This is great, John. I love the references to the Stoics and to the importance of kindness and humility. And your “minimal viable” drawings have great power in their simplicity. I’m inspired by your wisdom and your clear and light hearted approach
Wow, what a great list. Love all of these points. I also appreciated the quality of the two starting questions asked by your friend. What does your ideal day look like and what do you value above all. I'm going to do my own exploring of these questions for myself today.
Thanks Rick. Yeah some questions really help us articulate buried thoughts we never knew we had. Keen to collect more of them and I’m curious to hear how your reflection went.
It's interesting what I came up with for today in relationship to an ideal day. It's one word. Continuity. I am registering how much jumping around occurs and realizing that the work of communicating, thinking, corresponding with others, articulating purpose and values, that all has a depth that needs to be reached on a given day to feel satisfying, as though something actually happened, and I haven't found a way to get there in smaller increments of work. It's actually painful to do this piecemeal. With a family, home life, and lots of responsibilities, it's a question for me, how to create this continuity more often.
John, so much wisdom in here. And you expressed it in a beautiful and elegant fashion. I would quote several thoughts but im not sure I could stop, and then the whole essay would be copied here in the comments! Nice job and congrats on 50!
Thanks James! Something I've been meaning to write for a while. I never enjoyed "rules for life" books when I was younger, but I'm very happy I did this exercise. Good to see what's truly important to me. Would love to see yours!
John I used your visual as a bedtime story for the kids. There’s a children’s book called Mr Gamal’s gratitude glasses your image reminded me of... I like the visuals that come with your essays and grays on a milestone! I also would like to understand how you pick the visuals that go with the essay.
That's amazing, Sadia! Can't believe one of my visuals was used for a bedtime story. The "framing" lesson is something I try to remind myself of constantly. Good question on the illustrations. My go-to principle is to illustrate A vs. B (before vs. after / wrong vs. right) images. So in the glasses image, I considered what could represent a bad vs. good reaction to a situation (frown vs. smile) and what would cause this reaction (grey vs. blue tinted glasses). The cool thing about A vs. B images is that humans are very good at "spotting the difference" so the message/transformation is conveyed instantly.
Thanks Alexandra!! Funny how small weekly efforts build up to something big over time. Admire your incredible 1:1 (week:newsletter) publishing ratio ;)
This is great, John. I love the references to the Stoics and to the importance of kindness and humility. And your “minimal viable” drawings have great power in their simplicity. I’m inspired by your wisdom and your clear and light hearted approach
Thanks Drake. It's great to see which rules stood out to you. Appreciate the kind words.
Wow, what a great list. Love all of these points. I also appreciated the quality of the two starting questions asked by your friend. What does your ideal day look like and what do you value above all. I'm going to do my own exploring of these questions for myself today.
Thanks Rick. Yeah some questions really help us articulate buried thoughts we never knew we had. Keen to collect more of them and I’m curious to hear how your reflection went.
It's interesting what I came up with for today in relationship to an ideal day. It's one word. Continuity. I am registering how much jumping around occurs and realizing that the work of communicating, thinking, corresponding with others, articulating purpose and values, that all has a depth that needs to be reached on a given day to feel satisfying, as though something actually happened, and I haven't found a way to get there in smaller increments of work. It's actually painful to do this piecemeal. With a family, home life, and lots of responsibilities, it's a question for me, how to create this continuity more often.
Loved this John, thank you for sharing. And congrats of 50 editions!
Thanks Cata! Appreciate all the support along the way.
John, so much wisdom in here. And you expressed it in a beautiful and elegant fashion. I would quote several thoughts but im not sure I could stop, and then the whole essay would be copied here in the comments! Nice job and congrats on 50!
Thanks James! Something I've been meaning to write for a while. I never enjoyed "rules for life" books when I was younger, but I'm very happy I did this exercise. Good to see what's truly important to me. Would love to see yours!
John I used your visual as a bedtime story for the kids. There’s a children’s book called Mr Gamal’s gratitude glasses your image reminded me of... I like the visuals that come with your essays and grays on a milestone! I also would like to understand how you pick the visuals that go with the essay.
That's amazing, Sadia! Can't believe one of my visuals was used for a bedtime story. The "framing" lesson is something I try to remind myself of constantly. Good question on the illustrations. My go-to principle is to illustrate A vs. B (before vs. after / wrong vs. right) images. So in the glasses image, I considered what could represent a bad vs. good reaction to a situation (frown vs. smile) and what would cause this reaction (grey vs. blue tinted glasses). The cool thing about A vs. B images is that humans are very good at "spotting the difference" so the message/transformation is conveyed instantly.
Congrats on 50 editions, John!!! 👏🏼
Thanks Alexandra!! Funny how small weekly efforts build up to something big over time. Admire your incredible 1:1 (week:newsletter) publishing ratio ;)
I missed this the first time around. How? Anyways. Every single one, a winner. For myself and passing along to my younger kids.
But the visual on 8 - Stop comparing yourself to others, just outdo your own self by 0.01% on yesterday is my favourite.
(Oh, and the wisdom in 17 - dont talk down to children)