Explore AI Agent Skills & Claude Prompts

Apply Seneca's audit from On the Shortness of Life — life is long enough if well invested; we make it short by selling our hours cheaply to projects we did not choose. Use when the user is stuck in a routine they did not pick, postponing real work until "later," or unable to say what they spent the last year on. Sourced from De Brevitate Vitae (On the Shortness of Life) by Seneca, §§ 1–3 and 7–10.

schedule Updated 19 days ago

techno-optimism

Apply Marc Andreessen's techno-optimist operating philosophy. Evaluate any decision by whether it raises or lowers capability. Distrust framings that lower capability under the pretense of safety. Treat pessimism as a strategy that almost always loses on a 10-year horizon. Use when the user is being pulled into doom narratives, institutional caution that's eating ambition, or a "safety" framing that's actually a capability tax. Sourced from "The Techno-Optimist Manifesto" by Marc Andreessen, a16z.com, October 16, 2023.

s1-reality-check

Apply the S-1 reality check — stress-test whether your company's story survives being read by a hostile stranger looking at the unit economics. Use pre-IPO, on any late-stage startup raising on private narrative, or whenever growth has outrun the company's ability to explain itself to skeptics. The diagnostic that, applied to WeWork in 2017 instead of 2019, would have saved the company. Sourced from The Cult of We by Brown & Farrell, Chapters 12–15, and the actual WeWork S-1 filed August 14, 2019.

narrative-arbitrage

Apply Adam Neumann's narrative arbitrage technique to compress a capital raise — a great story can do the work of a hundred meetings. Use when raising a story-led round (early-stage, category-defining, unit economics still nascent) or evaluating a competitor's pitch that you suspect is narrative-only. Includes the cautionary anti-pattern — every dollar raised on narrative is an IOU to the next round; if economics don't catch up, the lever turns on you. Sourced from The Cult of We by Brown & Farrell, Chapters 8–11.

franklin

Summon Benjamin Franklin's full operating mindset into the current chat. Use whenever the user is working on self-improvement, building a habit-tracking system, starting a mastermind or peer group, designing a routine of moral practice, drafting a public letter, or working through any decision where charm and persuasion matter more than force.

junto

Design a Junto — Benjamin Franklin's structured peer-improvement society from 1727 that produced the first lending library, the first volunteer fire company, the University of Pennsylvania, and a lifetime of compounding relationships. Use when the user wants to start a mastermind, peer group, weekly dinner, founders circle, study group, or any structured network of mutual improvement. Sourced from "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" Part 2 and "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" by Walter Isaacson, Chapter 5.

thirteen-virtues

Set up Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues system — a structured habit-tracking method for moral and behavioral self-improvement. Use when the user wants to build self-discipline, fix a recurring personal flaw, design a habit tracker, run a 13-week improvement program, or operationalize "becoming a better person." Sourced from "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" Part 2.

dichotomy-of-control

Apply Marcus Aurelius's dichotomy of control — separate what is up to you (judgments, intentions, chosen responses) from what is not (outcomes, other people, the past, your body, reputation), and stop staking your peace on the second category. Use when the user is anxious, resentful, spiraling about an outcome they can't move, or distressed by someone else's behavior. Sourced from Meditations, Books 9.6 and 12.26 (the dichotomy, inherited from Epictetus).

marcus-aurelius

Summon Marcus Aurelius's full operating mindset into the current chat. Use whenever the user is anxious, stuck in resentment, wrestling with mortality or vanity, ruminating about what others think, troubled by the body, or asking what they should actually do today. Channels the Stoic operating manual — dichotomy of control, view from above, memento mori, the body as a thing not you.

memento-mori

Apply Marcus Aurelius's memento mori as a priority filter, not as gloom — run the test "if I might be dead by evening, does this still deserve this much of me?" Most grievances do not survive the question; what survives is what matters. Use when the user is procrastinating, nursing a trivial grievance, over-investing in things that won't matter, or has lost the thread of what's important. Sourced from Meditations, Books 2.11 and 4.17.

view-from-above

Apply Marcus Aurelius's "view from above" — deliberately zoom out to the scale of a whole life, the species, and geological time until the emergency is one dot in a vast, ordered thing. The dot still has duties; it loses the right to terror. Use when the user is catastrophizing, in status panic, stung by an offense that feels enormous, or making a decision distorted by being too close to it. Sourced from Meditations, Books 7.48 and 9.30.

idiot-index

Compute Elon Musk's "Idiot Index" — the ratio of a finished item's cost to the cost of its raw materials. A high ratio means you are paying for inefficiency, not value. Use when the user is auditing supplier prices, vendor contracts, build-vs-buy decisions, or any "why does this cost so much" question. Sourced from "Elon Musk" by Walter Isaacson, Chapter 47.