No. 348 | September 4, 2026
Welcome to Friday Five, a short collection of ideas to take into your weekend.
This week’s themes: finding inner peace, rejecting the status quo, making what you can’t find, and owning your time.
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Music of the Week
“Pop music in particular is interesting to me because of its ability to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. You might think ‘Oh, it’s just a pop song,’ and write it off as just simple fluff, but the best pop music wears its simplicity purely as a way to disguise the depth inside.” — Jean-Philip Grobler
Jean-Philip Grobler, known for his music project St. Lucia, blends electronic and pop into music reminiscent of Phil Collins, Fleetwood Mac, Radiohead, Paul Simon, and Lionel Richie.
Start with a few of my favorite songs, “The Winds of Change,” “Giving It Up,” “Lights Off,” and “September,” to get a feel for his music:
Quotes of the Week
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.” — Leonardo da Vinci
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca
“No man is free who is not master of himself.” — Epictetus
Article of the Week
“Sometimes the most profitable decision on a spreadsheet is the worst decision for a business.” — Ed Stack
James Dyson was annoyed by how vacuums worked. He built his own, eventually creating a multibillion-dollar business. Dyson didn’t accept the status quo. He kept iterating until he built a better product.
Domino’s realized its pizza wasn’t very good. It revamped its recipe, helping drive its comeback. Domino’s used criticism as a guide.
Ed Stack realized how much he still needed to learn about business. So he read business books to teach himself.
At the time, Sports Authority was the 800-pound gorilla. Dick’s could have copied its expansion model. Instead, Dick’s grew slowly and profitably. Eventually, after Sports Authority filed for bankruptcy, Dick’s acquired its intellectual property and rights to 31 store leases through the bankruptcy process.
The lesson from Dyson, Domino’s, and Dick’s is clear: fortune favors those who refuse to accept the status quo and stay curious about what others are doing.
For more on Dyson, Domino’s, and Dick’s, read:
📝 Adapt to Change in Business: The Hidden Advantage Behind Dick’s Sporting Goods
Podcast of the Week
“If you can’t find what you want, make it.” — Roy Seiders
Roy and Ryan Seiders, avid outdoorsmen, wanted a cooler that wouldn’t break. It didn’t exist. So they built one. The result: YETI coolers.
The brothers joined How I Built This to talk about the YETI journey. The conversation covers:
- The power of problem-solving.
- How to convince customers to pay a premium.
- Starting small instead of chasing growth.
- How to deal with product copycats.
- Bootstrapping versus raising venture capital.
- How a new product can transform a business into a mass-market brand.
For more on the Seiders brothers and how YETI was built, listen:
🎙️YETI: Roy and Ryan Seiders: How Two Brothers Turned a $400 Cooler into a $2B Brand
Book of the Week
“In your 20s, you really do care what people think about you. You get to be 40, you don’t really care what people think about you. Then you get to be 60, you realize no one ever thought of you in the first place.” — Paul Orfalea
Copy This! is Paul Orfalea’s memoir of building Kinko’s.
It’s the story of a dyslexic kid who struggled in school and turned a 100-square-foot copy shop into a billion-dollar business.
Timeless lessons that I’ll use personally include:
- Work on the business, not in the business.
- Build a positive work environment where people can perform at a high level.
- Hire high-integrity people who have skills you lack.
- Use apparent limitations to see problems from fresh angles.
- Be laser-focused on your cash flow at all times.
- True success means achieving inner peace and freedom over your time.
For more on Orfalea and Kinko’s, read:
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