Happy Thursday folks!

Here is my favorite passage of the week, two quotes and book of the week with two important lessons to ponder on:

Passage of the Week:

Athlete and Founder Nick Bare on the importance of running:

Two Quotes:

Book of the Week with 2 Important Lessons:

The book of the week is How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be by Katy Milkman.

An evidence-based invaluable guide filled with practical tips that will help you embrace personal change, make good habits for getting from where you are to where you want to be. Forgetfulness. Procrastination. Confidence. Impulsivity. These all-too-common problems keep us from achieving our most important goals, time and time again. We will never get rid of these tendencies forever as they’re simply human nature. Instead, we need to outsmart them and make them work for us. And to outsmart our demons, we need the right strategy. With the right strategy, no barrier is immovable.

In this book, Katy teaches us why timing can be everything when it comes to making a change, how to turn temptation and inertia into assets that can help us conquer our goals, and why giving other people advice can help us achieve more ourself.

Here are two important lessons from the book:

1) The Fresh Start Effect:

An ideal time to consider pursuing change is after a fresh start. Fresh starts increase your motivation to change because they give you either a real clean state or the impression of one; they relegate your failures more cleanly to the past; and they boost your optimism about the future. They can also disrupt bad habits and lead you to think bigger picture about your life.

Fresh starts can be calendar dates that mark new beginnings (a new year, season, month, or week), birthdays, or anniversaries. When we hope to change, we have an opportunity to try reshaping our environment to help us disrupt old routines and ways of thinking. This could be as simple as finding a new coffee shop to work in or a new gym. And we should be looking for opportunities to capitalize on other life changes, too, to reevaluate what matters most to us.

Although fresh starts can jolt you into positive change, they can also interrupt you when you’re on a roll, reversing your progress, so just be careful not to disrupt routines when they’re working well.

2) Confidence is Key When We’re Pursuing Change:

Self-doubt can keep you from making progress on your goals or prevent you from setting goals in the first place. Giving people unsolicited advice can undermine their confidence. But asking them to give advice builds confidence and helps them think through strategies for achieving their goals.

Your expectations shape your reality. So, convey to people that you believe in their potential, and surround yourself with mentors who send those positive signals to you. Set ambitious goals (say, exercising every day) but yourself a limited number of emergency passes when you slip up (say, two per week). That strategy can help you stay confident and on track even when you face the occasional, inevitable setback. Adopting a growth mindset, recognizing that abilities including intelligence are not fixed and that effort influences a person’s potential can help you bounce back from setbacks.

It is also crucial to remember that confidence is key when we’re pursuing change. No one can make a major breakthrough without experiencing setbacks along the way, the decisive factor is how we respond. By surrounding ourselves with supporters, putting ourselves in the position of advice givers, letting ourselves off the hook for small failures, and recognizing that setbacks help us grow, we can overcome self-doubt. As the saying goes, “Believe you can, and you’re halfway there.”

Books I am currently reading:

The Wealth Ladder by Nick Maggiulli. From the author of Just Keep Buying, a groundbreaking new framework for building wealth. The framework in this book will improve not just how we manage our money but how we make decisions about what truly matters. The book releases on July 22, 2025. Pre-order your copy anywhere books are sold.

After the North Pole: A Story of Survival, Mythmaking, and Melting Ice by Erling Kagge. The Norwegian explorer, philosopher and acclaimed writer tells of his historic 58-day journey to the North Pole on skis in this provocative memoir that is a profound meditation on nature and the history of explorers' obsession.