A documentation of my journey to improve my life
Tag: 2016
I came to the realization recently that my whole world has basically started and stopped in my own backyard. I grew up here in Canada, I have mostly Canadian friends and everything I know about my life has basically been developed through the lens of North American pop culture (thank you Simpsons, John Hughes, and Alt Rock music). This may seem fine and pretty normal for our culture but when you realize that Canada and the United States collectively only...
Learning a new language can be one of the greatest things you accomplish in your life. It’s rewarding, insightful and inspiring, but if it isn’t done correctly, it can also be one of the most intense, overwhelming and frustrating challenges you’ll ever undertake. As I continue my challenge to learn Chinese in a month, here is Part 2 of my… 10 tips to learning a language in 30 days. Practice Practice Practice If you want to be great at anything, you...
Learning a language in one month seems like a crazy and foolish goal. How could anyone learn a complex and completely unfamiliar language in just one month?! As someone currently attempting this crazy challenge (and with the difficult choice of Mandarin to boot) I can tell you that surprisingly learning a language in a month is not only achievable but if done right, can be much easier than you could ever imagine. Here is Part 1 of my 10 tips to learning...
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” Ludwig Wittgenstein Like most of us, I was given the opportunity to learn a new language as one of my chosen electives back in high school. Having just been forced to suffer through basic french all through middle school and not really enjoying the process I quickly dismissed the idea of tackling a new more challenging language. I had no connection to Mandarin, Cantonese, or Spanish; to me, they seemed...
“Do the thing you fear, and continue to do so. This is the quickest and surest way of all victory over fear.” — Dale Carnegie Fear is universal, whether you’re a multi-billion dollar investor or a convenience store clerk, everyone deals with some sort of fear in their lives. It’s this fear that can hold us back from leading the life we dream of, from taking risks, from achieving our goals and from attempting to build a business of our own. Some...
The sad truth that no one is talking about As part of this month’s ‘entrepreneur challenge,’ I’ve spent a great deal of time ‘interviewing different entrepreneurs‘ trying to extract some of their personal and professional knowledge. This was an incredible, eye-opening experience but surprisingly I found it was not what the entrepreneurs shared on camera that was the most interesting but instead it what they have shared off of it. Almost every single founder expressed that they were currently or previously struggling...
The secret to my success: Community No matter what you hope to achieve in life I cannot understate the incredible value of building a strong and diverse personal community. It is without any reservation that I can say that I am where I am today because of the amazing people that have supported me along the way. They have freely offered their knowledge when I’ve requested it, they have caringly shared their support when I’ve needed it and they have...
“Vision without execution is delusion” – Thomas A. Edison” Do you have a big idea? A crazy dream? A grand plan? Well, what’s stopping you from bringing it to life? Are you stalled in planning or are you, like most of us, lacking the push towards execution? If you ask any true entrepreneur they will tell you that ideas are a dime a dozen. Even if you think you have the next million dollar idea, the reality is that not only...
Does your job make you happy? It’s a simple question, but I realize not such an easy answer. Let me rephrase the question; are you doing something that when you wake up in the morning, you’re excited to go and do? Yes, no?? Here’s a scarier question, if the answer was no, why are you still doing that thing that you obviously don’t like? I was faced with this question recently, and it was by far, one of the most difficult...
Winners and losers, this is how we’ve divided up the world. There is no grey area, no participation ribbons to be given out for good efforts (as much as we like to pretend that there are). We shower our winners with glory and quickly forget about those that strived but did not succeed. We are taught to idolize winners and to model ourselves after them, but what happens when we ourselves strive and falter? What happens when we attempt to reach for greatness...
