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Once a month (or so), I share a dozen things that have inspired me to greater personal, professional, and financial success in my life. I hope they bring similar success to your life. Please enjoy the archives of earlier collections of inspirational things.

1. Scott Berinato: That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

Of all of the things I’ve read lately about all of the challenges facing us, this has hit home for me the most and given me the most positive food for thought.

Virtually every one of us right now is experiencing some form of serious discomfort. All of us. If you’re lucky, it’s mostly just due to dealing with changes in all of your routines with a healthy dollop of scary news on top of it. It only gets more uncomfortable and painful from there, cycling through job loss, massive financial uncertainty, health concerns, loss of loved ones… it’s an almost endless litany of individual stress, but it’s something that all of us are trying to deal with.

For me, there’s something good in that shared experience. I’m not alone in feeling this way. I’m not alone with this sense of discomfort and general worry. Pretty much everyone else is feeling it, too. To me, that’s a powerful uniter, and it’s a really powerful way to help me see the struggles of others in a better way.

We are all in this boat together. We’re all trying to deal with that same feeling of discomfort and grief, all of us. Some have much more of a load, but all of us are carrying a burden right now. Be a little extra patient. Be a little extra kind.

2. Muhammad Ali on how you treat others

“I don’t trust anyone who’s nice to me but rude to the waiter. Because they would treat me the same way if I were in that position.” – Muhammad Ali

Think about the people you rely on to get through life. The medical professionals. The people who bring food to your local store. The people who pick up your trash. The people who keep the power running.

It’s easy to think highly of them now because of the risks they’re taking in merely performing their jobs.

However, the reality is that so many people do thankless jobs to ensure that we have a nice quality of life. They keep us safe. They keep food available. They keep health care available.

The people that keep our modern world running – and it’s an awful lot of us – deserve to be treated like, well, people. Keep that in mind as you interact with others. How would you like to be treated in their shoes? How overwhelmed are they? How much of a difference does a little bit of appreciation and kindness make when you’re doing a tough job?

3. Susan David on how to be your best self in times of crisis

From the description:

“Life’s beauty is inseparable from its fragility,” says psychologist Susan David. In a special virtual conversation, she shares wisdom on how to build resilience, courage and joy in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Responding to listeners’ questions from across the globe, she offers ways to talk to your children about their emotions, keep focus during the crisis and help those working on the front lines.

I listened to this when I was having a very rough day and it helped quite a lot. There are a lot of good points from the beginning to end, but the part that really stuck with me was the sense that I need to balance keeping myself charged and being the best I can for the people in my life, more than ever.

So many people are giving so much right now. What I can give is the best of who I am to my kids, to my wife, and to the many other people I care about (including my readers). It’s the only way I know how to do honor to the many sacrifices so many others are making.

It is really tempting to fall into a hole, to just hide under blankets and watch my phone and watch movies, but what does that do? It doesn’t do anything. It just passes the day.

We need more. We need to be more. This video really reminded me of that.

Go out there and make today great, for yourself and for those around you, to the best of your ability.

4. Chuck Palahniuk on the scars of happiness

“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” – Chuck Palahniuk

It is always so much easier to dwell on the bad things in life, to deal with the hard memories and the hard experiences. We let ourselves be defined by pain and suffering.

It’s not that pain and suffering that makes life worthwhile. It’s happiness and sweetness and love. It’s laughing deep. It’s those moments when you feel good.

As I write this, my mind wants to dwell on the troubles, but if I stop and look out the window for a bit, I see my son out in the yard endlessly dribbling his soccer ball from one end of the yard to the other, back and forth, back and forth. He absolutely loves playing soccer and although he’s disappointed that his spring season seems to be canceled, he still sees an opportunity here to get better at his game. Rather than feeling bad about things, he’s looking on the bright side of the situation.

That’s an inspiration for me. He’s out there thinking about all of the things he loves about soccer, all of the moments he’s really enjoyed playing the game, and he’s channeling them into something positive, something he can control.

Recall those moments. Recall those good things. Lean into them. Your life will be better for it.

5. Margo Price and Jeremy Ivey: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

From the description:

The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space.

Margo Price and her husband, Jeremy Ivey, performed a Tiny Desk (Home) Concert from their Nashville attic. Behind them are two handmade signs inspired by John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Bed-In For Peace that simply reads “Stay Home” and “Save Lives.” In addition to the rapidly spreading virus, Nashville was recently ravaged by tornadoes. Margo and Jeremy are safely quarantined with two children, their dog and cat, and guitars in hand. They played “Stone Me,” a song they co-wrote and included on Margo’s upcoming album, That’s How Rumors Get Started.

Margo and Jeremy dedicated this concert to all those that are struggling right now and thank “all the people still out there working, the doctors, all the sanitation people, everybody out there just doing what they have to do to so we can survive, all the people working in grocery stores. And to everyone who has lost their job, we feel you.” They ended the set with a premiere, a song called “Someone Else’s Problem,” that they wrote together on an airplane while Margo was pregnant. It’s a song dealing with the guilt many of us have, being part of a problem instead of part of a solution.

The NPR Tiny Desk concert series that NPR has posted on Youtube for years and I’ve been listening to daily for a long time. Sometimes I love the performers and performances and listen to them over and over; other times, it doesn’t click with me but I appreciate the skill and effort.

Given the need for social distancing, these concerts have changed recently and now feature performers performing at home. The recording setup is a little rougher, but the sense of “we’re all in this together” is incredible.

This has been my favorite of the “at home” series so far, one that I’ve played several times already and anticipate many more listens to come.

6. Alan Watts on anxiety

“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that’s going to happen.” – Alan Watts

Anxiety over things you cannot control is a wasted emotion. It makes you feel worse, alters your emotions in a poor way, and likely harms your immune system as well.

Pay less attention to the things you can’t control, down to the point of only getting enough information to shape our own actions. Pay more attention to the things you can control. It takes a lot of practice and, for many of us, takes some change to how we live our lives.

You’ll find that it really helps, especially in uncertain moments like these.

7. Angela Duckworth on endurance

“Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” – Angela Duckworth

We’ve all felt this. We start a new initiative, it’s new and exciting, we see some promising quick results, and everything feels great.

Then the days pass. And the weeks pass. Perhaps the results aren’t as great as they were at the start. It’s not nearly as exciting. You start to feel frustrated and just tired of it.

That’s when success happens or failure happens. Success happens when you stick with it, when you show endurance. Failure happens when you give up, even when you know you’re on the right path, because it’s hard.

Perseverance and grit matter.

8. Togetherness, at a distance

In our neighborhood, I’ve seen lots of little things happen that are a sign of togetherness and community at a distance.

A bunch of people wrote birthday greetings to a 5-year-old girl sad that her first big birthday party had been canceled.

The elementary and middle school teachers drove around the area on a course designed to go by the homes of most of their students, waving at them and the children waving back.

People have put bears and hearts in their windows. Several people hooked up their holiday lights and turned them on again.

We can’t be physically together, but we can still be together.

9. Vivian Greene on the storms of life

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene

We are all facing a storm. How do we find the strength to dance in the rain?

I’m finding it by playing with my kids, by having a lot of family movie nights, by reading good books, by cuddling with my wife, by trying my best to find meaningful things to write about.

It’s not about pretending it’s not raining, but about learning how to dance anyway.

10. Henry David Thoreau on being good for something

“Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.” – Henry David Thoreau

As you think about the actions of your daily life in the coming days and weeks and months, ask yourself not just whether you’re doing the right thing, but whether you’re doing the best thing.

Most choices in life are more than just choosing one option or the other. We often have a spectrum of choices before us and we often make those choices in an instant.

But are those choices right? Do they just lift me up, or do they lift up the people around me, too?

Step back and ask yourself whether the things you’re doing in every aspect of your life are simply good, or whether they’re good for something. Are you helping people that are struggling, even by just giving them a break? Are you showing love to those in your life?

Don’t just choose to be good, choose to be good for something.

11. A Time-Lapse of a Sunflower from Seed to Flower

This is just a time-lapse of a seed that gradually transforms into a sunflower and then wilts.

I don’t know what it is about this video, but I have found myself watching it over and over again as of late. Something about it makes me feel alive and hopeful when I watch it.

Things grow and change. Things that seem ordinary bloom into something beautiful. Even when things seem to wilt, there are seeds for the future left behind.

12. Charlie Chaplin on permanence

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world. Not even our troubles.” – Charlie Chaplin

As difficult as the affairs of the moment may be, it is worth noting that nothing is permanent. Tomorrow will be different, and the day after tomorrow different from that. A cloud that blots out the sun will drift onwards, letting the sun shine through again.

Nothing is permanent, and that’s a good thing. It is that lack of permanence that gives things a chance to grow, to roam, to improve. It’s that lack of permanence that gives bad things time to fall and good things an opportunity to rise.

No matter what troubles we’re facing in life, they’re not permanent. They will pass.

Good luck.

The post Inspiration from Susan David, Muhammad Ali, Margo Price, Jeremy Ivey, and More appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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It’s been no secret that over the past few years Sarah and I have adopted a goal of financial independence. Our goal is to reach a point where we can live off of the income from our investments as early as we possibly can. It’s a straightforward goal, really, and it’s one that we work towards by finding additional ways to earn income as well as keeping our spending low.

There are two big reasons why we’re chasing this goal: freedom and security.

First of all, we really want to be free of the workweek grind. As most working Americans know, the grind of a typical workweek, repeated over and over, can really wear a person down. You’re often left feeling exhausted and you definitely feel as though there’s never enough time to try all of the things you want to do. We want this goal so that we can have more time to explore other endeavors.

• Related: ‘Freedom’ Money

Second, we want the security of having plenty of money in the bank even if things go wrong. Even if we find that we can’t sustain living in a financially independent state, we can still return to the workforce with the knowledge that we have a lot of resources to fall back on.

It makes sense from a financial standpoint, after all. Having plenty of money in the bank unquestionably does improve your personal freedom and your security.

But is that enough? How much security and independence does that really bring all on its own?

Potential Risks

Even with lots of money in the bank, there are still plenty of risks we face when it comes to our future.

The collapse of the dollar is a potential risk. If the political wheels turn the wrong way – and some might argue that this is already happening – the dollar could be rapidly devalued. We’re not financially independent any more if the dollar suddenly goes into rapid inflation. You can have a million dollars in the bank, but it’s not going to be that useful if a gallon of milk costs $500.

Large-scale societal problems also present a challenge. Even if the dollar isn’t devalued, other things such as a major plague or some kind of serious technological revolution can really change the rules of the game in a way that we didn’t expect. A situation where the normal supply lines for goods or services breaks down can cause a lot of difficulty in the lives of those who are not prepared for it.

Fraud and criminal acts are things that we need to be on guard for all of the time. While many such criminal acts that could target our wealth are ones for which we might have a legal response, some would be difficult to handle. Sometimes, life is going to punch you in the gut when you least expect it. Are you ready to handle picking up the pieces from this kind of disaster?

Familial and health issues could definitely drain our resources very quickly. Even with great health insurance, a major illness can burn through your resources very quickly. Family and legal issues can similarly damage one’s financial state, even with protections such as umbrella insurance.

Personal changes include any situation where your own personal beliefs, goals, and desires change over time. You might find that you’re not happy with parts of your life, and the truth is that money can’t solve everything. Financial freedom can hold open the doors to a lot of life changes, but many changes require other things in life like strong relationships and personal health.

These are just a few of the more obvious challenges that might occur that could damage one’s sense of financial independence, but they’re far from the only ones.

It’s obvious, then, that financial independence only gets you part of the way to your destination of maximum personal freedom. It’s definitely a key component, but if your goal is to build a life with as much freedom as possible balanced with some personal security against the unknown, you’re going to have to go beyond mere dollars and cents.

It is worth noting, before we get started, that money can actually help build many of the things below, but they also require a great deal of personal time and effort.

Additional Tools for Greater Freedom and Security

So, beyond mere dollars and cents, what kinds of things can you do to prepare your life for the maximum amount of personal freedom as well as protection against unforeseen events? Interestingly enough, many of these areas can also alleviate some of the reliance you may have on your personal wealth, too. You won’t need as much money if you pull off these things.

Here are some areas you can work on to build that kind of freedom.

Knowledge and Skills

What do you do if your toilet breaks? What if the light fixture in your family room stops working? What if your furnace stops working?

Do you call a repairman? If that’s your primary hope for fixing such things, you may find yourself in trouble in a difficult situation.

The reality is that the more you need to rely on the skills of others to go about your daily life, the less freedom you have. If you can’t fix your toilet when it breaks, then you’re relying on a plumber to maintain your indoor plumbing. If you can’t replace a light fixture in your family room, you need an electrician (or at least a handyman) to maintain indoor lighting. If you can’t make at least a reasonable shot at fixing an appliance, you’re relying on appliance repairpeople.

What exactly do you do if those people aren’t available? Does everything just descend into chaos quite rapidly?

The truth is that these kinds of skills are valuable for everyone to have, for a lot of reasons, but here are two big ones. First of all, the more skills you have, the easier it becomes to maintain things yourself and fix minor problems yourself with no help. If you know how to work on a car, you can fix minor car issues with no help, for example.

• Related: Emerson’s ‘Self-Reliance’

Second, if you have skills, you can trade those skills with others to gain other things. If you can fix your neighbor’s lawnmower, your neighbor might be able to help you fix something or give you something in return.

This extends to skills far beyond basic home and auto repair things. Any skill that you have that someone else might value in a crisis situation is worth having. Things like first aid, computer repair, bicycle repair, and so on are all well worth knowing how to do.

Here’s the solution: if you find yourself needing to pay someone else to do something for you, try to learn how to do it yourself first. You might find that you can’t actually do it for some reason, but it’s much more likely that you’ll find, if you spend some time learning, that the task really isn’t that hard to begin with, and if you do it a few times, it’s really not hard at all. That way, when you actually need that skill in the future or want to help a friend or a neighbor with that skill, you can easily call upon it.

• Related: The Value Line: Building More Skills for a Better Life

Self-Sufficiency / Homesteading

Another key tool for maximizing personal freedom and minimizing your reliance on the services of others is through homesteading and self-sufficiency. When your home produces the resources you need to survive, then you’re not reliant on others providing those services.

For example, most people are reliant on the electrical grid to provide home energy for themselves, but people who have installed solar panels or a wind turbine are free from those needs and have all of the home energy they need.

If you buy all of your food from the grocery store, you’re reliant on the food supply chain. On the other hand, if you raise a lot of your food and store the extras, you’re not reliant on that food chain as much or at all.

Consider investing in things like renewable energy at home through solar panels or a wind turbine. Also, consider starting a garden, even if it is not big enough to sustain all of your food needs. The knowledge you accumulate from doing this will be enough.

You may even want to consider installing water capture tools, such as rain barrels at the bottom of your downspouts, or even installing a well or a sandpoint for water. While you probably wouldn’t normally want to use that water for everyday purposes, it’s perfectly good for things like watering your garden or lawn.

Another part of this whole equation is knowing – and actually practicing – the preservation of some of the food that you grow. Do you know how to dry beans? Do you know how to can excess vegetables? In periods of disaster or societal unrest, knowing how to do such things can be very valuable.

Strong Relationships

Do you have a strong circle of friends in your immediate area that you can rely on when things are difficult? For instance, if you found yourself needing help, do you have people you could call on and reliably expect for them to be there?

I’m not talking about acquaintances or professional relationships or other such connections that are much more tenuous. I’m talking about people that will have your back through thick and thin, no matter what happens.

While it’s powerful to have such friends when things are good, having such relationships is absolutely vital if you’re making changes to your life. They’re also absolutely vital in situations where things become challenging. Having such relationships means that you have people you can rely on no matter what life happens to bring your way.

How can you cultivate such relationships? Be giving with yourself and the resources you can share. Give people time and effort and energy. Listen – and by listen I don’t mean futz with your cell phone while they’re talking or stand there trying to think of the next thing you want to say while ignoring what they’re saying. Those things are the bedrock upon which strong and lasting relationships are built, and it’s the ability to call upon those people when you really need them that can make life better – and make a disastrous situation a whole lot better.

Community Ties

While there are some similarities between community ties and strong relationships with people nearby, there are some distinct differences, too.

Community ties are lighter versions of those strong relationships. Community ties are the kind that will result in people giving you a helping hand when you need it, but not necessarily the kind that would be at your door any time of the day or night. Community ties are the kind where lots of people know your name and will say good things about you and give you a solid reputation, but won’t have your back in any situation.

What value do community ties have? Community ties make it easy to find work if you ever need it. Community ties make it easy to quickly find specific types of help if you ever need that. Community ties can form a great network of people who keep an eye on each other’s homes. Community ties are the invisible strings that make things better in countless little ways that you often don’t directly see, but you’re sometimes blown away when you do see them.

How can you build community ties? Get involved in local events in your town. Join a community organization. Help out with local charities. Learn the names of your neighbors and perhaps invite them over for dinner. Have a smile on your face when you go out in public and take the time to greet others and have brief conversations with them.

Those little steps seem small, but over time they add up to a great deal, and it’s that fabric of community that will help support you in countless ways if you put in the time and effort to do so.

Stewardship

Stewardship simply means taking care of the things that you own and are responsible for. It’s an easy concept, but it’s not one that we often put into practice. However, if you want maximum freedom in life, knowing how to care for the key things in your life is absolutely vital.

You practice stewardship with your possessions by taking care of them, cleaning them, and storing them properly. You practice stewardship with your home by keeping it clean and repairing it and doing maintenance. The same is true with your car.

Stewardship extends beyond those physical things, however. You practice stewardship with your relationships by putting in the effort to keep that contact going, by listening and helping when possible. You practice stewardship with your skills by putting them to the test on occasion.

When you practice stewardship, you end up with things that you can rely on, things that won’t fail when you need them. Sometimes things aren’t going to go perfectly, and when that happens, the person that has practiced smart stewardship and maintenance of the things in their life is going to reap the rewards, because those possessions and relationships will be there for them when they’re needed.

Take care of the things that you have. Know how to repair the things that you own. When they need replaced, buy things that will last for a long time. You’ll continually be glad that you did so.

Physical Health

You can have all of the assets in the world, but if you don’t have the physical health to enjoy them, not only are you going to miss out on their benefits, you’re also going to see many of your financial resources devoured in an effort to secure your remaining health.

The best solution, then, is to take proactive steps to help with your physical health.

It’s not exactly rocket science, people. Move around more. Eat a plant-based diet. Maintain some degree of portion control. Eat fewer sweets. If you do those things, you’re probably going to be in pretty good shape.

The challenge here is consistency. Eating one healthy meal won’t make you healthy. Having one busy day won’t do it, either. If your life routine involves unhealthy foods, you need to alter that routine. If your life routine involves not moving around very much, you need to alter that routine.

While you’re at it, it’s a good idea to get regular checkups with your doctor to keep tabs on your overall health. Medical screenings can identify problems when they’re still small, before they become big problems. When they’re small, they’re easier to fix and they’re far less expensive, too.

• Related: Five Ways to Get Your Workout Without a Gym Membership

Mental Health

Hand in hand with your physical health is your mental health. Again, you can have all of the assets in the world, but without your mental health, it’s difficult to enjoy what those assets can bring into your life.

So, as with physical health, it’s absolutely vital to stay on top of things. This list of steps to maintain and improve mental health is very good:

1. Value yourself
2. Take care of your body
3. Surround yourself with good people
4. Give of yourself
5. Learn how to deal with stress
6. Quiet your mind
7. Set realistic goals
8. Break up the monotony
9. Avoid alcohol and other drugs
10. Get help when you need it

You might just notice that many of those steps are well in line with the other strategies from this article, such as building strong relationships and maintaining your physical health.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the truth: You can have all of the wealth in the world, but if you don’t have the things listed above – knowledge, skills, relationships, stewardship, health – your wealth won’t bring you freedom.

The truth is that financial independence is only one part of true independence. True independence, or as close to it as we can come in our world, comes from having the ability to solve most of life’s problems on your own or with the help of close relationships. The less we have to truly rely on others, the more independent we are.

If financial independence is a major goal for you, you should take steps to build other elements of true freedom while on your journey to financial independence. After all, the goal, in the end, is to maximize your personal freedom, and there’s no better way to do that than to make the basic elements of your life – your health, your relationships, your home – as free as possible.

Good luck.

The post Does Money Truly Bring Independence and Security? appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

Iconic, classic, and occasionally even controversial, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Vol I and II) continues to be an important source for today’s serious home cooks. While the books are dated in some ways (I don’t tend to blanch my bacon before cooking it, for instance), nonetheless they still inform and inspire me, and will definitely always have a place of honor on my cookbook shelf.

And they’re full of small but useful tips and techniques, like this one for when you find yourself suddenly out of shallots.

READ MORE »

For just a moment, think about why you live like you live. Remember the times you’ve tried something new and then backed off. Or what about the time you had a new idea, but didn’t follow through because it sounded a little crazy? It was probably your decision, but it may have been influenced by someone else or what you thought someone else might think.

I often hear the following feedback from people who say they want to live with less.

I can’t live with less and simplify my life because:

I am 100% sure that all of those things happened and equally sure that it doesn’t matter. What your friends and family think can make things more or less enjoyable, but they cannot determine how you live your life. You can share your ideas and consider others, but it’s not up to you to convince, sway or prove anything. Your actions are much more compelling than your arguments.

We use the same excuses for any lifestyle change; losing weight, saving money, changing jobs, moving and other life altering decisions. We choose not to stand out, or change course because of what other people think or what we think they will think.

You don’t have to prove your self or defend your lifestyle to anyone.

It’s time to stop defending your life so you can fully enjoy living it. You have an unassailable right to live with less, live with more, or live in a foreign country. You have an unassailable right to eat more vegetables, eat more meat, wear only white, wear only black, wear only one shoe or wear your birthday suit on Saturdays. You have an unassailable right to do work you love, to start your own microbusiness, to work for your parents or not to work at all.

We can still care about people without caring about how they think we should live.

I am passionate about a simpler life with fewer possessions and obligations and that is how I choose to live. Embrace your choices and change your mind when you want to live differently.

When you decide to march to the beat of your different, beautiful, unique, crazy drum can you take responsiblity for your choices and your life. You can stop blaming anyone else for your life experience and you can smile when people shake their head or give you a funny look, knowing that you are living your most complete, fulfilling life.

What excuse, thought, comment or objection will you release right now so you can claim your unassailable right to live a life that makes you happy?

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to Be More with Less and connect with me. Check out courtneycarver.com for simple ideas for your life and business.