[antifragile 4 🔥] wisdom of Matthew McConaughey & Alfred Adler, multitasking with kids, Pirsig on switching over from TV, Hitchhiker’s Guide enters my life

#48: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.

Jun 13, 2025

Welcome to the 48th edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.

It’s a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind. Some weeks will have a theme, others will meander. Expect it every Friday.

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📸 60-Word Dad Life Snapshot: Adley is a bloodhound for when I’m in a bad mood.

Like clockwork, when I reach an 8/10 level of frustration, he’ll come up to me and with big puppy dog eyes and his cute tiny voice and say:

“Dada, you happy?”

And despite him being the direct cause of that frustration, it dissolves like it was never there.

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Here is this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:

the common wisdom 😌 of Matthew McConaughey & Alfred Adler
a note 📱↔️ 👦🏻 about multitasking with kids
Robert Pirsig 📺 ➡️ 🤔 on switching over from TV
how did I miss the 🚀 Hitchhiker’s Guide until now?

+ AI Image of the Week 🤖 🎨

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1.) the common wisdom 🧵 of Matthew McConaughey & Alfred Adler

I’ve been reading The Courage To Be Disliked again (a wonderfully crafted book), and this quote grabbed me:

A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.
Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga, The Courage to Be Disliked

The book dives into Adlerian psychology, which holds that a feeling of inferiority (vs. an inferiority complex, which is never helpful) can be a good thing as long as it comes from a comparison with your ideal self, not someone else.

This made me think, of all people, Matthew McConaughey.

Here’s a passage from his book Greenlights:

When I was 15 years old…a very important person in my life came to me and said, ‘Who’s your hero?’…I thought about it. You know who it is? It’s me in 10 years.
Then 10 years later…‘Are you a hero?’ I said, ‘Not even close.’ She said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because my hero's me at 35.’
So you see…my hero’s always 10 years away. I’m never gonna be my hero. I’m not gonna attain that…and that’s just fine with me because that keeps me with somebody to keep on chasing.
Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights

What does the most incredible version of yourself look like? How are you stacking up?

2.) a note ↔️ about multitasking with kids

I tend to jam a lot of things into my days. And sometimes I try to jam those things in when I’m with my kids.

And it always leaves me with two things:

More stress and
More pissed off kids

Be with your kids or don’t be with your kids. Don’t be in between.

Don’t scroll Twitter while feeding a bottle.

Don’t catch up on Slack from the playground bench.

Don’t sneak in a few pages of your book while you’re son is asking you to watch him “hitsomeballs” in the backyard (as he calls it)

Don’t sneak in journaling while your kid is learning to crawl across the kitchen floor (yesterday).

If you’re there physically, be there mentally. Be there.

3.) Robert Pirsig 📺 ➡️ 🤔 on switching over from TV

Mental reflection is so much more interesting than TV. It's a shame more people don't switch over to it. They probably think what they hear is unimportant but it never is.
Robert Pirsig, Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

4.) how did I miss the 🚀 Hitchhiker’s Guide until now?

He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

😂 I had not experienced The Hitchhiker’s Guide series until recently, and what an absolute treasure it is.

Dry, brilliant, cutting British humor in outer space?