Thank you, and happy V-day

All the fun Substacks I discovered this week, and feeling grateful

Dear Calling the Shots readers,

This is a special Valentine’s edition of Calling the Shots, and I'm sending you all the love in the world. Thank you for subscribing and allowing me to share my thoughts with you. I don’t take it lightly or for granted. Having a place in your inbox is a privilege I deeply value—your time and attention mean everything. I'm truly grateful for this connection.

I spent much time this week exploring Substacks beyond the US and China watching circles. Substack is both in and somehow feels so retro. The Instagram It girls have entered the chat—if you don’t have a substack, are you cool? And yes, paying for a substack to be recommended more things to buy is a real thing. Substack feels like the return of the blogs, and it’s, in some ways, our collective demand for slow social media. We are inundated with dopamine hits from the constant stimulations; how can we find our flow? After all, “the flow state is our most powerful weapon against the intense rationalizati…