Hi Reader,

Welcome back to Renaissance!

This newsletter is meant to:

• Teach you cool stuff
• Inspire you to take bold action
• Make you pause, smile, and maybe even laugh

It's part of my mission to live a story worth telling while helping YOU do the same.

If you're ready to create more meaning, fulfillment, and adventure in your life, click the button below:

Why wait any longer?

What I'm learning about 🧠

Why wearing a pocket square with your suit is a non-negotiable.

I have a confession to make.

Ever since I quit my job in finance, I've despised dress clothes.

The thought of ever wearing a suit again makes me sick.

Even my Lululemon dress pants - that are objectively softer than a newborn baby's bottom - never see the light of day.

I've locked them away deep in my closet.

But after countless sessions with my therapist, I think I'm finally ready to love again.

This momentous revelation comes from hearing one of my favorite movie directors, Guy Ritchie, talk about "the death of the suit."

He explains that the modern business world took the suit - a symbol of class, elegance, and chest hair - and turned it into a prison.

When you're being forced to wear a suit to work, you don't own the suit.

The suit owns you.

And the only way to wear a suit is to have full ownership over it.

You must show the world that you are wearing this suit because you want to, not because you have to.

So how does a modern gentleman do this?

By wearing a pocket square.

The pocket square politely whispers to everyone:

"Why yes old boy, I chose to wear this suit because I think I look rather dashing in it."

Spoken in the loveliest of British accents of course.

This subtle move is how men can reclaim suits from the maw of the corporate machine.

This, is how we take back our power!

I'm attending the wedding of one of my soul brothers this Friday.

And you better believe that I'm going to be wearing a pocket square.

P.S. You can watch Guy Ritchie's elegant explanation here.

What I'm thinking about 💭

The surprisingly unsexy nature of consistency and discipline.

I've been writing this newsletter for over 4 years.

It goes out weekly, and in case you've misplaced your abacus, that equates to over 208 volumes.

Part of me is incredibly proud of this accomplishment.

The other part is astonished you're still reading my sassy musings.

My ego loves it when I get to tell people that I haven't missed a single week.

It wants you to view me as a paragon of discipline and consistency.

If my ego wrote the dictionary, here's what you'd find when you looked up the definition of HARD WORK and DEDICATION:

A shirtless picture of Gregory carving the latest volume of Renaissance into a stone tablet on top of mount Olympus.

Lightning flashes in the background, briefly illuminating the scene.

You suddenly realize with awe and wonder that he's carving his words into the stone using a sharpened femur bone.

It's from the lion he killed earlier using nothing but his bare hands and razor sharp intellect.

Luckily, for both of us, my ego isn't in charge (at least most of the time).

So now let's contrast the above scene with what it's actually looks like to stay consistent.

Here's the true story of me writing last week's newsletter.

It was Sunday afternoon when I finally made it to my office to write.

We threw a party for my roommates birthday the night before, so I had stayed up far later than usual.

The plus side was that unlike Cinderella, I did not turn into a pumpkin at midnight.

The downside was that getting 5 hours of sleep made my brain feel like a baked potato.

Hours passed and I had still not finished the newsletter.

I looked down at the clock and saw that it was 7 PM.

That's when the internal beratement began:

"It's 7 PM on a Sunday, what the hell are you doing at the office?"

"This newsletter is so poorly written that everyone is going to unsubscribe (and hate you)!"

"How dim-witted are you that it's taking so long to write a couple sentences?"

"You should just skip a week - it's not like anyone else will even notice!"

Somehow, I managed to finish.

But I felt disappointed with the quality as I felt it was lacking.

I've found that my ability to be slightly humorous evaporates when I get a poor night of sleep.

Without sleep, I'm about as funny as a flat tire on your commute home from work after a long day.

But because discipline looks like hitting the send button no matter what, I sent it.

I then sat back and waited for the worst.

Do you know what happened?

I had several people respond with words of encouragement saying that they loved this one.

It's like they knew how terrible I was feeling and that I need a boost of confidence.

THANK YOU to those people!

Your kind words made my day, my week, and gave me renewed strength to keep going.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned over these past 4 years is this:

You never know the impact you're having on other people.

I continue to write in the hopes that my words might make life a bit better for someone.

Someone who needs a little more inspiration and dad humor in their life.

It's the chance that I might improve someone's week keeps me going.

Now you know the truth:

That the process of writing a weekly newsletter is the antithesis of sexy.

Quote of the week 📜

"If you're trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right." - Paul Graham

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Sent with love,

Gregory Russell Benedikt

Website: gregoryrussellbenedikt.com

Podcast: The Dare to Dream Podcast​

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