A reader wrote this testimonial. As I wrote him personally, I am honored and flattered that this material was useful for someone to improve his life with — including asking for and getting a position he wanted at work with more creativity and responsibility, taking on leadership roles, and improving his regular habits.

I’m sharing it here in addition to my testimonial page because by describing his background and specifying (and linking to) what was most useful for him, he made his experience useful to others.

I hope it’s helpful to you.

Thank you, David!

Although I’ve worked for some big companies and have achieved success so far, I’ve been struggling with feelings of inadequacy and, more importantly, a growing desire for leading my own projects. Yet most of the personal projects I embark on end up unfinished. My ability to finish what I start at work seem to elude me at home, or so I thought. In truth most of the obstacles that impair me from developing my full potential are present in every aspect of my life.

Some years ago, I started reading about personal management and trying about every app and system to make myself “organized”, since that’s what I thought my main issue was. But soon I discovered procrastination was only the symptom, and what I needed was to cure the disease.

So I kept searching for answers and started following the blogs of people I admired: high-achievers that were kind enough to teach others the road to success. Of those blogs I follow, probably the one that rings truer to me is Joshua‘s. These are some of the things I learned from Joshua:

At the core of everything is self awareness. I found really useful the exercises in bringing mental chatter to light, they helped me in detecting harmful beliefs that I’m now working to crowd out (another great concept).

Willpower isn’t enough.

Empathy gaps: the reason why you feel so excited to create stuff but then lose that enthusiasm when you start to work on it.

Feeling fake when you’re making big personal changes is normal. Also, you need to be skeptic of preconceived notions about yourself.

It’s really important to take care of the basics before anything else. Since I started implementing some of Joshua’s models I’m slowly making progress:

• I took the courage to ask for a position of more creative responsibility at my job, and got it!
• Started leading a small team of people on a collaborative side project.
• Keep looking for opportunities to act and think like a leader.
• I’ve been more consistent with my habits than ever.

I’m really grateful for having found Joshua’s blog. It feels like having a mentor, and the daily articles full of actionable wisdom keep me motivated towards my goals.

— David A.

• ← Edward Snowden — Whistleblower
• Ad hominem attacks are easy but counterproductive and best ignored →