Love of the Week

I love the NYC subway. I know that puts me in a party of one. But it also puts me in another party that you may want to join yourself.

The party of very mogul-y people. Yep.

Here’s what I mean.

Everything in the world is wrong with the NYC subway. Sadly, I don’t need to explain.

But the subway is…efficient. Ruthlessly so. It’s the single best way to get around our unnavigable city.

What makes people successful in life? Oh, the list is long, and everyone has an opinion. (Some of the best, by the way, are in one of my favorite Becoming You podcast episodes.)

But I think one reason rises above them all. It comes from a doctor I know who has, over his long and esteemed career, come to know some of the world’s most mogul-y moguls. (They have not been patients, I should note; he knows them through shared philanthropic interests. We are talking titans here.) His theory about the secret to success is that each of these people rose to the heights because they knew how to cut their losses early.

It wasn’t that they didn’t make mistakes. They made plenty, and big ones. But they faced those mistakes head on – and then moved the heck on. They didn’t waste time or energy on bemoaning reality. This is, to give it a name, emotional efficiency.

Now, this is a holiday weekend, and everyone is about to have a couple days of being tremendously inefficient, and intentionally so; fun goes like that. Even I, the queen of Workcentrism, am stopping my usual machine-like behavior to go to a wedding in Vermont. Please pray that I can manage this thing people call “relaxing.”

But when Monday arrives again, you will find me on the subway, literally and figuratively. Over here at Becoming Universe, we are building something. It is messy and hard, it is going very fast. But sometimes life is like that, but it’s also so amazingly wild and precious. We cannot miss the train.

Hate of the Week

Please don’t get me going on fireworks. OK, get me going!

One year, when the fireworks had my Great Pyrenees, Happy, shaking in the closet, I tweeted, “Anyone who loves fireworks must never have loved a dog.” The hate died down about three days later. Love ya, Twitter!

Look, I get the beauty of a glittering night sky, but I hate that we can’t explain that sky to the animals we share our earth with. God bless the good souls who volunteer at shelters on July 4th to comfort frantic dogs. I would join them, but I am comforting my own trio of nutters.

Last thing on that, today marks the anniversary of the disappearance of Suzy the Swan, because of, yep, fireworks. If you don’t know her story and feel like a good cry, listen here.

She taught me a lot, that beautiful bird. As animals so often do.

Hmm of the Week

I have an idea for a second podcast. I’m wondering if you think it’s a good one.

The Becoming You methodology says, “Figure out three things: Your values, your aptitudes, and your economically viable interests.” I tend to focus on the first two, but the third really matters too, because too many people just don’t know about all the jobs, industries, and megatrends that exist in this world.

How about, then, a podcast called, “But I don’t want to work in AI!” where each week I focus on an economically viable interest that’s off the beaten track, but still teeming with opportunity? Like tree nut farming, shipbuilding, or space mining? Respond to this email if you’d listen. I promise, by the way, to make this podcast funny and, you guessed it, efficient.

Thanks for being here, and see you next week.

xx

What's coming?

→ Values Day: The ONLINE Becoming You Experience, register here

→ Becoming You Three-Day Intensive in September, register here

The Becoming You Mailbag: Burning Questions Everywhere

It's once again time for a mailbag version of the podcast, in which yours truly replies to a sampling of DMs. As usual, the mailbag is a MIXED bag. One listener's question deals with retirement, as in, "Why should I if I really don't want to?" Another needs help thinking through her internal debate over helping people as a way of life, while one listener pushes back on my contention that first jobs don't matter. And yes, I have some tough love to share.

Tune in Here!