What If You've Been Solving the Wrong Problem?

Most of us learned to push harder when things aren't working. More hours. More hustle. More of the same.

First Principles is the story of Alex — a 20-year-old working the closing shift at McDonald's, doing everything right, and still going nowhere. When a chance encounter with a stranger named J challenges the way he thinks about his problems, Alex discovers something that changes everything: it wasn't the effort that was broken. It was the assumptions underneath it.

This short, powerful read introduces first principles thinking — a simple but underused way of stripping a problem down to what you actually know, questioning what you've been taking for granted, and finding better answers than the ones you inherited.

At the end of the story, five questions are waiting for you. They're not hard. But they might be uncomfortable, and they may change your life.