How To Be Dirtbag Rich
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Today at a Glance:
How To Be Dirtbag Rich
The Optimal Mobility Protocol for a Durable Body
How to Practise a Musical Instrument
“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”
How To Be Dirtbag Rich
Blake Boles
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Being “dirtbag rich” is not about having a lot of money; it is about carefully arranging your life so you have enough time, enough income, and enough purpose to do what you love while you are still alive to enjoy it. It means rejecting the default script of trading decades of freedom for a retirement that may or may not come, and instead building a life around movement, nature, adventure, community, and meaningful work, even if that life looks strange, unstable, or unimpressive from the outside. The original dirtbags were climbers who worked odd jobs just long enough to fund more time in the mountains. Today, the spirit applies to anyone willing to make unconventional trade-offs in pursuit of a more vivid life. You may not want to live in a van, skip showers, or abandon stability altogether, but you might still crave the same thing: more space to travel, move your body through nature, deepen friendships, do purposeful work, and stop postponing your real life for some distant future. There is no perfect formula, only examples to learn from, fears to face, and contradictions to navigate, but at some point, the dirtbag rich life begins the same way every pathless path does: by getting honest about what kind of freedom you crave, what sacrifices you are willing to make, and what big move you are finally ready to act on.
🎬Action!
Ask yourself: “If I suddenly had a ridiculous amount of money in the bank, how would I live differently?” Then be honest about the answer. If you would keep your life mostly the same—perhaps work a little less, travel a little more, or do everything in a little more comfort—you may already have a strong balance of time, money, and purpose. Keep refining it. But if your answer is “very differently”—you would quit your work, move somewhere else, spend months in nature, pursue a new vocation, or finally build your life around what you love—treat that as useful information, not fantasy. Write down the specific changes you would make, identify the smallest version you could test now, and take one concrete step toward it: reduce an expense, block off more free time, reach out to someone living that way, experiment with part-time work, plan a longer adventure, or begin exploring the work you secretly wish you were doing. The goal is not to blow up your life overnight, but to stop postponing the life you would choose if you felt free.
The Optimal Mobility Protocol for a Durable Body
Dr. Kelly Starrett & Dr. Rhonda Patrick
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Most people do not need a more complicated fitness routine. They need a body that feels reliable. In a conversation about building long-term durability, mobility expert Dr. Kelly Starrett argues that the real goal of training is not to become better at exercise itself, but to create a body that can handle the demands of everyday life with confidence, resilience, and adaptability. That means learning to interpret pain differently, improving movement quality before dysfunction accumulates, and focusing on the basic inputs that help the body recover and perform well over decades. Rather than chasing perfect metrics or trendy optimization systems, the focus should be on something much more practical: building a body that continues to move well, tolerate stress, and support the life you actually want to live.
🎬Action!
Treat pain as information, not always as injury. When you feel pain, do not assume something is automatically broken. Think of it as a check-engine light: a signal that something needs attention or adjustment. Before shutting everything down, look at the larger context. Have you slept poorly? Trained too hard? Skipped your warm-up? Been under more stress? Eaten poorly? Lost range of motion? Pain is shaped by many inputs, and the brain ultimately decides how threatening those signals feel. If there was a clear injury, major loss of function, medical red flags, or you cannot perform your normal work or daily role, treat that differently and seek appropriate help. But for many nagging shoulder, elbow, knee, hip, or back issues, the first step is often to improve the inputs your body is receiving.
Use desensitization tools to calm irritated areas. If an area feels overly sensitive, stiff, or painful, use simple techniques that help the tissue feel safer and more tolerant of movement. Scraping, massage, cupping, percussion, and isometrics can all be used to reduce sensitivity and change how an area feels. For example, you might use a massage gun before training to reduce stiffness, hold an isometric squat or lunge to build tolerance in a position, or use hands-on pressure to calm down a tight or irritated area. The goal is not to “fix” the tissue instantly, but to reduce threat, improve movement options, and make the body feel less guarded.
Use decongestion tools to improve circulation and tissue quality. When tissues feel swollen, heavy, stiff, or stagnant, focus on strategies that help move fluid and increase blood flow. Walking is often the simplest place to start, especially after training or long periods of sitting. Sauna, compression, NMES (neuromuscular electrical stimulation), lymphatic work, and voodoo flossing can also help tissues feel less congested and more ready to move. Think of these as recovery inputs that help your body clear irritation, restore circulation, and reduce the feeling of stiffness.
Regularly test and train your ability to move from the floor. Hip mobility is one of the clearest signs of whether your body still has useful movement options. As a basic standard, you should be able to squat with your hip crease below your knee, stand on one leg and pull the other knee above 90 degrees, and get down to the floor and back up without obvious compensation. A simple way to assess this is the sit-and-rise test: stand up, cross one foot in front of the other, sit down into a cross-legged position without using your hands, knees, or another surface for support, then rise back up the same way. The test is not magic, but it reveals hip range of motion, balance, coordination, and movement problem-solving. Use it as both an assessment and a practice.
Eat 800 grams of fruits and vegetables per day. Instead of starting with what to remove from your diet, start with what is missing. A useful target is 800 grams of fruits and vegetables per day. This gives you a simple, measurable way to increase fiber, micronutrients, satiety, and overall nutrient density while supporting recovery, sleep, connective tissue, muscle, and brain function. You do not need to make it complicated: a large apple is about 200 grams, a medium banana is about 120 grams, 1 cup of blueberries is about 150 grams, 1 large bell pepper is about 200 grams, 1 cup of broccoli is about 100 grams, and 1 cup of spinach is about 50 grams. Combine several of these across meals and pair them with adequate protein to build a more durable body from the inside out.
How to Practise a Musical Instrument
Craig Ogden
🔦Lights, Camera, ...
Most people think practice means repeating something until it sounds right, but real improvement comes from something more deliberate: identifying what breaks down, isolating it, and training it with full attention. A concert guitarist describes how years of performance pressure taught him that endlessly playing pieces from the beginning—especially after mistakes—often reinforces weaknesses instead of fixing them. True progress comes from slowing down, working on difficult passages in isolation, and giving your brain and body the experience of being fully in control before gradually reintegrating everything into the whole performance. He calls this the AIR method: Awareness, Isolation, Repetition. Whether in music or any skill, improvement is less about grinding through hours and more about consciously targeting friction points with patience and precision. And perhaps most importantly, better practice replaces self-criticism with curiosity, turning mistakes from proof of inadequacy into useful information that guides the next round of growth.
🎬Action!
The AIR Method
Awareness. Identify exactly what is breaking the flow of your playing. Pay attention to mistakes, hesitation, tension, uneven tone, loss of rhythm, or moments that feel uncomfortable or uncontrolled. Instead of pushing past them, stop and pinpoint the specific notes or movements causing the issue. Record yourself, slow the passage down, or mark the trouble spots in your sheet music. Over time, the goal is to become more sensitive to small stumbles and tension before they become ingrained habits. A teacher can accelerate this process, but strong practice ultimately comes from learning to notice problems for yourself.
Isolation. Reduce the problem to the smallest useful fragment. Instead of replaying the entire piece, isolate the exact movement, transition, chord, or note that exposes the weakness. Sometimes the issue is only a single finger movement or awkward hand position. By narrowing the task down as much as possible, you allow your brain and body to fully understand the movement and build accurate habits. The smaller and more precise the fragment, the easier it becomes to fix the issue and smoothly reintegrate it back into the full piece.
Repetition. Repeat the isolated fragment slowly, accurately, and with relaxation. Slow practice builds control, coordination, and confidence far more effectively than rushing to performance speed too early. Use the same rhythm and finger choreography you will use in the actual piece so the passage fits naturally back into context later. Focus on minimizing unnecessary tension, excess movement, and shallow breathing. Every accurate repetition strengthens the correct pattern; every sloppy repetition reinforces mistakes. The goal is not mindless repetition, but controlled repetition that gradually makes difficult passages feel effortless.
Bonus: Take Breaks. Space your practice instead of cramming it into one long session. Short breaks between repetitions and longer gaps between practice sessions help the brain consolidate new skills and improve retention. Work on a difficult passage for a few focused minutes, step away, then revisit it later with fresh attention. As you practice, consciously release tension in your shoulders, face, neck, and breathing, especially around difficult sections. Over time, pairing challenging passages with relaxation instead of stress helps build calm, controlled performances under pressure.
TOOL TIP
From the Tray Table: Check live TSA security wait times by checkpoint at the busiest U.S. airports.
FUN FACT
It takes five to 10 years for a body in a coffin to completely decompose down to a skeleton.
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Disclaimer: The information provided in this newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult a medical professional for advice, diagnosis, or treatment. We are not liable for any risks or issues that may arise from using this information.
