Better Human - Feb 20
Austin, TX: Our house flooded so were homeless but life is GOOD!
My Dear Fellow Human,
It's been a wild week. If you want to read the story, check out my IG post here.
Some good lessons in there.
We are safe and warm staying with family. (And we've had gracious offers from multiple friends.)
Life is great.
Bitcoin just hit $50,000.
We just sold our house a couple of weeks ago (and made a little bit of $).
My two sons are healthy and hilarious and bring joy wherever they go.
I'm healthy and financially free, and I get to work on things I care about every single day.
This week, I've been thinking about happiness and gratitude and hardship.
And I keep coming back to the duality of life, a Taoist concept.
Some examples:
night and day
hot and cold
north and south
good and bad
happy and unhappy
healthy and unhealthy
etc
What we should all remind ourselves of often is the duality of everything in life.
Without one, you can't have the other.
Without unhappiness, you can't have happiness.
Without struggle, you can't appreciate how great it is when you aren't struggling.
Without earning ANYTHING you have, you can't appreciate it.
On and on it goes.
Yet we forget because we're fickle creatures with a body and mind designed for the wild.
We adapt to things because that keeps us searching for MORE.
Searching for more in the wild was NECESSARY to survive.
So how do we use this information?
Like this…
We embrace the hard times, even celebrate them, and use them to become STRONGER, WISER, and more ANTIFRAGILE.
When life challenges you,
Train your response. Train your emotions. Train your body. Train your mindset.
Everything in life is a choice.
You choose to be the victim, or you decide to adapt and become stronger.
And there is no in-between choice.
-Colin Stuckert (I’m now on Twitter)
Something I Improved This Week
My response
I walked into my house and looked at 6 inches of water covering our living room floor.
I looked up, and more was pouring out of the ceiling.
So I sprung into action and, for three hours, did my best to remove water and cover leaks with buckets and bins.
After I was physically and mentally spent, I knew I had done what I could, and an odd feeling of contentment washed over me.
Perhaps that was just training for a future situation where physical danger will be at risk.
Something I Enjoyed This Week
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
I’ve been thinking about this lecture a lot. It’s something I want to listen to a couple of times a year moving forward.
Something I've Been Thinking About
Purposeful procrastination
There are certain emails and text messages I won't read.
I see the notification, and I purposely ignore it.
I do this when I suspect I might respond emotionally.
So I give it time. Then I read it later, or not at all.
And if I do read it later, I'm ALWAYS less emotionally charged in how I respond.
My emotional gut-response has gotten me in trouble in the past. So by purposely ignoring a situation for some time, I deescalate my response.
Often no response ends up the best response.
I've learned that it's usually better to respond SLOWLY than quickly to anything dealing with humans.
Something To Consider
If you develop your worldview by listening to other people and not going to the source material, and not thinking critically for yourself, you will become extremely fragile.
Consider breaking up with mainstream media, the news, pop culture, politics and politicians, and anything CURRENT and BIG and POWERFUL.
The bigger something is, the less you can trust it.
A Big Idea
BG 2.47: You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction. -Bhagavad Gita
Entitlement is poison.
The journey is the reward, not the reward.
Podcasts
This was super fun. More to come.
YouTube
Fav Tweets of Week
I finally started using Twitter.
Train With Me
This newsletter is supported by The Better Mind training program.
The Better Mind program is a Mindset Training method that upgrades your thinking and helps you remove limiting beliefs so you can create NEW mental models for success, happiness, and fulfillment.
What got you here won't get you there...
We get you from HERE to THERE by taking a first principles approach to life and combing this mental framework with knowledge from the greatest thinkers, writers, artists, entrepreneurs, and philosophers the world has ever seen.
Train with me 1-on-1
I’ve started taking on personal coaching clients in conjunction with my shift into Mindset. To learn more about how I can help you get from HERE to THERE, check out my coaching page here.
Product Feature
Small-batch Austin-roasted organic, fair trade coffee.
It’s what the family has been using daily for years. Still my favorite.
Resources
Weekly Live Better Human Podcast - JOIN US!
We are doing this every week. You can hop on and ask questions, participate in the chat, go LIVE if you want, and have a great time. Each show will be available later inside your favorite Podcast app.
Here is the weekly Zoom link to save and add to your calendar: Every Wednesday at 2pmCST/3pmEST.
Free Course access link: 100 free access slots to my new course on Skillshare: How To Live a Simple Life and Why You Should
Who am I again? I’m a CEO, Mindset Coach, Educator, Entrepreneur, Father, Podcaster, Thinker, & Helping People Think Better and Live Better: Bio page
Thank you for reading… it means a lot to me…
If you enjoyed this issue, would you mind sharing it with someone you think will enjoy it? <3