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Going Viral

No. 690 – July 19, 2026

Welcome to Brain Food, a weekly newsletter full of timeless ideas and insights you can use in life and work. (Read the archives). Not subscribed? Learn more and sign up.

Tiny Thoughts

If you’re willing to recognize your mistakes, you massively tilt the odds in your favor.


In the age of AI, the questions you ask are more important than the answers you know.


Ask anyone how they got really good at what they do, and there is one answer they won’t tell you: … School.

They learned it on their own. Not because there was a test to pass, but because they were curious.

Insights

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld on being great:

“No one’s really that great. You know who’s great? The people that just put tremendous amount of hours into it. It’s a game of tonnage.”


Warren Buffett on finding opportunities:

“What gives you opportunities is other people doing dumb things. And I’d say that in the fifty-eight years that we’ve been running Berkshire, there’s been a great increase in the number of people doing dumb things.”


Albert E. N. Gray, The Common Denominator of Success:

“Why are successful [people] able to do things they don’t like to do while failures are not? Because successful [people] have a purpose strong enough to make them form the habit of doing things they don’t like to do in order to accomplish the purpose they want to accomplish.”

The Knowledge Project

For the next hour, the world’s top mindset coach is your coach too.

Dr. Gio Valiante is the world’s leading performance psychologist.

We discuss why most people never reach their potential, how confidence and fear shape performance, and what separates those who consistently excel from those who stay stuck.

He shares practical strategies for building better habits, overcoming self-imposed limits, staying focused under pressure, and creating the conditions for long-term success.

If you’ve ever felt capable of more, this episode will help you understand what’s holding you back and what to do about it.

+ Listen to the full conversation: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Web/Transcript | X

+ Members have access to transcripts and the extended version of this episode.

Thanks for reading,

— Shane Parrish

P.S. I wondered how this was made.

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