I love this mental exercise for personal and professional improvement. 1. Decide what you want in all the specific areas of your life 2. Describe what it would look like if you (3rd person) were doing your best 3. Ask yourself daily if you’re doing your best or just good enough I am painfully aware when I’m not doing my “Best,” so that amplifies the painometer. I know when I’m taking the easy route and when I could give a lot more. I believe there are two main reasons I don’t always do my best. One, I don’t really know what my best would look and feel like if I did it. Two, I don’t constantly ask myself if I’m doing my best in those moments. The Exercise: Step 1: What would an ideal business/career/love life/body/health/social-life/family-life, etc look like? Ask yourself “what do I want?” in each of these areas? What’s the ideal outcome for you? What would you be proud to achieve in each? Now before I get to Step 2, I have a little trick I like to use when it comes to hacking into my own brain. I talk about myself in the third person, it makes it less personal. So instead of saying, “I would do this or that,” I rephrase it as “Brad would do this or that.” Make sense? Step 2: What would it look like if Brad Costanzo did his best… with his business? with his wife? with his friends and family? with his health and fitness? Step 3: Both the easiest step and the hardest. When you’re in these daily situations, ask yourself if you’re doing your best. When I do it, I instantly know if I am or not. Shining a spotlight on your effort like this usually causes me to immediately course-correct and avoid the path of least resistance. That doesn’t mean I do my best in everything I can. Laziness and excuses still get me. Just not as much as they used to. And none of us will always operate at our best, but you can't hit the target if you aren't aiming for it, right?

Found an issue with @primal app which X solved a while back and they should take note. Looking through my followers I see it looks like @Lyn Alden is following me. (Wtf I should be so honored!?) I can see the fake one misspelled her name. But when I click that profile I can’t see the username so it’s way easier for people to impersonate Primal should add more transparency on profiles to actually usernames so easier to recognize these scammers

Is it possible to see how much #nostr network growth is happening and the trends in adoption somewhere?

Do this short exercise to make sure that when You leap… the Net will actually appear On a call with a client yesterday who had come down with a case of the “What-ifs.” 😨 What if the market tanks? 😨 What if a key team member leaves? 😨 What if I screw it all up? I get it, I think this all.the.time. Especially in this environment — where uncertainty is everywhere. That’s when your mind starts to screech like a microphone too close to the speaker, stuck in a feedback loop. But it's really a fear loop. My advice (because I've done this): Create a “Who to Call When” List. 1. grab a piece of paper or open your note app. 2. Write down every area that feels foggy or fragile right now...where you’re unsure, stuck, or exposed. 3. Then, beside each one, jot down the name of a person OR the kind of person — you could reach out to when the moment comes. Not to solve it now... But to know you COULD! 👩‍🦰 a friend who picks up at 11pm. 👨 a mentor who’s walked this path before. 👨‍🦰 a consultant you haven’t hired yet but could. 🧑‍🏫 a peer who won’t sugarcoat it. This list becomes your NET. Practically AND emotionally. It reminds you: - You’re not flying solo. - Help is available — if you’re clear on who and when. Ever heard the delusionally optimistic quote? “Leap, and the net will appear.” The net won't just magically show up. Ya build it, one name at a time. Do this and you’ll realize — Your net, works. Get it? 😉 (I slay myself) So who’s on your “Who to Call When” list? More importantly, who should be but isn't?

These are the only 4 skills you should focus on in 2025 and we’re 1/4 through it. 1. DEEP FOCUS - Attention spans are gone. Even yours. AI makes it easy to do shallow work. Don’t succumb to easy. - Know your biggest distractions and remove them. 2. AI PROFICIENCY -AI only helps you do 5 things better and faster: Think. Create. Communicate. Analyze. Automate. But those entail nearly everything you do. - Assume AI can do any task if you just prompt it correctly - Use AI to learn anything. Fast. - Build AI agents for repetitive tasks in your business - Test new AI tools weekly - it’s like keeping your HR department always accepting applications for talent. 3. AUDIENCE BUILDING - When everything can and will be faked, human connection rules. - AI can build virtually product in hours, so your brand becomes your moat - Systemize content creation: voice notes through the day later condensed with AI. - Post interesting valuable insights daily (like I am) consistently. Focus on one platform until you master it - Get 1000 true super fans : reply to comments, ask for audience feedback and input - Brand loyalty is the best moat for most businesses today. A loyal audience is one of the few ways to protect your business. 4. SALES. - Sales will always be the best skill because it’s closest to the cash register. - Selling in person or online is pretty similar but different enough to get good at both. These 4 areas will create massive leverage and insulation. And they’re easier…but not easy. These are the traps to avoid. AI triggers ADD. more shiny objects than ever. More ideas can come to life. It will be hard to choose. Deciding to do deep work is like deciding to go to the gym. Sucks in the start till you develop the habit. AI changes quickly. Too many tools. Exciting but overwhelming = Toolphoria. Focus on your outcomes not the tools. Lack of consistency and short term thinking will kill your progress. I fell victim to this for too long. This is the hard part that most won’t do. We call them poor. Your best audience cares about themselves not about you but connecting yourself or your business to themselves will make you addictive. Focusing content only on yourself will make you annoying. The most important lesson of all. Remember, you can just do things.

To the (slightly) older entrepreneurs with a young mind, big ideas but feels a little too tired to learn new tricks... You thought best days were behind you. That you couldn't keep up with technology. Wrong. Experience isn't a liability. It's your secret weapon. You've seen markets crash. Built businesses from nothing. Made tough calls when others hesitated. You know what works. The problem was never your ideas. It was the execution gap. Days spent on tasks beneath your expertise. Hours wasted fighting technology. Momentum killed by operational quicksand. Until now. AI doesn't care about your birthdate. It doesn't see your gray hair. It's not a new language you need to spend months or years learning (it's easier than you think) Better yet, the more you already know, the better your results will be. Human experience gives you an advantage when using AI. The second chance that isn't really a second chance... but a continuation of what you started. Some call it disruption. You call it liberation. What once took weeks now takes moments. What required teams now needs only you. What seemed impossible is suddenly within reach. You're not learning new tricks. You're finally being unburdened to use the old ones. The wisdom. The judgment. The pattern recognition. The business sense. Now paired with tools that eliminate friction. The entrepreneurs who will dominate aren't just the young disruptors. They're the seasoned veterans with fire rekindled. The builders who combine decades of knowledge With technology that turns thoughts into reality. This isn't your twilight. It's your renaissance. We can just do things now. You just need to want to.

Can I get some love on this prediction that came true? 😉

Some people wear masks for fun. Others wear them to tear down empires. This is a Halloween story about both. Halloween. The night when we put on masks, break the normal rules, and step into different identities. But sometimes, the scariest disruptions aren't the ghosts and goblins – they're the ideas that overthrow entire systems of power. Because October 31st isn't just about candy and costumes. Twice in history, as darkness fell on All Hallows' Eve, revolutionaries launched ideas that would tear down empires. In 1517, the Catholic Church was at the height of its power. It controlled not just souls, but economics – selling salvation through "indulgences" while keeping scripture locked away in Latin. On that Halloween night, an obscure monk named Martin Luther took a hammer and nails to the church door of Wittenberg, and with 95 Theses, lit a fire that would burn down the medieval order. When told to recant or die, he declared: "Here I stand, I can do no other." His reward? Excommunication and a death sentence that forced him to live as "Knight Jörg" in hiding, while his revolution spread like wildfire through Europe. Then, Halloween 2008. Lehman Brothers had just collapsed. Banks that had gambled with people's lives were getting trillion-dollar bailouts. The financial order seemed both absolutely corrupt and utterly unshakeable. That's when someone wearing the mask of Satoshi Nakamoto dropped a digital bombshell: a nine-page paper describing money without rulers. No banks. No bailouts. No permission needed. Just pure mathematical truth. Like Luther's theses, it was a declaration of independence – this time from the high priests of finance. The parallels are more than spooky – they're revolutionary: * Both struck at the perfect moment: Luther when the Church's corruption had reached its peak, Satoshi when the financial system was revealing its fatal flaws. * Both used the latest technology to spread rebellion: Luther harnessed the newly invented printing press, Satoshi deployed the borderless internet. * Both faced overwhelming odds: Luther against the combined power of Church and Empire, Satoshi against the entire global financial system. * Both disappeared into legend: Luther emerging from exile as a victorious prophet, Satoshi vanishing entirely but leaving behind an unstoppable movement. Think about it: On the one night when the veil between worlds is thinnest, when old rules can be broken and new realities can emerge, two figures chose to light matches that would burn down the old order. Like supernatural trick-or-treaters, they knocked on the door of the establishment and left behind revolutionary treats that turned out to be existential tricks for the powerful. Today, 515 years after Luther spooked the Church and 16 years after Satoshi spooked the banks, their Halloween gifts keep giving: decentralization, freedom from middlemen, and the radical idea that common people shouldn't have to beg permission from high priests – whether they wear clerical robes or banker's suits. Sometimes the most disruptive masks aren't the ones we wear on Halloween – they're the ones worn by revolutionaries who dare to question everything. Now that's a Halloween story worth telling. Did you really think Bitcoin was about getting rich?

First, I'm a #Bitcoin maximalist, not a skeptic, yet always looking at potentially sound arguments against it (as we all should if being intellectually rigorous). Just watched this video with Patrick McKenzie: "Why Crypto Will Never Fix Payments" One of his arguments against using Bitcoin or crypto as payments is that its lack of infrastructure for dispute resolution and refunds, (which I think we all believe are valuable aspects of the current system for consumer protection) and he asserts this could hinder adoption as a mainstream payment method. Of course some Layer 2 solutions may help solve some of these issues, but they may not, refunds and dispute resolution by nature require a trusted 3rd party intermediary. My first thought is that having a 2 or 3rd layer solution on top of Bitcoin with some sort of smart contracts for this "might" be helpful but not quite sure. Just curious if any Bitcoiners have thought this aspect through and if I'm missing a smart innovative answer to this objection for using it as a payment method and not just a store of value.

You know how boring and sad it gets watching Bitcoin sit here in the 60k's for like 6 months? Pretty soon we'll have this exact same feeling in the low 100k's... 100k will feel SO boring.

After screwing around on #Nostr for a bit, reading, researching a lurking why not make a formal #introductions (I only have a handful of followers right now). Still trying to figure out the ins and outs here but happy to be early. It's genuinely so much better content than X and other social accounts. X has more variety but more noise. I've made my living starting or buying businesses and helping other businesses grow through marketing and #artificialintelligence I stumbled into #AI and enjoy enabling others with consulting and projects but I have a love/hate relationship with it. It's fun, but feels soul-less... so I try to put a little bit of mine into the projects I create. As a former finance professional, I was a very late adopter to Bitcoin. Started dabbling in 2017 but then my friend Tai Zen was encouraging me to look into it in 2013 and I scoffed "that's never going to be money or a currency brah, because reasons" But when he came back to me in 2020 and said it's game time I started to listen, read, watch and drink from the firehose. My finance experience actually worked for me b/c I saw the bullshit happening and Bitcoin clicked a lot quicker. Of course I was Bitcoin AND shit coin for the last bull market and learned a VERY hard lesson. Ouch. Sold the Shit, Kept the Bit... And kept adding to it. I'm constantly amazed at how addicted I am to Bitcoin news, narrative and nuance. I'm all in, maxi style and you'd think I'd say "I know enough, next topic" but it's crazy how this doesn't get old and you keep finding nooks and crannies of info to devour. I appreciate the hell out of every Bitcoiner out there who is creating great financial content to encourage no coiners and reinforce Bitcoiners. Much love to you. I just loaded my wallet and plan to try zapping a few people and get the most out of Nostr - but I'm still learning and would love any insights y'all have. That's it for now. I'll be back. #bitcoin #plebchain #grownostr #entrepreneur #asknostr

Life is all about perspective. #Bitcoin

Couldn’t agree more. Return your shopping carts

The Bill of Rights is one of the greatest contributions to civilization in history. But what about a FINANCIAL BILL Of RIGHTS? What might that look like? 1. The Right to Freedom of Transact Every individual has the unalienable right to freely engage in financial transactions without interference from governments or central authorities. The ability to buy, sell, and trade freely must be as inviolable as freedom of speech, enabling people to access resources, pursue livelihoods, and exercise autonomy over their economic life. 2. The Right to Sound Money People must have the right to use and save money that is not subject to debasement, inflationary theft, or government manipulation. The only money that truly serves society is one that preserves its value over time rather than being eroded by central banks printing it into oblivion. 3. The Right to Privacy in Financial Affairs Individuals must have the right to conduct financial transactions privately, without surveillance from governments or corporations. Personal financial privacy ensures freedom from undue coercion, control, and discrimination. 4. The Right to Self-Custody Assets Every individual must have the right to hold and control their own money and assets, without needing intermediaries like banks or financial institutions. No person should be forced to rely on third parties who can freeze or seize their wealth at the whim of the state. 5. The Right to Decentralized Currency and Finance People should have the right to participate in decentralized financial systems that operate independently of centralized powers, ensuring that no government or institution can monopolize or manipulate currency, credit, or markets to their advantage. 6. The Right to Opt Out of Fiat Systems No individual should be forced to participate in a fiat currency system. Every person must have the right to opt out of government-controlled money and opt into alternatives like #Bitcoin thus ensuring they are not subjected to inflationary theft, capital controls, or monetary repression. 7. The Right to Unrestricted Access to Global Markets People must be free to engage with markets globally, without arbitrary borders or government-imposed restrictions. Capital controls and sanctions inhibit freedom, preventing individuals from accessing the best economic opportunities and protecting their wealth. 8. The Right to Protection Against Government Confiscation Governments should never have the authority to confiscate an individual’s property, wealth, or assets without due process, and even then, only under the strictest conditions. Wealth confiscation through taxation, inflation, or outright seizure is a direct violation of property rights. 9. The Right to Education on Financial Literacy Every person has the right to access education that empowers them to make informed decisions about money, investments, and personal finance. A society where citizens understand the financial system is one where people can resist manipulation and financial control. 10. The Right to Equal Opportunity in Financial Participation No individual should be excluded from financial participation due to government mandates, social credit scores, or centralized financial power. Access to economic freedom and financial tools must be equally available to all people, regardless of political, social, or geographical background. This Financial Bill of Rights prioritizes individual sovereignty, financial freedom, and decentralization, ensuring that governments and centralized powers cannot strip individuals of their autonomy, privacy, or wealth. So… what’s missing? How could this be improved?

These past 6+ months of a #Bitcoin crab market (sideways downtrending) will likely be looked back at as the largest accumulation opportunity window that normal people have ever had to acquire #BTC Future Us to Future Them: "Y'all had 6+ months to buy, the price was suppressed, it kept getting cheaper, yet the bullish signs were all there the whole time. All the catalysts were lined up, the bull was stuck in the chute, the gate could only stay closed for so long. And you missed it!"

Looks like my wife and I made it to #BurningMan after all. At least in spirit!! Major FOMO this year!!

Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future.