Sam Thomas Davies's Blog

A few years ago, I said no to something I now wish I’d said yes to. It wasn’t dramatic. No ruined relationship. No financial fallout. Just a quiet opportunity I didn’t take, and a quiet voice I still hear sometimes, usually when it’s too late to change the answer. At the time, I moved on. […]

The post Words Into Works #154 | The Failure Archive appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

I used to treat unfinished books like failures. A spine half-cracked. A chapter abandoned on a long-haul flight. The quiet shame of seeing it weeks later, unopened. I’d shelve them out of sight, like evidence of a promise I hadn’t kept. It wasn’t just guilt. It was identity. Was I really an avid reader if […]

The post Words Into Works #153 | The Books I Never Finished (But Can’t Stop Thinking About) appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

These days, reading often looks like performance. A stack of annotated hardcovers. A screenshot from Goodreads. A “just finished this” post on TikTok, tagged #amreading and lit by soft afternoon light. We share what we read to signal who we are. But finishing a book, even a good one, doesn’t mean it changed us. Some […]

The post Words Into Works #152 | 10 Ways I Use AI to Learn More From Books appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

When I hit issue #150 of Words Into Works last week, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt surprised. Not because I thought I’d quit. But because I had never stopped long enough to imagine what it would feel like to arrive here. There was no grand vision. No carefully plotted roadmap. No long-term strategy to […]

The post Words Into Works #151 | 150 Issues Later: The Lessons That Lasted appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

A few weeks ago, I read Never Enough by Andrew Wilkinson and mentioned it in this newsletter. What stayed with me wasn’t his ambition. It was who he kept returning to. Again and again, he pointed back to Charlie Munger. Wilkinson had read every book he could find about him. He modeled his company, Tiny, […]

The post Words Into Works #150 | Avoiding Stupidity Over Chasing Genius appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

A few nights ago, I finished Replay by Ken Grimwood. Then I just… sat there. Not scrolling. Not thinking. Just staring at the wall, quietly overwhelmed. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t inspired. I was suspended, replaying my own life in fragments. The premise is deceptively simple: Jeff Winston dies of a heart attack at 43… […]

The post Words Into Works #149 | The Choices You’d Still Make The Hundredth Time appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

In early 2020, when the world tilted off its axis, I faced a choice. Markets were crashing. Stock tickers flashed red across every screen. Friends were pulling their investments. News anchors rattled off dire predictions between shaky live shots from Wall Street. And me? I kept buying. Not because I had some special insight. Not […]

The post Words Into Works #148 | The Rational Path to Wealth appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

Last week, I listened to Never Enough: From Barista to Billionaire by Andrew Wilkinson. I expected a standard business memoir. What I didn’t expect was something far more elusive: ambition. Wilkinson, co-founder of Tiny—a Canadian holding company with more than 40 businesses—seemed to have it all: money, freedom, success. But beneath the surface, he was […]

The post Words Into Works #147 | The Permission to Want Less appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

A few years ago, I felt like I was falling behind in every direction. Work was hectic, my energy was low, and I kept telling myself I’d feel better if I just moved more. So, I made a plan: fifteen minutes of morning workouts. Nothing ambitious, just something to anchor the day. I downloaded a […]

The post Words Into Works #146 | The Endowed Progress Effect appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.

Last Wednesday, I checked off every single task on my to-do list—17 items, perfectly slotted into calendar blocks. As someone who practices and teaches the Getting Things Done (GTD) method with Notion, I pride myself on having a system that keeps my days structured and productive. Meetings were brief, emails succinct. On paper, it looked […]

The post Words Into Works #145 | The Time Compass appeared first on Sam Thomas Davies.