I write a lesson I wished I had learned 10 years earlier, to feed our brains with intelligent content to start our week. I also share interesting articles, book quotes, and the occasional speech or TED talk to help us all get smarter, wiser and live better.

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Happy Sunday!

So I ran a PB yesterday morning🏅🏃‍♂️

And there’s a big lesson here that I’d like to share with my readers.

When running a PB, what everyone sees is the end result. But the sacrifices; super early mornings, clean diet, and training HARD over the last six months isn't visible to anyone.

I pushed myself - there were many times I wanted to give up, and I began questioning why I set myself this "arbitrary" goal in the first place. The easy thing to do was to give up. But I didn't.

The lesson here is that "success" isn't a one-off event (running a PB). The real success is showing discipline;

• Training when I didn't want to train.
• Getting up when all I wanted to do was remain in bed.
• Skipping takeaways when really craving a pizza.
• Showing resilience, pushing through and persevering when I wanted to give up.

Success in any situation is about consistency over several years. Working hard and showing resilience, despite not having any tangible results to show.

The best analogy I've come across to bring this point to life is that "success is like an iceberg." Most of the iceberg that supports the "success" is below the surface, not visible to anyone. An image is worth a thousand words, so I'll let the picture do the talking.

Now, I think I'll treat myself… to that Pizza 🍕

Have an awesome week ahead,
Samuel

Featured Article

Your Uniqueness Is Your Superpower

I used a short story to bring out why it’s important to call out the obvious and to have the confidence to share an opposing viewpoint to general consensus.

Samuel ObeSamuel Ajayi-Obe

Don't Kill Time

The latest article by one of my favourite writers. David explains why the western world’s fascination between time and money often harms us. Time spent not working is generally seen as wasted.

Instead, like the Greeks, our leisure time should be considered learning time.

Read article

How To Become Ridiculously Self-Aware In 20 Minutes

I can attest to this. Taking 10 minutes out of the 1,440 that we’re given each day to journal has been life-changing. It’s helped me become self-aware, understand myself better and also to live more in the moment, and be less anxious about the future.

Read article

The Roots of Loneliness

An article that is written by one of my favourite philosophers, Alain de Botton. He writes about why feeling lonely is still a taboo subject. However, it’s normal to feel lonely, especially at the present time, where government-imposed lockdown means that we’re unable to live our normal lives with company of others.

Read article

Tweet of the Week

This Week's Wisdom

“Genius often really is just persistence in disguise.”

In the book, The Obstacle Is the Way, by Ryan Holiday

I use readwise to resurface content I've previously highlighted. My followers can get an extra month for free by following this link.

Final Word

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