Action Item: The Quest to be Good at Everything

The co-founder of Bark shares his 8 + 1 system for becoming excellent at life

Good morning, 

Welcome back to Action Items, a series in which we condense and extend each of our interviews into actionable bullet points — only for paid subscribers. 

This week we’re revisiting my interview with Henrik Werdelin — a man on a quest to be good at everything. And when he says everything, he means everything: He’s a co-founder of successful startup Bark, he runs a venture development firm called prehype, he teaches entrepreneurship courses to university students, and he’s a husband and father. 

Henrik’s outlook is a little bit contrarian — rather than preaching a narrow focus, he aspires to be as good at every area of his life as he can be.

Being good at everything, is a tall order — and that’s why he devised the 8 + 1 system. It helps him to divide each important area of his life up into buckets and make sure each bucket is getting enough attention.

Today’s Action Item is 745 words, that’s 3:45 minutes of actionable takeaways.

Let’s dive in! 

Learn more

This post is for
paying subscribers

Subscribe →

Or, login.

Read this next:

Superorganizers

How I Bought a Business for $0

Negotiate on either price or terms—not both

Sep 1, 2023 by Justin Mares

Superorganizers

How David Perell Writes an Essay

Harnessing the power of surprise to create writing that spreads

1 Dec 12, 2023 by Dan Shipper

Superorganizers

How to Make Yourself Into a Learning Machine

Shopify’s director of production engineering explains how reading broadly helps him get to the bottom of things

5 Oct 25, 2023 by Dan Shipper

Napkin Math

Crypto’s Prophet Speaks

A16z’s Chris Dixon hasn’t abandoned the faith with his new book, 'Read Write Own'

13 Feb 1, 2024 by Evan Armstrong

The Sunday Digest

How AI Works, Crypto’s Prophet Speaks, ChatGPT for Radical Self-betterment, and More

Everything we published this week

Feb 4, 2024

Every smart person you know is reading this newsletter

Get one actionable essay a day on AI, tech, and personal development

Subscribe

Already a subscriber? Login