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Christopher Nolan, Leverage and Mastering Time Management
Alex Brogan
April 23, 2025 • Read Time: 9 minutes
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Good morning to all new and old readers! Here is your Wednesday edition of Faster Than Normal, exploring one short story about a person, a company, a high-performance tool, a trend I’m watching closely, and curated media to help you build businesses, wealth, and the most important asset of all: yourself.
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Today’s edition:
> Stories: Christopher Nolan & Everly Health
> High-performance: Leverage
> Insights: Simplicity and mastery
> Tactical: Mastering time management
> 1 Question: Fast tracking
Cheers,
Alex
P.S. Send me feedback on how we can improve. I respond to every email.
Stories of Excellence
Person: Christopher Nolan
Sir Christopher Nolan, the British-American filmmaker, has become a cinematic titan. Born in London in 1970, Nolan's journey began with a Super-8 camera and a passion for storytelling. His breakthrough came with "Memento" (2000), a mind-bending thriller that showcased his signature non-linear narratives. Nolan's career skyrocketed with "The Dark Knight" trilogy, redefining superhero films. He continued to push boundaries with "Inception" (2010) and "Interstellar" (2014), blending high-concept ideas with blockbuster appeal. "I'm fascinated by our subjective perception of reality," Nolan once said, explaining his recurring themes. His latest triumph, "Oppenheimer" (2023), earned him Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. Nolan's films have grossed over $6 billion worldwide, cementing his status as one of the most influential directors of the 21st century.
Key Lessons from Christopher Nolan:
On storytelling: "The best stories always end up being about the people rather than the event, which is to say character-driven."
On innovation: "I'm not a big believer in explanations. I like films that leave things to the audience's imagination."
On efficiency: "I try to be as efficient as possible because in my experience, great creative results come from limits."
Company: Everly Health
Everly Health, founded in 2015 by Julia Cheek, began as EverlyWell, a direct-to-consumer at-home lab testing company. Cheek, a Harvard Business School graduate, started the company after struggling with her own health issues and expensive, confusing lab tests. In 2017, Cheek secured a $1 million investment on Shark Tank from Lori Greiner. The company expanded rapidly, acquiring PWNHealth and Home Access Health in 2021, rebranding as Everly Health. By 2023, Everly Health had raised over $250 million in funding, offered 30+ at-home lab tests, and served millions of customers.
Key Lessons from Everly Health
On timing: Ride the wave of societal shifts. Everly Health capitalized on the growing trend of health consciousness and the desire for convenient, at-home solutions. Right place, right time.
On customer education: Simplify the complex. Everly Health's success partly stems from making lab testing more understandable and accessible to the average consumer.
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Accelerants
High-performance tool
⎯
Leverage
Leverage, also known as mechanical advantage or the law of the lever, is a concept that describes how a small input force can create a larger output force. Archimedes famously said, "Give me a place to stand, and I shall move the Earth with a lever".
This principle is crucial in physics and engineering. It explains how simple machines like levers and pulleys work. The mechanical advantage is calculated as the ratio of output force to input force. In an ideal system, this equals the ratio of the input distance to the output distance. This concept allows us to design tools and machines that multiply force, making many tasks easier.
Have you ever used a bottle opener or a crowbar? That's leverage in action. How might you apply this principle metaphorically in your business to get more output from less input?
Insights
Yvon Chouinard on simplicity and mastery:
"I believe the way toward mastery of any endeavor is to work toward simplicity; replace complex technology with knowledge. The more you know, the less you need. From my feeble attempts at simplifying my own life I've learned enough to know that should we have to, or choose to, live more simply, it won't be an impoverished life but one richer in all the ways that really matter."
Tactical reads
⎯
> When mastering time management
Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? (Read it here)
> When preserving memories for the future
Time Capsules (Read it here)
1 question
How can I 10x the speed of my decisions?
That’s all for today, folks. As always, please give me your feedback. Which section is your favourite? What do you want to see more or less of? Other suggestions? Please let me know.
Have a wonderful rest of week, all.
Recommendation Zone
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