Author: cbarney.45

“Throw out your conceited opinions, for it is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” – Epictetus

“We are confused by what it means to admit our ignorance. It is not a mark of weakness, but of wisdom. It is not something to hide, but to display. It is not something to feel embarrassed by, but excited by.” – The Daily Stoic

If you feel like you have nothing left to learn, you will hinder your growth. Even if you are an expert in your field, there is always more to understand in our ever changing world. Approach each day, each situation, as if you were an eager amateur, trying to soak up all of the knowledge available to you. If you don’t understand something, or if something doesn’t make sense, ask a question. Have the other person clarify what they said. This will do several things…

First, it will help you improve your knowledge (of a product, an idea, or of how the other individual thinks).

Second, it will show that you’re interested in what the other person is saying, which will encourage them to talk more.

Third, it will show that you are willing to admit that you don’t know everything, which is endearing.

And fourth, it can help the other person become a better communicator, so that next time they discuss a subject they might be able to explain it more clearly. (Now you’re both growing as individuals!)

Do not let your ego get in the way (whether it is you not asking a question for fear of looking foolish OR whether you cut the person off by talking over them/inputting your ideas, making them feel as if their ideas don’t matter). I used to let my ego get in the way all the time at school. That was when I had a “fixed” mindset. People told me I was “smart” and my thoughts were telling me that smart people don’t ask questions. I couldn’t be further from the truth.

If you don’t ask questions, you stunt your growth. Don’t be a know-it-all. Once you make the active decision to ask better questions (not something that can be easily looked up, but thought-provoking questions), you will gain more respect from others while you increase your knowledge.

Before you can truly make the most progress, taking the biggest metaphorical step forward, you need to eliminate your worst habits before adding good habits. Of course, taking the right actions is always good, but make sure you stop taking the wrong actions first.

Here are three examples:

1) You may decide to add more vegetables into your diet to be healthier, but if you don’t stop eating junk food everyday, you’re not going to get as much benefit as you might hope.

2) If you’re deeply in debt and get a pay raise, that’s a good start to getting back on the right track. But if you want to become financially free, you’ll need to reel in your spending habits that got you into debt in the first place. (It doesn’t matter how much money you make if you spend all of it.)

3) A popular idea coming from politicians these days is to “forgive” the $1.5 trillion dollars in student loans that this country is facing. Yet despite all this talk of forgiving student loans, the government still federally insures/guarantees these loans (meaning that the money owed stays with the borrower no matter what, even if they declare bankruptcy). Instead of forgiving student loans while continuing to make federally insured student loans, why don’t we first stop guaranteeing the loans and then work on a solution to help those who are drowning in student loan debt?

Imagine that you’re on a boat in the middle of a lake and there is a hole in the boat letting in water. The most efficient first step would be to patch the hole to stop water from coming in, then working to eliminate the water that is already in the boat. But what most people do is react. They start scooping water out of the boat, but do nothing about the hole. Next thing you know, they’re exhausted from working harder and harder to get the water out, while still more water rushes in. If only they worked to solve the root cause of the problem first, then the rest of their life would be easier.

If you are able to find the root cause of the problem, instead of only addressing the symptom(s), then you could make real progress.

Don’t always look to add more good habits to your schedule. Time is finite and you will eventually run out of it. The best thing you can do is work to eliminate what is hurting you first, to stop doing things that impede your progress, to stop making mistakes, and then you’ll be able to grow exponentially by adding in the right actions.

“It’s not that life is short, it’s that we waste a lot of it.” – Seneca

What are you doing to get closer to your goals today? What are you doing to find fulfillment and enjoyment in your life today?

Life can be a grind if you let it. Days can pass to months or years in the blink of an eye if you’re not paying attention. Your once ambitious goals as a young man or woman will pass you by if you don’t act on them.

The average life expectancy in the United States is nearly 80 years. Life isn’t short. We have plenty of time on this planet. What we do with that time will determine how far we go.

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” —Aristotle

Make sure to keep an open mind and to expose yourself to opinions that you disagree with. You don’t have to (and shouldn’t) believe everything that you hear, but that doesn’t mean that you need to argue about it either.

The problem with arguing, is that most people make personal attacks when they can’t convince the person they’re arguing with to change their mind. After trying to use reason and logic unsuccessfully, people often give up and resort to name calling.

In today’s day and age, it seems that the world is more divided than ever. Red versus blue, Democrat versus Republican, conservative versus liberal, secular versus non-secular – the list goes on and on. And when people are so invested with their team, tribe, or community being right, they often completely shut down any ideas from the opposing crowd, even if good points are made by the other party. For some reason, people feel that agreeing with the other side lowers their status amongst their team. The result? People become more and more extreme, almost compensating for others on their team who are more moderate. It becomes a competition for the individuals at the end of the spectrum. Who can speak up for more left-leaning or right-leaning policies? Or, using today’s terminology, who is more woke? In today’s world, there is no “entertaining opposing thoughts” without the possibility of being considered a flip-flopper, even if you are not actually accepting those thoughts.

How did we get to this point? It starts with what we consume. Are you watching Fox News or CNN all day, holding onto their every word? Are you only following people who align with your thought process on social media, where the tech giants’ main goal is to keep you on their platform, so they feed you stories to confirm your thoughts and make you stay on their website?

When you surround yourself with individuals who only care about making their side look better, no matter the cost, you are isolating yourself from the real issues at hand. The party you’re in will always put a positive spin on a negative story about themselves, expertly (or sometimes not) changing the subject, shifting the focus, or pointing the finger at someone else.

When you surround yourself only with people who have the same political agenda, you’re creating a bubble around you, in which you believe that everyone says the same thing. It’s like a cult. When this happens, you are either blindsided when people disagree with what your team says is a universal truth OR if you find yourself disagreeing with your tribe (having an opinion of your own), you’re less likely to speak up for fear of being chastised by your peers.

We need to avoid this “group think” and confirmation bias as much as possible. Listen to opposing viewpoints and block out other people’s opinions of those viewpoints. Try to find something good about what the other person is saying. Start with the good, and then you can pick apart the rest from there. You don’t have to agree with them or convert to their line of thinking, but you should listen to their ideas. If anything, it will make you understand the subject better, as now you will understand both sides and can make an informed decision based on your own research.

From Seth Godin: The real question might not be, “what do you want,” it might be, “what do you care enough to compromise for?”

Or as Paula Pant says, “you can afford anything, but you can’t afford everything.”

Everything in life comes with a trade off, whether that includes trading time, money, or some other commodity. You can’t have everything for nothing. This is a basic concept that people know to be true, but for some reason they hope that it doesn’t apply to them. They want to win the lottery or take a magic pill to cure them of all of their real or perceived problems.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), that’s not how the world works. To get what you want in life, you often have to work hard and make sacrifices to get there. You can clearly see this when looking at someone else’s situation, but are blinded when it comes to your own situation. Don’t be blinded by greed or unrealistic optimism (is there actually a chance of that happening?)…