Friday-August-27-2021 edition of Forward Positiwe, a community newsletter by Vishnu Goyal to inspire you do more, live well, and stay happy.
📋 Now here’s the good news for the rest of us: even just 15 minutes of moderate exercise a day (or 92 minutes per week) was associated with a three-year increase in life expectancy and a 14% reduction in risk of death by any cause, compared with a sedentary lifestyle, according to a new study.
Each additional 15 minutes of daily exercise (up to 100 minutes a day) reduced the risk of death by an additional 4%, the study found, and people who got 30 minutes of activity a day added about four extra years to their life expectancy, compared with their sedentary peers.
💬 3 years of extra life with just 15 minutes of exercise per day is a good deal. And if you’ve not been doing it, you should get moving now! Never too late to get started.
🔗 Just 15 Minutes of Exercise a Day May Add Years to Your Life – Time
đź“‹ The equation of life is 1+1=11.
đź’¬ Life is one big journey comprised of many little journeys. You will face new challenges every now and then. Sometimes, you will need help. At other times, you will be in a position to help others. That’s why being with others when they need you and asking for help when you need it goes a long way.Â
Together we can do more than we can do individually. And that makes the equation of life to 1+1=11, not 1+1=2. Incorrect, mathematically. More than correct, lifely.
🔗 The Equation of Life – Vishnu Goyal
📋 To overcome your brain’s desire for instant greatness, it helps to create a wildly unambitious daily practice, something Carter calls a “better than nothing” habit. Simply take one of your goals and strip down the outcome into steps so small, so seemingly insignificant, that they seem almost effortless. For instance, if you want to be a runner but don’t remember the last time you walked a mile, don’t set a daily running target of 30 minutes. Instead, start with one minute. Really. If you want to start meditating, stop watching hour-long meditation tutorials. Rather, do some deep breathing for 90 seconds. If you want to eat more vegetables, add a single leaf of romaine lettuce to your meals.
đź’¬ Start small but start.
You might not write a book in a day, but if you write a few paragraphs every day, one day you can have a book published under your name.
You might not be an expert coder today, but if you start writing a few lines of code every day, one day you can be an expert coder.
Whatever habit, skill or goal that you wanna achieve, start at zero. And go from zero to one. “Better than nothing,” as Carter says.
You will not realize when those small efforts accumulate to turn your dream into reality and a good habit you always wanted to develop.
An example from me: Before creating Forward Positiwe, I have been journaling and taking notes for more than 5 years. In Evernote, Trello, Notion, Google Keep, and a few papers, of course. Got no results back then, but all those efforts put into reading and note-taking do help now. A lot. And yes, it feels very happy to win at something you started.
🔗 How to Achieve Greatness By Being Mediocre Every Day – Stephen Moore
đź“‹ Don’t lie. We tell all kinds of white lies just to make things a little easier. But then you have to keep track of what you told everyone, and that’s just a f—ing bummer, man.
💬 Someone asks you: “How are you doing?”
You say: “Am doing well. Howdy?”
We always say “doing well” even when we’re not!
Well, that’s kinda a lie. But a fair one!
Yet sometimes, we do tell lies to people around, more complicated ones. Sometimes, we do it on purpose. Other times, circumstances make us do so. I have been there too.
Still, “don’t lie” – These two words are a reminder to make us rethink if we can tell less lies to people and consider our responses from a long-term perspective. And yes, practicing “don’t lie” will definitely make us feel a bit brighter and happier in the head.
🔗 Silicon Valley veteran David Selinger on launching a $5 billion company, working for Jeff Bezos and lessons for success – CNBC Make It
📋 “How the hell could a person enjoy being awakened at 6:30AM, by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?” – Charles Bukowski
đź’¬ Charles just left me speechless. Still, I have a reminder:
If you are not happy with your current job, company, or anything work, you can always switch. Switch to a different career, different company, different location. Change anything you are unhappy with.
“Who the hell are you to say this?” – You might ask me.
Well, back in 2018, I did make a scary move in my career that makes me believe so.
I quit my chartered accountancy in the final stage after investing more than 4 years of hard work. It was not fun, really. I wanted to pursue something on a more creative and digital side.
Before quitting, I had this thought buzzing in my head for months: “How can I let go of those 4 years?”
After much thinking, discussions with a few people in my network and family, I got the answer: “It’s all sunk cost.”
Just because I spent time mastering a career I don’t enjoy doesn’t mean I have to pursue it for the rest of my life.
So, I made the final move on Wednesday-January-17-2018 and moved to a career I had love for: Just creating stuff and scale it with marketing. More than 3 years since. No regrets.
Was it easy?
No.
Have to give probably more than 50 interviews before getting my first job in digital marketing.
But finally, it worked.
And a lesson I learned: It’s never too late to change and switch things up.
🔗 95 Charles Bukowski quotes that blew my f*cking mind – Cole Schafer
📋 “Shipping beats perfection.”
đź’¬ You have created something. And you want to share it with the world.
But you think: “It’s not perfect. I can make it better.”
What will you do next?
Either: Hold on, put more effort into making it “perfect” and release when it’s “perfect.”
Or: Go for it. Make it live.
Well, there is a difference between making things good and excellent versus making things perfect.
In fact, no matter how good of anything you create, there is always room for improvement.
In real world, perfection doesn’t exist. You and me can achieve excellence but not perfection.
We can never reach a point where there is no space left for improvement.
So, a viable approach is always to get your stuff live and keep making improvements along the way while real people use it.
If what you have created is good enough that people can use it and find value in it, just ship it. Don’t wait for it to become “perfect.”
Have an unreleased article, a book, an app, or anything stored in your system that people can use? Release it. And let your audience decide if it’s good enough.
🔗 “Shipping beats perfection” explained – Ben Kamens
Before you leave, I suggest you try this exercise once:
Think about one thing that you thought was impossible for you but you somehow did it.
Note it down in your phone notebook or a diary that you keep close.
And next time, whenever you come across something that seems impossible. Just refer to your note. While it will not make anything less challenging, I am sure that it will give you hope and confidence to go on and confront and win whatever is the challenge for you.
For me, it was building a mobile app. Had no knowledge of code. Kept doing R&D and finally, within 3 days, got it done. It was Minute Crunch for Android. While the app was not a success, it gave me confidence that if one puts effort into something, sooner or later, it will be achieved. And the same goes for you, me, and all of us.
Until next time, keep living your fullest, Mate ✌️
And feel free to forward Forward Positiwe to your family ‘n’ friends if sounds cool to you : )
Vishnu Goyal
Keep Doing Good Stuff
[P.S. You are amazing. Let no one tell you otherwise.]
Just one of the 7.9 billion here; spending most of my time playing with words, numbers, and web in pursuit of an imperfect life, raising humanity, and building one carefree world.