Success through values, meaning, purpose, importance, and passion
Sometimes readers write with questions, suggestions, and feedback. It helps me improve what I write for them. I value what they write and use it to improve my writing. I don't yet have an experienced editor. What you're reading is better for what they shared. Based on that, plus the principle in my post "Sharing what you love fills your life with sharing, love, and stuff you love," I can't help but share a comment I got from a reader: I found your blog through the Mr. Money Mustache forums and have been reading it from beginning to present. My life has greatly improved since I've started reading, and while this isn't a major thing I wanted to share a quick anecdote from this morning.…
In this blog I try to cover what I consider one of the main skills of leading others and yourself -- the ability to manage your emotions no matter what comes your way. It shows up in many ways. One of the simplest is the phrase I use a lot: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. ... as I wrote about in my posts "A model to handle pain" and the risky "How do you respond to others' suffering?". Another way I often write about it is the three books of people who lived rich, fulfilling lives following material devastation -- imprisonment at Auschwitz or paralysis -- such as Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning, Bauby's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, and Zupan's Gimp. There…
I've written before about on opening up, allowing yourself to be vulnerable in business and personal relationships, and the risks involved, mainly to your emotions. Probably the most important one was on my experience that choosing to care about something and to act on that caring means you'll hurt. And the more you care the more you risk getting hurt. I wrote that post, "Leadership, personal development, choosing to care, and emotional pain," on leadership and professional relationships, but you can probably tell the pain of a personal relationship prompted me writing it. I wrote about how horrible I consider small-talk in a potentially productive relationship, especially when you first meet someone in "How to stop boring everyone you meet." Sure, small talk helps in…
Last month the New Yorker wrote a defense of learning and teaching English. It says English Departments are under attack. What kind of fool would take on the magazine many call the best in English about English? I guess I'm that kind of fool. I wrote the following in the comments. Â "We need the humanities not because they will produce shrewder entrepreneurs or kinder C.E.O.s but because ... they help us enjoy life more and endure it better. The reason we need the humanities is because we're human. That's enough." This article's length with minimal substance made me feel like someone who likes reading and writing wanted to show others who like reading and writing how good he was at reading and writing. I hoped…
[This post is part of a series on people who succeed despite adversity. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Ask yourself which helps more — having advantages or learning to overcome adversity? I base this series on noticing how many extremely successful people had problems that mediocre people claim hold them back. Sure, many successful people emerged from privileged backgrounds and sure, some social problems keep many people from any chance at success, but if you're reading this blog you probably have reasonable access to success. I decided to create a list of people who succeeded and some problems they overcame. I plan to…
When the topic of meditation came up the other day I heard the same thing I've heard many times before. I'm sure you've heard and said similar thing for similar activities: "Oh, I can't meditate. My mind is too frantic. I wish I could." Maybe you've heard or said it in this form: "Oh, I can't go to the gym. I'm too out-of-shape. I wish I could." or: "Oh, I wish I could organize my life. I'm just too busy. I wish I could" or in the generic form: "I wish I could do X, but I'm too what-X-fixes. I wish I could." Everyone who learned to do X, be it meditating, getting fit, keeping their life organized, or whatever, faced the same challenges and…
I wrote before about "Business school's first major lesson: how to resolve ethical dilemmas." Today I'll talk about another important lesson I learned in business school, also within the first couple weeks, also applying in many places in life I would not have expected from a vocational school. Context First I have to note my mindset before starting business school. I considered the most relevant parts of my life that I'd co-founded a company and I knew more math than probably anyone in the school. I thought business school would be a fun experience filling in a few gaps of how to make spreadsheets and learning some networking skills. What happened One of the major cores of business school is knowing how a business runs…
Have you noticed that people who behave wildly differently can still base their behavior on the same underlying philosophies? Or that people who behave similarly can also base their behavior on different philosophies? Pick a way people behave and you'll find people saying that behavior comes from any source. For example, among the most peaceful people some base their behavior on being religious, some on being atheist, some on not caring about religion or atheism at all. Some of the most belligerent people base their behavior on religion. Some not. People on the left call Hitler right-wing. People on the right call him left-wing. People who exercise say they do it to relax and feel good about their bodies. People who don't exercise say they…
Speaking of running, as I did yesterday -- "More benefits of burpees" -- I've been meaning to post something I expect will get me in trouble, but I'll post anyway. If you run a lot in Central Park you see a lot of five-kilometer run/walks -- usually charity events to get people donating for some type of medical research. With all the regalia, I wonder how much money makes it to help people and I feel like health care and drug companies make a lot of money already, but those aren't my points. What got me thinking and posting is that these events always have multiple water stops and tell people to "hydrate" plentifully, implying health risks if they don't. They imply the opposite of…
Following up yesterday's advice to a client, here is advice I gave to another client who was working on an independent program I've found helpful (again, edited for anonymity). I think what I wrote could help anyone starting a long-term project, especially before you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm sharing it here. (Regular readers will note it resonates with the quotes in my post "A master speaks on creative expression," or at least I hope it does.) I'll tell you what I saw in what you wrote that tells me that if you stick with the exercises you will have the success you want. I saw that you are doing the exercises fully, with dedication and discipline. I…
I think my response to a client's email would be valuable for anyone. I don't think many people make the progress he's making and I think his doing it could inspire others. I know he inspires me. He didn't come to me for personal insecurities or shame. He came to improve his life in other ways. Only once he started making progress there he realized things that he was holding himself back with internal conflict he had avoided facing for years. External success and internal success often build on each other. They often require each other. He wrote: Thank you for all your help!! I cannot express how much I appreciate your feedback and it's motivating to have people much more experienced than I provide…
I want to compile a list of things that when you talk about them people feel compelled to tell you all about them, like they're experts. I'll also note that most such people talk about things they read that couldn't possibly cover the topic thoroughly. More importantly, they rarely experiment and find out on their own. I don't know how many people have told me not eating meat is bad for my health without trying. They just read something somewhere and regurgitate. Or how many people tell me running is bad for human knees, who somehow disregard that tens of thousands of people who run a marathon in just one day in New York City, or how many people run all around the world and…
Today being Labor Day makes it an interesting day to think about money. I've noticed my post "An essay on money" gets almost the most number of hits of all my posts so I re-read it periodically. (Speaking of money, today is the also the last day to get the early discount on my awesome seminar on September 21 and 22 -- "Leadership Through Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence" so sign up now and save money!) My mom pointed out we never went on welfare when she read that essay, just that they gave the food out on our block without checking because the neighborhood was so poor. We loved the food I now wouldn't touch because the bread was so sweet and white and the…
We might as well figure out ways to think about dying because it's going to happen to all of us and people in our lives. Sorry if I broke the news to you and brought you down, but I figured you knew already. I've written before my main thoughts on mourning, mainly based on a Taoist passage, quoted in my post, "Thoughts on mourning." Like you and everyone else, as I get older I face more people recognizing their mortality. More people we know get sick. More people we know die. Some people fear disease and dying. Some repress thoughts on the matter. Some people use the change to live life to its fullest in every moment. I've worked out a model that works for…
Do you have a great passion? Something you devote several hours a day four to six days per week for twenty years? Something where pain and injury makes you like it more? If you have something like that, you'll know what playing Ultimate Frisbee meant to me. If not, you'll have to imagine. And I hope you some day build yourself a passion for something like I did for Ultimate. Anyway, toward the end of my competitive playing career I played on an elite team with some of the best players to have played the sport. I learned a lot from how I made that team. In late summer of that year I was looking for a team to play with. A friend said he…
[I alluded to this topic before. I still have to write it up formally and edit it more than a daily post allows. I hope it gets the main ideas across. Please contact me if it interests you.] You only have to read the news to see the problems Do I have to convince anyone that we have many people in leadership positions who lead ineffectively? You only have to read the headlines. As I'm writing these words the New York Times' top headline is about a spy scandal in which the top person at the NSA lied to Congress, which is abdicating its Constitutional checks on the President, who is doing the opposite of what he promised the country during his campaign on this…
[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Emotionally, I don't want to do burpees nearly every single time I do them. As you probably know, I do twenty twice-daily. Starting is never easy. Never. If you think you have a harder time starting to exercise than others, I think you're wrong. I don't think anybody has it easy. Just some people developed skills to overcome the emotional challenges we all feel. Rationally, I want to do them, but my emotions oppose my rational thoughts. I use willpower to…
No two people are the same, especially centuries apart. Still, I can't help but think about the leader of a great empire, occupying foreign lands, facing bankruptcy from an expensive victory in a war that galvanized many nations against it , taxing without representation, changing laws arbitrarily, putting his troops in people's homes, with a legislative body insensitive to its citizens' concerns, ... I could go on, and ask "Who resembles this person most today?" I can't help concluding the United States government resembles less its founders than the imperial government they rebelled against. Thinking about Edward Snowden, Chelsea (born Bradley) Manning, and Daniel Ellsberg got me thinking about my country's founders and revolutionary figures. I couldn't help but read about Samuel Adams, Crispus Attucks,…
An awesome side benefit of writing daily is that awesome people find you. Recently a guy wrote to tell me he liked my writing and invited me to participate in what seemed like a crazy project, but turned out to be one of the most awesome things I've done in New York City in a long time. And I've done a lot of awesome things in New York City. It's an amazing entrepreneurial story too -- the kind we love, which is why I, who endorse entrepreneurship and believe opportunities are everywhere, am sharing it with you. He started doing something that he enjoyed, for fun and personal challenge, and shared what he loved and got good at (another example of how "Sharing what you…
[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Ten days ago I wrote about running around eight miles for my first run in about three months after hurting my ankle -- "Soreness and exhaustion feel great!". Three days later I ran a nine-and-a-half mile run. Even having run marathons before, I consider those runs long and big jumps from no running. I'm surprised I did them. I keep asking myself what kept me in shape enough to do them. The best I can think of is burpees. Besides burpees,…
I can't help but comment more on the Nice Guy behavior I mentioned a couple days ago in "The false dichotomy of the nice guy and the jerk and what to do instead." A lot of the guys I coach have what others have called Nice Guy behavior and described problems with it. I don't mean being nice as a guy. I mean how Wikipedia put it in its "Nice Guy" page: When used in a negative context, a "Nice Guy" implies a male who is unassertive, does not express his true feelings and uses acts of ostensible friendship with the unstated aim of progressing to a romantic or sexual relationship. though I would expand the "unstated aim" beyond romantic or sexual relationships to others,…
After yesterday's pattern I see in men, here's a comparable one I see in women. A woman gets approached by men. Some she likes, some she doesn't. If the ones she doesn't like get too numerous, she may try to limit the number of men approaching her by making herself appear less available or pushing them away. While she intended to change only the number of guys approaching her, she likely changed the type of guy who approaches. The more oblivious to her emotions a guy is, the less likely her efforts will affect him. Non-oblivious guys see her repellent appearance and behavior, take the hint, and leave her alone. She makes herself look and act repellent and ends up skewing the distribution of guys…
I'll describe a view I've seen many times as a coach and in my regular life. I see it in many variations, but I'll present just one -- the one I can relate to most. Tomorrow I'll write about a comparable trend I see with women. The view is a false dichotomy. It goes like this. A guy grows up learning to treat people nicely and to reciprocate when people who are nice to him. He figures if he treats people nicely they'll reciprocate. As he grows up he starts to like women. He decides to treat them nicely figuring it will prompt them to reciprocate, like everything in life suggested would happen. Unbeknown to him, most women have met many men before him who…
I overheard some people talking about another group as "douchebags" with "popped collars" who called everyone "bro" or "brah." Okay, I get that some people can find others annoying, but to call them douchebags is just mean. You've insulted others for other reasons. People call others losers, sluts, assholes, and so on. More importantly to you, if you've ever insulted someone or thought about it, which covers everyone on the planet, is that the insult says something about you: When you insult someone you evaluate them by your values, which you impose on them. You judge them. You think "I'm better than them" or "I'm right and they're wrong." If they judged you by their values you'd look terrible too. If you considered your thoughts…
Today's post approaches the recent NSA surveillance revelations from a systems-theory perspective. The reasons basketball players are tall imply consequences to our government. A high-level systems perspective leaves out details, some of which may be more important than this post gives credit for. I'm not saying it's the only perspective, but I consider it important and relevant. Please feel free to comment if you feel I missed something important. Why are most basketball players tall? Why are most basketball players tall? Basketball players are tall because the rulebook puts the basket ten feet high and they want to put the ball in the basket. Taller players achieve the goal better. Basketball players have a goal, they follow rules, and the ones who achieve the goal…
