Yo guys, what is up? Happy Saturday.
Throwing you a little late afternoon email here.
I’ve had a pretty spiritualized morning today.
I went over to Lake Shrine in the Pacific Palisades, which is kind of where it all began.
I mean, this place is really what sparked the initial idea for me to pursue music full-time all throughout 2024 and create the 8AM album.
And it was the first time that I had gone back since the Palisades fire, so it was pretty special for me to go back there.
I ran into one of the monks that gave the lectures that inspired me so much last year. It was good to see him.
And another piece of exciting news all in the same line—I finally got accepted and I got my Kriya yoga initiation lessons from SRF.
Basically what that means is i’m about to be a black belt in meditation.
I also got off the phone just before recording this with a good friend and mentor, Nick Pirollo, who is a serial tech entrepreneur who’s been very, very successful in the last decade or so plus.
I went to his wedding in Cabo last year and it’s always nice to catch up with old friends.
His current business is absolutely soaring and he’s making tons and tons of profit, so it’s just nice to catch up with a really smart, great friend who’s also helped me a lot over the years.
Call your homies. Catch up!
Right now I just drove down Sunset Boulevard and I’m about to head into the gym in West Hollywood and get a workout in.
I’m very much on a high-energy pace.
Someone I have been talking to a bit in that same frequency recently over the DMs is Zach Pogrob, who I think is most known for his branding around obsession and running.
He recently launched his “Aura” app, which by total coincidence, he decided to choose a very similar brand color scheme to 8AM—although they’re different shades of blue and they’re also very different products.
But we’ve just been vibing off each other in communications on X and I really like what he’s doing.
By the way, speaking of connecting with people, I really enjoy all the feedback I’ve been getting from these newsletters.
So don’t hesitate to respond to this email or reach out to me on Instagram if you enjoy any of these.
A lot of people were asking me yesterday where to get the shower filter and reverse osmosis water filter that I mentioned, and I actually linked them in yesterday’s email if you want to just check that one out if you want clean water.
This week ahead I have some cool plans.
I am making the drive down to San Diego to meet up with Sovereign Brah and my good buddy Colin Yurcisin, who I’ve done a lot of content and stuff with in the past.
You might know Sovereign Brah if you’re a “based guy” on X. If not that previous sentence made no sense to you, basixally he’s like a biblical masculinity kind of influencer, you might say.
And I think it’s gonna be a really good meeting of the minds. We’ll probably end up recording a podcast as well.
And I’m just excited to connect with those guys, although I don’t look forward that much to the drive down to San Diego. It’s pretty long.
But nonetheless, I’ll probably just end up reading some audiobooks along the way.
And as Warren Buffett says, as long as you have a book in your hands—or in my case, in my ears—you’re never wasting time.
Another concept or thing floating around my mind right now is just that I have this entire concept for 8AM album number two.
But alas, there’s other things that need to be put into place and put into motion ahead of that that I believe are my duty to bring down out of the ether and into this world.
It seems like they’re just labeled for me to create, for me to do (aka coding 8AM app myself).
I’ve sadly had a very hard time hiring developers that I feel I vibe with and match with.
And I’m just not really in the mood to raise money for this thing.
I just think that if I really want to get it done the right way, it might be time to just vibe code it myself.
The tech is very close to that time where coding is totally democratized anyway… might as well get familiar now.
As naval says, code is highest leverage. If you can’t code, make content. Thats second highest.
That’s my message for today.
I hope you enjoyed.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
-Arlin
