Who controls the life we want to live? Easy: we control our lives. The sooner we decide to make the right decisions that we KNOW are best for us, the more likely we are to live our ideal life. Last week I wrote a piece on “echo chambers“. By listening to society, our friends, and our family members reverberate the same belief systems back at us over and over again, we often limit our growth. Today I want to dismantle three specific echo chambers that permeate our society and lie squarely in our weekly topical domains: Networking is the key to success. (Relationship Building) Today’s culture is so self-centered; just…

Echo chambers have each of us stuck, perhaps without even realizing it. An echo chamber is a metaphorical description of a situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a relatively closed system. Echo chambers form in many different arenas: religion, socio-economic status, politics, sexuality, media, geography, culture, etc. As humans we tend to create them because we feel more comfortable around people who are similar in thought and action to ourselves. I had my own echo chamber epiphany last week. I was driving half way across the country with my family. As we drove past hundreds of tiny farm communities in the midwest, I…

Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny. – C.S. Lewis About a month ago, I shared with everyone my biggest financial blunders, which were mostly self-imposed challenges (some of which took years to overcome). This week we’re covering adversity. Two fantastic sources talk a lot about adversity and strife; both are well-aged and battle tested. Those two works are the Bible and the writings of the Stoics. The Bible has some incredible stories on overcoming challenges, and as part of my daily routine I dive in and listen to the Bible readings of the day. Here are some of my favorite Bible passages that help me keep adversity…

This is the last in our series on Groupthink. Don’t be sad – you can always revisit the previous two pieces. In Part 1 we talked about being a personal finance superhuman, and in Part 2 we covered why “follow your passion” is terrible advice for personal and professional development. Last but certainly not least, we are going to discuss relationships: specifically, how do we maximize our relationships with others to become the best version of ourselves? THE REALITY America has a loneliness epidemic. According to a recent study, only around half of Americans (53%) say they have meaningful, daily face-to-face social interactions with others. Experts are deeming loneliness as…

Last week in Part 1 of our “Avoiding Groupthink” series, we talked about being a Personal Finance Superhuman. Now it’s time to talk about the personal/professional development side of the equation. How do we maximize our life experiences to become the best and happiest version of ourselves? In today’s world this is proving quite a challenge. THE REALITY The United States has a happiness problem and a serious lack of passion. Life is sensationalized in the shows we watch: the fictional characters’ homes are larger, cars are flashier, and vacations are more lavish than our own. Pair that with the never-ending life highlights of our friends and internet personalities delivered…