My 10 Favorite Stories For August 2020
If you’re looking for stories to bookmark, you’ve come to the right place!
Favorite excerpt: “At the end of the day, introspection isn’t enough. You have to take consistent action to make your dreams a reality. But when you take the time to look inward, you may be surprised by what you find. Your passion might have been waiting there all along, just waiting for you to light the spark.”
Like many of us, Melody spent a lot of time trying to find her passion. As she brilliantly writes, she now realizes that’s terrible advice.
Instead, Melody suggests asking yourself some simple but powerful questions that could inform a greater sense of purpose.
This is a quick yet thought-provoking read that may push you to think differently about what you’re going after.
Thank you Melody Wilding, LMSW!
Favorite excerpt: “The road to success is littered with hard choices. Only a few people become truly successful due to our innate aversion to difficulty. After all, our brains are wired to seek comfort and familiarity.”
Destiny writes about the tension between how our brains are wired and how we need to think about success. He frames his article through four key decisions (or realizations) that will launch you toward success.
Like JFK, Destiny admits that these are hard choices. We are hard-wired to seek ease and shirk hardship.
But in the same vein, he emphasizes that their value stems precisely from their difficulty. If you want to succeed and set yourself apart, you need to embrace the grind.
Thank you Destiny Femi!
Favorite excerpt: “Rather than looking out for each other, we’re living in a world of increased competition where we’re only looking out for ourselves; it’s dog eat dog. It’s no longer ‘us’, it’s ‘me against them’, and we’re all constantly concerned with where we are in the pecking order.”
Former First Lady Michelle Obama recently launched a podcast on Spotify. One of the first episodes was with her husband Barack.
Laura superbly writes about one of the themes of their conversation: the individualist mentality they see pervading the country that stands in stark contrast to the way they grew up.
I think this might be the biggest societal problem we face nowadays. We’ve lost a sense of collective sacrifice and unity.
It might come from a common perception that we lack an existential threat — think a world war or great depression — that requires us to stand unified. If that’s the case, I can think of some major threats — think climate change and COVID-19 — which will require us to stand unified.
Side note: VOTE!!!
On a personal level, thinking selflessly will allow you to align your priorities with what really matters in life: each other. We evolved to seek and foster community, and we’d benefit greatly from thinking more inclusively.
Thank you Laura Izquierdo!
Favorite excerpt: “Because actions always follow thought, we can form our lives with our thoughts. If we align our thoughts towards what we want to see in our personal reality, we will soon experience these thoughts to be true. We subconsciously try to find evidence what we think is true.”
The human brain is the most mysterious organ in the universe. It has an incredible capacity to do great things.
Your brain, if harnessed and channeled correctly, can do great things too. We have more power over our thoughts than we often realize. If we master our thoughts and push them to serve us rather than the other way around, our potential is limitless.
As Michael says, from extraordinary thoughts comes extraordinary performance.
Thank you Michael Rauscher!
Favorite excerpt: “The most valuable currency we have is time. Each of us is given an allotted amount when we’re born, and right from our first breath, the clock starts ticking.”
Simon shares his perspective on ways to set yourself up for success beyond your 20s. He lists five key principles, five lessons, and five things to do every day that he has leveraged to lay a foundation for the rest of his life, as he describes in the introduction.
Simon’s piece is well organized and structured. If you’re looking for a go-to resource of ideas to jumpstart a pathway toward sustainable success, this is a phenomenal read to get started.
Thank you Simon P!
Favorite excerpt: “The low hanging fruit is to look at what people are writing about, spot the trend, then come at it from the new angle, under, sideways, reverse.”
Sean describes his easy yet effective method to generate fresh content. And the proof is in the pudding; Sean’s portfolio is as versatile as that of any Medium writer you’ll find. He can bring his style and voice to just about any topic under the sun and churn out killer content, to borrow his words.
If you are new to this platform or simply looking for inspiration, spend some time digging through Sean’s writing. He is one of this platform’s true greats — extremely versatile and prolific with an incisive style of writing that jumps off the page.
Thank you Sean Kernan!
Favorite excerpt: “People brag about being perfectionists, myself included. But if I could go back in time and advise my 20-year old self, I’d tell him to knock it off because there’s no such thing as perfection. It creates an impossible goal. One you’ll never achieve because you’ll never achieve perfection.”
People with more experience than me gain a valuable currency: wisdom. And it’s a gift to see writers like George who are willing and able to eloquently share their wisdom with the world.
As someone who constantly fights perfectionism and frets about uncertainty, I thoroughly enjoyed reading George’s perspective. You’ve probably seen many of his recommendations elsewhere, but his excellent writing might push you to think hard about your lifestyle choices and consider if there’s a disconnect between the person you want to be and the person you are now.
Thank you George J. Ziogas!
Favorite excerpt: “It’s not just about showing up once. You have to show up over and over again. But I’m not talking about showing up for your dream. Show up for the dreamer — yourself. Don’t aim toward your goals because you want the money, fame, or credit. Aim toward your dreams because you want to.”
Itxy notes how goals often reflect a misplaced desire to achieve success for its own sake. She proposes a different approach as reflected in her subtitle: show up, do the work, and see what happens.
The key is to do things you love. If you do, you won’t need goals to motivate you to show up. The pursuit will satisfy you in and of itself, while the possibility of things going right is merely icing on the cake.
A lot of the obstacles we think about are often just that: thoughts. As Itxy eloquently writes, “the beautiful thing about being human is that we can learn from our mistakes, get back on the right road, and keep going like nothing happened.”
Yes indeed.
Thank you Itxy Lopez!
Favorite excerpt: “If you want to get over your fears, the best thing to do is to face them head-on. If you’re afraid of heights, do a bungee jump. If you need to have a difficult conversation, go and speak to that person. If you’re afraid of failure, fail greatly and learn from the process.”
Brian details six specific habits you can practice to develop ambition. He notes specific examples to validate his claims — some from his life, some from the experiences of other highly ambitious people.
Brian expands on Theodore Roosevelt’s famous ‘man in the arena’ speech, which is well worth your time. LeBron James cites that speech as a major influence in his career; the advice Roosevelt offers is timeless and deeply inspiring.
Thank you Brian Pennie!
Favorite excerpt: “Getting from where you are now to where you want to be isn’t always clear. It’s murky and difficult to find out what to do next. That’s why you must begin with the end in mind: identify the final step of your success, then work backwards to make a plan to get there.”
Anthony advocates for a reverse engineering approach to get what you want. I see two major benefits. First, it creates a natural element of accountability since your testimonial is time-bound and specific. Second, it motivates you to think big by empowering you to consider what ultimate success would look like for whatever that means to you.
Athletes often put this recommendation into practise by visualizing what success would look like for them. They imagine standing on a podium receiving a gold medal or pumping a championship trophy in the air.
As I commented on Anthony’s article, this is an extraordinary recommendation from an extraordinary writer.
Thank you Anthony Moore!
