The Daily Meaning
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Small Habits Add Up
On the heels of yesterday's one-year anniversary of publishing this blog daily (365 posts in 365 days!), my assistant, Alyssa, completed a project of aggregating all the posts into a single source document. What she found was staggering. It summed up to more than 156,000 words. 156,000!!! Considering the average non-fiction book is 50,000 words, we just published the equivalent of three entire books in a single calendar year.
When Rules Are About More Than Rules
It wouldn't significantly harm me if I cheated every now and then. It wouldn't hinder my progress. It wouldn't negate the good work I'm doing. However, one cheat is the gateway drug for the next. One creates two, and two creates twenty. The moment it's ok to cheat once is the moment cheating becomes normalized.
Caring Enough About Money
In my keynote talk, I spend a healthy amount of time discussing the science of money and happiness. In short, once our needs are met, money won't make us much happier. I go down several roads to make this argument, concluding that more money isn't the answer.
Finding Our Blind Spots
That brings me to the topic of blind spots. There are things in life we don't know. And the problem is, we don't know what we don't know. That's why they are blind spots. Turns out, one of my figurative blind spots is Finn's literal blind spot. Ouch. We have some work to do!
Tangibility Bias
It's called tangibility bias. It's subconsciously prioritizing things we can see, touch, and feel. Houses, vehicles, and possessions all fit this category. People are allured to the idea of buying something they can physically see. Some of these things can be good things, but it often comes at the expense of other less tangible things. Things such as retirement investing, college funds, generosity, and future needs.
Death to Girl Math, Death to Boy Math
There's a new social media trend that's both silly and worrisome. It was initially called "girl math," which highlighted some of the psychological games women play on themselves to justify financial decisions. Women quickly turned the tables and started highlighting some of the ridiculous psychological games men play on themselves.
Protecting Yourself From Yourself
As much as we try, we humans are experts in the art of self-sabotage. Sometimes, we're oblivious to it, while other times, we know exactly what we do. Yet, we can't help but sabotage our own well-being.
The First Slice is the Best!
On my flight yesterday, I had a front-row seat to a little family struggle. Here's how it played out. Mom, Dad, and 12ish-year-old son sit down right in front of me. They had to hurry from one flight to the next, but they were able to grab some food and bring it onto the plane. After the plane took off, the mother distributed the food. Side note: it looked absolutely delicious.
Jumping Off the Treadmill
I experienced a very profound moment in my life around 2015. It was a few years after paying off our $236,000 of debt. Sarah and I were still in the midst of our fertility battle, but optimistic about possibly adopting a child soon. My career was thriving. And I was making many multiples of income from what I previously made. Reflecting on how blessed my life was, I couldn't help but feel it wasn't enough.
A Bad Mow Is Better Than No Mow
As I got home yesterday afternoon, something drew my eye to my backyard. What I saw wasn't pretty. The grass was short and gray, but the weeds were tall and green. It looked like an absolute disaster. I'd show you a picture, but not even I'm willing to incriminate myself that badly. To sum it up, the state of my yard was a perfect combination of traveling for 8 of the last 12 weeks, long stretches of brutal heat, and a significant lack of available time on my part. I'm not proud of it, but realize how I got here. Truth is, I've had some windows to make progress on the yard and similar projects. However, these windows would not have allowed me to do it well. So instead of choosing done, I decided to wait for perfect.....which never came.