Bo's Notes: How to Build Tenacity

August 2025

The “Grandpa Tool” I Didn’t Know I Needed

Metal Shoe Horn - I put on my shoes the lazy way: pulling back on the collar with my thumb and cramming my foot in without untying the laces. This warped my shoes and tore up the skin on my heels and thumbs.

Shoe horns make it way easier (and safer) to slip into my footwear.

Metal ones are buy-it-for-life quality for under $10. My kids made fun of me until I ordered them each one. Now they use them every day. I even keep one in my car that we use while traveling!

AI Short That Made Me Think

Total Pixel Space by Jacob Adler. This 10-minute film won the Grand Prix at the 2025 AI Film Festival and is a great example of using AI tools to express a creative vision. The opening line hooked me:

“How many images can possibly exist?”

Build Tenacity By Doing Hard Things

From How to Build Willpower, Andrew Huberman’s interview with David Goggins. They discuss a region of the brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex, which is linked to better mental health, aging, academic achievement, and resistance to neurodegenerative diseases.

This area grows when you consistently take on difficult, effortful tasks, especially ones you don’t like.

“It’s not about adding more work, it’s adding more work that you don’t want to do.”

The study focuses on tenacity, defined as “persistence in the face of challenge.” Huberman spins it as willpower: the ability to control one’s own actions, emotions, or urges.

Whichever way you look at it, the takeaway is the same:

Deliberately doing what feels uncomfortable strengthens your brain and builds resilience.

Thoughts on Daily Practices

Takeaways from Tyler Cowen’s 2019 article, How I Practice At What I Do:

• Write every day. Write to relax. Write from points of view that aren’t your own.

• Read every day.

• Teach.

• “Spatial organization is information” - If you need a quick way to remember to do something, create a visual cue or intentional mess (e.g. throw something on the floor, put an item in an odd place or position, etc.).

• Ask yourself:

  • What is a weak answer I’ve given, and how can I improve it?

  • What did I learn today?

  • What am I doing to train that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?

Shadows

Shadows is the third single released from Justin Tweito’s upcoming live album that I was blessed to play bass on. Co-written with Mitch Wong, it recently dropped on Worship Together’s channel.

Grab your guitar and play along with my bass tutorial! I’m especially fond of the bass lick at 4:22.

Bonus Tip: Free Versatile File Converter

VERT.sh - Quickly convert files to other formats. All processing is done locally on your device and there’s no limit on file size. It supports many formats of images, documents, audio, and video.

⚠️ Currently doesn’t support PDF conversion. For that, I recommend Stirling PDF.

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That’s all for this month! Until next time, stay safe and be blessed!

Thank you,

Bo