5: Notes To Self

Yo!

Here is your weekly dose of 5 things I’m pondering and exploring.

1. Friendship Diagram I Made

2. What It Means To Be Tough

Toughness is not getting in fights or intimidating others. It’s doing what you say you’re going to do, even when it sucks.

Now, this can be built. But, not through courage or power. It’s built through evidence, awareness, & reminders.

First, tough people build evidence of their strength by doing hard things.

Then, in moments when their mind spirals into suffering & negative self talk (”I can’t do this”), they can step-back and see their emotions for what they are (triggers cued by their environment, not an accurate description of their reality). They are aware of their monkey mind’s irrationality.

In those moments, they remind themselves of why they’re doing what they’re doing & look back at all of the evidence they’ve built over the years that proves they are able to do hard things.

3. Full Subway Map of Human Metabolism (Stanford Med)

There’s nothing better than an incredibly complex subject summarized in one diagram. This one shows our body’s metabolism system.

This just is just 1 of the 11 primary body systems (skin, skeletal, muscular, nervous, endocrine, cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, urinary, and reproductive).

I can barely take in the picture and it covers LESS THAN 10% of the systems that keep us chugging along. Ridiculous!

You and I are walking miracles.

4. David Foster Wallace On Being Entirely Yourself

“The really great artists are entirely themselves. If it’s truly authentic, you’ll feel it in your nerve endings.”

My (& your) weekly reminder to be as authentic as possible. This time it’s from one of the greatest thinkers of the last century.

5. “Opportunities only look like opportunities in the rearview mirror. Today, they look like risk.”

Makes me think…what risks am I shying away from? What keeps popping up in the back of my mind that I’m not really addressing?

Is that new project really gonna be too much work? Is the adventure actually too outlandish? Or am I just being scared?

After all, fear is the mind killer.

Thanks for wanting to know more today than you did yesterday.

Cheers,

Luke