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October 16 - October 26, 2020
Pay attention to the ideas that draw your interest, especially the ones you can’t stop thinking about.
Discontent is the first necessity of progress. —THOMAS A. EDISON
“When I was laid off,” she told me, “I realized that this might be my last chance to create something really different.”
What causes someone to undertake a big adventure for little reward—in many cases with a real chance of failure or at least major sacrifice?
Dissatisfaction + Big Idea + Willingness to Take Action = New Adventure
Metaphorically, discontent is the match and inspiration is the kindling.
When discontent leads to excitement, that’s when you know you’ve found your pursuit.
“When a person is really happy they don’t have to tell people about it. It just shows.”
there’s a mission out there that is greater than yourself. Whether or not you think of it in spiritual terms, a true calling will challenge and thrill you.
“When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.”
You deal with fear not by pretending it doesn’t exist, but by refusing to give it decision-making authority.
“He not busy being born is busy dying,”
“How interesting it is that men seldom find the true value of life until they are faced with death.”
he focused on the worst-case scenario: “I might fail, but I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t try.”
“Once you make the leap, be patient … very patient and persistent. Do work your butt off for a couple years if that’s how long it’ll take for you to get there. Easy projects aren’t quests, they’re holidays from real life. Any real trial will challenge you to the core. Acknowledge that and fight like hell to keep working through it!”
You must believe that your quest can be successful, even if no one else does. You can deal with setbacks, misadventures, and even disasters as long as you still believe you can overcome the hardships and see your way to the end.
There are few goals worth pursuing that are totally risk free.
So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.
The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.
Every good goal has a deadline
once heard someone say that criticism is like a nut surrounded by a hard shell. The hard shell represents a projected experience from a biased perspective—something you should discard and ignore. If you can successfully discard the criticism’s outer trappings, there is often something you can learn from its core, especially after you’ve allowed some time to pass.
The review begins with a set of journaling exercises, focused on two questions: What went well this year? What did not go well this year?
The path to the summit consists of repetitive movements, but it is precisely the arduousness of the task that makes the accomplishment an epic one.
Experience produces confidence, and confidence produces success.
“If I fail more than you do, I win. Built into this notion is the ability to keep playing. If you get to keep playing, sooner or later you’re gonna make it succeed. The people who lose are the ones who don’t fail at all, or the ones who fail so big they don’t get to play again.”
To be creative, don’t think outside the box. Make yourself a box and get into it!
“It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of one you don’t.”
In this world, there are things you can only do alone, and things you can only do with somebody else. It’s important to combine the two in just the right amount.
every single day, each of us gets to answer a far more interesting question: What’s worth living for? If you could only pursue one thing, what would you craft a life around and do every day?
living for something can be mundane—and therefore far more sacrificial, because seldom does anyone else notice. You just go on living, beating the drum for the thing you’ve chosen to value above all else. Genuinely living for something, day after day, is much more valuable than looking for the blaze of glory at the end.
The long, slow grind of working toward something is all about loving the process. If you don’t love the process, the grind is tough.
“To go anywhere, save $2 a day”—
Do all good things come to an end? That’s a debate for another book. But when a good thing reaches its natural end, don’t drag it out. If you don’t like the menu, leave the restaurant.
Home is where you go when you run out of homes.
Once Upon a Galaxy, science fiction author Josepha Sherman
They ask a complex question, but seek a one-sentence answer. It’s akin to inquiring, “In seven words or less, describe your relationship with God.”
his conversion to humanism. It wasn’t a rebellion against his faith, he said, it was just a result of gaining a general awareness of the rest of the world.
The more you experience something outside of what you’ve known, the more open-minded you become … but this worldview can also be somewhat alienating, especially to people at home.
It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.
“It has become ever more clear to me that if I had spent my life avoiding any and all potential risks, I would have missed doing most of the things that have comprised the best years of my life.”
