“Treat yourself like you are someone you are responsible for helping.”
– Jordan Peterson
Did you know I’m currently watching 100 Foot Wave on HBO and it’s AMAZING?! Seriously, if you enjoy documentaries and watching people surf (and sometimes, crash) in waves as tall as eight-story buildings, then I highly recommend checking it out. It’s wild.
Looking in The Mirror
What do you see when you look in the mirror?
Do you see someone beautiful, resilient, and capable of greatness? Or do you see someone weak and flawed?
More likely than not, it’s the latter.
You see your blemishes and imperfections. Maybe you even see those things as evidence of your own failures or shortcomings.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
In fact, looking at yourself in the mirror and intentionally saying nice things to yourself such as…
- You look beautiful today.
- I love you.
- You are so strong.
- You are going to crush the day.
… has real benefits. Here’s what Psychology Today reports:
“Studies have found that mirrors can boost the effects of compassionate self-talk. Participants who said the self-compassionate phrases in the mirror reported higher levels of soothing, positive emotions compared to participants who said the phrases without the mirror. They also had more heart rate variability (HRV), which is an indicator of the ability to regulate one’s emotions and physiological response.”
It has real benefits. And it takes no extra time because most of look in the mirror anyways while we’re brushing our teeth, doing our make-up, or drying off from the shower.
Why not fill some of that time with self-love?
When we look in the mirror, we see ourselves from a third-person perspective. And it should serve as a much-needed reminder that the person staring back is the most important person in the world — the person we are most responsible for taking care of.
31 Lessons on Money
Ryan Holiday recently shared 31 lessons on money that he’s learned over the last few decades — and we love ‘em.
Here are some of our favorite lessons he mentions…
- I’ve never met a person who ever reached ‘their number.’ You know, people say, ‘When I hit $Xm, I’ll be good.’ They say, ‘Once I have X years salary in the bank, I’ll be good.’ No one ever seems to get to that number. We’re never ‘good’ because we move the goalposts…(or because we set a preposterous and unrealistic number to begin with).
- Seneca said that poverty wasn’t having too little, it was wanting more. He wasn’t talking about poor people. He was talking about rich people. He was talking about people who are insatiable. ‘Rich’ is having enough.
- Don’t compare yourself to other people. Caesar famously wept at the feet of a statue of Alexander the Great. “Do you not think it is matter for sorrow that while Alexander, at my age, was already king of so many peoples, I have as yet achieved no brilliant success?” he said. Um, you were both fucking terrible. And now you’re both gone. Who cares whether so-and-so did this or that earlier than you? Who cares that so-and-so had more?
- If you live somewhere cheap, you’ve got a head start. Moving to an expensive, popular city ‘to make your start’ is a tough gamble. There is more opportunity…but less runway. I’m grateful to New Orleans in 2011 for giving me plenty of runway as well as friendships and inspiration.
- If you never hear no from clients, if the other side in a negotiation has never balked to something you’ve asked for, then you are not pricing yourself high enough, you are not being aggressive enough.
Video of The Week: How Marcus Aurelius Used Adversity To Grow
This Week’s Riddle
Here’s this week’s riddle. The answer is at the bottom of the email!
Nobody has ever walked this way. Which way is it?
This Week’s Journaling Prompt
Take some time to think through the following journaling prompt.
Make a list of reasons that you love yourself.
This Week’s Challenge
Whenever you look in the mirror this week, say something nice to yourself!
Riddle Answer: The milky way.