How I lost 62 lbs, cured my depression, fixed my high blood pressure, & became a better human by living a #YearOfTheOpposite. I'll share what I learned, how I did it, & the science behind it. A Newsletter for people that don't subscribe to Newsletters.
I think I was unclear in my last post about AI. Many people thought that I had went full doomer on AI and that I was fearful that ai was going to destroy us all. I want to be more clear.
This is the most fun that I have had in years.
And as I use these ai tools more and read history more the more I realize that:
Ai isn’t replacement. It’s expansion.
Let’s go back to the example I used of my fathers job. He was a skill trades tool and die marker at General Motors. Yes, his job did change and get automated. Tasks that used to take hours, could now be done in minutes or seconds. It meant that my dad’s job had to change.
The workers now would be focused on programming, designing, inventing the cars. And this allowed the car to be made much more affordably which meant that more people were able to afford them. The total market for cars expanded and simultaneously, the technology in the car got better and better.
The car got safer with inventions like lane assistance sensors, intelligent airbags, automatic emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, and adaptive cruise control.
Those inventions and advancements all required humans to make them. They just weren’t on the line doing back breaking dangerous work, they were in offices using their brains to invent new technologies that made all our lives better.
I have to remind myself that jobs are created and destroyed every minute. And that many of the jobs that I am nostalgic about were not that great.
Does anyone really miss working in a mine shaft far from their family with a real fear of death at any moment? I don’t think so. Similarly, with grinding metal in an auto factory.
My post last week wasn’t to say that I am fearful of ai. I was hoping to convey that I understand why people are fearful. That I too am fearful. And as my business coach, Dino likes to say. “It’s not change that people fear. It’s loss.”
I was fearful that I was losing my purpose. My profession. My “edge”. I try to remind myself that we have seen this before. In the 2000’s I was working at a desktop software company and when mobile technology exploded, many of us software people feared that desktop software was dead. But we were dead wrong (Punny?).
In reality, desktop usage has stayed steady and slightly increased since then. While mobile usage also surged from 1 hour a day usage to now an average of 4 hours. Again, it wasn’t replacement. It was expansion. And TechSmith still sells Snagit and Camtasia desktop software today!
It was natural for a desktop software maker to fear that mobile was going to steal all their jobs and revenue. But that’s usually not what happens. It is just hard to see the future. It was hard to see that we would be able to hail a cab, identify stars, fly a drone, and identify skin cancer with mobile phones.
Technology enables so many things that have never existed before that it makes them hard to imagine. Around the time of WW2, electricity was far less common in German homes. German prisoners of war that came to America would write lettersamazed by the technology that they saw in America.
They would go through cities fascinated by the lights, because at this time about 80% of American homes had electricity. Lights to read by, washing machines, refrigerators, electric stoves, and vacuum cleaners.
So in closing. I’m sorry that my last post made people think I was fearful of ai.
The truth is that I’ve been staying up late and waking up early to play with these tools.
It has NEVER been more fun to build. I am designing websites, applications… I’m creating more than I ever have. Even my 7 year old now has his own website and 2 video games that he created.
ai didn’t replace software developers, it means that we are now ALL software developers!
These tools make what was a skill only a few were able to use to now anyone can use them.
It reminds me of the Computer. There used to be rooms full of people that would spend their entire day computing equations like artillery firing tables during WWII or plotting rocket trajectories for NASA space missions. Computer was a job title.
But then the computer machine came along. Those people still existed but they now were able to use a computer machine to process even more data. Computing didn’t go away, we got way more computing that we ever had before.
This is all to say, I’m sorry that my post last week scared some. That wasn’t my intent. I would say that 90% of the time I am absolutely in love with ai and the opportunities and possibilities that it presents. But I did want to be honest and confess that I too sometimes wake up with a fear that I am being replaced. And that is totally natural and human.
What do you think? Am I off base? How are you feeling about ai?
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ai
mercredi 4 mars 2026 • Durée 02:45
My job has changed more in the past month than it has in the past 10 years.
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My dad always described his work at GM as “a tool maker”. He’d say he made the tools that helped repair the tools that made the cars. I don’t know if I have any of that right since I was a kid when he said it.
My understanding is that the big General Motors plants would have a few guys that were on the “tool maker” team and they would be skilled techs that would make the tools for that plant.
As GM scaled and consolidated their operations, my dads job changed. Instead of making the tools for just one plant, they centralized them all to Grand Blanc. Now my dad would have to travel from Lansing to Grand Blanc
But the bigger change for my dad was that instead of his day to day job being different and variable based on what was going on at that plant.
He now described his job as boring.
He would just wait for a robot to finish making a part.
Then he would take it off.
Then he would load the next part.
Did that just happen to my job?
Because, that’s what I do now.
I don’t make the Google Ads myself anymore. I have robots that make them. I just feed the input material and monitor the output.
Did my job just go through the same transition that my fathers did two decades ago?
Is my job now just managing a robot that does my work and thinking for me?
Is my job is just to tell it what to do, hit “allow” a bunch of times, tell the robot when they made mistake and then wait for the robot to fix it.
But how long will the robot even need me to do that?
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Curing Ulcers - Damn the Experts
jeudi 22 janvier 2026 • Durée 07:09
Remember when we were growing up and we’d hear things like “Better calm down, you’re gonna give yourself an ulcer!” It was thought back then that stress and spicy food caused ulcers.
Around 1979, Dr. Robin Warren and Barry Marshall started noticing these spiral-shaped bacteria while doing stomach biopsies of patients with gastritis.
Then a crazy thing happened: The Easter Breakthrough.
In 1982, a lab technician accidentally left their samples in the incubator for five days over the Easter holiday instead of the two-day standard at the time. This mistake allowed enough time for the H. pylori colonies to grow and appear.
By 1983, Marshall had isolated the bacteria and found that it was present in 100% of the patients they tested who had ulcers.
They had discovered the cause of ulcers.
They presented their findings at a conference in Brussels. Their hope was that they had discovered a cure for an extremely painful disease that sentenced patients to a lifetime of eating bland foods and antacid pills.
Marshall presented his findings at the conference in Brussels and the crowd celebrated his massive accomplishment. He received a standing ovation, he was Time’s Person of the Year, millions of patients around the globe were cured, and Marshall was celebrated as a hero.
Wait, I’m sorry, I got that wrong.
The medical community viciously attacked him, saying that he was a “young nobody from Perth” who had no reputation, and senior doctors even called his theory “reckless and preposterous.” They said the stomach is a sterile environment and that no bacteria could survive in that acidic environment.
Another group within the medical establishment believed that almost all diseases were “repressed emotional responses.” They said: “The critical factor in the development of ulcers is the frustration associated with the wish to receive love.”
They literally thought ulcers were caused by people not getting enough love.
Marshall was devastated, frustrated, and a bit angry that no one was listening to him, looking at the evidence, or—more importantly—helping the patients.
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Betting solves this
lundi 3 novembre 2025 • Durée 02:51
People think verifying if someone is “right” means asking an “expert” or checking Snopes for a yes or no.
Real verification comes from outcomes. If someone claims gravity pulls mass toward Earth’s center, drop a ball and see. Don’t just ask the professor if gravity exists.
I’m baffled why we keep believing people who are constantly wrong.
Like predicting we will run out of oil in 20 years, then 20 years pass, and it hasn’t. You shouldn’t trust that person anymore. But we do.
Or claiming an education reform will improve test scores, but scores plummet.
Or claiming tariffs will skyrocket inflation, and it doesn’t. Stop trusting them.
Or invading a foreign country will protect us from a threat and it turns out the threat was a lie.
Or that a healthcare reform will reduce our costs, but they increase.
They keep being wrong. But they keep getting invited back to make predictions!
Experts and models don’t matter. What happened does.
This applies to all sides.
To be clear: Being wrong once isn’t a life sentence. That’s unfair. That would prevent learning.
But making the same prediction for years, getting proven wrong repeatedly, never apologizing, then doubling down on the disproven claim? That’s unforgivable.
It’s insanity.
I see it every time I make the mistake of turning on the news: The same career-long failures doubling down, moving goalposts.
They think we’re stupid. And given how we keep listening, they might be right.
—
This is why it’s so stupid to debate these things - yet that is almost all you see in political talks.
It’s two idiots debating some untestable prediction about the future that may never come. They yell at each other claiming they are certain of what will happen in the future… then idiotically they never come back to test what actually happened.
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My Version of Chesterton's Fence
mardi 21 octobre 2025 • Durée 05:03
I wanted to share with you an old parable that I just learned of that I can’t stop thinking about. It’s called Chesterton’s Fence and I think it’s important today.
“There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, ‘I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.’
To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: ‘If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”
But here is my version…
A man is walking a new piece of property he recently acquired when he comes across a fence that seems out of place and unnecessary. The man begins removing the fence, and soon the nice elderly woman next door approaches him and asks, “What is the purpose of that fence you are taking down?” The man replies, “It serves no purpose, so I’m clearing it away.”
The woman replies, “It sure looks like someone took a lot of time, care, and resources to erect that fence. Are you certain you know its purpose before you set out to destroy it?”
The man grows frustrated that this stranger is telling him how to manage his new property. Showing his frustration, he replies, “Please mind your own business and allow me to improve my property.” The lady shakes her head and returns to her house.
But the next June, they awaken to find their crops trampled. A bug that only spawns between June and July had reappeared, flooding their fields. And when the rabbits, raccoons, and other critters came to eat them, they trampled the entire crop, destroying the family’s income for that year.
When I was younger, I wanted to reform everything. I would come across a fence and want to destroy it. But the fence most likely served a greater purpose that I was unaware of. Tearing down the fence could result in unintended consequences in the future.
Think about when you come across a stop sign that seems pointless. Maybe it was erected because of repeated fatal accidents at that intersection over the years.
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Alpha School
mercredi 8 octobre 2025 • Durée 08:04
Today marks two years since I started serving on the Haslett School Board.
It also marks about a decade of my fascination with education in the United States.
I consider myself lucky to be in Haslett. We’re not perfect, and COVID definitely impacted our kids, but our academic performance has been stronger than almost all of the surrounding communities.
Especially compared to Holt, where I graduated. I say this with sadness, not superiority. Holt has not been doing well lately.
This journey has taken me deep into the world of education. I’ve asked hard questions like, why did schools move away from using phonics instruction to teach reading?
Books like The Knowledge Gap and podcasts like Sold a Story helped me understand the system, and more importantly, helped me intervene to teach our 7-year-old how to actually read.
I also became a Certified School Board Member through MASB, which opened my eyes to how school districts really operate, the trade-offs, the complexity, the constraints.
One of the most inspiring examples I’ve found is what people call the Mississippi Miracle.
In 2013, Mississippi ranked 49th in 4th grade reading scores. By 2022, they were 21st overall, and top 5 in the country for Black, low-income, and special education students. They focused on direct instruction, phonics, teacher training, and retention policies. It worked.
All of that has been fascinating.
But nothing has impressed me as much as Alpha School.
What Is Alpha School?
Alpha School is a high-end private school, built from the ground up like a product, designed to make school awesome for kids. At the center is a powerful learning engine they call, Time Back.
Students come in and spend just two hours a day with the AI-powered tutor. This tutor delivers , constantly adapting based on what the student needs. As Joe puts it, your age grade and .
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Money Shouts. wealth whispers.
lundi 15 septembre 2025 • Durée 02:35
A person posted a heartbreaking story and asked for money advice in a local community group. They said they are trying everything, work a good paying job, published multiple books, try to save, but they still cry daily over unexpected bills. They asked the community for money advice.
First I gave the standard BS response.
“Advice is always worth less than you pay for it, so this is probably useless. But my advice is, it’s not what you make, it’s what you spend. I love this quote: “you’ve already reached the goals that you promised would make you happy”. Don’t keep up with the joneses.”
But that was crap. It was fortune cookie wisdom that wasn’t helpful at all. I wanted to try to do better by them and give them a practical roadmap. So here it is:
“Actually I thought about this more. I didn’t give you tangible advice. Now I’m going to. This is what you do TODAY.
Pick the person in your life that you love and respect that you consider “rich”. Approach them and say: “I’ve always admired how you handle money and I’ve been struggling. Would you take me under your wing and teach me how to be rich?”
I have never met anyone that would turn down that request.
Next: give them EVERYTHING. Your credit card bills statements, your dark secrets, your mortgage, your W2 statements, your last 3 year tax returns.
Then commit to them that you’ll do whatever they say for 5 years.
Have them put you on a budget. Have them look at your skills and your work opportunities.
Have them coach you on interviewing for jobs.
Ask them to introduce you to other successful people.
I am confident this will get you to where you want to be in 5 years.
With one caveat: you must follow their advice and pick the right person to emulate.
I wish you nothing but success!
Bonus tip: never take money advice from people that don’t have it. And from my experience, often times the person driving a beat down F150 has $500k in the bank while the dude in a suit driving the BMW has $500k in debt.
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Moral Inversion
jeudi 28 août 2025 • Durée 03:17
Early Monday morning, a person entered our car and searched through it looking for items to steal. They didn’t find anything worth taking, but our neighbors weren’t as lucky. Several of them had things stolen from their vehicles.
We alerted the police and shared our video footage in hopes it would help track down the thief. And, as is common now, we posted the videos to our local Facebook groups to warn neighbors and see if anyone else had been hit.
It turns out the suspect may have broken into hundreds of cars, covering multiple miles from at least 3:30 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.
Most of the comments we received were supportive and helpful. People tried to identify the suspect and reminded others to stay alert.
But there’s a different kind of response that shows up too. “Maybe lock your doors and keep valuables out.” “When will people learn to lock their doors?”
Those types of comments got a lot of likes, and they’re not uncommon.
When our window was broken at Slice by Saddleback and the cash register stolen, people said we deserved it because we hadn’t left the till open to show there was no cash inside.
A few things are true here. Yes, we could have locked our doors. That’s correct.
But it’s also true that it’s not our fault someone tried to steal from us.
This is called moral inversion. It’s similar to the old lines like, “She shouldn’t have dressed that way if she didn’t want to get attacked,” or “You shouldn’t walk through that neighborhood if you don’t want to get robbed.”
It’s victim blaming. It flips the morality around. It implies that unless we secure every item and lock every door, we are responsible for the actions of people who break the law. That kind of thinking erodes trust.
And trust is what community depends on.
When I walk down the street with my kids, I trust that drivers won’t run us over. When I eat at a restaurant, I trust that nobody put something disgusting in my food. We rely on each other, every day, in thousands of small ways.
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On Parenting, Policy, and Trust
jeudi 21 août 2025 • Durée 03:48
Reflections on Fatherhood – April 17, 2025
I wrote this on the day Brady was born, but I didn’t feel comfortable releasing it until now. I’m embarrassed to admit how often I write a post but I’m too much of a coward to release it because of fear. Anyway, here it is…
On Parenting, Policy, and Trust
I’m running into this again and again. I’m being told how to raise my kid by people who speak with total confidence but don’t have the evidence to back it up. First it was postpartum exercise. Then co-sleeping. Then newborn sleep, feeding, meds, positions. All of it.
Take the postpartum workout restriction. Laken was told not to exercise for six weeks after birth. No nuance. Just a flat-out rule. But when I dug into it, I couldn’t find any randomized controlled trials (RCTs) proving that intense exercise before six weeks postpartum causes harm. Most studies actually show that light to moderate activity within 2–4 weeks is not only safe but also beneficial, especially for mental health. The PAMELA trial, for example, found improved mood and no complications from early activity. Another study in Frontiers in Psychology showed reduced anxiety with postpartum aquatic exercise starting around 4–6 weeks. No RCTs showed harm from earlier or more intense activity. None.
The six-week rule is based on tradition and expert opinion, not hard data. It reminds me of old hip replacement protocols, when doctors used to keep patients immobile for weeks. That delayed healing. Now, patients get up within hours. What if postpartum care is stuck in the same outdated thinking?
Then there’s co-sleeping. We were told that if we sleep with Brady, he could die. Period. Again, it sounded final. But when I dug deeper, I found that most of the data comes from unsafe environments, sofas, intoxicated parents, loose bedding, or premature babies. I couldn’t find a single documented case where a full-term baby died while sleeping in a safe bed with a healthy, sober, non-smoking, alert parent in a safe setup. Not one. Yet we’re treated like we’re reckless just for asking the question.
The deeper I look, the more I realize these aren’t solid, research-backed facts. They’re guidelines written by committees, made for the lowest common denominator, passed off as “science.”
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My three-point plan to increase the property values around Lake Lansing by 50%
mercredi 13 août 2025 • Durée 05:49
There’s only one large all-sport lake (allows for watersports) around Lansing, Lake Lansing. It has a terrible reputation because it used to be dirty, and that was not entirely wrong. As a watershed lake, about 90% of its water comes from storm runoff, which means everything from lawn fertilizer to road salt and oil once flowed straight in from the surrounding area. That runoff built up sediment and pollutants over decades, making the lake seem small, shallow, and murky. But it is not like that anymore. A major dredging project in 1978, ongoing lake management, and better stormwater practices have made the water cleaner now than it has been in decades.
At about 461 acres, it is actually larger than most lakes in Michigan. When you look at the distribution of inland lakes statewide, the vast majority are under 100 acres, so by comparison, Lake Lansing is in the upper tier of size. It is our one and only lake. Obviously, I am biased because I live on it, but here is my bold three-point plan to improve the perception of the lake, increase its usability, return it to a more natural state, and increase property values around it by 50 percent.
1. Making Lake Lansing’s Pathways Safe for Everyone
First, improving the safety of the running and bike path around the lake. In Haslett, we are blessed with an absolutely amazing park system and River Trail. I think the North Lake Lansing Park is one of the most beautiful in the area, maybe in the entire state, and I think it is completely missed by most people. The trails through that park are glorious, and you go through at least two or three different types of forests when you're out there. It's absolutely spectacular.
But one area where we need improvement is the running and bike path around the lake. A lot of it is on Lake Drive, and while it's a beautiful drive, it’s incredibly risky. You basically run/walk on the shoulder of the road and the shoulders are not very big, and it’s very windy, so drivers often don't see the runner until the last minute.
I joke with my friends that running is probably the thing that will save my life, but it will also be the thing that kills me, because I'll probably get hit by a car on that run. It's a joke, but there's definitely some truth in it.
There’s been more than one time that I've looked up and seen a driver coming at me, distracted and not looking at the road.
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The robot will be able to check it’s work better than I can. It will be able to feed it more inputs faster than I can.
I’m generally a Techno Optimist as they call it. I think technology has been amazing for humanity.
But every once in awhile I wake up with a little fear. And today was one of those days…
What are you feeling about AI? Has it impacted your job yet?
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Marshall attempted to perform studies to prove his theory, but the medical establishment kept throwing up roadblocks. In order to run a human test, he had to reproduce the results in animals first, but that didn’t work in this case.
So what did he do? He tested it on the “only ethical subject”: himself.
In 1984, Marshall took the bacteria from an infected patient and drank it himself!
After three days, he developed nausea and halitosis (extreme bad breath) because the bacteria neutralized his stomach acid. By day eight, an endoscopy showed massive stomach inflammation and colonies of the bacteria H. pylori.
By day 10, the endoscopy found a raw, red, inflamed stomach lining. By day 14, Marshall began to fear for his health and started a therapy of antibiotics and bismuth.
Marshall had just proven that H. pylori caused gastritis, and gastritis eventually causes ulcers.
But even after the experiment, the medical establishment wouldn’t surrender or change course!
In 1985, he successfully published his self-experiment in the Medical Journal of Australia. But it was largely ignored.
For a decade, ulcer victims had started talking about an “underground cure” called “the Marshall Treatment.” This was basically antibiotics.
It wasn’t for another full decade (1994) until the National Institutes of Health officially stated that most ulcers were caused by H. pylori and should be treated with antibiotics.
This change effectively killed the billion-dollar market for long-term antacid maintenance, which Marshall later called “the ultimate satisfaction.”
And it wasn’t for another decade until Marshall received the Nobel Prize in 2005.
Today, about half of the decline in stomach cancer is attributed to Marshall’s discovery.
Marshall’s discovery was ignored for a decade. What was the impact of that? Let’s look at some numbers.
At that time, about 700,000 people died from stomach cancer per year. Let’s say just a modest 25% of those could be saved by Marshall’s solution of “Screen and Treat” with antibiotics.
That means that at least 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 people may have been saved if Marshall’s discovery had been recognized earlier.
Thankfully, in 2005, Marshall and his colleague Robin Warren were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Because of Marshall and Warren’s work, the World Health Organization (WHO) now classifies H. pylori as a carcinogen. This discovery also sparked the first “antibiotic cure” for a cancer. A rare type of stomach tumor called MALT lymphoma can often be completely cured just by taking antibiotics to kill the bacteria.
I love this story because it’s a perfect case study in how the “experts” can be dead wrong for decades. It’s a classic case of “appeal to authority,” where “experts” dismissed the correct answer, not because of fundamental truth, but only because Marshall was not a part of their Tribe. He wasn’t an “expert”. It’s a reminder that people that change the world and make massive discoveries are often considered heretics, stupid, evil, or worse.
The establishment chose to believe ulcers were caused by a “lack of love” rather than a bacteria because their dogma was profitable and comfortable.
It is another reminder that the system isn’t built to find the truth. It is built to protect itself and if you want to do something great or different, it could take you decades of being called a monster before anyone ever believes you. Just ask Alan Turing or Galileo.
I’m very sorry for the lack of updates lately. Santa brought our 7 year old a ATV 4-wheeler for Christmas and I flipped it and broke 3 ribs. I’m recovering now but it was a rough patch there. Thank you for your patience!
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Anytime someone is trying to debate you about something… ask them to frame it into a testable bet instead.
You’ll find that in almost all cases, the debate will disappear. Becauase they aren’t looking for truth. They are looking for a safe fight. A nerf warriror. They want to pretend they are in battle but without any real risk.
They just want to _feel_ like they are right.
They don’t actually care if they are factually right.
And when they get to make policies that we all have to live with, we all suffer.
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Think about the new “boss” at work that comes in and tries to “fix” everything but is actually destroying decades of progress and improvements that the previous team only learned through the scar tissue of their experiences. (This explains exactly how I felt after we sold Liquid Web and the new guys came in and changed everything! Only now, 10 years later, are they realizing that may have made a mistake.)
There is another recent example that sticks out to me and that all parents deal with and something that caused massive harm to thousands, maybe millions, of kids.
Around the year 2000, a committee of pediatricians came across a proverbial fence. Parents were feeding their children cows milk, eggs, peanuts and fish for thousands of years. The pediatricians were trying to reduce allergies, which can sometimes be very severe, in their young patients.
The pediatricians convened a committee and came up with the “1, 2, 3 rule”. It was their “expert opinion” that parents should delay cows milk until age 1, eggs until age 2, nuts and fish until age 3.
This was a massive change for parents and a large educational campaign commenced with pediatricians everywhere warning their patients to avoid these foods
or risk allergies in their children.
So what was the result? In 2000, the rate of peanut allergies in kids was about .4% and severe peanut allergy was extremely rare. Within 2 years, the rate had doubled to .8%. Today, the rate is about 2% or more. But most troubling, the rate of severe peanut allergy and death has skyrocketed. Which is why schools and daycares have to treat peanuts as if they are a biological weapon and ban them everywhere.
By removing what seemed like a fence, natural early exposure, experts created an epidemic of food allergies that harmed an entire generation of kids.
It’s easy to laugh at the mistakes of past experts with the benefit of hindsight. But the truth is, we are all standing in fields full of old fences. Some are wise, some are useless, some are harmful to leave standing, and some are dangerous to tear down. The lesson of Chesterton’s Fence is not to avoid change. It is to stop, ask why something exists, and understand the scar tissue that built it before you swing the hammer. History shows us clearly that rushing to remove a fence without knowing its purpose often makes things worse, not better.
If you enjoyed this all I ask is that you tell me, or share it with a friend. Thank you!
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your knowledge grade are two totally different things
The system teaches to mastery, not to the average. Every lesson is personalized, every gap is closed. Students learn 10 times faster, and consistently perform in the top 1% nationally. The real unlock is time back.
With core academics finished in two hours, students have four more hours each day to focus on “life skills” workshops. Getting their Time Back is a huge motivation for the students.
Life skills workshops include things like leadership, financial literacy, public speaking, entrepreneurship projects like running a food truck, robotics, sports, and chess tournaments. The rest of the day is team-based, project-based, and fun. It’s not screen time — it’s real-world preparation. As Joe says, the key to motivation is progress and choice, and Alpha delivers both.
Here’s how Alpha works, and why it’s blowing my mind.
Alpha’s 5 Core Commitments
* Kids Must Love SchoolNot tolerate it: love it. Alpha students are asked, would you rather go to school or go on vacation? Last year some of their high schoolers said, can we skip summer break because we don’t want to stop. That kind of love.
* Kids Must Learn 10x FasterAlpha has built a two-hour academic model using AI and learning science. Students spend two hours a day with their AI tutor, and that’s it. Their academic performance is in the top 1% nationally. It’s not that the kids are smarter, it’s that the model works better.
* The Rest of the Day Is for LifeWith the academic work done in the morning, the rest of the day is for life skills. Workshops on leadership, public speaking, entrepreneurship, personal finance, and teamwork. Real skills, no busywork, no screens.
* Guides Instead of TeachersAlpha doesn’t have traditional teachers. They have Guides. These adults are responsible for making sure kids love school, learn quickly, and grow as people. They don’t lecture. They coach, support, and hold students to high expectations.
* High Standards Create Happy KidsThis one is the most opposite of all. Alpha believes happiness comes from high standards, not low ones. Kids struggle, fail, cry, and then succeed. That builds real confidence and resilience. That’s the kind of happiness that lasts.
What Joe Discovered About Education
Joe is not an educator. He’s a systems guy. A product builder. Which means he noticed things that others missed.
Here are some of the biggest things Alpha has uncovered:
* Motivation is 90% of the solutionThe problem isn’t attention span or tech, it’s motivation. When school only takes two hours a day, every kid wants to learn. Giving kids their time back is the unlock.
* Swiss cheese knowledge doesn’t workIn the traditional model, kids move onto the next grade even if they only understand 70% of the material. That creates holes in knowledge and those holes lead to failure later. Alpha on the other hand, enforces mastery. Students must get over 90% before they move on.
* “A” students can still be behindAlpha has seen students with 4.0 GPAs at other schools, who are actually two or three years behind in core subjects. The old system rewards compliance, not mastery. One girl had a 740 on the SAT. She went back to third grade math, fixed the foundation, and scored a 790.
* Catching up takes less time than you thinkA student who is three years behind can often catch up in 60 hours. One subject, one grade level, done in 20 to 30 hours. It’s not magic. It’s just focus and a system that works.
* Every kid can be top 10%Research shows that with a tutor and mastery-based learning, average students can outperform 90% of their peers. Alpha believes 95% of eighth graders in America could be top 10% performers with the right system.
* IQ doesn’t limit outcomes anymoreIn the old model, your performance was tied to your IQ. At Alpha, it’s tied to your effort. That shift makes achievement a decision, not a destiny.
* AI unlocks personalized learningAlpha uses generative AI to build custom lessons based on each kid’s interests and knowledge gaps. They’ve even taught World War I through Taylor Swift metaphors. That’s not a joke. It’s real.
Why It Matters
Alpha isn’t just a different school, it’s a different category.
This isn’t an experiment. It’s a product. Built with intention. Measured by results. Scaled with clarity.
They’re opening new campuses. They’re launching specialty models like the Texas Sports Academy for D1-bound athletes. They’re not slowing down.
We need more conversations about this. More public awareness. More experiments. Because what we’re doing isn’t working. Not for kids, not for parents, not for teachers.
Alpha feels like the opposite of what we’ve accepted as normal.
And maybe that’s what we need most.
— What do you think about Alpha School?
Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
That’s it. It’s simple. But it’s not easy. But anyone can do it.
I’m curious: What advice would you give them?
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Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
A world without trust is a world where we wall ourselves off from each other, where we assume everyone is a threat. That’s not the world I want to live in, and it’s not what I want for my family.
I want us to live in a high trust society where we believe in the goodness of our neighbors. I want to live in a world where our kids can ride their bike to school and eat halloween candy from their friends and neighbors.
I’m willing to take that risk because even though there are monsters out there, their numbers are small. And I’d rather live life giving the benefit of the doubt to the amazing people all around me, even the strangers, than assuming that everyone is a monster out to attack me.
Yes, I might get let down now and then. A window might get broken. Something might get taken. But if the cost of trust is an occasional setback, it’s still far cheaper than letting fear run my life.
A few bad nights aren’t worth poisoning all the good ones. I’d rather face the risk of a broken window than live with a broken worldview.
Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
They’re based on risk reduction for a system that assumes most people won’t take care of themselves, won’t ask questions, won’t think for themselves. So they make rules to cover the masses and act like they apply to everyone.
They treat me like I’m stupid, reckless, or drunk. I’m not. I’m a fully capable, sober, alert father. And I want real information, not patronizing lectures and oversimplified warnings. I want the truth. Not broad strokes built for fear and liability.
It feels like collectivism disguised as care. A nanny state in a lab coat. Disconnected from tradition, from cultural wisdom, from what parents have done for thousands of years. And it leaves no space for personal responsibility, nuance, or trust.
I don’t want rules made for people who aren’t paying attention.
I’m paying attention. I’m asking questions. I’m choosing to be fully present.
That should count for something.
Year Of The Opposite - Travis Stoliker's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The other issue is that the path isn't safe for children, so we can't let our seven-year-old ride around the lake because it's just too dangerous. If we expanded the bike lane and maybe put in some barriers between it and the road, I think that would increase the use of the path. It would make it more accessible for children and people with disabilities. And that connection point would allow it to link up with the River Trail, Lake Lansing Park North, Lake Lansing Park South, and many other parks.
It would also connect to the larger River Trail, giving access to East Lansing, Lansing, Old Town, Holt, Mason, & pretty much everywhere in the area.
2. Dredge Lake Lansing to an Average Depth of 12 Feet
Next point: dredging Lake Lansing. Lake Lansing is a notoriously treacherous lake because it has so many shallow points. The marinas in the area joke about how many people damage the propeller on their boat on Lake Lansing. It has been dredged in the past, but I think we should do it again. Because Lake Lansing has an average depth between four and ten feet, light penetrates all the way to the bottom, which allows weeds to grow. That means the lake has to be treated to kill off the weeds and vegetation to make it usable.
If we were to dredge Lake Lansing to an average depth of 12 to 15 feet, light wouldn't be able to penetrate all the way to the bottom, meaning that weeds wouldn't grow as much, and we wouldn’t have to treat the lake so often. I believe this would help return it to a more natural state and reduce the use of hard chemicals that tend to accumulate at the bottom of the lake.
One challenge for dredging, besides the cost, is deciding where to put the dirt. One suggestion might be to create an island in the middle of the lake with the dredged material, keeping it within the same lake community. This would increase the usability of the lake and make it even more amazing. I have to confess, I really think Lake Lansing is amazing, and it’s a bummer how much of a bad rap it gets.
Because Lake Lansing only has a few narrow channels of deep water, speedboats generally accumulate and go back and forth between the South Park swimming area and the north end. This creates congestion, because all the larger boats and those engaging in water sports tend to operate in the same area. It also means that oftentimes boats cannot go the legally required counterclockwise direction around the lake, especially when towing a skier, because it’s simply not possible.
3. Attract Younger Residents and Visitors to the Lake
Once those two things are done, I think this would attract more young people from surrounding communities and from MSU to use the lake. Within a few generations, the general negative perception about the lake could be replaced with a positive one. That would mean more people wanting to use it, and more people wanting to live on it.
I think these three steps would conservatively increase the property values around the lake by 50%. They would make the lake much more desirable, more natural, more beautiful, and more usable for a wider variety of water sports. And they would increase water quality because of fewer weeds, which would require fewer chemical treatments.
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