Lesson I’ve Learned #71
A lesson I’ve learned but still struggle to accept is that I’m the cause of all my suffering.
No one else.
And no one can alleviate my suffering except me.
It’s taken 44 years to get, and I feel like I’ve not truly grasped the depth of this truth yet.
Lesson I’ve Learned #72
Writing to a group makes bad writing. I write to one person.
A real person if possible (one that I know and understand, often a younger version of myself).
The more specifically I write to one person, the more powerfully my writing resonates to everyone.
Lesson I’ve Learned #73
The clearest thing material success has taught me is that material success doesn’t make me happy.
When I was poor, I couldn’t even conceive of this lesson.
I had to make a good amount of money to learn that money wasn’t going to make me happy.
Lesson I’ve Learned #74
Content writing is about helping people understand you. Copywriting is about helping the customer feel understood
(h/t Jennifer Hudye)
Lesson I’ve Learned #75
I’ve learned to be suspicious of very charming people.
“Charming” is a set of behaviors that a specific type of person uses to get me to do something that I wouldn’t do if they were being direct.
It’s almost never beneficial to me.
Lesson I’ve Learned #76
I’ve learned to not take the behavior of others personally—it’s just a reflection of what they think of themselves, and has nothing to do with me.
For example, if they are hard on me, they are almost certainly at least that hard on themselves. That’s an easy lesson.
The hard lesson is when that is applied to myself: How I treat other people is a reflection of how I treat myself.
Once I started looking at my behavior toward others as a reflection of what I thought about myself, I saw some very hard truths.
Lesson I’ve Learned #77
What I learn is not that important. What matters is how I change and grow from what I learn.
If nothing in my mind or life changes, then I don’t grow, and what I learned didn’t help me or the people I love.
Lesson I’ve Learned #78
When I have a phone call I’m not excited about, I do it in front of a mirror.
This replicates in person energy by forcing me to SEE the expression on my face.
If I’m annoyed, I can see it, smile, and change my tone of voice and my energy automatically.
Lesson I’ve Learned #79
I can’t run from or hide from what I do. I always know.
Self-esteem is the reputation I have with myself.
(h/t Nathaniel Branden & Naval Ravikant)
Lesson I’ve Learned #80
Taking full responsibility for my life, without blaming anyone else, has been like a superpower.
It forces me to set boundaries and frames my life as something I create, not something that happens to me.
This changed everything for me.
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