Why you feel stuck in life...

3 Thoughts

I.

You’ll know it’s meant for you when the thought of not trying haunts you more than the fear of failing. When it won’t leave you alone. When it follows you into quiet moments. When it lingers in the back of your mind no matter how much you try to push it away. It whispers at first. Then it gets louder. You tell yourself it’s unrealistic. That now isn’t the right time. That you’ll get to it eventually. But deep down, you already know. Some things aren’t just ideas. They’re callings. And they don’t stop until you answer.

II.

Success is simply when you’re living a life you’ve intentionally chosen.

III.

Not everyone deserves your time. If you’re trying to build something great, you can’t say yes to every invite. You can’t entertain every distraction. You can’t make yourself available to everyone who asks. Most people won’t get it. They’ll call you distant. Selfish. Too serious. Let them. The ones who matter will understand. The ones who don’t were never meant to come with you. Be ruthless with your time. Be unapologetic in your pursuit. Because greatness isn’t built by people who try to please everyone. It’s built by people willing to lock in and do the work.

2 Quotes

I.

Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci on taking initiative:

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.”

II.

Investor and author Morgan Housel on humility and satisfaction:

“I think bragging is the inverse of how satisfied you are with life.”

1 Game-Changing Idea: The Elephant Rope

When the elephant was young, it fought.

The first time a rope was tied around its leg, it thrashed with all its strength. It pulled, kicked, and yanked until the ground beneath it was torn up. But the rope held firm.

It tried again the next day. And the next.

By the end of the week, it stopped trying.

Years passed. The calf grew into a beast strong enough to pull trees from the earth. But when the same thin rope was tied around its leg, it never tested it.

A traveler passing through the village stopped when he saw the enormous elephant standing still, its foot bound by a rope that barely dug into the dirt.

He turned to the trainer. “Why doesn’t it just walk away?”

The trainer didn’t look up. “It doesn’t think it can.”

The traveler nodded, then paused.

He thought of the doors he never knocked on again. The chances he had let slip by. The doubts that had kept him in place long after they should have faded.

Maybe, he thought, the rope was never the problem.

Maybe the real chains were in his mind.

Until next week,
Jay “Fear Is Not Real” Yang

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