Welcome to Pearl Runner issue 17! Our favorite quote this week:
“These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues.”— Abigail Adams, Letter to John Quincy Adams
by Tim Urban (from the Wait But Why Blog)
It’s hard to measure the importance of choosing the person you spend your life with, so any useful advice on the topic is well worth sharing. This isn’t your average cheesy article about finding your “soul mate”. Rather, it’s a funny and super insightful look at finding a life partner, from the perspective of a frustrated single person.
The post isn’t just meant for single people, it’s also a great read for married/un-married couples too. At the very least, you’ll be reminded of the gravity of two things: 1. Finding a good life partner, and 2. Being a good one yourself. As with most Wait But Why articles, I try to come back and read this one at least once a year.
Full Article Here 👇
Jocko Podcast
In Honor of the new Top Gun Movie finally releasing in theaters (it was awesome by the way), I wanted to share one of my favorite podcasts of all time.
This episode of The Jocko Podcast is a long-form interview of Dave Berke – a former Marine Officer, F-18 fighter pilot, Top Gun student and Top Gun Instructor. Dave gives some amazing insight into what his time at Top Gun was like, and discusses some deeper aspects of his military career like leadership, loss, and family/marriage.
It’s certainly captivating to hear about his time as a Top Gun student, but the best part is Dave’s account of his tour as an instructor. When asked about the odds of the most talented, experienced student defeating a Top Gun instructor – he is very clear, the odds are absolutely 0.0%. Instructors at Top gun are without a doubt, the best fighter pilots on the planet. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.
Check out the full episode here 👇
If you’ve ever been in an Ikea, you know it’s a very different experience from any other furniture store (or any store in general). As you might imagine, that experience is deliberately and meticulously designed.
This twitter thread by Trung Phan describes the methods and “tricks” behind Ikea’s operations. The most surprising example?
See all 12 here 👇
This week we’re happy to mention another great newsletter called Time Machiner, created by our friend Aaron Crocco.
Time Machiner is a weekly newsletter that delivers interesting content related to Tech, culture, and nostalgia.
If you sign up, you can expect weekly emails with 3-6 valuable or interesting links, along with stories for the forever-curious that are great conversation starters. Click the link below to subscribe! 👇
Last week’s poll results:
Well I said it up-front, the purpose of this poll was to prove a point. I think the conclusion here is clear – restaurant owners, take note 😏 now we got that out of the way, on to more polls without an agenda…
If I had to live in a different region of the world for 1 year, I would choose a country in ___.
And that’s a wrap! If you have any comments, suggestions, recommendations, or just general feedback we’d love to hear from you! Email us at brooke@pearlrunner.com and we’ll include our favorite comments in next week’s edition (and maybe in our Instagram feed 🧐). Thanks for reading and have a great week!