Happy Things I Wish I Knew Earlier Sunday!
Here are 3 ideas I found for your consideration this week.
1. Private Writing is the Most Revolutionary Habit
The best way to change the world is to change yourself.
Private writing is the best way to understand yourself, the world, and your place in it. Understanding is the forerunner of change.
Private writing is writing to yourself for your own development to solve problems, heal traumas, capture ideas, and create your future.
And it is the most revolutionary habit.
It is the greatest possible middle finger to the status quo.
Think it’s an accident that they teach us to hate writing by the time we finish school?
No.
To learn more, checkout this article entitled: Build a Private Writing Practice to Incite Personal Revolution.
If you’re interested in diving deeper after that, shoot me an email. I’ll send you my one-page cheat sheet on how to establish the habit.
2. The Primary Reward for Work Well-Done is the Opportunity to Do More of the Same Work, not the Money
One of the greatest misunderstandings of the modern world is that the reason for working is to make money.
Don’t get me wrong, money is an important element of why we work. We all need money to live, after all. But money isn’t the primary reward for well-done work.
The primary reward for work that is well done is the opportunity to do more of that same work.
R. W. Emerson wrote the most enlightening take on this issue ever in his essay Compensation, which you can read for free here.
In it, he teaches us that the purpose of doing work is to gain the power to do that work, that the monetary compensation for that work is secondary and downstream.
“The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they who do not the thing have not the power.”
Take this into account when considering what job to take, what business to start, and what service to render. Do you hope for the chance to do more of that same work? Do you aspire to develop the skills it takes to do that work?
Money is a terrible reason to do any kind of work for the long-term.
3. Real Power Comes When Your Own Interests and Habits are Perfectly Aligned to a Worthy Goal that will Benefit Others
I recently finished Dan Koe’s new book The Art of Focus, where he taught the following:
“When the external is aligned with the internal, and focus is tight, the unconscious powerhouse of the mind sends resources to fuel your present-moment actions. Being and doing collapse into one.”
This alignment is also known as flow, or being in the flow state.
When your actual interests are turned into habits that are pointed perfectly at a goal you earnestly want to achieve, and that goal benefits others, then you are on the way to earning true power.
Think of Winston Churchill when he was given the reins of the British military apparatus to stop the Nazis in 1939. (Read the story here)
Think of Joe Rogan making a habit of talking to people he is curious about on a niche new technology called podcasts back in 2009 and then rising to become the most influential media personality in the world.
That is the power of aligning your interests and habits with a worthy goal that benefits others.
What would this look like for you?