways to introduce more sober social activities into your schedule.

To show you just how powerful of a tool Notion can be, here’s my entire system for tracking my annual goals down to my daily focuses, how it interfaces with my other tools, and how you can use it to get more done yourself.

After 4 months of going back and forth with the city, we finally have all the permits we need to start work on the Cup & Leaf cafe!

Forget the hacks.

Since it's my 26th birthday, here are a few things I've thought about this year and hopefully started to learn.

In part two of the Cup & Leaf cafe series, I explain how we found and signed on a commercial space for creating the cafe.

If you're just starting out, projects are absolutely essential to learning marketing and becoming competent enough to get hired.

We've officially signed the lease and started work on the Cup & Leaf cafe in Austin Texas.

How can I make this more challenging... in a way that won't destroy me?

It's the slowest, least interesting, and most limited way to achieve its goal.

My system for taking big target goals and breaking them down into the simple steps you can take each day to reach them.