Friends,

Good morning. Welcome to the very first edition of what is likely to be your new favorite weekly newsletter a winding and obscure publication that represents my weekly best effort at curating elite health hacks, tidbits, anecdotes, stories, rants, and products into a short newsletter with the singular purpose of bringing you more joy.

Today's edition includes:

• A health hack that’s improved my well being

• The most elite skill of the future that no one is talking about

• A Google roast that hit home

• Why I'm writing this newsletter

• Quote of the week

Health Hack - The Levels App & Metabolic Health

One product EVERYONE should use at least once is called "Levels." It's an app that pairs with a continuous glucose monitor ("CGM") that you stick on your arm for a couple of weeks to get real-time visibility into your blood glucose levels.

The app helps you notice patterns, trigger foods, and trends to help design a diet and lifestyle tuned specifically for your metabolism. You only need to wear this for a month to get the necessary insights to change your life.

Why does this matter? Managing glucose has a direct impact on overall health. Elevated glucose and frequent glucose spikes are associated with diabetes, cognitive decline, low energy, and many other things you don't want. The fewer spikes throughout the day, the better for your body and brain.

But what spikes your glucose? Everyone's metabolism is different, and Levels will give you a second-by-second view into how certain foods and other lifestyle choices impact your glucose. After a month of use, I had a pretty good handle on my diet and made a few changes that had a significant impact.

What did I learn?

Wine (one glass) before a meal dramatically reduced glucose spikes....! I talked to the founder (brag) about this, who said it's common. He believes it's one of the main reasons the Mediterranean diet is so healthy. I'm not telling anybody to drink more (and it doesn't work with other spirits), but this was surprising news.

Getting a workout early helped moderate glucose for the rest of the day. The key was to get some intense training before eating (e.g., weights, running, a hard peloton ride).

The order of what you eat matters. If you eat fiber (e.g. green leafy veggies) before carbs, the fiber is a dampener to glucose. If I'm going to go HAM on a plate of pasta, I try to get a big salad down first.

Most fruit put me above the target range. Bananas, apples, and grapes = bad. Grapes = VERY bad. Blueberries, strawberries raspberries = berry good.

When you eat carbs matters. Per the above point on fruit - after workouts is a perfect time to eat fruit or other high-glycemic carbs. Workouts typically spike glucose (your body is releasing its stores to fuel your muscles), which is considered healthy and eating carbs immediately after had a negligible impact on my blood sugar.

A moderate (7+ minute) walk after a big meal is a game changer. This activity consistently helped keep my blood sugar in a healthy range.

The Most Elite Skill Of The Future: Prompt Engineering

AI has hit its cultural zenith, and everyone and their mom is opining about how it will impact humanity. My take - it's the next wave of tech innovation (there will be bumps along the way), and we have two options: grab a surf bort (shout out Beyonce) and ride the wave or get crushed. We are obviously surfing.

To that end - there is a concept that still isn't being widely discussed outside of nerdy tech circles that is essential for the successful navigation of this wave: Prompt Engineering. Allow me to unpack.

What is it? How you ask AI to do a task (the "prompt") determines how good AI will be at completing said task. I think of prompt engineering like casting spells or incantations - If you know the right words to say, you can create magic. Too bad nerds named it first.

Why should you care? Do you want to be Neville Longbottom or HARRY GOD DAMN POTTER?! People who are elite prompt engineers will be able to wield the power of AI in a way that most won't. So if you haven't already, it's time to start playing around with the current tools (DALLE, Chat GPT, MIDJOURNEY).

Prompt Engineering Basics

Be overly descriptive: More words = more context. E.g.: Colorful, punchy, sarcastic, beautiful, realistic, expressive, etc.

Include the name of a creator you want to mimic: E.g.: "Rewrite in the tone of a senior Mckinsey consultant" or an "illustration using Picasso's style."

Define a style: E.g.: "Write using Legal language" or "a picture using surrealism."

Define Graphics (Art Only): E.g.": Octane render, Unreal Engine, Ray tracing

Include Quality (Art only): E.g.: 4K, 8k, Polaroid

A Quick Demo

Let's say I wanted to create an image to use on social to represent the vibe of this newsletter - typically, digital asset creation costs thousands. I'm going to use the AI tool Midjourney to create a free image. See below:

Prompt: "Gentlemen in a bar."

This certainly isn't the tone I'm trying to strike with this newsletter. No one looks happy; its isolating and lonely in that room.

Let’s try again.

Prompt: "Gentlemen in a modern bar in Miami."

Better, but not what I need. Let's try one more with as many descriptor words as possible to help the tool understand precisely what I'm looking for

Prompt: "A well-lit photo shot in 4k of a group of young gentlemen of various races sitting in a beautifully designed outdoor bar in Miami engaged in uproarious laughter. The men are each wearing perfectly tailored suits and appear incredibly healthy and vibrant. Palm trees are visible as the sun sets behind them over the ocean."

As you can see - more descriptive words bring this image to life. It's not perfect (The demonic jaw-line on our friend on the right here is scary), but it's an incredible tool for marketers or creators who need fresh content to fuel their businesses. It will only get better.

Google Roast: How Giants Fall

If you make time for ONE long-form article this week, I'd recommend THIS. It's written by a former Google employee about the current stagnation and (broken) culture he experienced at the tech giant, but it's relevant for anyone.

I found the below paragraph the most intriguing:

"Google has 175,000+ capable and well-compensated employees who get very little done quarter over quarter, year over year. Like mice, they are trapped in a maze of approvals, launch processes, legal reviews, performance reviews, exec reviews, documents, meetings, bug reports, triage, OKRs, H1 plans followed by H2 plans, all-hands summits, and inevitable reorgs. The mice are regularly fed their “cheese” (promotions, bonuses, fancy food, fancier perks) and despite many wanting to experience personal satisfaction and impact from their work, the system trains them to quell these inappropriate desires and learn what it actually means to be “Googley” — just don’t rock the boat. As Deepak Malhotra put it in his excellent business fable, at some point the problem is no longer than the mouse is in a maze. The problem is that “the maze is in the mouse.”"

The fear of stagnation is something I feel acutely on a weekly basis. How can we escape our mazes and malaises? This newsletter is an effort to escape mine… More on that below.

My Why

This newsletter is already too long - but for the inaugural edish' please grant me just a few paragraphs of self-indulgence as I explain the "why" behind The Gentlemen Elite.

I'm doing this for two reasons:

Reason #1: I owe God / the Universe. When I clicked "Submit" on my application to b-school, I said the following prayer: "If I get in, I promise to use the experience to benefit others. Also, if you could help my hairline stop receding, that would be awesome." As luck would have it - I got in. Those of you who know my QUANT score on the GMAT know my admittance was either an act of God or a clerical error; I choose to believe it was the Big Guy.

Stanford was game-changing. I gained lifelong friends, grew tremendously as a person, and re-discovered my love of writing after studying under the legendary former editor of the NYT, Glenn Kramon, one of my favorite people on the planet.

Welp, it's been 1,360 days since graduation, I haven't done a thing for anyone and my hair is worse than ever. I sometimes don't even stop for pedestrians in the crosswalk. It's time to make a change.

My intention with this newsletter isn't to get rich or to change the world - it's to write something joy-inducing for a small group of men who mean the world to me and finally settle up with The Universe.

Reason #2: Improving the lives of Men. There are a million voices out there telling men what NOT to do. I want this publication to be a positive, uplifting influence. My dream is for this community to become a source of inspiration, support, and upward momentum for us all. I have some wild ideas about how we achieve this and will rely on many of your talents to do it (more on that soon).

Ok, I'm off my soap box... Thank you for being here.

Quote of the Week

Upwards with gusto.

-Ian