Curiosity Chronicle

Sahil Bloom

Delivering curiosity-inducing content every single week.
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20 episodes
Updated Friday

Episodes20

Newest first

Friday · 7 min
The IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts
Why do you value the things you build yourself so much more than anything you can buy? In this episode, I share a personal story from my first apartment and break down the fascinating science behind why effort is the secret ingredient to a meaningful life. ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
Wednesday · 9 min
Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)
"So, what's your 5-year plan?" That was the question posed to me by a mentor in January 2021. At the time, I was about seven years into my career, on the "track" in finance. Climbing slowly up the mountain, I had started to wonder if it was the wrong one. I just didn't seem to have the same energy for the work as most of my colleagues. All of the future mountains I envisioned were (at most) one degree of separation from the mountain I'd been climbing. As I reflect back on that moment now, in July 2026, at the endpoint of that five year plan my mentor asked about, I have an interesting realization... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 24 · 6 min
How to Avoid Catastrophe: The Normalization of Deviance
On January 27, 1986, just 16 hours before the Space Shuttle Challenger was set to launch, an engineer named Roger Boisjoly presented data showing a catastrophic risk with the shuttle's O-rings in cold temperatures. His warnings were overruled. The next morning, 73 seconds into its flight, the Challenger exploded, killing all seven crew aboard. Sociologist Diane Vaughn coined the term Normalization of Deviance to describe what had happened—not a single moment of negligence, but a slow, systemic drift where unacceptable practices became accepted because they were repeated without immediate consequences. In this episode, I explored how this concept applies directly to our lives. The minor repair you ignore. The hard conversation you avoid. The missed workout when you don't feel motivated. No explosion. No catastrophic failure. So you convince yourself they're fine. But each day, with each tiny slip, you reset your own standard to a new, slightly lower baseline... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 22 · 10 min
A Few Things I've Changed My Mind On
I’m increasingly convinced that the willingness to change your mind is the ultimate sign of intelligence. The most impressive people I know change their minds often in response to new information or evidence. It's not that they lack conviction in their beliefs, but more so that they've developed enough self-awareness to understand what it would take to change them. The world will pressure you to stubbornly resist such change. To cling to every belief as though it might be your last. But there's immense power in resisting that pressure. I like to think of it as a software update. The update is never perfect, but it's an improvement upon the older version. It's a reminder that the goal isn't to be right, but to slowly, consistently get closer to the truth. When I'm getting to know people, I often ask them what they've changed their mind on recently. It's an interesting way to go deep in a conversation. A friend recently flipped the question on me. After a bunch of thought and reflection, here's my reply: 7 things I've changed my mind on recently... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 17 · 6 min
How Old Will You Be If You Don’t?
Last week, I wrote a piece about reinvention. Specifically, the myth of too late and how to reinvent your life at any age or life stage. It clearly struck a chord. I received thousands of replies in the days following the piece. One reader reply referenced a two-decade-old newspaper advice column segment that had resonated on the subject. Me being me, I decided to try to find the column. After all, if something was still etched into my reader's memory 20+ years later, it must have been good. I did, and it was even better than advertised... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 15 · 8 min
The Cobra Effects of Life
In colonial India, a bounty on cobras was supposed to reduce the snake population. Instead, people started breeding cobras for profit — and when the policy ended, they released thousands into the streets. The result? More cobras than ever. This is Goodhart's Law: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. And it's not just a business problem — it's happening in your life right now. From sleep scores to morning routines to money, the things we measure can quietly start to own us. Here's how to spot it and fix it... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 10 · 7 min
The Life-Changing Magic of Active Optimism
There’s an old children’s fable I recently retold to my son about a farmer whose wagon wheel gets stuck in the mud. He calls on Hercules to come to his aid. Hercules appears, but rather than lifting the wagon, he speaks: "Do you think you can move the wagon by simply looking at it? Put your shoulder to the wheel." The farmer did so, and the wagon lurched forward as the wheel easily came unstuck. The simple read says this is a story about effort. But it’s also a story that frames one of the most important traits in life: It’s what I call Active Optimism: A belief that things will work out paired with a willingness to do the work to make it true. The key distinction: Passive optimism is just belief. Active optimism is belief that begets action. A question worth sitting with: Where in your life are you waiting for Hercules instead of putting your shoulder to the wheel? ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 8 · 14 min
How to Reinvent Your Life in 30 Days
Every single week, I invariably get a handful of emails from readers around the world with a similar general message. Stuck on a path. Living a life they didn’t really choose. Scared it’s too late to make a change. Given the frequency of these messages, I decided it warranted a deeper, more tactical guide. Here’s exactly how I would approach reinvention (at any age or life stage): ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 3 · 3 min
The Frog Pond Effect
Have you ever noticed that growth feels like destruction? That getting better feels like getting worse? You're not doing something wrong. You're just experiencing something nobody told you about... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
July 1 · 8 min
Why Are You In Such A Rush?
There’s a beautiful Zen parable that goes something like this: A man is walking across a field when a tiger leaps out from the trees and runs toward him. Fearing for his life, the man sprints away but quickly halts at a steep cliff. Facing a terrifying drop, with the tiger bearing down on him, he grabs hold of a single vine and lowers himself over the cliff’s edge. Looking up, he sees the tiger above. Looking down, he notices another tiger pacing on the ground below. And to make matters worse, a small mouse begins gnawing at the vine that holds him in place. Beginning to feel hopeless, with certain demise above and below, the man sees a single wild strawberry growing on the cliffside in front of him. He reaches out, plucks the fruit, and eats it. He smiles. How incredibly sweet it tasted. I just found myself rereading that parable at 30,000 feet. Let me explain why... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 26 · 6 min
The Zipper Test: How to Stop Fooling Yourself
My son just turned four. One of the things I love most about the age is the unbridled curiosity with which he explores the world. He's deep in the classic "why" phase, taking me down explanatory rabbit holes that go long past my point of comfort. But one of the most interesting prompts he asked recently was this one: "Tell me all about zippers." On any given day, zipper is replaced by some basic thing that we interact with. It might be tell me all about our car, or trees, or cooking pans, or the microwave. I have a rule that I always engage with him on these little curiosity quests, even if they come at a bad time. In doing so, I've realized something: I know very little about how the most basic things around me actually work. I start confidently, but my ability to answer "tell me all about [X]" generally ends after a few seconds. I quickly reach the outer bounds of my understanding and am forced, hat in hand, to consult with the internet to go deeper. As it turns out, there's real science behind this... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 24 · 9 min
7 Lies I Finally Stopped Telling Myself
A few years ago, as part of the research for my first book, I asked a group of centenarians for the advice they'd most like to give to their younger selves. One of them offered this piece of wisdom: "The most damning lie you can tell is the lie you tell to yourself." Those lies dilute your attention, pull you toward distractions, and cut into your confidence. They give you an easy out when the truth requires more painful accountability. Those lies keep you from running at full power. Self-protection that becomes self-rejection. In the years since that conversation, I've often found myself reflecting on the comment as a thought experiment for my own life: What are the lies I'm telling myself right now? Through identifying those lies, I've slowly learned to stopped telling them. Here are 7 lies I finally stopped telling myself... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 19 · 6 min
The Helsinki Bus Station Theory
In 2004, a Finnish-American photographer named Arno Minkkinen gave the commencement speech at the New England School of Photography. In the speech, he offered a powerful thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that you find yourself at the large bus station in the center of Helsinki. There are two dozen platforms at the station, each with several different bus lines departing from them bound for a wide array of destinations outside the city. Each of the different bus lines departing from a given platform follows the same route for a few miles to get out of the city. Minkkinen likened this experience to the early years of a career: You pick your platform, which sets your general direction, and then select a bus line to hop on from the platform... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 17 · 7 min
The 2 Types of Knowledge: Real vs. Surface
In 1918, German theoretical physicist Max Planck won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of energy quanta. After winning the prize, he went on a tour, giving lectures at universities and institutions around the country on his findings. There’s an apocryphal story from that tour that I first came across while reading the transcript of Charlie Munger’s 2007 commencement speech at USC Law School. Max Planck’s chauffeur, after having heard Planck practice and deliver the talk so many times, had the entire thing memorized. He jokingly asked Planck if he could deliver it at the final lecture. Surprisingly, the physicist agreed... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 12 · 4 min
Winner's Game vs. Loser's Game
"No unforced errors." At a recent speaking event, I was asked by an audience member to share one piece of advice I wish I could tell my younger self. Specifically, they asked for the non-obvious advice I've found most difficult to internalize and live by, despite knowing its importance. My response: No unforced errors. Three words. And I've spent years learning why they're so hard to live by... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 10 · 10 min
The 4 Types of Professional Time
Most people end the day exhausted but can't point to a single thing they meaningfully moved forward. The problem isn't how much you're working -- it's the type of work filling your hours. In this piece, I break down a simple framework that fundamentally changed how I work: The Four Types of Professional Time... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 5 · 7 min
The Goal Gradient Hypothesis
105.5. That's how many laps you have to run around the first lane of a regulation outdoor track to cover the 26.2 miles of a marathon. And, when I arrived at my local high school track last Friday at 4:45am, that was exactly what I planned to do. I wish I had a thoughtful answer to the obvious "um, why?" this opener no doubt sparks in your mind. The truth is that every now and then, I like to remind myself that I've still got that edge—that "dog" inside me. That I can take on something intimidating and get it done. Plus, I talk a lot about discipline, grit, and consistency around here. But my rule is that you can’t talk about it if you’re not going to be about it. If there's one thing you can always trust with me, it's this: If I say something, I’ve got receipts to prove that I live by it. So, there I was, standing alone on the track, in the pre-dawn darkness, with 105.5 laps to go... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
June 3 · 7 min
The ABC Goal System
"Just be consistent." By now, you've undoubtedly heard this advice countless times. So much so that it may even induce an eye roll or sigh. Yes, it’s true, consistency is the difference maker. The common thread behind every major success story. Everyone tells you to be consistent, but no one ever tells you how to be consistent. And let’s be honest, it’s (much) easier said than done. Life gets chaotic. Motivation fades. Discipline wavers. Consistency breaks. I've personally spent thousands of hours wrestling with this exact problem—and I've developed my own ultra-simple approach that works: I call it my ABC Goal System… ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
May 29 · 6 min
The Pratfall Effect
In 1966, a University of Texas psychologist named Elliot Aronson ran an experiment to examine the role of imperfection on human connection. Aronson recruited 48 college students and had them listen to an audio recording of a candidate supposedly auditioning to be on a "College Quiz Bowl" team (a popular TV format at the time). The recordings were, in fact, staged. The candidate was just an actor working from a script. But the participants believed they were real and that they would be helping evaluate the candidate. The results were fascinating... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.
May 27 · 10 min
5 Life Learnings From 5 Years of The Curiosity Chronicle
A few days ago, I was reminded by a reader that May 14 was the five year anniversary of my first Curiosity Chronicle newsletter. Sending that first newsletter, which went out to a few thousand people who had been receiving my tweet threads in email format each week, felt like something of a leap of faith at the time. Fast forward five years and what started with that tiny leap of faith has compounded into something beautiful. I began reflecting on what I've learned through the five years of writing The Curiosity Chronicle and quickly realized that all of it applies well-beyond the bounds of creative pursuits and into any meaningful endeavor in life. I hope these life learnings help you turn your tiny leap of faith into something beautiful... ••• This episode brought to you by: DeleteMe - DeleteMe makes it quick, easy, and safe to remove your personal data online. Origin Financial - Your personal AI Financial Advisor. Track your spending, investments, and net worth—all in one place. Innerbody Labs - A Higher Standard. After reviewing thousands of health products, we built formulas we wished existed. Lemon - The Al agent that turns your voice instructions into finished tasks.

Curiosity Chronicle

The IKEA Effect: Why Effort Still Counts

Stop Making a 5-Year Plan (Do This Instead)

How to Avoid Catastrophe: The Normalization of Deviance

A Few Things I've Changed My Mind On

How Old Will You Be If You Don’t?

The Cobra Effects of Life

The Life-Changing Magic of Active Optimism

How to Reinvent Your Life in 30 Days

The Frog Pond Effect

Why Are You In Such A Rush?

The Zipper Test: How to Stop Fooling Yourself

7 Lies I Finally Stopped Telling Myself

The Helsinki Bus Station Theory

The 2 Types of Knowledge: Real vs. Surface

Winner's Game vs. Loser's Game

The 4 Types of Professional Time

The Goal Gradient Hypothesis

The ABC Goal System

The Pratfall Effect

5 Life Learnings From 5 Years of The Curiosity Chronicle