23 February 2026
This week's additions focus on mindset, ai, and marketing, with new digests from Matthew Volkwyn, Rob Walling, and Starter Story. Highlights include Calculate an internal hourly rate to sanity-check every offer before the call. Early AI ad costs are low — the window closes fast
Showing 59 digests for 23 February 2026.
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Stoic accountability: lead when called, hold yourself to the standard
The Daily Stoic
February 27, 2026
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
7
Management
5
Why dreading power made Marcus Aurelius a great emperor
Frank Robinson fined himself $200 when no one else would
Integrity is a compass, not a constraint — rely on it when rules blur
AI tools & automation
YouTube
Recursive self-improvement as a startup alternative to fine-tuning
Y Combinator
February 27, 2026
AI tools & automation
10
AI strategy & adoption
8
Product-market fit
5
Fine-tuning becomes worthless the moment the next frontier model ships
Seven people beat Anthropic and Google on two major benchmarks under $100K
Reasoning strategies in code — not better prompts — drive the biggest performance leaps
How e.l.f. Beauty builds competitive advantage through values and speed
Masters of Scale
February 26, 2026
Case studies
10
Business models
7
Culture building
6
A diverse team reflecting your customer is a structural moat, not a program
Elf moves products from community demand to shelf in months, not years
Road by Hailey Bieber: $212M in sales in under three years, 10 products
Competitive analysis
YouTube
AI makes everything easy — and that's why it won't give you an edge
Alex M H Smith
February 26, 2026
Competitive analysis
9
Identity & self-belief
5
AI strategy & adoption
5
Abundant capabilities lose value — scarcity, not quality, is what markets pay for.
Content, marketing automation, and software are already commoditising fast.
Relationships, judgment, and original thinking remain genuinely hard and rare.
Physical & cognitive performance
YouTube
How light wavelengths shape hormones, immunity, mood, and vision
Andrew Huberman
February 26, 2026
Physical & cognitive performance
8
Physical health & longevity
5
20–30 min of skin sunlight 2–3x weekly raises testosterone and estrogen
Red light at 670 nm reverses age-related vision decline in adults over 40
Light after 10 pm cuts dopamine output and actively triggers depression
Prospecting & outreach
YouTube
How to scale a copywriting business to $15k/month and beyond
Matthew Volkwyn
February 26, 2026
Prospecting & outreach
9
Closing techniques
8
Pricing strategy
6
Cold email works when treated as a personalised funnel, not a template.
Fix one bottleneck first, then upsell the full retainer after results.
Volume plus consistency beats any single tactic — most quit too soon.
AI tools & automation
YouTube
AI agent builds a full ad agency in 45 minutes
Brett Malinowski
February 26, 2026
AI tools & automation
10
Automation & tools
8
Growth hacking
6
A browser-controlling agent replaced an entire agency team in 45 minutes
AI pulled live car inventory and deployed real Facebook ads autonomously
Workflow design is now the only scarce skill that matters
AI tools & automation
YouTube
How to use AI agents to get real work done, not just chat
Dan Martell
February 26, 2026
AI tools & automation
9
Delegation
7
Automation & tools
6
AI agents complete entire projects autonomously while you sleep
Stop doing the work — your new job is directing, not executing
Which agent tool is right for you: Manus, Claude Cowork, or OpenClaw
Automation & tools
YouTube
How to build a Claude Cowork system that runs itself
Dylan Davis
February 26, 2026
Automation & tools
10
Processes & SOPs
8
AI tools & automation
7
Drop a file in a folder and walk away to finished work
Subagents run tasks in parallel, each with a full context window
A memory file turns the AI from a tool into a compounding asset
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
From writing code to managing agents: what AI-native engineers need
EO
February 26, 2026
AI strategy & adoption
9
AI tools & automation
7
Management
5
Managing agents well puts you in the top 0.1% of AI users today
Junior engineers adopt AI-native skills faster than resistant seniors
Your codebase must be airtight before agents touch it — errors compound
Content marketing
YouTube
Five lead generator types that build a $400K freelance marketing business
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
February 26, 2026
Content marketing
9
Prospecting & outreach
7
Repetition of one lead generator builds the familiarity that drives conversions.
Five formats ranked by effort: checklist, guide, newsletter, course, live event.
Anyone who pays even $49 deserves a personal call within 48 hours.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Three morning journal questions that change your day in a week
The Daily Stoic
February 26, 2026
Productivity & habits
9
Goal setting
6
One daily question forces you to name the single most important thing.
Sense of control over your actions predicts health, happiness, and earnings.
Most behaviour is past-pattern repetition — naming a quality breaks the loop.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Paperless Post founder Alexa Hirschfeld advises three early-stage founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
February 26, 2026
Founder interviews
9
Branding
7
Niche selection
7
When a collaboration outgrows both parent brands, go standalone.
Outsource only once demand is predictable — hire part-time first.
Lead with the product benefit, not the unfamiliar concept.
Five language skills that make you more persuasive and credible
Joanna Wiebe
February 26, 2026
Copywriting
9
Closing techniques
7
Four mechanical traits you can engineer into any line to make it stick
Admitting you're not the right fit closes more deals than selling does
Understatement outperforms hype in high-trust, high-stakes environments
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Stoic indifference: how to stop being ruled by emotions
The Daily Stoic
February 26, 2026
Unchecked emotions burn you out — Stoics called this the passions
Wealth, health, pain are 'indifferent' — neither virtue nor vice
Resilience means having preferences without being owned by them