Self-confidence is a funny topic. We all know that we should have it, and most people think that they have it, yet a small percent of people actually possess true self-confidence. Worse, many people put on a mask of bravado and confidence to compensate for their low self-esteem. A lot of the time, it might…
Your Treasure Is The Journey
In the book The Alchemist, author Paulo Coelho tells the story of a young boy named Santiago. Santiago is perplexed by a recurring dream, in which he is transported to the Pyramids of Egypt, where a child promises him that he will find great treasure there. Motivated by this dream, Santiago decides to take action…
Change The Way You Think About Problems
I think that most of us have a negative relationship with the problems that life presents us with. After all, who enjoys problems? And I am not talking about the small problems like finding the right shoes to wear or your favorite sports team losing. I am talking about real-life problems that have a direct…
Without The Bad, There Is No Good
Imagine that you lived the perfect life. Nothing bad ever happened. You were always happy. Everything always went your way. You probably think that this would be the most amazing life, a life filled with an abundance of joy and fulfillment. However, in reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In this hypothetical life,…
This Is The Goal You Should Set For Yourself
For a long time, I thought that there was another world. A world that contained no suffering. A world where pain didn’t exist. A world where everything went exactly how I wanted it to go. A world where everything was perfect. I didn’t know when I would enter this world, but I did know that…
Ten of my Favorite Steven Pressfield Quotes
Steven Pressfield is one of the most successful, well-known authors of this era. He has written fiction books, nonfiction books, and books on how to battle the force that he tabbed Resistance. The career that Pressfield has didn’t come easy, though. Before he earned any money on his writing, Pressfield wrote for 17 years. And…
Delayed Gratification: The Secret To Success That Nobody Told You About
Thousands of years ago, if somebody wanted to eat, they had to put in a certain amount of work to get food. They either had to hunt, or they had to plant. This is how our ancestors were able to get food. Today, most people are lucky enough to have any food that they want…
The Answer Is In The Middle
A few months ago, I was in Chicago covering an AAU basketball tournament. It was Sunday afternoon and the tournament was winding down. There were not a lot of people in the crowd, and the people that were sitting in the bleachers were not really paying that much attention to the game. All of a…
A Short Post On The Self-Improvement Virtue
When people say that they are trying to improve themselves, they are in one way or another practicing the virtue of temperance. Knowing this is the first step towards actually being successful in self-improvement. Nothing is inherently good or bad, this is something that many of us fail to realize. We all like to put…
Want To Be Productive? Focus On Each Day And You Will Be
For the longest time, I was incredibly impatient when it came to self-improvement. For stretches of two or three weeks, reading, studying, and writing was pretty much all that I could think about. And then once I felt like I wasn’t getting any results, I quickly returned to my old habits. I went through this…