Question on your daily choice:

Which wolf will you feed?

I recently came across an old Native American story that I love:

A grandfather takes his grandson on a walk to share his wisdom for life.

"A fight is going on inside me," he tells the boy. "It's a terrible fight between two wolves. One is bad, he is anger, fear, hate, jealousy, and envy. One is good, he is hope, kindness, joy, love, and optimism."

The boy asks, "Which wolf will win?"

To which the grandfather replies:

"The one you feed."

I can't stop thinking about this story.

We all have the two wolves inside of us.

If you choose to feed the Dark Wolf, you'll be filled with anger, fear, hate, jealousy, and envy. If you instead choose to feed the Light Wolf, you'll be filled with hope, kindness, joy, love, and optimism.

Which wolf will you feed?

Remember: The choice is yours. So, choose wisely.

Quote on the nature of leadership:

"A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd" - Islwyn Jeneins

To lead is to have the courage to question the consensus. To carve your own path. To create by your own design.

Remember that.

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Framework on questioning defaults:

Three Men Make a Tiger

This is an ancient Chinese proverb that I love:

A minister approached the king and asked, "If one person came to you and claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace, would you believe it?"

The king replied, "No, of course not."

The minister continued, "What if two people claimed there was a tiger in the marketplace?"

The king paused and said, "I might begin to have some doubt."

Finally, the minister asked, "And what if three people all insisted there was a tiger in the marketplace?"

The king responded, "If three people claimed it, I would believe there’s a tiger."

The minister concluded, "Your Majesty, there is no tiger in the marketplace, yet with enough voices, even the most absurd claim can seem true."

This story, often referred to as Three Men Make a Tiger, offers an important life lesson that repetition can create the illusion of reality.

The Illusory Truth Effect says that consistent, repeated exposures to a statement will increase the likelihood that we believe it to be true, even if it's false. In other words, if you're told something over and over again, it will take in your mind as a truth.

There are a variety of implications of this idea, but I'm most interested in how it relates to a few areas of life:

1. The Mountains You Choose to Climb: Throughout your early years, you're told that the path to a happy, successful life is making money and accumulating things. This is the mountain that people tell you to climb, so it's the mountain you eventually accept as your own. Three men make a tiger.
2. The Stories You Tell Yourself: Your internal voice repeats certain stories about who you are and about what you're capable of. Those stories are repeated so often that they take hold as truth and control your actions in the real world. If you tell yourself you aren't capable, you start to believe it, and you start shrinking to match that belief. Three men make a tiger.

The real wisdom here is not to ignore the voices of the crowd—after all, sometimes, if three people say there's a tiger in the market, there may actually be a tiger in the market.

The real wisdom is to pause before you default into believing them.

Cultivate an independent mindset. Question the assumptions you've been told about the mountains you should climb. Question the stories you tell yourself.

Pause and question whether the tiger is real.

Note: Asking critical questions about your life is at the core of my NYT bestselling book, The 5 Types of Wealth. To go deeper on the questions and start taking action to build your life around the things you truly care about, order it now.

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New addition to my morning routine:

30 minutes of free-reading

Confession: Over the last few years, I slowly lost my joy for reading books.

The biggest reason was that most of my reading became highly structured, part of a disciplined research process for my own book. I got away from the free-flowing, natural reading that had previously been so energy-creating in my life.

I want to change that, so I'm committing to 30 minutes of free-reading as part of my morning routine. Free-reading just means that I'll have ~5-10 different books on my desk and I'll just pick up whatever calls me on a given day. No plan, no forcing myself to finish, no specific aim. Truly free.

Structurally, it'll be the first thing I do when I get to my desk at 5am, as I think it's easier to build a new habit ​when you do it first thing in the morning​.

P.S. I'll share occasional updates on the interesting things I'm reading or coming across in this newsletter, so stay tuned!

The power of tolerating uncertainty:

It's very easy to show up with energy when something is working. When it's clicking. When the result feels predictable. It's very hard to show up with energy when the rewards are uncertain.

Those who can tolerate the most uncertainty are the ones who will eventually win.

Remember that.