Jim's Newsletter April 2026

Fasting, happiness, birth-rate crisis plus a lot more.

Fasting

My Lenten fast went well. Work seems to be easier and more focused, and I find an even stronger sense of meaning in everyday life.

A lot more satisfying than the brief boost from something like chocolate.

Also, my new weight (21.3 BMI) feels good. So for the time being, I’m basically continuing it.

On happiness

The great secret of life is to minimise activities that produce surges of dopamine. Not just high-calorie food but most of social media, sex (especially porn), gambling, comparing yourself to other people, alcohol and other drugs.

These surges make the brain less sensitive to dopamine, requiring ever more stimulation. Every day of life becomes boring and robbed of meaning.

But if your brain is made sensitive to dopamine, a small trickle is deeply satisfying.

This can come from family and other close relationships, exercise, meaningful work, faith-based activities, or even household chores.

I get real satisfaction from simple tasks such as laundry, cleaning the kitchen, and of course, gardening – several hours a week.

Thus, the benefit of fasting. Some benefits for physical health, far more for mental health.

Birth Rate Crisis

This will all be explained, hopefully much better, in Birth Rate Crisis, which we now estimate to be coming out in October.

It’s far more than the solution to collapsing fertility, though it is that.

My editor, Andrea, is doing such a brilliant job that she’ll be listed as a co-author.

I have the ideas, but she is so much better at putting them into a form that other people can understand, and perhaps appreciate.

Using AI

Just started using ChatGPT regularly for the first time, for my book writing and research. Making great progress. Should have done this a long time ago!

Jimbo

The most exciting event in Jim’s right now is the upcoming release of the new Jimbo, our scheduling program for franchisees.

Some key features:

Improved customer service systems, such as my voice yelling if franchisees fail to return phone calls promptly!

If we can really improve customer service, leads will soar and so will franchisee income.

Allowing the call centre to directly book quotes and perhaps even jobs into a franchisee’s diary, with no need to call clients back.

Should greatly lift quality of leads and conversion rate.

Ability to buy and sell regular clients, with a rating system for vendors.

Will help franchisees sell outlying customers and take more work close to home, thus reducing both fees and travel time.

Built-in accounting program. No need to pay for Xero or Myob.

We will also make this available to independent contractors buying our surplus leads through Bizza.

Will tell us instantly if they fail to contact clients.

The Insanity of red tape

A tech expert, Paul Conyngham, created an individualised vaccine to successfully treat his dog for cancer. Cost only a few thousand dollars and the use of ChatGPT.

Goes without saying that this novel approach has immense potential for the treatment of human cancers.

The kicker in this story is that it actually costs more to get the ‘ethics’ approval than to create the treatment.

A one-hundred-page application that took three months to write!

Another example from our research lab. The ‘ethics’ committee has forbidden us to kill rats quickly and humanely, but insists that they be slowly choked to death with carbon dioxide.

As humans who have experienced this attest, CO2 poisoning is painful and terrifying.

Our ridiculous government is charging ever-higher taxes to cripple progress in science as well as business.

It’s the key reason why we’re moving as much of our research project as possible to China.

Politicians need real-life experience

More than a million people looked at my video on the need for politicians to have real-life work experience, so they understand how their rules affect people.

They haven’t a clue.

Petrol Crisis

Lastly, the petrol crisis. I really don’t think we’ll run out, but prices will probably stay high. On the positive side, a good excuse for our franchisees to raise prices.

Which should not be too hard, since most of them are busy.

If our customer service is good, we’ll always have plenty of customers.