saturday mornings #2

May 29, 2021

Hi all,

For those of you who may be new, this newsletter is sent out every Saturday morning and is designed to provide readers (that’s you) with a morsel of fun as well as some ideas to spark your curiosity and provide some food for thought as you kick off your weekend.

Thank you for taking the time out of your morning to spend with me. Hope you enjoy.

Quote I’ve been thinking about:

“Follow your bliss ... and even if you don’t live an understood life, at least it will be your own” - Joseph Campbell

The first three words of this quote have been popularized and can be found in kitchens and living rooms across North America. However, the back end of this quote is largely forgotten. The message centralizes around the importance of owning your life and suggests it’s better to live a life you feel internally fulfilled with, even at the risk people on the outside may judge or criticize you. To me, it’s a reminder to forge my own path and serves as a warning that focusing on others gaining others’ approval in my decisions will lead to unhappiness.

Broadly, it ties to the theme of external validation, the emptiness that pursuit entails, and the courage it takes to be a unique individual. I think this message has become increasingly important as more and more people become tied up in their social image and chase status and money over the things they really love or “give them bliss”. Out of life, I think I’ll be much happier if I am able to own my story and do what I love, realizing that other people’s opinion matters a lot less.

Book I’m reading:

Real Estate Investing in Canada by Don R. Campbell

Over the past couple of months, I’ve recently been learning about real estate investing, specifically in Canadian markets. This book is a beginner’s guide to investing in real estate, covering all the stages from finding an economically attractive market to writing an offer and securing financing for a home.

Private real estate is unique from investing in the stock market in that one can employ 80-90% leverage (via a mortgage) on an investment, which can substantially boost your returns (if the investment made is a good one) which you wouldn’t really do with any other personal investment.

Real estate also has barriers for most investors, due to the large upfront cost required to purchase a home and the time it takes to learn how to properly invest, which allows those who are willing to spend the time to learn to have an informational advantage.

If done right, and I’m sure a certain degree of luck is involved, real estate can provide a steady means of “passive” income. But it’s definitely a long journey.

Book passage I loved:

So when faced with a difficult task or challenge, give yourself an immediate competitive advantage by focusing on all the reasons you will succeed, rather than fail. Remind yourself of the relevant skills you have, rather than those you lack. Think of a time you have been in a similar circumstance in the past and performed well. A specific and concerted focus on your strengths during a difficult task produces the best results. - Shawn Achor, The Happiness Advantage

Artist I discovered:

Dermot Kennedy

For those of you looking for some new music, Dermot Kennedy is an Irish singer-songwriter and musician. I’d probably place him in the indie category, and although I’m not a huge indie fan, I’ve really enjoyed some of his music, especially as he puts a lot of thought into his lyrics.

Check out his most popular songs on Spotify or YouTube.

What I’m exploring:

Stoicism

I’m sure you’ve heard of stoicism before and may have preconceptions (which I shared as well) but as I kept hearing about the number of top performers who attribute a large part of their success to employing stoicism in their lives, I wanted to learn more.

Stoicism can be thought of as an operating system for thriving in high-stress environments. At its core, it teaches you how to separate what you can control from what you cannot, and it trains you to focus exclusively on the former. Further, it provides ideas that are designed to be applied to your life and aims to make people less emotionally reactive, more aware in the present tense, and more resilient. I’ve also found it dramatically increases my ability to appreciate the small things in life. Throughout history, some supporters of stoicism include Thomas Jefferson, Michel de Montaigne, and John Stuart Mill as well as more modern figures like Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday.

Tackling a topic like this can seem very intimidating because there’s so much to read, it’s hard to tell where to begin. To provide some actionable advice, I’d recommend starting with The Letters of Seneca, a compilation of letters that Seneca (arguably one of the best stoic thinkers) wrote. The letters are short, easy to understand, actionable, and provide some great insight. I’m trying to read ~1 a day, although my consistency with this is a different question.

The link to get these letters is here.

Question to reflect on:

What would this look like if it were easy?

If I feel stressed, stretched thin, or overwhelmed, it’s usually because I’m overcomplicating something or failing to take the simple/easy path because I feel I should be trying “harder”. I found this question really interesting, as typically our brains are programmed to think that anything worth doing that’s valuable will be challenging and difficult to accomplish. In that line of thinking, we tend to see that belief to fruition and make something more difficult or painful than it needs to be.

Instead, I’ve found this reflection question to change my scope of looking at tasks and forces me to pause to think if there is an easy way of doing something that I’m not considering.

Who says anything worth doing has to be challenging and painstaking? Sometimes there exist alternate paths and it’s not always bad to take the easy way to do something.

Challenge for the week ahead:

Do yoga four times this week

Initially, I thought yoga would be something I’d never venture into, as it was solely reserved for hippies and stay-at-home moms. However, my brother introduced me to it last summer, and after spending 12 hours a day sitting in a chair doing work, it’s been really enjoyable. Improving my flexibility is something I’ve always wanted to do, both because it relieves a lot of aches and pains and because I don’t want to be unable to do anything active as I get older.

I’ve found yoga to be a great way to break up my day, as it isn’t as strenuous as cardio or lifting weights, and can be relaxing in the right mindset. For those of you who are interested but not sure where to start, I will link a couple of my favourite guided videos below. They’re quick (only 9-12 minutes) great for beginners, and easy to follow.

That’s all from me this week folks. I hope today’s newsletter has provided some interesting points and a bit of fun as you head into your weekend.

And, as always, please give me feedback. Which topic above is your favourite? What do you want more or less of? What challenges and ideas are you exploring and grappling with? Just send hit reply to this email and I will make sure to read your email and do my best to get back to you.

Have a wonderful weekend, all.

Much love to you and yours,

Thomas