Hey friends,

It’s been a while since I last checked in, and I’m glad to be back =).

The sixth cohort of Thinking In Stories just wrapped up last week, and I had such an amazing time. A full cohort of 34 students across 7 countries participated in a 4-week experience together, and I’m reminded yet again of the power of storytelling. Irrespective of where technology or culture is headed, there will always be a desire to share our experiences in the form of stories.

Because it’s through these very stories where our humanity will be retained.

Now that Thinking In Stories has wrapped up, I will be directing my attention toward my writing projects. I have new posts coming soon (including a 4,000-word one!) and they’ll be going up on my Substack, so subscribe there to stay updated.

The rest of today’s newsletter will contain 3 short pieces from my booklet, “A Month of Reflections”. I’ve received so much great feedback about this booklet, which is a collection of 30 daily reflections that will help you give a mindful start to your day.

To get this booklet, just order my book, The Inner Compass in any format and send me your order receipt. I’ll have more to share about The Inner Compass too, as the book continues to reach readers around the world. In fact, Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial has bought the Spanish rights and is planning for a wide release in Mexico later this year. I recently met with the team and recorded something special with them, which I hope to share with you too.

In the meantime, you can order The Inner Compass by hitting the button below and share your receipt with me to access the bonus booklet of reflections. The paperback edition has also been discounted to just $11.99 for a limited time, so this is a good time to get a copy for yourself and for your loved ones as well:

Without further ado, here are 3 reflections from the bonus booklet that I’ve been pondering lately.

Day 3: Clean Up Your Own Home

Envy is an enduring emotion because it lives in the one habit that defines the human condition: our desire for external validation. We will put ourselves through a self-doubting hell just to know that we are seen, and if another person’s path to being seen seems a bit easier, we will envy that person’s journey. But of course, this constant state of comparison just digs you into a deeper hole.

The only way out is to temporarily break this habit, and to dedicate all your attention inward for a duration of time. To stop gazing into another person’s home, and instead work on cleaning up your own. And after you’ve done that, it’s important to stay in it for a while and focus on nothing else. After all, it’s only in your own house where your inner judgment is cultivated.

Day 16: The Real Reason for Burnout

Burnout is often associated with working too much, but the real reason it happens is because you have defined yourself by what you produce. It’s not just the exertion of energy spent during your working hours, but the exertion of thought spent during the time you’re not working.

In a culture so focused on managing time, we have become subservient to it. By scheduling your day down to the last minute, you introduce an anxiety from managing your realtime progress to an imagined vision. Each glance at the clock fires off a thought about whether your day is going like it’s supposed to, or if you’re falling behind. This is a mind that always views the present through the lens of past and future, and can never be anchored in the “now.”

Day 26: Choose Presence Over Status

Perhaps the most pernicious thing about status is that it changes the way you talk to people. If you believe you hold a higher social position than someone, then that can manifest a number of ways. Mannerisms, tone of voice, and so on. If you see how your boss talks to her boss, then you’ll likely see how different she will seem when she talks to you once again.

One guiding principle I try to uphold is that when I’m talking to someone, I give them my full attention. It doesn’t matter who they are or what they’ve achieved, if we’ve carved out space to chat, then I’m fully present. There is no rank-order of social positioning or anything of that nature; there are just two humans exchanging thoughts with one another, and I recognize the privilege of sharing that moment together.

These are just 3 of the 30 daily reflections you’ll find in “A Month of Reflections”. To get access to the whole thing, just purchase The Inner Compass and send me your order receipt. I’ll send it over to you when I get around to checking my messages.

And finally, I’d love to hear about what you’re working on.

What’s a project you’ve been working on lately that you’re particularly excited about?

Aside from my writing work, I’ve been diving deeply into Claude Code and building all sorts of wonderful things for both myself and my family. From course sales dashboards to budgeting apps to entire websites, I’m having so much fun building out things that were once inaccessible to a non-coder like me. Now that these barriers have been dismantled, it makes for an intellectual playground for curious people like you and me, and it’s just the beginning.

Anyway, I’m curious what you’ve been learning or building these days, so please hit reply and let me know.

Thanks for reading, and feel free to share this newsletter with anyone who might enjoy it. Have a great rest of your week!

-Lawrence Yeo

P.S. Thanks to all the wonderful people that support the blog on Patreon! It means so much. If you’d like to support More To That and get access to book recommendations, exclusive AMAs, offline posts, and other reflections, join as a patron today.

P.P.S. If you want to learn how to write reflections like the one I shared today, check out my writing course, The Examined Writer. It’s 3 hours’ of self-paced material, all designed to elevate your writing practice.