Hello Reader,

Welcome to the weekend! I hope you're recovering well from yesterday's Saint Patrick's Day festivities.

What do Teslas, Whole Foods, and blue/green texting bubbles have in common? They’re all status symbols in the status games that we play. I explore this fascinating topic in a 2,000 word essay.

Are you constantly spinning your wheels doing low-value work? When was the last time you scheduled “thinking time?” We just released a free video that walks you through our proprietary $10K Work approach to effortless productivity.

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Status games: absurd or necessary?

Are you a green bubble or a blue bubble?

You know what I’m talking about.

Even if you use WhatsApp.

Heck, you’ve probably denied someone entry into your group chat because of the green bubble.

(Our surf group has displayed this savage behavior – so I’m not above it.)

The green bubble is a red flag in online dating, a delineator of teenage cliques and of course a TikTok trend.

And there are real-world ramifications to the color of your bubble. Here’s how a college student’s life changed once they ditched the green bubble:

(I’ll leave it to you to Google pull game and spit game.)

If you’re reading this and saying that humans are decidedly f*cked — you’re seeing the absurdity and the necessity of playing status games.

Here are this week's top reads:

// one

Life's losers

6 minutes | Slate
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Fleishman Is in Trouble is one of the best shows in TV I’ve seen in a while. For ambitious Millennials and Gen Xs, it’s a delightful (and terrifying) cocktail of status games, lost possibility, eroding passion and untethered ambition. (So yes, RadReads as a TV show). This is a meta-essay about the unhappy professionals (in this case women, but applies to both genders) — and why their money and success can’t get them that elusive good life.

→ Read the article​

// two

When success isn't satisfying

6 minutes | The Wall Street Journal
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Why are the highs of success always so fleeting? We want the happiness to endure, yet often it just leads to more work and life satisfaction that feels even more elusive. The antidote to this hedonic treadmill? Self-awareness (in the form of the $10K Question) “Are you playing the right game?”

→ Read the article​

// three

Why we keep asking "why"

6 minutes | Ness Labs
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Here’s this week’s sad statistic: When tested for creativity, 98% of children received the highest possible score. When adults took the same test, only 2% got that score. But creativity and the ability to ask the right questions are crucial skills - and make life a lot more fun. Here’s how you can reclaim your creativity.

→ Read the post​

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// four

Why you should plan your week on Fridays

3 minutes | Quartz
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What’s the secret to having an awesome Monday? A simple planning routine on Friday. This ritual will help fight the Sunday Scaries, set you up for success and make sure you can actually enjoy your weekend.

→ Read the article​

// five

What income level makes you rich?

4 minutes | A Wealth of Common Sense
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An interesting piece showing income distributions across different buckets. The top 10% of US earners makes $200,000 per year. Now we’ve got a lot of HCOL readers here who would beg to differ — because of an obsession with keeping up with Jones’ and using other people’s benchmarks as your metric for self-worth.

→ Read the post​

// in partnership with Tim Urban

​

A brand new framework for thinking about today’s complex world

What's our problem? Get to the bottom of modern society with a groundbreaking new book from Tim Urban, creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why. Dive deep into history, evolutionary psychology, political theory, neuroscience and more as you explore an entirely new framework for understanding our complex world. Packed with original concepts, sticky metaphors, and hundreds of drawings, What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies is sure to change the way you see your world.

→ Get your copy​

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Below the Fold
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LAST WEEK'S MOST READ

• ​The $645,099 business pivot (RadReads, 1,355 clicks)
• ​The art and science of spending money (Collab Fund, 445 clicks)

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And finally, a flowchart explaining the significance of Tyga dating Avril Lavigne.

With gratitude,

Khe

PS Supercharge Your Productivity is the only course that connects the pursuit of productivity to life’s larger questions. While the course is closed for enrollment, the Evergreen Edition is available for purchase.

PPS Want to receive our Weekly Review Checklist? Use your personal link to refer RadReads to 2 friends and we'll send it right away. [RH_REFLINK GOES HERE]

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