Ben's 1x1x1 - History for happiness - March 27, 2026 🚀
For those of you that are new here, every week I send what I call a 1x1x1.
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One thought from my week.
One interesting find/tool from my week.
One image from my life.
Let’s dive in 👇
Thought from the week
History is undefeated.
I meet with a lot of founders and lately there’s a theme:
AI is coming for their lunch, the economy is weird, politics are…politics, and the world feels like it’s held together with duct tape and vibes.
They’re walking around like a personal thunderstorm follows them everywhere.
Cloud. Lightning. Occasional internal monologue of doom.
When that happens, I try to get them to zoom out.
Like…way out.
I love history, especially US history.
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I’m currently reading Undaunted Courage, a book all about Lewis and Clark trekking across the U.S. when “Google Maps” was just a compass that may or may not work.
And let me tell you…things were spicy back then.
- People openly hated each other (not just in comment sections)
- Duels were a legitimate conflict resolution strategy
- Corruption? Everywhere. Like glitter. Impossible to get rid of
- Someone sneezes… half the town is gone in a week
- If you made it to 40, Andrew Hubberman would be like “wow elite longevity protocol”
And this was only 200 years ago.
Not the Dark Ages. Not cavemen.
Your great-great-great-great-grandparents were out there raw dogging existence.
No antibiotics. No HVAC. No Uber Eats.
Just vibes, dysentery, and a dream.
Reading stuff like that is honestly thrilling.
But more than that it’s grounding.
Because it smacks you in the face (in a good way) with this realization:
We are living in the greatest time in human history.
Is everything perfect?
Obviously not.
We’ve got problems. Big ones.
AI, geopolitics, economic cycles, Costco ran out of organic almond butter, all of it.
But here’s the thing…
We have always had problems.
And historically? They were way worse.
Like “might die on a Tuesday because someone coughed near you” worse.
Some of the happiest people I know read history.
And I don’t think that’s random.
Because when you regularly zoom out across centuries, today looks less like chaos…
and more like a miracle with WiFi.
So if you’ve got that little rain cloud hovering over you right now, try this:
Pick up a history book.
Throw on the Hard Core History podcast.
Watch something like Inca civilization on Nat Geo (my wife and I are halfway through the series and yes, I’m aware of how old that makes us sound).
Perspective is powerful.
And history is the fastest way I know to get it.
Plus, worst case scenario, you learn that no matter how stressful your week is…
…at least no one challenged you to a duel at 6am.
Interesting Tool/Find
My buddy Jordan put me onto Mobbin and I’ve been going down a full-blown design rabbit hole ever since.
If you’re building anything, web, mobile, spaceship control panel, it’s basically cheat codes for good taste.
And in a world where design matters more than ever (because attention spans are now measured in milliseconds), this thing is wildly useful.
It’s like:
“Oh, you want a clean onboarding flow?”
Here are 47 of them. All better than yours.
“Oh, pricing page?”
Boom. Take your pick. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just make your wheel slightly cooler.
Honestly feels like stealing… but legal.
One thing I did notice though…
Mobbin hasn’t reached out to feature Luna’s design yet.
Which is surprising.
But I’m sure the invite just got lost in the mail.
Image from my life
Last week I made the drive to Truckee to go ski with my 84 year old grandfather. He’s still tearing it up!