Protect Your Energy! How?

Eliminate the bad energy. How?

If it’s not right to you, don’t do it. How?

Check your principles and make sure they are align with you. How?

Write it down what kind of people do you want to be around? What’s their core values? And what do you like the most about it?

That’s your energy guideline. And your job is to Protect Your Energy!

The Courage to be Disliked is absolutely one of the best books, I’ve read in 2021. I found it a week ago and can’t stop sharing it with my friends. Two Japanese writers re-frame Alfred Adler’s theories as a conversation. It touches every part of life such as childhood, marriage, business, parenting, and many more. If you can figure out “being disliked” by others are OK, you will be freer.

How strongly I recommend it: 10/10

MY NOTES

None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.

No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead, we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.

We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.

The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” You want to be Y or someone else because you are utterly focused on what you were born with. Instead, you’ve got to focus on what you can make of your equipment.

And please remember this: If you are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations, it follows that other people are not living to satisfy your expectations. Someone might not act the way you want him to, but it doesn’t do to get angry. That’s only natural.

You are worried about other people looking at you. You are worried about being judged by other people. That is why you are constantly craving recognition from others. Now, why are you worried about other people looking at you, anyway?

That is Adler’s life-lie again. I can’t do my work because I’ve been shunned by my boss. It’s the boss’s fault that my work isn’t going well. The person who says such things is bringing up the existence of the boss as an excuse for the work that doesn’t go well. Much like the female student with the fear of blushing, it’s actually that you need the existence of an awful boss. Because then you can say, “If only I didn’t have this boss, I could get more work done.”

I am thankful for writing out here every day. This is one of the best decisions I have ever done probably last ten years. Without knowing what I’m going to learn and share the next day makes that day very exciting and lively.

Thanks to writing, I learn a new thing every day. So pretty much every day is a thanksgiving for me.

I didn’t know the difference between online learning and online education till I heard from Seth Godin at North Star Podcast today. Yes, Online learning is designed by you, and you choose what you want to learn. On the other side, online education is provided by institutions. It uses “online” materials as a medium to share its contents.

Or another way to say this is: dumping the knowledge to students and hoping they will learn something. Pretty much that education is designed for giving certification/diploma. Their KPIs are not who understood how much.

It’s been a while I didn’t click & likeminded someone that much like I did Derek Sivers recently. I came across of his works online and he is a new addition to my virtual mentors.

How did I discover him?

He was a guest at the 3books podcast, which I love to listen to whenever I get bored from walking alone during my hiking trips. This is great podcast to know people based on their top 3 formative books & relationship with them.

What have I done since I met Derek Sivers?

-Read at least half of his blog posts. (He has over 340+ posts)

-Purchased his 4 books and almost read all of them. My favorite one so far How to Live

-Listened to his podcasts (very short one 2-3 minutes), which was an experiment of his daily writing during Sept-Oc 2019, and turned them into podcast episodes (I did something similar on my writings early in this year without knowing what he did:) Also listened to 5-10 podcasts they invited him as a guest. My favorite one is Knowledge Project and Cold Email Outreaching Podcast.

-Shared his site/books with my close friends and reached out to Derek via email. He was super nice to reply to me back less than 2 hours. (By the way, he loves getting an email from his fans)

It sounds like I’m Derek Sivers expert 🙂 Once or twice a year, I randomly find great minds like Derek. One of my best findings of last year was Morgan Housel.

I will definitely use his writing as a mentor while I think about a specific topic and learn what he thought about before. How am I going to do it?

Pretty much, I’ll search a “keyword” on his blog/books. Very nice to meet you Derek.

Lately, I figured out my mind loves to hear other people’s challenges/problems and share some opinions on the call. When I do this exercise (literally, this is an exercise for me. I love listening/talking while walking), I actually dig deep thoughts back of my memory line and find some interesting ideas for me and the people I listened to.

If you have anything interesting going on and couldn’t solve it yet or want to share it, just reply to this email. If it’s something I can be helpful with, we can schedule a WhatsApp call and talk.

We all do to try to be fit in whoever our surroundings. It’s nice feeling to be part of something bigger than us. But sometimes it does bring some much responsibility. Are you ready for that?

We went to a pretty good “Greek” restaurant today afternoon with my friends in Palo Alto. The place is owned & managed by Greek/Americans. The food there is always good. And nice vibe too. I came across many times Turkish waiters are also working the place which makes sense they are familiar the food and culture. Especially if you are a first-timer, Some of the foods on the menu need to be explained by someone who grew up eating those ones. That makes those places more authentic. That’s why Turkish waiters are a good choice for Greek places. Let’s start my story:)

We went for a late lunch and have been to the place many times. We know what we are going to order and are super excited about it. We had a Turkish waiter who was nice but very odd not to even say “Merhaba” which is a very informal way to say “Hi” in Turkish. We spoke Turkish with my friends and who are all born and raised in California except me but ordered in English while we were ordering we understood our waiter is Turkish based on his accent. It’s quite easy to catch the Turkish accent for us:) Anyway, during lunch, he pretended he didn’t understand at all what we were saying like small gestures such as “Tesekkurler (thank you for Turkish), etc. Finally, my friend didn’t stand this situation asked him “ Where are you from?” He said “Turkey”:)

Come on we all knew you are Turkish why do you try to put yourself very odd situation? If you just said “Merhaba” we had no problem keeping the conversation in English if you feel much comfortable as I said my group’s first language is English except me. And, we are a chill group to prefer to speak mixed Turkish/English all the time and there was no way he didn’t catch at least a handful of words.

We kept speaking English with him and being extra nice and not making him feel bad. But, what I don’t like is “Don’t pretend, I’m an idiot. Everyone knows what’s up”. We don’t want to be your friend or take advantage of you, just basic human interaction. I always say hi/how are you to people from Mexico, Japan, If I figure out the people from those countries while I’m ordering food or seeing them on the streets. Just try to make them feel special.

Human lives are unpredictable. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us any moment. No guarantee, no sureness! Life is full of last minute surprises. Be prepared for anything, anytime.

Better experience comes with better people. How do we find better people?

• Be better at what you are doing.

• Know what you are looking for!