Eleven days until spring, 70 degrees, and Matt took a longer walk along the Hudson with the sun in his eyes—naturally waking up the brain without as much coffee. He missed Friday’s episode because Friday was a mindset battle day, the kind where you’re crossing the Rubicon to a place you’ve never gone before. Uncomfortable, scary, but necessary. He emerged this weekend with newfound confidence and faith, grateful to the people who endured his intermittent misery during the struggle.

After sharing trivia about Napoleon showing up two hours late to his own wedding (1796) and Mattel unveiling Barbie at the New York Toy Fair (1959), he dives into what hit him on this morning’s walk: social media is the ultimate codependent relationship. It’s designed by crafty psychologists to keep you in a loop, serving an algorithm that’s always changing. You optimize your hook, your eye contact, your first half-second—trying to win love and affection from a metric that doesn’t care about you. The real danger? You stop going inside yourself to ask: Who am I? What do I think? What do I want? Your identity becomes wrapped up in what the algorithm says is valuable, not your own exploration. That’s why this podcast exists—it’s not commercialized, not optimized for followers (45 on Substack, maybe thousands of downloads, but who knows?). It’s a sandbox for working through life, building something new, connecting with who he is. And ironically, doing it mostly for himself might help people more.

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