The ZAO Newsletter

ZM Today’s reflection comes from Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff — Lesson 77: Acknowledge the Totality of Your Being. Some days I wake up ready to conquer the world. Other days, I just hope the coffee hits before the chaos does. But lately, I’ve been learning that both versions of me deserve space at the table.

Happy Floral Friday. There’s something about committing — even to something small — that starts to change your energy before the first step. This week, I’m grounding that energy through a simple promise: to stream on Twitch for a week straight. No fancy rollout, no big announcement — just presence. Talking Farcaster. Talking WaveWarZ. Talking ZAO. It’s less about performance and more about rhythm. Showing up, every day, with whatever’s real.

ZM Every Monday, the cycle restarts. Same call link, same faces, same ritual — but the energy is never the same. That’s the quiet brilliance of ZAO Fractals. It’s not about repetition; it’s about rhythm. Each week we orbit around the same center — contribution, respect, creation — but the pattern shifts, like jazz.

ZM happy wavy Wednesday. The ZAO world’s buzzing — we’ve got a WaveWarZ battle lighting up the feed tonight and a fresh Let’s Talk About Web3 episode lined up. The energy feels good, like everyone’s tuned into the same frequency.

This morning, the quiet words of Earl Nightingale echoed through the digital ether — “we become what we think about.” It’s a line that feels ancient and futuristic at the same time, almost as if it was written for builders like us navigating the chaos of creation in a decentralized age. Listening to The Strangest Secret together wasn’t just a moment of reflection; it was an alignment check.

It’s been one of those weeks where everything moves fast enough to blur. I spent the weekend deep in WaveWarZ, watching four battles unfold—Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday—and each one felt like a new proof of concept for what decentralized music can actually be.

gm — today’s one of those days that reminds me why I started all this. I’ll be joining GM Farcaster with @nounishprof and @adrienne to talk about ZAO and the evolution of onchain music — not just as tech, but as a movement. The beauty of these conversations is that they’re not theoretical anymore. We’re seeing creators mint meaning, communities move like collectives, and platforms evolve into ecosystems.

zm gm — still feeling the energy from my cousin’s wedding. I learned more about my roots, got closer to my culture, and spent time with family I hadn’t seen in forever. It was one of those weekends that reminds you who you are and where it all started. – BetterCallZaal on behalf of the ZAO Team

Today’s passage comes from Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff — a book that’s been quietly reshaping the way I move through everyday moments. The chapter is called “Stop Blaming Others.” I’ve been reading it slowly, almost like meditation — one paragraph at a time, letting each sentence settle. It reminded me how subtle blaming can be. How it hides in tone, in silence, in the quick mental note that someone else dropped the ball.

Yesterday was a packed day. Four streams back-to-back — each one focused, productive, and community-driven. Ending with the WaveWarZ stream felt like a checkpoint. Not a celebration, but a moment to see how far the systems have come since we started building them from scratch.

ZM happy wavy wednesday There’s a quiet kind of power in words—especially the ones we withhold. Today’s pull from The Four Agreements deck reminds me how much strength it takes to simply say what we mean when love is the message. The card says, “Be impeccable with your word: Express your love.” It sounds simple, but living it out takes practice. Too often we edit ourselves down to fit the room—keep the peace, stay efficient, avoid vulnerability. But “impeccable” doesn’t mean perfect. It means...

ZM There’s something sacred about repetition. Not the mindless kind, but the kind that carves you into something sharper, calmer, and more capable than before. The card today — “Practice Makes the Master” — comes straight from The Four Agreements, reminding us that doing your best isn’t about perfection; it’s about consistency.