Weekly Question & Framework: May 3, 2024

Hello and welcome to the Curiosity Chronicle Weekly Question and Framework. In three minutes or less, I will give you one question and one framework to get you thinking going into the weekend. Without further ado, let's dive right into it. A question to establish your focus if everything stays the same, what one change would create the most impact? In every arena of life, from your career to your health to your relationships, there are countless variables that govern your progress and growth. When faced with a variety of potential variables, the decision of where to focus your attention and energy becomes challenging. If you don't focus, you end up scattered, applying modest attention to a bunch of things rather than intense attention to one thing. By adding a forced constraint one change, we can create clarity in a given arena. If everything were to stay the same as it is today, what one change could you make that would create the greatest positive impact in your life? Here's an example from my life. Let's say my goal within the health arena is to level up the appearance of my physique. I ask myself this if everything were to stay the same, what one change can I make to my health routine that will create the greatest possible impact toward that goal? I look at all the variables impacting my appearance, nutrition, lifting, cardio and recovery. Evaluating each, I can say with confidence that a focus on the intensity of my lifting is going to create the greatest positive impact. It is the one area where I don't feel I have applied my full attention and energy in the last few years. I commit to 90 days of intense attention and energy toward that single variable. Everything else will stay the same. The idea here is that the question forces you to identify the atomic variable. Everything else is a distraction. Focus there first. Progress follows attention and action. Do less, create more. An idea to define a life of Emerson's definition of success this may be the best definition of success I've ever come across. Quote to laugh often and much to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty. To find the best in others. To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition. To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived this is to have succeeded. Ralph Waldo Emerson I'd break this down into Emerson's nine pillars of success. 1. To laugh often and much laughter keeps us young. Without laughter, you aren't really living. 2. To win the respect of intelligent people earning the respect of people you admire my adaptation on intelligent people through the way you live your life. 3. To win the affection of children. Children see through the bs. You cannot earn their affection without being kind, genuine and trustworthy. 4. To earn the appreciation of honest critics. Earning respect of good faith critics through the way you live your life. 5. To endure the betrayal of false friends. Surviving the inevitable betrayals of people you thought were friends. Painful but impossible to avoid. 6. To appreciate beauty, expressing gratitude for the tiny daily beauties all around us. 7. To find the best in others. It's easy to point out the flaws in others, but it's much better to seek out the best in them and focus there. 8. To leave the world a bit better taking daily actions to improve the world's condition, whether in a grand or tiny way. And 9. To know one life has breathed easier because you lived acting in the service of others rather than solely in the service of the self. So much beauty in these ideas and words. How are you doing on this definition of success? That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something and I hope you'll share it with others. As always, until next time, stay curious, friends.