If only we knew what success took, rather than just how it looks. #fairysforum…Walk good. 28all. Eya. *SC, RM, RG, CdC, TH*

The Warm-Up: 

“You can’t solve internal problems with external things. Wanting things you don’t have leads to having things you don’t want. People matter. Relationships matter. Love matters. Material things don’t make you happier.” ~Shane Parrish

The Core: 

“I am a firm believer in if you cant get it the old fashioned way, you don’t need it.” ~Bo Jackson

“The reward for getting on the stage is fame. The price of fame is you can’t get off the stage.” ~Naval Ravikant

“The issue isn’t too much empathy, the problem is an overload of sympathy, which is essentially pity.” ~Ayishat Akanbi

“My job is not to get people to vote for me. It’s to get them to vote for the things I help them have.” ~Stacey Abrams on her job as a politician, The Shop, Uninterrupted

“Never be embarrassed by your struggle. Never apologize for the things you’ve worked hard for. Every part of your journey has beauty in it, so never let anyone drag you down for climbing to a better place.” ~Vex King

“Fame is the ultimate antithesis of personal independence, not its manifestation. Fame is neither yours to keep, nor can you control. Fame requires other people. Fame itself is dependent on everyone else but the person who is famous.” ~Thibaut

“Often I’m surprised by the reaction I get just from being honest. People need someone else to say what they’ve been thinking. Sometimes they need to see their truth reflected back to them.” ~Arlan Hamilton, It’s About Damn Time

“The voters reminded us yet again that the other side is not going away. We have to dispense with the fantasy that after the next miracle election our side will suddenly get everything it wants. We have to live with one another.” ~David Brooks, What the Voters Are Trying to Tell Us

“The math of success...Results = (Hard Work*Time)^Strategy. Working hard is important, but working on the right thing is more important. A great strategy can deliver exponential results. Of course, the best strategy is worth nothing if you never get to work. Zero to the millionth power is still zero.” ~James Clear

“When all the sick and wounded have been tended, when all their impoverished & broken-hearted homes have been restored, when every hospital is gorged with money, & every charitable subscription is closed, then & not till then would I concern myself with these penguins.” ~Winston Churchill, in response to a member of Shackleton’s expedition when while Shackleton was missing in Antarctica

“To get around this, I think of my own money as barbelled. I take risks with one portion and am terrified with the other. This is not inconsistent, but the psychology of money would lead you to believe that it is. I just want to ensure I can remain standing long enough for my risks to pay off. You have to survive to succeed. To repeat a point we’ve made a few times in this book: The ability to do what you want, when you want, for as long as you want, has an infinite ROI.” ~Morgan Housel, The Psychology of Money

“A reminder not to confuse the things that temporarily bring you comfort with the things that will sustainably give you joy. The better you know yourself, the better you will invest your love. Your happiness, your peace, your joy—all your job. Don’t dull your essence for fleeting approvals and false comfort. Nothing is safer than being loved as you are, authentically, and owning your truth. Right or wrong, learn all you can from the experience. I will choose wisdom, love, patience and humor as much as I can today. I deserve joy, peace, and harmony in my life.” ~Rob Hill Sr.

“A principle is an approach you stick with even if you know it might lead to a short-term outcome you don’t prefer. Especially then. It’s this gap between the short-term and the long-term that makes a principle valuable. If your guiding principle is to do whatever benefits you right now, you don’t have principles of much value. But it’s the valuable principles that pay off, because they enable forward motion, particularly when it feels like there are few alternatives. We embrace a culture based on principles because it’s that structure and momentum that enables connection and progress to happen in the first place.” ~Seth Godin, Principle is Inconvenient

Last Set: 

“They admit that there’s dysfunction on one side of the equation on that problem, but to give it up and to change and get away and lose that issue means that they lose something, and they really like it. They’re committed to that thing… So a lot of change organizationally and in families and in relationships don’t occur, not because they’re not the right answers or we don’t know what to do, but because people benefit from both. In terms of power, resources they benefit from those problems existing. You and I come up with all the elegant solutions we want, but one of the reasons that people don’t do things is because they like the dysfunction that they have. I don’t mean the complete part of the dysfunction, but they like the outcomes that they’re getting right now and they don’t want to change…Yeah, to a degree. People learn when they’re ready to learn. People act when they’re ready to act. There’s nothing that I can do to propel them forward if they’re not ready to do it. But sometimes we can talk it through. If you expose why people don’t want to change or what the benefits of change are, expose that people are benefiting from this issue.” ~Randall Stutman, The Knowledge Project #96 with Shane Parrish

Food for Thought: 

“For much of the 2020 election cycle, many of us wanted anyone but Donald Trump as president because literally anyone but Mr. Trump would be an improvement. The bar he set was subterranean. As the Democratic field narrowed, there was time to consider who would best serve the country, but even as we found our preferred candidates, it was clear that getting Mr. Trump out of office would only be the beginning of the work. That’s where things stand. The state of this country will improve if and when Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, but a great many things will stay exactly the same unless we remain as committed to progress under his administration as we were under Mr. Trump’s. This is America, a country desperately divided, and desperately flawed. The future of this country is uncertain but it is not hopeless. I am ready to fight for that future, no matter what it holds. Are you?” ~Roxane Gay, I Am Shattered but Ready to Fight

Food for Thought II: 

“I end nearly every interview with the question, ‘What do you like most about your writing?’ Writers often equivocate and dance around the question, afraid to admit they think well of themselves and their work. With Ms. Morrison, there was no hesitation or equivocation. She said she appreciated her ability to ‘say more and write less,’ and her ‘desire to give the reader space.’… Ms. Morrison taught me and an entire generation of black writers to recognize that we are rich places to write from. She showed us that we must matter first to ourselves if we hope to matter to anyone else. She demonstrated that there is no shame in writing that is both work and a necessary political act. She taught me that you can write about black girls and black women, unapologetically, and say necessary, meaningful things about our lives in a world that often tells us that our lives do not matter. She consistently centered blackness in her narratives, but not an idealized version of it.” ~Roxane Gay, The Legacy of Toni Morrison

Other tings: 

The Spoon Theory

Hope Brooklyn - November 8 Sunday Worship

My year of saying yes to everything | Shonda Rhimes

In Defense of the IPO and How to Improve It, Part 2: Peeking Behind the Pop

Alex Trebek, Longtime Host of ‘Jeopardy!,’ Dies at 80…perfectly coupled with the power of this moment: Jeopardy