Free for ALL Friday!
It's Free for All Friday!
It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
Life Story Magic — Take 2!
Quite a few readers had trouble with the offer code for Life Story Magic yesterday!
That’s what I get for trying to be fancy among friends. Instead, let’s make it easy:
We’re celebrating Life Story Magic’s half-birthday and Father’s Day.
Understandably readers get Life Story Magic for $299 — that’s 40% off the regular price.
No offer code needed. No trying to find the right discount link. Just click through and buy.
What is Life Story Magic?
It’s the best way to preserve your most important stories quickly and completely.
I sit down with you or a loved one over video and conduct a 90-120+ minute interview. You get the full video and transcript, usually within 24 hours.
Fifteen years of writing about business, I finally launch a startup of my own — and I still have to learn everything the hard way!
One thing I’ve decided about Life Story Magic: I’m building it in public. That means being honest about what’s working, what isn’t, and what I’m figuring out in real time.
It’s scary, but it lights a fire under me in a way that nothing else does. In that spirit — quick anonymous poll. All answers help me, I promise.
Free for ALL Friday!
How the Ultrarich Are Doing the World Cup
For the average soccer fan, the quest for 2026 World Cup tickets started last year. For the ultrarich, there’s no rush.
For the average soccer fan, the quest for 2026 World Cup tickets started last year when FIFA opened its Kafkaesque lottery system. Millions submitted bids as fast as their fingers could type in hopes of securing a reasonably priced seat to the sport’s world’s biggest tournament, then waited months to learn the outcome of their applications. The process has been far less stressful for the event’s wealthier fans. According to travel planners for the ultrarich, there’s no rush to secure tickets or book trips when money is no object. “They know that at their level they can get the top, top tier kinds of tickets and a private heli-transfer there and all the VIP access,” said Jackie DeAntonis, a private relationship manager for the higher-end division of luxury travel company Scott Dunn, which requires clients spend a minimum of $100,000 per year on trips.
For one of DeAntonis’s clients, a British couple, a World Cup game in Dallas inspired a larger 22-day vacation through the United States. The trip will begin on the East Coast, with private tours (food, whale watching, Paul Revere) and stays at properties where rates can easily top $1,000 per night during peak season. Then it’s off to Texas for the match. “That’s the shortest part of their itinerary,” DeAntonis said. The trip will continue west for more Americana adventure: national park visits with private guides; whitewater rafting; 5-star all-inclusive luxury ranch stays and mountain retreats. The cost for the hotels and guided tours bookending the World Cup game alone—excluding transportation—”is coming in around $130,000,” DeAntonis said.
Link: Washington Post (Natalie B. Compton) Backup: https://archive.ph/TZsx6
The 10-Year-Old Who Can Deadlift 180 Pounds
For these kid fitness influencers, pumping iron can feel like play
Lucy Milgrim rubbed chalk on her palms and positioned her pink and blue high-tops on the gym floor. She bent her knees, pushed her hips back and took a few deep breaths. Then, when her dad said go, she braced and dead-lifted a 145-pound barbell. Lucy is 10 years old and weighs 58 pounds. “My fingers can finally touch!” she said, showing how her grip wrapped around the bar.
Lucy started strength training when she was 8 years old, and she holds three American records in powerlifting. She is a champion wrestler, too. She is also the star of Instagram and TikTok accounts run by her parents, which together have 232,000 followers. Her most popular Instagram video, in which she dead-lifted 180 pounds at a powerlifting meet, her personal record, has been viewed over 67 million times and has 3.7 million likes.
Link: New York Times (Danielle Friedman)
He Thinks Netflix Accused Him of Murder. The Courts Disagree.
When a famed freediver sued over “No Limit,” his case looked strong. Proving it would require a more honest accounting of his life.
The closing minutes of “No Limit,” a French Netflix drama released in 2022, depict an apparent murder by sabotage. The film’s protagonists, Roxana Aubrey and Pascal Gautier, a couple, are stars in the niche sport of no-limits freediving, in which competitors descend hundreds of feet into the ocean without an external oxygen supply, requiring them to hold their breath for minutes at a time. Pascal is a no-limits legend. Though still a young man—he looks to be in his early 30s—he is a lion in winter. He suffers blackouts brought on by years of deep-sea diving. After he is told he can no longer compete, he comes to see the younger Roxana as an extension of himself. When another woman breaks his record, he presses her to claim the title. She agrees. But their relationship is turbulent, troubled by infidelity and professional jealousy. Roxana drowns during her record attempt when her balloon fails to inflate, and the film suggests Pascal is to blame: It was he, it seems, who emptied her air tank.
“No Limit” was a modest streaming success, but it soon became a problem for Netflix. Before the action in the film begins, viewers are told that what they’re about to see was “inspired by real events.” To many viewers, it had only one plausible true-life basis: the complicated marriage of the elite freedivers Audrey Mestre and Francisco Ferreras—and Mestre’s death in circumstances almost identical to those portrayed in “No Limit.” There is even a tribute at the end of the film: “In memory of Audrey Mestre, 1974-2002.” (Immediately after, another title card states that any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.)
Link: New York Times (Chris Pomorski)
The Testosterone Moment Is Here. And Men May Never Look the Same.
From the Trump administration to online influencers, the hormone is increasingly seen as the key to achieving a new male ideal.
In January, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joined Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, on her podcast. He was there to celebrate his MAHA victories, but he soon veered into the singular, seemingly indestructible biology of President Donald J. Trump. “He has the constitution of a deity,” Kennedy marveled. And the key to the president’s inexplicable vigor, Kennedy suggested, could be found in his hormones. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, had reviewed the president’s medical records, Kennedy said, and found that he had “the highest testosterone levels that he’s ever seen for an individual over 70.” As Miller laughed awkwardly, Kennedy leaned in with the air of a man sharing a locker room secret: “I know the president will be happy that I repeat that.”
Central to Kennedy’s image of male health—and his view of the health of the nation—is testosterone, the hormone that is a cultural proxy for masculinity. Testosterone levels have been slowly declining worldwide over recent decades, a trend that Kennedy has called an “existential” threat to humanity. Accordingly, his new federal nutritional guidelines suggest that men consider taking fish oil and vitamin D supplements to boost their testosterone levels. He himself goes a step further. Appearing on the “Lex Fridman Podcast” in 2023, when he was running for president, Kennedy answered a question about being in “great shape” by expounding on his diet and exercise regimen—and an “anti-aging protocol” including T.R.T., or testosterone replacement therapy.
Link: New York Times (Azeen Ghorayshi)
Billionaires’ Billions Are Increasing Faster Than Ever
Elon Musk’s potential new status as a trillionaire demonstrates in real time why there has been such a rapid rise in the concentration of wealth at the top
Fifteen years ago, the world’s billionaires collectively had $4.5 trillion. By 2024, their wealth had more than tripled to $14.2 trillion. Now, their combined wealth totals $20.1 trillion—an amount that is equivalent to nearly a fifth of the entire world’s total yearly output. The stunning figures—calculated by the French economist Gabriel Zucman, director of the International Tax Observatory, a research organization funded by the European Union—reveal more than a surprisingly rapid increase in the concentration of wealth at the tippy top. They also reflect a series of important global trends: the growing dominance of a few technology companies leading artificial intelligence development; the shrinking slice of the economic pie that goes to workers; and a deepening inequality that will be handed down to the next generation.
One reason for the sudden surge of growth at the peak of the wealth ladder is the boom in artificial intelligence, which has funneled trillions of dollars of capital investment into a small clutch of tech companies. Nvidia, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, for example, are each worth more than $1 trillion. Their founders and early investors have reaped most of the financial gain. We can see it happening with SpaceX’s public offering—set to be the biggest in history. The anticipated Day 1 valuation of the company, whose shares are expected to begin trading on Friday, aims for $1.77 trillion. With 42 percent of the stock, Mr. Musk is poised to become an instant trillionaire.
Link: New York Times (Patricia Cohen)
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend. Just to save you scrolling all the way to the top, here’s the Life Story Magic offer again. See you in the comments!
Unfortunately all the people I heard stories from that I would want to preserve have predeceased me and my recollections of the stories are probably 75% accurate and 25% inaccurate or my fiction....
Why does your column show a boy doing a shoulder press instead of Lucy doing a dead lift?