Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. Please enjoy the archives of earlier collections of inspirational things. Today, I’m going to list a bunch of things that have really helped me get through this stay at home period, helping me keep my mood up and keep me focused on my work and the people I care about the most. 1. Brian Eno – Thursday Afternoon This has been my soundtrack for the last month. It’s a roughly hour-long piece of ambient music that I have been listening to almost nonstop for the last few weeks. Often, ambient music helps … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. Please enjoy the archives of earlier collections of inspirational things. This month’s installment is heavily geared toward things that have inspired me to better writing, being a better parent, being a better husband, and keeping my head on straight during this most challenging of times. 1. Winnie the Pooh on memories “We didn’t realize we were making memories, we were just having fun.” – Winnie the Pooh Like many of us, my mind keeps turning back to things that seemed so normal just a few months ago that are now gone … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. Please enjoy the archives of earlier collections of inspirational things. 1. Scott Berinato: That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief Of all of the things I’ve read lately about all of the challenges facing us, this has hit home for me the most and given me the most positive food for thought. Virtually every one of us right now is experiencing some form of serious discomfort. All of us. If you’re lucky, it’s mostly just due to dealing with changes in all of your routines with a healthy dollop of scary news … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Simon Sinek on passion versus stress “Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stressed; working hard for something we love is called passion.” – Simon Sinek It feels good to work hard on something that you love and really care a lot about. It’s even better when you’re paid to do it and there aren’t other elements making it less enjoyable. It feels bad to be made to work hard on something you don’t care about at all because of professional pressure and the … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Bob Dylan on regrets “I don’t believe in regrets. Regrets just keep you chained to the past. You gotta make peace with the past. There’s no reason to regret it. You’ve done it, just make peace with it.” – Bob Dylan A few weeks ago, I was digging through some very old journal entries, some of my oldest ones from the mid-1990s. I read an entry about an old friend of mine who passed away several years later. Our friendship had faded and I actually didn’t hear … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Marcus Aurelius on pain “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” ? Marcus Aurelius If you feel miserable because of your job or because of how your friend treated you or because of the weather, that miserable feeling isn’t caused by those things. It’s caused by you and how you choose to react to them. You have the power to decide what impact anything … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe on the potential of others “If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe It’s hard to move past seeing people as they are, often hemmed in by their mistakes in life, and seeing people as what they could become with a little encouragement and a hand held out to them. The truth is a lot of people don’… [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Dale Carnegie on conquering fear “If you want to conquer fear, don’t sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” – Dale Carnegie I’m an introvert. While I don’t exactly have social anxiety, my natural tendency in a group of people I don’t know well is to clam up and not say too much. What exactly is it that I’m afraid of, though? Am I afraid that they’ll think negative thoughts about me? Am I afraid that they’ll judge me? Perhaps. But … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Thomas Henry Huxley on the things we must do “The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.” – Aldous Huxley If we want to have any kind of success in life, there are tasks that we don’t particularly want to do that have to be done, often at times when we really don’t want to do them. Sarah and I both dream of financial independence, but achieving … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Arthur Schopenhauer on buying books (and other things) “Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them; but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.” – Arthur Schopenhauer This is true of so many things in life. So often, we throw money at things that we want to be able to spend quality time with, but we lack that time and energy and focus, so the purchase itself becomes something of a mental substitute for the … [Read More...]

Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. 1. Seth Godin on the story you tell with your money “Once you have enough for beans and rice and taking care of your family and a few other things, money is a story. You can tell yourself any story you want about money, and it’s better to tell yourself a story about money that you can happily live with.” – Seth Godin What kind of story does your money tell about you? Beyond the basics, it really says what kind of person you are and what your passions and interests are … [Read More...]