Hello to the 10 subscribers of this newsletter. Last week’s issue received 80 views, and 3 new people signed up.
In this issue
Walking as an ultimate cure and my attempts at adding more walks into my days
Some interesting things I read/watched/listened to lately
Walking as an ultimate cure
I thought reaching the third edition of Morning Walk would be a great time to explain the name I chose for this newsletter. So let’s get this over with.
Walking wasn’t my kind of thing up until around 2019 (when I was 31 years old). I could easily go by without this activity for days. Here is a fun graph that I made. It’s slightly related but nevertheless. It’s a number of days when I never went outside by years. If I spend the whole day locked in inside the house not leaving it — it counts. Yes, I do keep track of these, don’t ask 🤷♂️
Two interesting outcomes from here:
I did pretty well in 2020 when practically everyone on the planet stayed at home (I spent the lockdown in the village).
I never bothered going out in 2013-2015. I was living in Murmansk at the time, working on MyCity. If grocery delivery had been available there at the time, those numbers would have been much higher.
I don’t know what changed, maybe it’s just me growing older, but the 33-year-old version of me can’t spend a single working day without a proper walk. Walking (especially in nature) has become my go-to method of thinking, problem-solving, easing the stress out, and calming down my anxiety. When I feel stuck, I know for sure there is only one cure that’s available to me anytime – walking. No matter what. Preferably alone, in nature, without music or podcasts, or even a phone.
There is a lot of science-based facts about walking. Loads of research papers trying to examine why exactly walking has that many benefits.
Turns out it mostly has to do with repetitive physical movements involving major muscle groups that influence our overall state of mind. And it’s not just walking. Albert Einstein played the violin, Leonardo da Vinci played the lyre, Mozart was riding in a carriage, Haruki Murakami runs. Everyone has their kind of thing.
But that’s not what I’m interested in, neither the point of this essay.
The habit of walking
I know walking helps me a lot. But it’s never been a regular habit, and I was interested in integrating it more into my daily schedule.
There is a piece called “On the Link Between Great Thinking and Obsessive Walking”, and I was especially hooked by the part about Charles Darwin and his relationship with walking.
Darwin’s best thinking, however, was not done in his study. It was done outside, on a lowercase d–shaped path on the edge of his property. Darwin called it the Sandwalk. Today, it is known as Darwin’s thinking path.
He was walking the same route each day. When he had a particularly challenging problem to consider, he would do more laps and count them by knocking off stones he piled up on top of each other beforehand.
Daniel Ek (the founder of Spotify) puts huge attention on his walking routine as well:
At 8:30 [am], I go for a walk – even in the winter. I’ve found this is often where I do my best thinking.
The basic gist is we all have our moments when we're the most inspired, right? Whether that’s when we're driving our car, whether it's showering, or whether we're listening to something and we get an idea.
For me, as I said, that often happens on my walks. I find those moments to be the most valuable ones. I will say, nine times out of ten nothing comes of them, because the idea turns out not to be that great. But that one time where it is great, it truly changes business.
— The Observer Effect
And of course, everyone knows about famous habit of Steve Jobs of talking walking meetings.
My walking routine
As for me, these days, I take a short 30-40 minute walk most workdays around 5 or 6 pm, and it’s usually by necessity up to this point after being fried up by work tasks.
I want to have more consistency in the morning. That’s what stuck in my head after learning about Daniel’s routine. That’s precisely why I picked this name for the newsletter. I want to have more morning walks reserved just for thinking. I experimented with it during the summer when I had endless free time, but it didn’t stick even then. Why exactly it didn’t stick and what I’m planning to change – that’s a topics for our future episodes, we’ll get to that.
But the most significant change towards this is happening right now in my mind. I don’t feel any guilt anymore for wandering every day. Of not being productive when I walk and not putting this activity on my todo list. Now I can even tell people that I need to take a walk and I won’t be available for the next hour or so. I even started taking some online meeting walking, and it’s just a blessing, although I’m still a bit ashamed of this.
As for the meetings, there is a company dedicated to getting you off the screen during endless Zoom meetings. As they describe themselves:
The first collaboration tool built to support walking meetings.
The first time heard this, my reaction was 😍 Basically, they add noise-canceling and auto-recording meeting notes on top of the regular audio conference. This could easily appear in any major conferencing software. Still, I especially love their focus on getting you to walk during those endless meetings. They are just starting out, and I hope they’d do well.
Things I've been reading/watching/enjoying
Stipe: Thinking Like a Civilazion
The Generalist produced a massive piece on Stripe (you know, the company that allows you to collect payments on your website easily), deconstructing various elements of their success. Product strategy, culture, management approach, M&A strategy, and many more but most importantly, Patrick’s and John’s long-term thinking which is just phenomenal.
Typedream – The new way to make a website
I mentioned in the first issue that I relaunched my personal website this summer, but I wanted to tell a bit more about the tool that I chose. I was pretty sure that in 2021 the world now has an infinite number of no-code tools to build your own website. Technically, it’s true, but I had a tough time finding a good one. Typedream is the only tool that I really liked. No wonder they made it to the latest YC batch. I highly recommend if you’ve been in need of making your website.
The Nigerian fintech boom, by the numbers
As I’m helping my friend launch a fintech company, I’m learning more and more about this area. What’s even more fascinating is learning more about their target audience, mainly South-East Asia and Africa. It turns out a lot is going on there. One of the biggest markets there – Nigeria, is experiencing massive growth in startup investments and especially in the fintech sector. “Nigeria now has the most unicorns of any country in Africa, with all three earning that status within the last couple of years.”
Thanks for reading. Until next week 👋🏻