If something never makes it onto the calendar, it slowly disappears from your life.

Hey Reader,

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Another idea that really blew up my IG and that I'm going to cover in an upcoming newsletter. Something I'm calling "the Friendship Debt Trap." If you want a sneak preview, you can follow along on my IG here!

One thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older, and especially since having kids, is that your calendar quietly becomes the most powerful force in your life.

Not in a philosophical way. In a very literal one.

If something gets onto the calendar, it happens.

Work meetings make it, School events make it, doctor appointments sometimes make it on.

Friendship barely makes.

“We should grab dinner soon.”
“We should get together sometime.”

Which sounds good in the moment, but “sometime” rarely survives the calendar.

Over time the things that repeat start to dominate your weeks. Kids’ activities. Work commitments. The standing obligations that slowly become permanent.

Friendship ends up competing with all of it...and usually losing.

That’s what I mean by Calendar Gravity.
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A quick note from this week’s sponsor: Superhuman AI. I’m still in the “figuring out AI” phase like most people, but the people who learn these tools early are probably going to have a pretty unfair advantage.

🌍 THE FRIEND

In 1666, Isaac Newton was home from Cambridge during the plague when something simple caught his attention.

An apple falling from a tree.

People had watched apples fall forever. But Newton started asking a different question: why does everything fall the same way every time?

That curiosity eventually led him to describe gravity: the invisible force that pulls objects toward each other.

Once Newton explained it, the idea seemed obvious. Of course objects fall. Of course gravity exists.

But before someone named it, it was just something people experienced without really thinking about.

Friendship has a similar force that nobody has named.

Left on its own, life pulls your time toward work, obligations, routines, aka, the things already in motion.

If friendship never gets its own pull on the calendar, it slowly drifts away.

🛠️ THE FIX

Give one friendship calendar gravity this week.

Put something recurring on the calendar.

A monthly breakfast. A standing walk. A weekly coffee.

Nothing elaborate. Just something that repeats.

When something repeats, it stops competing with everything else in your life.

It becomes part of the rhythm.

🎬 THE RECO

I watched the America’s Next Top Model documentary on Netflix, and wowza, much more interesting than I expected.

It starts like a nostalgic look back at the show, the photo shoots, the judges, all the chaotic early-2000s reality TV energy.

But the documentary also revisits those dark moments with former contestants reflecting on what the experience was actually like.

Some things that seemed normal on TV at the time land very differently now.

It ends up being part nostalgia, part cultural time capsule, and a surprisingly brutal look at a show that once felt like pure entertainment. Worth a watch.
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— Matt, The Friendship Guy 👊
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PS - As a reminder, you can always use me as your accountability buddy, message me the name of the person you put on the calendar!