Authenticity

You never called Eight Sleep a mattress company. Instead, you pioneered a new category of ‘sleep fitness’ by positioning it as a ‘sleep fitness brand.’ Tell me about the decision-making and strategy behind this.

ZATARAIN: We were not intentional about our positioning for the first five years of the company because we didn't even know what brand... See more

What I want to say most is that I am not an improved or better version of myself than I was a year ago because that is no longer a goal — but I am a truer version, a closer-in version, a more expansive and open version, a less clinging-to-certainty version, and that, to me, counts for a lot more than seeking to endlessly upgrade myself.

To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is... See more

Make stuff only you can make. Stuff that makes you sigh in resignation after waiting for someone else to make happen so you can enjoy it, and realizing that’s never going to happen so you have to get off the couch and do it yourself