In this week's P.O. Box:

I’m taking next week completely off.

Fantasy Life is shutting down for the week as well and XM is done for the year, so I figured it was as good a time as any to close up shop.

I don’t think I’ve done “nothing” for an entire week since I took a 2-week paternity leave last December and I’m very much looking forward to it.

The flip side to loving what you do is that it becomes hard to take a break. I rarely feel like I’m “burning out” because I really enjoy my day-to-day schedule, but that’s not the only reason to take time off.

I don’t need to “recharge my batteries” so much as I want to just hit pause before I start up again and be thoughtful about where I pick up.

There’s an element of cruise control to making content during the NFL season. It’s hard to take time to reflect and analyze while the chips are down. That’s not to say you can’t be creative, it’s just harder to reinvent the wheel and push outside your comfort zone on the fly.

Up until last year, there was a more organic break post-Super Bowl and before people turned the page to the next season. But with best ball going truly 365 days a year (y’all really couldn’t even wait until the combine smh), it’s very much possible to remain in an infinite loop of making the same kind of content without much reflection.

Last year at this time, I decided on streaming all 150 of my BBM drafts and making a bunch of shorts.

This year, I want to mix it up a bit and cook up a new plan.

I’ll still be streaming—ofc—but I’ve already been tossing around some changes I want to make (some of those dovetail with this post).

I’ll be sharing more of what I have planned in the coming months, but I plan to use this coming week to sketch out a plan and set the wheels in motion.

I’m also going to do a bunch of other stuff I’ve haven’t done in forever:

I’ll have a DFS After Dark for you on Saturday (see below) and return for another P.O. Box edition next week (where I’ll select our books for March). Until then…

✌

Book #2 for February (75% Done): Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

I’m almost done with CGAS and will likely finish it this weekend.

I’ve really enjoyed how much world-building has taken place. It would have been easy to just lean into a bunch of gladiator violence scenes (I can already picture the Mad Max-esque film adaptation), but Nana fleshes out the entire tapestry of this fucked up prison sport complex in a powerful way.

Some other thoughts from the Discord:

Book #3 for February (10% Done): Gambler Secrets from a Life at Risk by Billy Walters

Still inching along on this one as I wrap up CGAS.

Book #1 (COMPLETE): Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by Shane Parris

📹 A Super Bowl Weekend Vlog from Arizona: 72 hours condensed into 60 seconds…

☕ A Wild Super Bowl Slate (DFS & Pick ‘Em Review). Fired up one more Pourtfolio Review to recap our trip to Arizona, DFS and Pick 'Em action from the Super Bowl, and playoff best ball results on Underdog. Also hit the audience with the rare “tea pour”:

📝 Biggest Takeaways From The 2023 Season. Shared some best ball lessons I learned from the 2023 season and mistakes I want to avoid in 2024:

💪 The Swolecast: Post Super Bowl Taeks. The one where we got to hear a recap of Drew Dinkmeyer’s wedding.

☣ Behind The Scenes Of A DFS Business. We welcomed back Hoop from Ship It Nation to discuss Ship It Nation's new partnership with Degenerate75, DFS subscription prices, and the worst thing you can do as a DFS player.

🚢 How A Chill Surfer Won $500K In Playoff Challenge. The crew return to break down their play in the FFPC Playoff Challenge and welcome the champ, Zach Toyo, to the stream to hear about how he built his shipper and his impressive 2023 results across multiple sites. Gretch also previews the 2024 launch of Omnifantasy.

🏆 Fantasy Life roundup. Wrote about the Chiefs entering dynasty mode.

⚾ Pete Learns Baseball? The Badge Bros roped me into drafting a Dinger squad this week on Off & On The Clock.

Man, last week I mentioned how I had recently discovered Mk.gee and then his new album dropped on Friday and I’m completely obsessed.

It’s legitimately been years since I’ve so quickly become enamored with an album. Two Star & The Dream Police hits me squarely in the sweet spot of everything I love in music. I’m well into the double digits for front-to-back spins and snapped up tickets to see him in Cambridge this spring.

No idea if this has universal appeal or not, but hmu if you end up digging it.

We got one show on tap this weekend for Youtube Members:

Need more newslettering? Check out the Fantasy Life newsletter I write regularly: