Good morning friends!

My birthday was on Thursday, and I shared my annual birthday reflection (my fifth!).

It’s become one of my most coveted traditions because it forces me to look in the rearview mirror and realize just how many lessons I’ve learned — and how many lessons I’ve had to re-learn.

In the last year, I wrote and published a book, attempted to survive the sleepless nights of new parenthood, and navigated the ups and downs of life.

I hope you find my insights useful, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Below is a short excerpt from some of the lessons, but I encourage you to read the whole thing here.

You will miss tomorrow the things you take for granted today

Morgan Housel recently shared the following quote by Aldous Huxley: “Man has an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.”

I audibly groaned when I read the tweet. It’s true, it’s frustrating, and it’s a constant challenge. Those things you assume will be there forever? They’ll be gone in a flash.

It’s so unbelievable easy to get preoccupied with trifles of everyday life, but you have to fight that with every bone in your body.

As Brené Brown once said, “We chase extraordinary moments instead of being grateful for ordinary moments until hard shit happens. And then in the face of really hard stuff — illness, death, loss — the only thing we’re begging for is a normal moment.”

Learn to trust your voice

When I was 24 years old, I interviewed a psychic for an article I was writing for Fortune magazine about about corporate “intuitive counselors” — some charging as much as $10,000 per month — that advise CEOs and high-profile business clients.

Beyond the fact that she accurately senses that I would start working on “another body of work” while still at my job (The Profile) and that I would eventually write a book (Hidden Genius), the part that struck me most wasn’t any sort of ‘prediction.’

It was this:

“The biggest problem you have is not trusting that you have a voice — that you actually have something to say. That is beyond interviewing people or whatever. You really have something to say. That’s why I thought it was interesting that you’re only 24 and yet your finger is on the pulse of the zeitgeist, and you understand it in a much more complex way, which is beyond your years.”

“You need to just do it. You can’t wait until you think you’re ready. You just gotta do it. You gotta feel the fear and do it anyway.”

I wonder just how many entrepreneurs, CEOs, and regular people seek out spiritual counselors like Colette for this very reason: It’s an affirmation of your identity.

It’s the validation of things you already know but need an external push to pursue. It’s needing someone to tell you “trust your voice” until you look back at that fearful 24-year-old and think, “Damn. I wish it hadn’t taken me eight years to trust my own voice and pursue my dreams.”

(Listen to the full recording of my conversation with Colette here.)

Sometimes, what you think is luck may not be luck

I learned this lesson after my interview with UFC champion Francis Ngannou. I told him that my family won the green card lottery to come to the United States. So I asked him if he believed in luck.

Here’s what he told me:

Sometimes, what you think is luck might not be luck. If I had won the American green card lottery, I don't think I’d end up where I am today. Maybe it would change my path. Maybe I would just get there with my green card and have a common job, you know, be a security guard or whatever.

And for a guy coming from here, it’s like you made it. But that wasn’t my dream. So not winning the American lottery got me to go through this obstacle, which is what forged the person that I am today.

In other words, not winning the lucky green card lottery ended up being the lucky thing for Ngannou. This completely reframed my perspective on luck.

Read the Full Article Here

PROFILES.

— The CEO stepping down to fulfill a religious promise [**HIGHLY RECOMMEND**]
— The founder who wants nothing to do with the company she founded
— The kids attending grief camp
— The startup aiming to take you from New York to Paris in 90 minutes
— The fashion designer offering words of wisdom
— The obituary writer telling the story of your life

PEOPLE TO KNOW.

The CEO stepping down to fulfill a religious promise: Just as outdoor gear maker Cotopaxi seemed to be on an upward trajectory, its co-founder and then-CEO David Smith was gearing up to move abroad. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smith explains that he and his wife had agreed to take on a three-year-long service assignment as “mission presidents,” meaning they would be based abroad and tasked with overseeing several hundred young missionaries. As a result, he would step down from his position as CEO. In this profile, we learn about Smith’s willingness to drop everything and take on a volunteer role for his church, however foreign to the broader business world. This is a fascinating story. (FORTUNE; reply to this email if you can’t access the article)

“He has nothing to gain from this financially. He is giving up three years of prime earning potential.”

The founder who wants nothing to do with the company she founded: Ty Haney founded athleisure company Outdoor Voices in 2013. Things took a turn when she stepped down CEO in 2020, with a smattering of stories that accused her of being terrible at the job. In the years since, Haney had attempted to scrub all traces of OV from her life — an effort that included purging “a hoarder’s amount” of her own pastel workout gear. “I’m not a monster, as I’ve been characterized,” she says today. “Behind the scenes, I was being pushed out.” (New York Magazine)

“It just irritates me when I see it pop up on social.”

The kids attending grief camp: Every summer, more than a hundred kids spend a weekend at Camp Erin swimming and canoeing. They also learn to deal with death. It is the largest national bereavement program for youth grieving the death of a parent or sibling. Nicky Seligman, a child and adolescent grief counselor, says the ultimate difference between child grief and adult grief is how children will re-grieve throughout their lives. “Part of that process is meeting kids where they’re at,” she said. “And helping them explore those questions and meet their developmental needs.” (The Walrus)

“I think that that’s a huge [lesson] for adults from kids—that, actually, there’s real utility in allowing yourself sometimes to even be brought to your knees.”

The startup aiming to take you from New York to Paris in 90 minutes: Hermeus CEO AJ Piplica and his cofounders are working on an audacious goal: building a plane capable of carrying 20 passengers at hypersonic speed — five times faster than sound, or 3,850 miles per hour. Imagine New York to Paris in 90 minutes. Quite an upgrade from the seven-and-a-half hours of a commercial flight today. Hermeus may sound like a longshot but it’s won Pentagon backing and raised $119 million at a valuation of $400 million. Could it become reality? (Forbes)

“The idea that a small startup could move the needle on a century-long path is a little strange.”

The fashion designer offering words of wisdom: Diane von Furstenberg became well-known in the early 1970s for her printed wrap dresses — now an icon in their own right in fashion history — and went on to establish her namesake brand as a global womenswear empire. These days, von Furstenberg has been spending a lot of time in her Connecticut country home writing her fourth book, Own It: the Secret to Life. “Anytime you write, it’s always a nightmare. Anytime you write, it’s so painful,” she says. “And then, you go from pain to orgasm, you know, it’s the same process as anything else.” (New York Magazine)

“The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself.”

The obituary writer telling the story of your life: Who gets an obituary in a national newspaper? That decision on the word length is usually an indication you’ve led a good and noteworthy life, but not always — after all, serial killers often get obituaries. In the eyes of obituary writer Damian Arnold, there is no such thing as “a boring life.” “Everybody has an interesting story. You just have to get to it,” he says. (The PressGazette)

"The first thing I do when I wake up in the morning is check to see who's dead.”

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