What I'm Reading...

As one achieves focus, the mind quiets. As the mind is kept in the present, it becomes calm. Focus means keeping the mind now and here. Relaxed concentration is the supreme art because no art can be achieved without it, while with it, much can be achieved. One cannot reach the limit of one’s potential in tennis or any endeavor without learning it; what is even more compelling is that tennis can be a marvelous medium through which skill in focus of mind can be developed. By learning to focus while playing tennis, one develops a skill that can heighten performance in every other aspect of life.

-- Timothy Gallwey, The Inner Game of Tennis: The Classic Guide to the Mental Side of Peak Performance (p. 83)

Money and habits are not the only things that benefit from the law of compound interest. So do losses, errors, and vices.

From James Clear’s 3-2-1 Thursday Newsletter:

Sometimes in life, you will make mistakes. And when you think back on those mistakes, you may feel embarrassed. That’s a normal feeling. Nobody is perfect and we all make our fair share of mistakes in life.

However, if you do not take responsibility for the mistake and do your best to correct it, then you are committing a second mistake. Do the right thing, even though you may feel embarrassed by your previous actions. Don’t compound the error.

Shane Parrish interviews Seth Godin on The Knowledge Project Podcast. A 6-minute clip of the interview.

Without enchantment and fantasy, we face no mysteries, only static things we have not rationally explained yet. Without mystery, there is no humility; and when humility shrinks, societies rot from within and topple like trees hollowed out by disease. The cure is found in networked pockets of flourishing imaginative community.

-- Declaration of Enchantment, Article 13

No one can tell you that your plan will succeed. No one can tell you what their answer to your question will be. No one can guarantee you’ll make it home alive. They can’t even tell you how far down the hole goes.

If they could, if it wasn’t scary, everyone would do it. And then wouldn’t need to be done by you, now would it?

The coward waits for the stairs that will never come. They want to know the probabilities. They want time to prepare. They want assurances They hope for a reprieve. They’re willing to give up anything to get these things, including this moment of opportunity that will never, ever come back.

-- Ryan Holiday, Courage is Calling, p. 54