A (0:00)

In this Lessons episode, we're going to explore why mentally, quote, unquote, dying each night might be your most powerful decision making tool. We're going to look at how top performers, they're not superhuman. They've just mastered starting fresh daily without yesterday's baggage. You're going to discover why your brain clings to past decisions and how to reclaim your focus for what matters now. The ability to detach from old choices isn't just a productivity hack. It's the path to building a life that actually reflects who you are today, not who you were yesterday. Today. I want to talk about an idea. I think it is one of the most powerful ideas and mental models for transformative decision making, for helping you make some of the toughest things, decisions in your life. I like to call it die every night. What does this mean? I've been dying every night. Not physically, obviously. I'm sitting here recording this podcast on a bright, beautiful Thursday morning, but mentally, every single night. I've been killing my old self to create space for a new version of me to emerge each morning. And this isn't some weird spiritual practice or manifestation technique. It is a brutal mental model for making better decisions. It's a mental model that has fundamentally changed how I approach my work, my. My relationships, and my creative projects. The concept is very simple. When you go to sleep each night, your previous life is over. The person who wakes up the next morning is starting fresh. This perspective, it's a shift. It sounds trivial, but it has these really profound implications. So let me show you how this works and why it might be exactly what you need right now. The main reason is that we get trapped in our own stories. Most people live as if they are legally bound to, to honor every commitment they've ever made in the past. You said you finished that project, so you keep grinding even though it's going nowhere. You start that relationship and you stay in it despite knowing that it's not serving either of you. You invested time learning a skill, so you keep pursuing it even though you've lost all interest. We become hostages to our past decisions and we drag them forward day after day, justifying them with phrases like, well, I've already put so much into this, or I can't quit now, or what would people think if I just stopped now? There's a psychological reason for this. The sunk cost fallacy keeps us investing in things that aren't working simply because we've already invested in them and our ego doesn't want to admit that we were wrong. So we Double down instead of moving on. But there's an even deeper issue at play. Your identity starts to become fused with your commitments. So you're not just someone working on a project. You become the person who's building that app. And you're not just exploring a career path. You're becoming an aspiring designer. And you're not just trying a business model. You become a coach or a consultant or a creator, or in my case, a podcaster. And once your identity fuses with what you do, abandoning those things feels like abandoning yourself. And that's the trap. Now, what does dying daily actually mean? So I have to be honest, I didn't come up with this idea. Justin Welsh, he's one of my favorite successful solo entrepreneurs creators. He's the one who first spoke about this practice. It captures this mental model perfectly. So he just posted on LinkedIn a quote, I tried something weird last month. Each morning I think my previous life is over. The new one starts now. Now, this simple shift is like pressing the reset button on your decision making process every 24 hours. It doesn't mean you abandon all responsibility or consistency. It means that you stop making decisions based on what past you decided and start making decisions based on what present you actually wants and needs. So when you die each night. I put die in quotes. When you die each night, you wake up with no sunk costs to honor, no expectations to fulfill, no identity to protect, and no momentum to preserve. All you have is today and the freedom to decide what's actually worth your time, energy, and attention right now. Now, how did this mental model change my work? I've been experimenting with this concept for the past few weeks, and the results truly had been transformative. The first thing that changed was my relationship to unfinished project. I had three major projects in progress, all of which I was pushing forward out of a sense of obligation to my past commitments. When I applied the die every night framework, I started to ask myself a very simple question. If I were starting fresh today, would I choose to work on this? And for two of the three projects, the answer was an immediate and obvious no. They were ideas that excited past me, but didn't align with what present me wanted to create. So I dropped them completely. No guilt, no second guessing. The third project I kept, not because I had already invested in it, but because it genuinely excited the person I was that day. And my daily writing. I write every single day. My daily writing changed too. So instead of continuing threads and ideas from previous days, which sometimes influences what I write about or what I podcast about, I started asking, what does today's version of me actually want to write about and actually want to tweet about and actually want to podcast about? And sometimes that aligned with my previous work, sometimes it didn't. And the result has been more authentic, more energized writing, more energized conversations that actually resonate with people rather than content that I produced to maintain consistency with my past self. Now, what were some other unexpected benefits of quote unquote dying? I think the most surprising effects of this mental model showed up in ways that I really didn't anticipate. First, renewed energy. So when you're not dragging the weight of past commitments, you have significantly more energy for what genuinely matters today. Projects that I chose to continue received actual focused attention. Conversations became more present, more engaged. Creative work flowed more naturally because I wasn't competing with the mental drain of obligations that I was forcing myself to fulfill. 2 It created better boundaries. So sorry I can't make it. The person who agreed to that meeting died last night. The today's version of me has different priorities. I know it sounds so corn, and I haven't actually said those words to anyone, even though I've been a little bit tempted. But the underlying mindset has completely transformed my relationship to other people's expectations. So when someone tries to hold me to a commitment that no longer serves either of us, I can evaluate it fresh, without feeling bound by what past me promised. Third, unexpected benefit, accelerated growth. Growth happens through iteration, not continuation. And they are two very different things. When you're willing to die to your previous self each day, you create space for rapid evolution. You can try something, evaluate it honestly, and change course without the friction of identity protection. In just weeks of practicing this approach, I've made shifts in my work that would have taken old me months or years under my old decision making framework where I tied who I was that day to who I was the day before and I made decisions through a candidly a less useful lens. So the counter argument to this idea because we have to discuss both sides to this consistency. So the obvious objection to this mental model is that it seems to undermine consistency, discipline and long term commitment. All of these values are important and I've spoken about these many times before. But there's a very crucial distinction. So true consistency isn't about doing the same things, it's about serving the same core values with whatever action makes sense. Today, some commitments should absolutely persist day after day. The difference is in why they persist. So under the die every night model, you don't Keep a commitment because you made it yesterday. You keep it because you would choose to make it again today. And this applies to everything. Relationships continue because you actively choose that person each day, not because you're bound by past promises. Business models persist because they still make sense, not because you've been doing them for years. Creative projects move forward because they still excite you, not because you've already put in the work. True consistency comes from repeatedly choosing what aligns with your core values, not from blindly following through on past decisions. So if you want to try this mental approach, here's how you start. First. Evening Reflection each night before bed, consciously release yourself from all commitments, identities and expectations. Imagine that version of you, with all its decisions, promises and attachments is complete. It's not about abandoning responsibility. It's about creating psychological space for genuine choice. 2. The Morning Reset when you wake up, before checking your phone or diving into your to do list, ask yourself, if I were starting completely fresh today, what would I choose to do? What would I choose to be? What would genuinely matter to me? Don't rush the process. Sit with it. The answers might surprise you. Step 3 Fresh evaluation for each major commitment on your plate, ask yourself, would I make this commitment today if I hadn't already made it yesterday? And if the answer is yes, continue with renewed energy and clarity. And if the answer is no, consider how to responsibly transition away from it. And Step four Identity Detachment Notice when you're making decisions to protect an identity rather than to create value or joy. For example, I have to finish this because I'm a person who finishes things, or I can't quit because I'm not a quitter, or I need to stay consistent because that's who I am. These identity protecting thoughts are usually signs that you're serving your past self rather than your present truth. Now, the uncomfortable reality is that when you apply this framework rigorously, many of your current commitments won't survive the evaluation. You're going to start to realize that you're doing things because you think you should. Others expect you to. You've already invested in them. They once made sense. They're part of an identity you've outgrown. And while it would be easier to continue on autopilot, this path leads to a life of diminishing returns, more effort for less meaningful output. The alternative, what I'm putting forward today is to bravely, quote, unquote, die to what no longer serves you and direct your finite energy towards what genuinely matters today. A personal example. I mean, I'm doing this and I'm living this now. But three months ago, I had a content strategy that was working well. It was. I was creating a mix of business advice, life optimization strategies, personal development insights across every single platform. It was working. It was generating followers, email, subs, podcast listens. By conventional metrics, it was successful. But when I applied the die every night framework, I I realized something crucial. I wouldn't choose that same strategy if I were starting fresh today. The topic still interested me, but the format, the frequency and the focus, it didn't align with what present me wanted to create. So I pivoted completely. I reduced my posting frequency, changed the content mix, focused on deeper explorations of fewer topics. Now, conventional wisdom will consider this a mistake. You know, the don't change what's working or stay consistent. But the results speak for themselves. So looking at my numbers now, engagement increases by 37%. Email open rates jump from 32 to around 41%. Podcast listens have gone up significantly as well. Why? Because when you create from an authentic present moment, alignment rather than past momentum, people feel it, the energy is different, the impact is deeper, and more importantly, the work itself becomes energizing rather than depleting. And outside of work, this framework, this mental model, is useful for almost every every area of your life. It extends far beyond business and professional commitments. You can apply it, for example, to your relationships. You can ask yourself, if I met this person today, would I choose to build a relationship with them? You can apply it to your lifestyle by asking, if I were designing my life from scratch today, would I live where I live, structure my days as I do, prioritize what I prioritize. You can apply it to your beliefs by asking, if I encountered this idea today, for the first time today, would I incorporate it into my worldview? The questions are confronting, they're confronting you, your identity. And the answers are gonna be uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, they create space for intentional choice rather than continued momentum. So if this approach resonates, but it still feels a little bit too radical to fully implement in your life, start with a single day. Don't start with your life. Start with a single day. Pick tomorrow. When you wake up, imagine you are starting completely fresh. Your slate is clean, your obligations are gone, your identities are fluid, and for just one day, make every decision from this place of freedom. Choose what to work on, who to engage with, how to spend your time as if you had no prior commitments. And at the end of the day, reflect what felt different about how you approached your work? What did you naturally prioritize when free from past obligations? What did you easily let go of when not bound by continuity? And where did you feel resistance to this way of thinking? The one day experiment will give you some valuable data about where you're genuinely aligned with your current commitments and where you're operating on autopilot. The die every night framework is not about avoiding commitment. It's about making commitments consciously and repeatedly rather than once, and then blindly following through regardless of changing life circumstances. True freedom isn't having no commitments. It's choosing your commitments every single day, choosing them anew, choosing them fresh, recommitting to them when you wake up tomorrow. Remember, the person who made yesterday's commitments is gone. They did their best with what they knew. Today you get to choose again, with new information, new energy, and new priorities. Choose wisely.