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Two mantras of life I live by, that I downloaded to my team yesterday:

Never complain: Never. Ever. Even if it is the worst day of your life to date. It robs us of our power and tricks us into believing that we don’t have any.

Trust: Trust people for what they say. Living life with that sense of awe and wonder, to never let doubt creep in. If someone else’s lies comfort them, what’s the point for us to be discomforted by that?

Two extremes.
Never and always. 

When you take care of never complaining and always trusting, the balance that forms in between takes care of everything else.

Compounding is less about mathematics.
It’s more about our temperament.

Do we get anxious when things don’t work out immediately?

Are we patient with life?

Do we believe in small things working out big miracles because of consistency?

The kind of person we are would end up deciding the kind of investor we become. 

Money doesn’t change us. It just magnifies who we are.

Imposter Syndrome isn’t reserved for a few. 

Almost everyone suffers from it, multiple times during their lifetime. 

Thus, coming up with a process is the way to deal with it:

Helpful vs best. You cannot be the best in world yet whatever you do and know, use it to help people

There will always be someone better than you. That automatically takes off a lot of load.

Try not to be the imposter that you were. Being a little better than yesterday is the best progress. You’re giving yourself time.

For anything that is recurring, process is power. 

Asking for help is a powerful thing. It shows we are ready to go beyond ourselves. 

However, keeping it open-ended and expecting “any” help is shutting all doors for help. 

Stuck in your career? Do you want help with referrals or want mentorship?

Having a feud with parents? Do you need help with solving it or do you need help with how to figure out living on your own?

Feeling hopeless? Do you need hope or do you need someone just to listen to you?

When we are specific in seeking out help, we make it easier for the other person to help us. And for ourselves to be helped.

“I’m addicted to YouTube.

I binge-watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. 

If I start watching reels once, there is nothing stopping me!”

Habits that stop us from doing productive work.
Habits we believe we have no control over.

What if we delete the apps? Or turn off WiFi at a specific time daily, no matter what?
Or build an empowering self image?

To exercise control over an app, delete it. 

Sounds simple, not easy. Just like all valuable life advice :)

When you’re alone, it is super important to pay attention to your thoughts.

“What am I thinking about? Why am I thinking only what could get worse? What if I expect good things as much as I anticipate bad ones? What else could this mean?”

It turns out, what we end up doing in the world is largely a product of what we end up thinking in solitude.

In solitude, our attitude builds up. 

In lack of it, we’re just a product of succumbing to someone else’s thoughts. 

Last thing we’d signed up for.

Help is a beautiful thing. 

It lets the other person know that they are cared for. 

It helps us feel good for getting out of our own selves and extending a hand to another person.

However, help sometimes does more harm if not done with the right frameworks. 

Two frameworks are: Do they need my help? Am I stable in my life?

Do people need your help: They may not. Or they may do. 

If they don’t but you believe they do, a great thing would be to share your experiences. They’ll get a perspective. To pick help or not, becomes their choice.

Am I stable in my life: You may be going through your own fair share of valleys. Going out of your way when you do not know your own way isn’t an act of courage. 

The best help, in that case, is to help yourself first.

The best help is to get yourself in a position of being able to help. 

A good project coming your way. But you’re not too excited.

You have an important task.
But you don’t want to sound rude to a friend calling to play video games.

You want to study further.
However, you might just avoid it because your parents want you to get a job and settle.

In all these cases, the easy choice is to say yes to how things are and let them just be. 

A more difficult choice is to stand by what you want to stand for.
And say no to everything else.

We say yes more often than no because we are hardwired to be accepted. 

Thousands of years ago we moved in groups in the savannah, because of fear of being prey to the wild animals. 

The savannah lifestyle is long gone.
What is still left behind is fear. 

Fear of being out of the group. Fear of being rejected. Fear of being called a rebel. 

Thus, we never face these fears and end up living a “fearless” life, which ends up as not living a life.

To be truly fearless is to face your inner fears of rejection, say no politely more often, and see how fearless life actually becomes when you say yes to yourself.

Anger is an unhealthy emotion. So we want to control it. 

However, when it arrives, it arrives in a wave sweeping all our resolutions away.

No matter how much you resist it, anger wins each time.

The key is in not resisting it.
Yes, you read that right. 

Don’t resist anger. Rather spend time with it. 

Why do I feel what I feel?
Which need of mine is unmet?
Why am I letting my denial take over where I could have an open mind by rather being a skeptic?

As we answer these questions honestly, there would be no need to resist anger.
Because then it won’t arise in the first place.

The extreme emotions are usually a result of not spending time consistently with our own selves.

When we talk about secrets to productivity, mostly we think they would be Pomodoro technique, having a schedule, working out, etc.

While all of that is true, there is something way bigger than it:
Our rest schedule.

Rest and rejuvenation is not sitting idle, wasting time, and something to be done when we will have more time. 

It is rather a way of getting more productive. 

Because even when we are not doing “work” on the outside, amidst the games that we play, the music that we work on or maybe while folding clothes, the mind is working on its own patterns to bring us our solutions.

And that, in turn, accelerates our productivity.

Old ways (of napping, engaging in creative pursuits, not being busy) are indeed the real gold.