“Someone once asked me why McDonald’s is so successful.

I said ‘our bathrooms are always clean.’ ‘Sure,’ he said, ‘But that’s easy.’

‘Well,’ I replied, ‘Are your bathrooms clean?’”

Ray Kroc

Have you ever thought about buying something and then seen the price and thought – “Wow, that’s way too expensive, I could just make that myself!”. You then get a life lesson about how difficult and expensive it is to build it yourself. After some struggles and false starts you end up paying full price with a deeper appreciation for what you are buying.

Everything looks simple easy until we try to replicate it.

Simplicity is the product of discipline, complexity and persistence.

“Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.”

Henry David Thoreau

“Be the change you wish to see in the world”

Mahatma Gandhi

Say no to stuff that doesn’t bring you joy.

Say yes to people who align with your values.

Flee from self absorbed, and selfish people when your orbits intersect.

Work at places that are part of your bigger plan.

If you drift, then others will drag you along.

Set your own course and back yourself.

Every job looks easy when you’re not the one doing it.”

Jeff Immelt after leaving General Electric

Mistaking simple for easy is expensive.

— Danny Trinh (@dtrinh) November 17, 2020

“Stress comes from ignoring the things that you shouldn’t be ignoring.”

Jeff Bezos

One of the best ways to get a good night’s sleep is to make a list of all the things you need to do the next day. Getting them out of your head and onto a paper is a good first step, and it’s also a stress reliever.

Your brain uses up energy when you keep your to do list in your head. Free up some memory on you hard drive and click transfer.

Genuinely clever people know better than to pretend to understand when they don’t know the answer.

There is nothing less confidence-inspiring than a person faking a knowledge they don’t possess. True authority and true leadership come from knowing who you are and not pretending to be anything else.

Bob Iger

“When a man does not know what harbour he is making for, no wind is the right wind.”

Seneca

If you are going nowhere, you’ll go nowhere fast.

Hemingway is a master storyteller. The first few lines in his short story, Snows of Kilimanjaro could be a story all by itself.

Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high, and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai “Ngaje Ngai,” the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.

Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

A great public speaking class won’t stop you being nervous when you speak in front of large groups. But it will teach you to speak better in front of large groups while you are nervous.

Try to avoid solely focusing on what’s wrong or what can be improved. Remember to also focus on what’s right and working so that you can build momentum.

It’s easy to pick apart and criticize. It’s more rewarding to capitalize on a good thing and grow it.

This poem makes me think of emigrating, changing jobs, moving homes, moving cities, and childhood memories that won’t be recreated. Change is an art that takes practice.

One Art – by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47536/one-art