This Newsletter runs a little long, so I’ll keep my intro short. These letters are extremely time-consuming and I want to make sure that my audience is receiving the kind of value that they want.

I’m thinking of introducing some new sections (including but not limited to) business/side hustle how-to’s, fun hypothetical business plans, and horoscopes that are based on the Myeres-Briggs Personality Index.

If you’d like to see these, or any other type of content, reach out to me. I’d love your feedback.

And as always, thank you for your attention. Enjoy!

Uh oh, I’m getting older. I’m old enough now that I sometimes can’t understand what kids are saying, no matter how terminally online I am.

As I get older, I’m more compelled to make fun of how they speak.

“OMG isn’t it so silly how kids use words that don’t make sense to me and aren’t proper English.” - anyone over the age of 26

Usually after having this thought, I make that tired joke that’s typical of boomer humor where you then assemble a bunch of slang into a random sentence.

“That’s super lit, on god, no cap fam…”

This joke is very tired; just as tired as you are.

But this is just “cope.” I’m falling victim to a phenomenon called juvenoia(a fear or anxiety held by senior generations towards junior ones). The second you start consistently making fun of young people, you better look out because death is soon approaching.

The interesting thing is that much of the language we make fun of Gen Alpha for wasn’t even created by Gen Alpha.

A lot of what they’re saying is old; some of it really old. We’re talking more than one hundred years old(I.e. “clout,” with it’s current definition is a word from the mid-1800s).

Language Jones has a PHD in linguistics and he’s here to provide a breakdown of how slang is born, as well as provide the origins of many of the terms we hear Gen Alpha using.

Language Jones attributes slang to a few main sources:

Children are dumb. Some slang comes from misunderstanding a word or phrase and changing it’s meaning or pronunciation.

The second is when a group of people decide to break language on purpose often swapping a word with its meaning for its antonym(think using “bad” to mean the word “good”) This happens often in counter culture.

Another source is something called the euphemism treadmill which is when a phrase becomes “tainted” and gains a negative connotation, which changes its meaning. For an example of this, consider how almost every word historically used to refer to the mentally challenged or the mentally ill has become derogatory(some becoming slurs).

This one is fairly simple. This is just when people shorten words for brevity or flair. Think rizz(charisma) or fan(fanatic).

A lot of slang is just existing words in our lexicon being used as a different part of speech. For instance, using “fire” as an adjective instead of a verb/noun.

“That song’s straight fire”

or using “flex” as a noun instead of a verb.

“Nah, he didn’t need to do that. It’s just a flex”

Words like Cheugy and Skibbidi are just gibberish. I’m not sure what else to say about it. It’s fun to say nonsensical things, and it signals to other terminally online children that you are also young and terminally online.

“How do you do fellow kids? A Skibbidi-cheugy to you as well, sir.”

The latter half of the video is entirely definitions/origins for slang attributed to Gen Alpha and Gen Z. I’m not going to list all of it here because then you wouldn’t watch this amazing video 😉 , but here’s my top 8:

Gyat!- Some people think that Gyat is an initialism meaning “Girl your ass is thick,” but in reality, Gyat is just a phonetic way of spelling the word god with an accent and flair as in “Gyat damn, girl.”

Cap- Cap means falsehood, much like caps on your teeth. They’re a front, or a facade.

Ate- This is actually NY gay, black ballroom culture from the 80’s. This means to do well.

Bussin- This is just “bursting” but said with extra finesse and just means something is excellent.

Ick- An ick is something that causes disgust. Cab Calloway was already using this word in the early 1900’s

Mid- This is the work of the Euphamism Treadmill. Mid means bad or mediocre. Something that’s mid isn’t good and is therefore bad.

Shooketh- Shook just means you’ve been shaken. Shooketh just adds a little Middle-English flair. Shakespeare's characters aren’t shaken, they’re shooketh.

Yeet- I started by using this word ironically and unfortunately it’s now just part of my language. Yeet is just onomatopoeia(created by Gen Z) and is used when excited or when throwing something. “RIP, I just got yeeted into lava in Minecraft.”

My takeaway from all of this is that there’s no point in making fun of the language someone uses. Words naturally evolve as culture evolves, and the words you're using right now probably sounded odd and stupid when used by preceding generations.

Half of the words these kids are using aren’t even their slang for Christ’s sake.

So leave the kids alone. Let them have their dumb new words.

Except for Cheugy though. Cheugy needs to die.

Allen Carr, writer of The easy way to quit smoking, has an entire series dedicated to quitting other deleterious habits. One of these habits is caffeine, which is probably one of my greatest vices.

I’ve been so dependent on caffeine for such a long time that I’m not entirely sure how much of my personality is a side effect. Recently on one of Tim Ferris’s podcasts, he talked about his experiment with a month-long sabbatical from caffeine, supplements, etc. because he wanted to get back to base. He wanted to see what he was like sans caffeine.

The results? He slept better, was less anxious, and had a more stable mood and energy level. I heard this and wanted to try it for myself. How many of my health and wellness issues were self-inflicted?

Tim had recommended reading The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine and I bought it right there on the spot. Not only did I want to break caffeine’s grip on me, but I was also curious what the mechanism of the book would be. Is it just a step-by-step guide, how do you make quitting things easy?

How the book works

This book is essentially cognitive behavioral therapy.

There is no magic bullet for quitting a bad habit. There’s no step-by-step. Instead, the book just lists for you all of the reasons that caffeine is bad and the myriad lies that you tell yourself as you drink it.

This book serves as a pattern interrupt for your behavior. You drink caffeine because you think that you need it, and because you believe it to be benign, when this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The problem with caffeine

The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine presents an exhaustive list of reasons why caffeine is more poison than tonic but I’m going to name a few here:

1) Cost- I spend 6-7 bucks on coffee every day; need I say more?

2) Robs you of energy instead of providing it- Caffeine only “gives you energy,” because you need to drink it to return to baseline. You’re just mitigating withdrawal symptoms at this point.

3) Causes stress- Caffeine causes your body to dump adrenaline into your system. You’re alert because your fight-or-flight response has been triggered. This system is best used for escaping bears, not for answering emails.

Why you’re addicted

1) Coffee culture- Everyone’s doing it, this is one of the only drug addictions that has been normalized by society. If you had this level of dependence with any other drug your family would be waiting for you on your couch with their “you’ve changed” speeches ready.

2) Special moments and ritual- For many of us drinking coffee is the first thing we do when we wake up. For me, my ritual is that I write at a coffee shop sipping on iced coffee. Change is difficult for many of us, including myself.

3) Fear of withdrawal- This is the big one for me. I know quitting means at least a week of misery. Headaches and lethargy will impede my ability to get any work done(including this newsletter which is powered by coffee.)

Have I quit?

So, you might be wondering if the book worked for me. Well, as I type this, I am sitting in a Starbucks drinking a venti iced coffee.

Honestly, I think the timing was just bad for me. I read this book immediately before an incredibly taxing project and the book demands that you quit immediately. You’re asked to have one last drink of caffeine and then quit forever and I just wasn’t ready to do that.

But, I will try again and update you when I do. - he said, lyingly.

Recently I had a tenant trash a property of mine. They left behind all sorts of waste, but some of what they left behind was perfectly new. Items still in the box, designer clothes with the tags still on, untouched seen on TV products.

You might not know this but dumpster rental is extremely expensive, and I had already filled up two 20-yard dumpsters worth of this tenant’s things when I decided to host a yard sale to recoup some of the costs.

Even if I sold everything she left behind for a single dollar I would have cleared a few grand. So, I set a plan in motion. I called every friend I had for help, and I marketed this sale everywhere I could think, even taking the time to place bandit signs at heavily trafficked intersections.

Then I anxiously awaited the weekend, knowing that I had my work cut out for me.

Haggling is a sport for these people, and they have ample time and energy to widdle you down to nothing on price. I mean, what other kind of person is going to drive around at 6 or 7 in the morning, pick through a stranger’s belongings, and then argue with them?

People were arguing with me over a dollar. I’d offer an item up for 5 dollars, they’d throw a fit and ask to buy it for 4.

I had people feigning disgust at the idea of paying a dollar for an item. They’d contort their face at the prospect, the very idea of paying so much as a dollar. To this, I’d reply, that “I literally can’t go any lower than a dollar.” I didn’t have the change.

To these people, items have no value. The value is tied to their emotions. The value is tied to the deal itself.

You say $10, they want $6. You say $6, they say $3. You say $2, they say $1.

On, and on, dividing infinitely until were using imaginary numbers and haggling in hypotheticals.

These consumers are completely irrational, borderline insane, and no one can convince me otherwise.

As I was preparing for this yard sale, I entered negotiations on the sale of one of my properties in Alabama. I hadn’t received as many offers as I had hoped(the market in the area slowed down during this season) and this potential buyer was persistent in trying to buy this house and feel like they got a deal. Normally I wouldn’t bother haggling to this degree over a property but this was the best offer we had received and I was trying to free up the cash for a new project.

I asked for 70k, they countered with 66k, I said 69k and they asked for 67, and so on and so on. All the while asking for concessions on yard work and some light rehab to the house. Keep in mind this is an investor trying to buy this house and they’re ready to kill this deal over 1k, maybe even 500 dollars.

It felt childish. Is this what negotiating is to most people? We pick two numbers and then ritually inch our way toward some middle number. I couldn’t believe I was dealing with the same mentality I was dealing with at my yard sale, but this time it was an investor trying to buy a house.

And then it hit me.

These lunatics and this pervasive mindset (where value is not tethered to a product or service but to a sense of victory) saturate our entire economy.

I thought hosting a yard sale would be easy. What’s easier to sell than an item that’s only worth a few bucks?

But it’s all difficult. No one knows how to value, and price accordingly.

So, the lesson here is that you might as well go big. Find something you can sell for thousands(or hundreds of thousands) and markdown that price instead of haggling over a few bucks here and there. Sell something for $10,000 and then mark it down to $8,000 to close.

That’s what I’ll be doing.

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