Saturday 7

Published: Sat, 12/28/24

Updated: Thu, 01/02/25

Good morning!

Here's your Saturday 7 — CHALLNGE EDITION — special!

🥩 The 2 Year (3 Food) Challenge:

After the 2020 lockdowns and 2 years of home workouts, I had lost some muscle and my body composition had slipped.

I decided to do a 2 year (3 foods) challenge.

From September 2022 to September 2024, I set out to build muscle and lose fat, all while only eating 3 foods: beef, milk, and eggs.

I spent 18 months "bulking" where I gained 35 pounds.
I then spent 6 months "cutting" where I lost 35 pounds.

Although I weighed the same at the finish line as I did at the start, my body composition changed a lot as you can see in the video.

P.S.

If you're looking for a new year health and fitness challenge: Start here.

Here's why you should do one: 2-minute video.

🤖 My 2024 Challenge — AI:

The last 14 years I've set Annual Challenges.

My 2024 Challenge was to use artificial intelligence (AI).

I admit, it was a vague Challenge without a clear strategy or outcome — a recipe for failure. But this AI focus paid off.

AI impacted almost everything I did.

It helped me ideate my drawing (see #3 below)
It helped me write music (see #4 below)
It helped me with business (see #5 below)
It helped me with forecasting (see #6 below)
It helped me with nutrition research (see #7 below)

You can read my full 2024 Challenge Review here.

✏️ The 2019 Challenge (6-Year Update):

My 2019 Challenge was to learn to draw.

The Rules: I had to practice at least 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week.

Since, I've continued to draw, maybe 30 minutes a week.

Here's a 6 year update with a look at the progress over the years:

This year's drawing was a bitcoin bull getting ready to run to the moon, which now hangs next to the bitcoin rising sun.

🎶 My 2020 Challenge (5-Year Update):

My 2020 Challenge was to learn to make music.

The Rules: Release 1 song per month.

My 1st song was called "I'll Find Air" — realizing I had bitten off more than I could chew (listen at your own risk...).

Now, 5 years later, I thought it was time for an update.

Ironically, the song I made this year is called "Easy Ride" perfectly contrasting the 1st song 5 years ago.

In 2020, I also made music videos for all 12 songs, so I thought I had to do one for Easy Ride.

The plan was to use AI to generate it. However, as great as AI has been, I couldn't get it to make a decent music video.

So I shot one old school style. It's cringe. I was sick as a dog. But I give myself a pat on the back for getting WAY outside my comfort zone!

🛌 Overcoming Challenges:

I had a failed goal this year.

In 2013, after graduating dental school, I opened a Dental Sleep Medicine practice, exclusively treating sleep disordered breathing (snoring and obstructive sleep apnea) with oral devices.

These oral devices had challenges...like costs, side effects, and efficacy.

But I had an idea to help overcome these challenges. A "Nasal EPAP Dilator" that I called "NED." I got the patent for it a few years ago.

Over the intervening years, I prototyped, tested, tinkered.

My 2024 goal was to finish the R&D and officially launch the final product.

I had started to work with a global medical device manufacturer.

After 6 months of work, their head engineer went MIA. Long story short, I lost total confidence in the company and had to find a new partner.

With a new engineering team, the product is close to ready...

But the final development, manufacturing, and regulatory testing still have a few months to go.

Although I missed my 2024 deadline, NED will launch in 2025, but it won't be "NED"...

I've held of from announcing this, but I guess now is as good a time as ever!

I never like the name "NED" — I used the acronym as a placeholder until I could find an apt name. But I could never come up with something I liked that also had the .com available.

Earlier this year, I had the idea for "SnoreBuds" — a perfect name!

Of course "snorebuds.com" wasn't available. But I decided to take a shot.

After months of searching to find the owner, back and forth negotiations, and technical issues that would make for either a tragic comedy or thriller movie, I was able to get it.

I'll have to tell you this full story sometime. I can laugh about it now!

The SnoreBuds rebrand began!

I spent months designing and developing the new SnoreBuds website.

There's still "placeholder" content, but you can get the gist of it now.

New Goal: SnoreBuds becomes a 10 year overnight success in 2025 :)

🧠 What quote I've been thinking about:

"You can just do stuff."

📈 The Bitcoin Challenge:

Bitcoin had a wild year.

We saw ETF approvals, the 4th halving, and presidential endorsements as bitcoin soared past $100,000.

While many people think bitcoin will have "diminishing returns" (it won't have booms to the same degree as before), I challenged this idea.

I think 2025 is going to shock people.

📘 The 2025 Challenge:

Most people don't know this, but 10 years ago I wrote a book.

With the 10-year anniversary, I've decided it's time to re-visit this Challenge and put the culmination of my nutrition research into a book.

Right now all my research lives in thousands of pages of notes. I got these semi-organized this year.

Now I need to write the book.

2025 Challenge: Write the Book (here's how I'm going to do it)

Title: The Human Diet

Subtitle: (I need your help!)

Option 1: "(As) Told by (Your) Teeth" or "Told by the Mouth"
Option 2: "What Your Teeth Say You Should Eat"

Please reply with your subtitle vote 🙏

Or a better subtitle idea...

As always, it's an absolute pleasure and honor getting to spend some time with you, hope you have a great weekend!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Kevin

P.S. — Should I sign off?

The Saturday 7 newsletter — 7 insights at 7 a.m. in a 7 minute read — has gone out for 7 years now! Not a single Saturday missed.

Over the 7 years, 7 million newsletters have been read!

This is poetic perfection.

With all the 7's aligning, I wonder if it's a sign...

Is it time to sign off for the last time?

More next Saturday.