Welcome to Wise & Wealthy: A weekly newsletter full of proven ideas to become smarter and wealthier. I send this every Monday and every other Thursday.
#16 – July 04, 2022
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Wise
I love positive habits like reading, exercising, meditating, journaling, and so forth. We all know that these activities have a positive effect on our lives.
But there’s one habit that trumps all. Call it a “meta-habit” if you will.
My one habit for life is this: Question everything.
Become aware of why you do certain things. Go beyond the surface.
In Eastern Philosophy, people call this concept waking up. We go through life asleep. We live on autopilot. We do things because other people do them.
Ask yourself more questions. Why do you do certain things? Why do you worry? Why do you over-eat? Why do you stress over work?
Why, why, why?
Simply observe your thoughts. Don’t judge. Don’t get lost in them. Just observe! That’s all.
↳ 1 Habit That Changed My Life
Wealthy
Let’s do a thought experiment: Imagine that you wake up tomorrow and your net worth is zero.
It’s not an uncommon thought. Many of us fear losing all our money—especially if we struggle financially.
This thought experiment helped me to overcome it because I now have a plan. So the first thing I’d do if that happens?
Fall back on my skills. That’s how I’d prevent myself from panicking.
When you suddenly lose all your money, your next best step is to fall back on what you already know.
This is why learning and knowledge are so important. All that preparation is done in advance. You can’t start reading 500 books the day your life blows up.
You never know exactly when you need a piece of knowledge. So if you keep learning, you increase your odds of learning something valuable. Maybe it can save your life or career someday.
↳ What I Would Do If My Net Worth Went to $0
One interesting thing
We all want to be productive, get things done, and be successful. But sometimes, that comes at a cost.
Kristin Neff has great insights on that in her book Self Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself.
“One of the downsides of living in a culture that stresses the ethic of independence and individual achievement is that if we don’t continually reach our ideal goals, we feel that we only have ourselves to blame.”
Especially during hard times, like a pandemic or recession, we feel the pressure to perform more and earn more. But we also don’t want to take it to the extreme. When we practice self-compassion, we balance that out.
So don’t forget to be kind to yourself. After all, you’re the person who you spend the most time with.
Thanks for reading! I hope you found this edition of Wise & Wealthy useful.
All the best,
Darius
Join the 7-day Stay Centered challenge
I’ve created a one-week email course that you can do together with a group. It’s called Stay Centered, and it will help you to reclaim focus and live a meaningful life.
When you’re centered, nothing can hurt you. You will have inner peace no matter what happens.
How to unlock Stay Centered
You can join the challenge for free. Every day, you’ll receive a short email with a small challenge that inspires you to live better.
I highly recommend sharing it with your friends so you can go through the program together. I did it with my team, which was a lot of fun.
Join here: dariusforoux.com/stay-centered