Often it’s not how much money you make but what you do with it that counts. I heard this story about this Chinese woman selling these little buns, for like fifty cents or something like that, in New York City’s Chinatown many years ago. And after maybe decades of working, she bought a building in…More
A time to grieve
Grieving can be one of the best things we can do. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes it sucks. Sometimes it almost kills us. Sometimes it sends a pandemic. Those are the times we need to grieve. We need to face the terrible state of our life or the lives of others or our…More
This is your bet of a lifetime
We’re all betting, but there’s more to winning. You see, how we spend our time, energy, and money requires us to decide how we want to allocate them. How much time and money do you spend on this or that, invest in the stock market, get together or not, buy expensive clothes, or not are…More
Gratitude is good, but contentment is better
Gratitude. It’s something we hear a lot about, especially this week. But, there is something that has a greater impact on our lives, like gratitude, but more richly. What is it? It’s contentment. You see, gratitude is something you do, an action. But contentment is a state of being. It’s not just an act; it’s…More
Patience: the secret to growth
Growth is a winding, circuitous, and weird path. It’s rarely a straight line. It doesn’t go the way we expect nor want it to go. Sometimes it even means going backward before we begin moving forward. And that’s not necessarily the problem. It’s this. The problem is we often expect our growth to progress linearly, and when…More
How you can survive the pandemic
In this pandemic, our best medicine is to face reality. Reality is being true to the situation at hand, you know, that we are in the middle of a pandemic and being with people is highly risky, especially indoors, mask-less. “Facing reality” means more than intellectual ascent, but actually practicing what you know to be…More
Politics and investing
No matter who’s party is in the White House, the market is in the black. The stock market has been volatile these past several days leading up to the election. And it’s easy to want to sell our investments with a click of a button and jump in a bunker and hunker down. I get…More
Become true for yourself
Don’t be true to yourself; be true to the truth. “Be authentic.” We hear it all of the time. It’s about being true to yourself. But often, being ourselves is the last thing we should be. Often we can be awful. We make mistakes, fail others, hurt our loved ones. I mean, sometimes, I’m a…More
To live your best life, be wrong more
Often we worry about being right. But I think we should be spending more time being wrong. Because sometimes, in life, being wrong is the most right you can be. This sounds strange, I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s false. You see, we live in a world that is obsessed with being right. The…More
Endings are new beginnings
By embracing the end, you will start to see new beginnings. Sure, some endings are good, like getting out of a bad job or unhealthy relationships, etc. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the things we don’t want to end, the ones that aren’t good. It can be as trivial as a…More
John Pa 