Good morning, team!
Back with another one of these. No long story this week. Just a handful of insights that got stuck inside my head while I was reading, and wouldn't come loose.
So instead of one story, here's a handful of things to think about.
Steal, share, or save any of them. Liberally.
Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former U.S. senator and 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee John Edwards, made this observation during a 2009 NPR interview after making it through an incredible challenging few years that included the death of her teenage son Wade and her husband’s affair while she was in the hospital fighting for her life against cancer:
I used to think getting back up meant getting back to where I was. It doesn't.
You don't get the old life back. You build a new one out of what's left, and you stop waiting for someone to hand you the first version back.
That also means you change how you measure things. It's not about getting to where you were; it's about getting closer to where you want to be.
Billionaire Charlie Munger paints a clear picture of what success really looks like:
Not a leap. Not a big win. An inch. Then another one.
It's the dullest advice I've ever gotten, and it's also the only advice that's ever actually seemed to work for me.
Sylvia Plath wrote this in her journal in 1958, years before anyone was reading her at all:
Not rejection. Not the market. Not the people who don't get it. The thing that kills the work is the voice in your own head that gets there first.
Take the first step. Do the first thing. Try the first try. You’ll figure it out from there.
Van Gogh, in a letter to his brother, written while he was selling nothing and doubting everything:
He sold one painting in his life. One. And he still knew what he was, years before anyone else did.
That's the part that gets me. He didn't wait for the world to agree with him, but he still faced inner confusion and messiness while creating his life’s work
Joseph Campbell, from decades of studying the same story told a thousand different ways:
The thing you're avoiding is usually always the thing. Not near it. Not next to it. It.
And the only way to find breakthrough is directly through what you fear to do most.
Nelson Mandela, in Long Walk to Freedom:
Twenty-seven years in prison and that's the definition he came out with.
Not "I stopped being afraid." He never says that.
He says he conquered it. Every day, probably. More than once.
And Elisabeth Elliot, the missionary who went back into the jungle where her husband had been killed:
That's the whole thing, right there. Nobody's waiting for the fear to leave before they walk in.
Quick note.
If you missed last week's issue, it's the one about the "stupid" prisoner who spent 2 years memorizing 256 names of men everyone else thought were dead, so their families could stop grieving them.
Still one of my favorite stories I've ever told in this newsletter.
Pick one of those lines up there and carry it around for a few days. See if it holds.
And if you reply to this email, it comes straight to me. I dare you.
Love you all. 🖤