(Expanded — your voice, louder, sharper, more Spartan.)
So I hung out with a great friend last night. Met some of his buddies. And it hit me again — that universal sickness that infects everybody, regardless of their power, their money, their job title, their “status,” their followers, their supposed confidence.
Stress.
Not “stress” as a cute buzzword. Stress as the invisible leash. Stress as the silent tyrant. Stress as the thing that makes grown men and women live like frightened squirrels, hoarding anxiety, clutching their phones, waiting for the next micro-emergency to arrive.
And the funniest part?
Most people think stress is “normal.”
No. Stress is common. Not noble.
The goal isn’t to “manage stress.”
The goal is to conquer it.
The first question: what is stress?
Let’s get scientific for a second. The psychologist in me. The physiologist in me. Stress isn’t just a feeling — it’s a bodily state. It’s your nervous system reacting to threat, to uncertainty, to pressure, to overload.
But here’s the crucial distinction — the one most people miss:
There is good stress, and there is bad stress.
There’s a term for good stress: eustress.
Eustress is the kind of stress that upgrades you.
It’s the stress of:
- hot yoga
- heavy weightlifting
- a one-rep max
- quick sprints
- cold exposure
- even gravity itself compressing your bones and keeping your organs strong
This is the stress that builds resilience. It’s the stress that makes you more alive. It’s the stress that turns you into steel.
What we’re trying to avoid is the rotten stress — the chronic stress that gives you nothing back. The stress that ruins sleep. The stress that makes you irritable. The stress that makes you smaller, meaner, weaker, more fearful.
The stress that turns your mind into a microwave.
The key is not to eliminate stress.
The key is to curate stress.
Keep the stress that strengthens you.
Destroy the stress that drains you.
The core enemy: your iPhone
Let’s be honest. The modern stress machine isn’t “life.” It isn’t “work.” It isn’t even “other people.”
It’s the device.
Your iPhone.
At this point, the iPhone is a slave device. It is a portable anxiety factory. It is a pocket-sized command center for other people’s priorities invading your brain.
And you already know this.
You wake up — it’s there.
You eat — it’s there.
You walk — it’s there.
You pee — it’s there.
You lie in bed — it’s there.
And the worst part?
You think you’re choosing it.
No. It is choosing you.
The true and noble goal is freedom.
So what is the sign of a free man?
No phone.
Or at least: not being owned by the phone.
So my first tactical recommendation is brutally simple:
When you go to a social affair, when you’re hanging out, when you’re in the world…
Turn your iPhone completely off.
Not silent. Not “do not disturb.”
Off. Dead. Buried.
Put it in the glove compartment. Put it in your backpack. Put it out of your body’s orbit.
Because the moment your phone is near you, part of your mind is not with reality.
It’s waiting.
Waiting for the buzz.
Waiting for the next little dopamine pellet.
Waiting for the next “urgent” nothing.
And you cannot conquer stress while you remain on a leash.
The god-device: iPad Pro
Here’s the hilarious twist: I’m not saying become a caveman.
I’m saying: become a god.
And my strange intervention is this:
Instead of using the iPhone as your main device, use an iPad Pro.
I call it the god tablet.
Why?
Because it changes your posture, your psychology, your behavior.
With an iPhone, you hunch. You shrink. You become a gremlin.
With an iPad, you sit. You deliberate. You choose. You create.
Also, assuming you have the newest iPad Pro with an M-series chip, it’s just hilarious — it’s more powerful than most people’s laptops, and often benchmarks higher than the newest iPhone.
And there’s a longevity effect too: most people keep iPads longer than iPhones. iPhones are designed for churn. iPads feel more like “tools” than “toys.”
So my reverse status marker is this:
The real status isn’t the newest phone.
The real status is:
- an old phone you barely use
- or better: no phone at all
- someone sitting at steps somewhere with nothing on them: no phone, no AirPods, no sunglasses armor, no distractions — just presence
That person is rich in the only thing that matters:
Freedom of attention.
The desire to socially conquer
Here’s a deeper angle most stress advice ignores:
Stress is often social.
We’re stressed because we are constantly anticipating other humans. We’re stressed because we’re scared of looking stupid. We’re stressed because we’re performing. We’re stressed because we want approval. We’re stressed because we fear rejection.
So here’s my big belief:
The future will belong to those with social skills.
Or better:
The future belongs to those with fearlessness in social interactions.
Chutzpah. Audacity. Extreme friendliness. The ability to walk into any room and make everyone feel good. The ability to generate warmth, laughter, energy, connection.
Because the truth is, whether it’s politics, business, art, everything in-between:
It often comes down to social power.
Social capital.
And in the brave new world of AI, this becomes even more important.
Because if AI makes information cheap, and skills more replicable, the real rare asset becomes:
Trust. Relationships. Human bonds.
It’s better to have 1 to 3 insanely powerful, loyal friends than 100,000 weak ties. Middlemen are noise. The tribe is power.
But then the hard question becomes:
How do you find those 1 to 3 people?
And the answer is almost stupidly simple:
Radically be yourself.
People aren’t dumb. They smell thirst. They can detect clout-chasing in five seconds. They know when you’re putting on a mask.
The real signal is authenticity.
And here is the paradox:
The fastest way to become socially powerful is to stop trying to be socially powerful.
Just become unmistakably you.
Why is it so hard to be yourself?
Because most people are still trying to survive socially, like it’s high school.
They’re terrified.
Terrified of embarrassment. Terrified of awkwardness. Terrified of being “too much.”
So here’s a ruthless experiment:
This year: take all social risks possible.
Assuming your family jewels are safe and you’re not doing anything suicidal, and assuming you are economically stable…
Why not?
The upside is enormous. The downside is mostly imaginary.
Most social stress is fake because it’s not truly intertwined with your economics. You’re not going to go bankrupt because you said something weird at a dinner.
And this becomes our Spartan creed:
Money doesn’t matter much.
Cover your basic living expenses honorably, yes.
But having more money than you need?
Not necessary.
The goal is happiness. The grim beautiful smile. Like in the movie 300, laughing under the shield:
“We shall fight in the shade.”
Meaning: even your worst scenario is still funny. Still honorable. Still a good story.
The divine comedy
This is one of my favorite ideas:
Life is comedy.
Even the tragic parts.
Especially the tragic parts.
Odysseus saw his men eaten by the cyclops and still told himself: be brave, steady heart — one day you will look back and laugh.
This is the cheerful wisdom. The gay science. The magician-stoic-Spartan-philosopher in you.
The ability to do the impossible:
Transmute tragedy into comedy.
This is not denial.
This is not coping.
This is domination.
If you can laugh at what tries to crush you, you become uncrushable.
Techniques: practical weapons
If you live with chronic stress, you must find the root.
Stress is like weeds in a garden.
Most people keep plucking the leaves.
But the weed grows back.
You must dig deep. Get your fingernails dirty. Pull out the root.
And frankly, 99% of the weeds come from one source:
Your phone.
1) Kill notifications completely
Turn off all notifications. Silence everything. Even to your detriment.
Because the truth is:
Most things are not urgent.
They only feel urgent because you trained yourself to react instantly.
Your nervous system is not a customer support line.
2) Avoid texting like the plague
Text messages are low-bandwidth, ambiguous, endless. They create open loops. Open loops create anxiety.
My radical policy:
FaceTime or nothing.
Because FaceTime gives:
- tone
- face
- context
- closure
Texting is nibbling. FaceTime is a meal.
And this connects to the deeper truth:
It’s better to keep 1–3 social connections strong than to maintain 1,000 weak ones.
3) Voice dictation: the god-mode
Voice dictation is 1,000x faster than typing.
So why don’t people use it?
Fear of looking stupid.
Sociological shame.
But here’s what’s fascinating: in Asia, especially mainland China, many people have no shame about talking into their phone loudly.
And the West hates them partly because they secretly envy them.
They move with ease. They don’t apologize for existing.
Americans, on the other hand, are often too Victorian: self-conscious, private, overly “polite” in a way that becomes weakness.
Come on.
Isn’t America supposed to be the land of the brave?
Not the land of the timid?
The will to be ruthless
Here’s the closing doctrine:
Ruthlessness is not cruelty.
Ruthlessness is clarity.
To conquer stress, you must become violent against noise.
Ruthless Rule 1: Only keep stress that makes you stronger
If a stressor doesn’t build you, it’s a parasite.
Ruthless Rule 2: Close the loops
Most anxiety is unfinished business and unanswered messages.
Either handle it, schedule it, or delete it.
Ruthless Rule 3: Protect your attention like a fortress
Your mind is sacred territory.
Not everyone gets access.
Ruthless Rule 4: Choose your tribe
A small tribe, strong bonds, real conversations.
Less “networking.” More loyalty.
Ruthless Rule 5: Laugh like a Spartan
When something bad happens, say:
“This will be hilarious later.”
Not because it’s “fine.”
Because you’re training the higher skill:
to own your narrative.
Final mantra
Stress is either training or tyranny.
Keep the training.
Crush the tyranny.
And the first tyrant to overthrow?
The tiny glowing rectangle in your pocket.
Freedom begins when the phone stops being your master.