Why I prefer to collaborate with mid-to-late-career professionals

If you have good enough aim, you only need one bullet. :-)

But seriously, I think there are ways to regain your capacity as you get older. You may never reach that same level of energy as in your 20s, but there is a lot you can do to get close, and with that better aim, have overall better performance.

I work a lot fewer hours than I did when I was young, but those hours are a lot more effective. But to keep them effective, I am also spending time in my day to keep my mind and body in shape.

(As I wrote that, I realized it may be that my overall hours haven't changed, but how I allocated those hours between staying healthy and working has).

I view the time I spend exercising, meditating and cooking meals as critical to my work—even my sleep. When I skip these things, my work suffers. But I didn't truly learn this lesson until my late 30s, and I have to relearn it from time to time.

So the answer toward getting more "bullets" may lie outside what is traditionally seen as "work time".

Regardless, best of luck in using whatever bullets you can muster to achieve the things you want.

p.s.: Jack Weinberg was 24 when he said that quote. I grew up hearing it, but had never known its source. Apparently, it was also taken out of context; he didn't intend the meaning everyone ascribed to it later.

First, congratulations on making it work and doing the "impossible".

While I would agree that it is often the case that as you get older, there is a tendency to become jaded and view things as impossible. However, I don't think that has to be the case.

Certainly it can be easy to dismiss technologies when they are younger and not as capable. But early technologies often improve more rapidly than we expect (though not always—I was super-excited about VRML back in 1992, but we're only now getting usable VR).

In my view, it depends not only on your age, but the mindset with which you approach ideas and innovation. Some people remain open as they age (or get more open), while others start getting fixed in their ways.

There's good reasons for both, but I do this as far as startups go, it's better to err on the open side.

If you're also looking for a co-founder, also check out my Notion document How to Find the Right Co-Founder. It's where I'm documenting my process and research, and may be helpful to you. I'll be updating this as I go through the process over the next couple of weeks, so just bookmark it to get the updates.

I also did an interview with Dr. Matthew Jones from Cofounder Clarity today that I'll create a separate post for once I have the video edited and uploaded to YouTube. He had some useful advice as well.

Looking forward to the conversation!

As someone who is also learning a new language, I can sympathize. Though from what I've read, we're actually better as adults learning new languages than we are when we're younger. The problem is that we have less time to practice and outcome is a result of both time and effectiveness.

For me, I do have to make the effort to continually learn. But in a similar way to work, I'm also no longer learning through brute force, which allows me to learn more efficiently.

With regards to language learning, my own current focus is on listening skills. I'm studying toward my B2 level in German. I've reached a point where I'm okay enough at reading, writing and speaking; and listening one-on-one works well. But once people are speaking too fast, with an accent I don't know, or in a group, my comprehension falls dramatically.

So I'm doing specific exercises to improve my listening skills, namely doing intensive listening (where I listen to a video while reading the subtitles, making sure I'm hearing every word that is said) and doing transcribing (where I take a video that has exact transcription, listen to it without subtitles and make my own transcription, then compare).

To me, this is what the "deliberate practice" in Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours is all about. Using the experience you have gained to direct your attention to the areas you most need to improve.

I also think of learning capacity as a muscle, not a fuel tank. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Studying metacognition and "learning how to learn" can also be helpful.

Good luck with your language learning and everything else!

Theoretically investing is easy; in practice it's hard because you have to manage your own psychology.

From an investment perspective, I'm a big fan of the Permanent Portfolio as an "all-weather" portfolio. Even if you don't follow it exactly, it teaches some interesting concepts around portfolio construction and how money rotates between different asset classes in different market cycles.

Opposite from investing, this 4-part series from Mark Douglas on how to think like a professional trader is useful to watch, because it focuses on your mindset and psychology. I find the concepts around uncertainty and placing bets can also be applied to entrepreneurship.

You are absolutely correct. The two can be correlated, but are not the same. Updated the text to reflect your suggestion.

Thanks for including that link in the comments. I do think that research is important in dispelling the traditional myths.

This specific post was requested as an expansion of a comment I made on a post asking if 40 years was too old.

The value I think it provides in addition to the research is a more personal viewpoint into the basic premise.