How to Avoid the Status Trap, A GPT for Knowledge/Research, You Don't Need an OURA Ring + More

Introducing a new series here — Five Things will be a monthly email of 5x concepts, tools, products, and things I’m consuming that I think you’ll find useful or enjoyable.

This month:

1. How to recognize & avoid the trap of chasing status

2. Honing your intuition & why you don’t need an OURA ring

3. Perplexity AI — a ChatGPT for Knowledge & Research

4. Tuo Bulbs — a product I’m trying

5. 80,000 Hours: a career guide for solving the world’s most pressing problems

🕳️ Recognize & Avoid the Status Trap

Recently read this excellent essay on recognizing, processing, and avoiding the status-chasing game that ultimately leaves us overstriving, empty, and unfulfilled.

My summary / takeaways:

Chasing status is most often a means of filling some void of not enoughness.

It pulls us away from what we really want in our lives, who we really strive to be, and the things we truly want to create in the world.

Many of us know this already — but how do we catch ourselves and stay aligned on the path?

The Traps

• “The Inner Ring Trap” — chasing status as a means of gaining exclusivity. Humans have an almost never-ending craving for exclusivity; once we gain access to one segment, we desire the next most exclusive one

• “The Bodybuilder Trap” — chasing status as a means of dealing with insecurity. This is an ego-driven desire for recognition and validation, in order to feel enough

• “The Trap of False Belonging” — in order to belong, we don’t share vulnerably or honestly about our insecurities and downfalls. This makes us feel like we don’t truly belong, because it’s this false, picture-perfect version of self that is being accepted, not the real version of self

Repatterning The Trap

Recognize the status triggers (some common culprits)

• Feeling excluded

• Comparing yourself with someone

• A status fantasy, and whether you believe that will make you ‘enough’ (giving a TED Talk, landing your dream role, working with the White House, etc.)

Pause & Recalibrate in Realtime

Process

• Use expressive writing to process the experience and move on — write about the trigger for 20 minutes for 3-4 consecutive days, giving as much detail about the instance as possible.

• Use Tara Brach’s guided RAIN visualization to come face to face with the situation and relate to it compassionately

Recognizing it in realtime is the most powerful thing to do here IMO.

Bring awareness to what the trigger makes you want to do (work harder, do what that person did in order to gain the same status, etc.) — so that you can recalibrate to the truth of what you really want and do that instead.

I often just speak it out loud as I recognize it — ‘seeing this person part of an exclusive, successful ring is making me feel not worthy or excluded. It’s making me want to work harder in a way that’s not true to me. What’s true here? Is there any inspiration I can gather from this that’s true to me?’

This is partly why I don’t really use Instagram except to share & connect with people via DMs. It’s a minefield of status traps.

Casey Rosengren’s No Small Plans newsletter where this essay is from is gold. He also is a founder/executive coach.

🔍 A Tool I’m Testing: Perplexity AI

Perplexity AI is a GPT that’s focused on Knowledge & Research.

It transparently cites all its sources in its results, and you’re able to focus which sources it crawls — Academic Papers, Youtube, Reddit, Wolfram|Alpha.

I’ve been thinking of Perplexity AI as a left-brain tool that digs into the weeds, cites sources, and gives the most laser-focused answers for knowledge.

And ChatGPT as a more broad-stroke, right brain tool that is particularly apt at brainstorming, summarizing, editing, writing, and thinking through complex problems.

Perplexity AI’s responses seem to be contextually richer, and more comprehensive.

The paid version ($20/mo) seems to be way better than free, just like GPT4 vs 3.

So far, for searching through scientific studies and academic papers, it’s been awesome. Still figuring out other optimal use cases.

Would love to hear if you guys find any particularly good use cases for it.

👁️‍🗨️ Hone Your Intuition (+ why you don’t need an OURA Ring)

I recently read through J Krishnamurti’s The First and Last Freedom, and it’s led me to a deeper dive on the power of intuition, and that wisdom comes from an inner knowing and direct contact with the present moment. (Researching/writing a post on practical tools for honing intuition in the coming months).

When I sit still for a few minutes longer and trust myself, I find I have the answer to many of my queries already.

This is not to say outside help and opinions don’t have value — obviously they do — but, the point is to not bypass self-inquiry first, so that we can better attune to the whispers of our own inner wisdom.

In listening to this episode of The Metagame, the guest Steve Schlafman says he ditched his OURA ring because it was a means of outsourcing his intuition.

This is such a powerful realization in the wellness world where everyone’s driving for more quantification.

Our intuition is one of our strongest powers — what are we losing by relying too heavily on data to tell us how we feel?

I used an OURA ring for some time for product development and testing formulations for Yin Sleep. But I’ve come to realize that I almost always know how I’ve slept the night before. I don’t need to look at (debatably incorrect) data to tell me how I feel.

Where are you outsourcing your wisdom & intuition to outside authorities too quickly?

💡 A Product I’m Testing: Tuo Circadian Bulbs

Tuo Circadian Bulbs promises to be a full circadian lightbulb:

• the right wavelength of blue light in the morning to trigger your circadian clock

• automatic shift into evening light that promotes the natural release of melatonin.

We started developing this exact thing at Human3 in 2021 but didn’t have the bandwidth to complete R&D & bring it to market with other projects in motion.

I’m stoked that someone else has done it, and apparently well.

This was mentioned on Huberman x Attia’s recent episode. I just ordered one and will report back.

80,000 Hours

• 80,000 Hours is a resource to guide people to spending their lives having the biggest positive impact

• What they believe to be the world’s most pressing problems

• Career Guide for getting involved & making an impact

• Job Board for impact-driven companies

• An interesting resource to dig into when you’re thinking about startups as well

🎵 Currently Listening to

• Soiled, a soulful spotify playlist by my brother Malcolm. perfect for hosting friends in the evening

• Ramy Youssef on Pete Holmes’ podcast — I love comedy podcasts, especially when they dig in deep. This one touches on religion, spirituality, and consciousness. Ramy’s HBO special is also one of my favorites.

- Ali