Books

Learning to Tolerate Uncertainty

Uncertainty is a part of life.
We are never, ever in the position to be certain about what will happen tomorrow or a month from now.
We can never truly know what others are thinking or how life would have looked if we had made a different decision.
And when times are tough, none of us mere mortals can predict how things will pan out, or what the best, risk-free way forward is.

“People think a thought is just something that shows up on its own and you have no power.
But once you say to yourself I have the permission and the ability to choose what I think during the day, to choose the actions I will take, that’s where it becomes really fun.”

Book: Rewire Your Anxious Brain by Nick Trenton

Discipline is not a punishment

Discipline is not a punishment, it’s a way to avoid punishment.
We do it because we love ourselves, we value ourselves and what we do.

Seek yourself, not distraction.
Be happy, not hedonistic.
Let the mind rule, not the body.
Conquer pleasure, make yourself superior to pain.

By the standard of pleasure, nothing is more pleasant than self-control…
and nothing is more painful than lack of self-control.
Nobody who has given themselves over to excess is having a good time.
No one enslaved to their appetites is free.

Book: Discipline Is Destiny by Ryan Holiday

You Can’t Live an Extraordinary Life Sitting on Your Couch

“You can’t understand the world if you never see it.”

Traveling is the best education you will ever receive.
It immerses you in another culture.
It shows you how other people live day-to-day.
And it gives you a greater appreciation for your own opportunities and privileges.

You are going to die — we each get a finite amount of time on this earth.
So do something bold.
Something courageous.
Something ambitious.

Book: How to Live an Extraordinary Life by Anthony Pompliano

Confidence Is Built in the Next Step

Confidence might begin with that first step, but it’s built in the next one.

I brought a new kind of understanding down the mountain with me; an understanding that I was capable of far more than I had ever allowed myself to believe.

What I’ve come to realize is that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is no different than asking for a raise, sharing your ideas in a boardroom, or applying for a job that seems beyond your reach. Climbing Kilimanjaro was me—yes, ME—saying yes to a version of myself that I didn’t even know existed yet.

What about YOU? Have you ever said no to something you wanted to do because self-doubt stopped you from even trying? Turned down a project at work because you doubted your ability to succeed? Let someone dismiss your idea in a meeting because you didn’t feel confident to stand up for yourself? Skipped applying for a job you really wanted because you thought you didn’t meet every qualification? Stayed home from an event because you felt you wouldn’t fit in?

Those are just a handful of ways that self-doubt can show up in our lives. I bet most of us have experienced some, or all, of these moments.

What Did You Fail at Today?

The best way to overcome failure?
Change the way you see it.

Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, grew up with a father who understood the importance of failure and the growth it can bring us. Every day at the dinner table, her father would ask one simple question:

“What did you fail at today?”

If Sara couldn’t think of anything she had failed at, like tripping in the locker room or missing some questions on a math test, her father would be disappointed. That one question, “What did you fail at today?” helped Sara reframe failure as proof that she was trying new things and seizing opportunities. If she wasn’t failing, her father reminded her, she wasn’t really trying.

With this mindset, experiencing failures became a positive thing and nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes, her best failures were even rewarded with a high-five from her proud father. For Sara, the greatest tragedy wasn’t failure; it was never trying or risking anything.

Oftentimes, it’s your own thoughts and fear of failure that hold you back from accomplishing the things you really want to achieve in life. That is, the fear of failing can be much more paralyzing than having to deal with actually failing!

Book: Real Confidence by Simone Knego

SLEEP FOR THE BRAIN

Sleep is not the absence of wakefulness. It is far more than that.

Described earlier, our nighttime sleep is an exquisitely complex, metabolically active, and deliberately ordered series of unique stages.

Numerous functions of the brain are restored by, and depend upon, sleep. No one type of sleep accomplishes all. Each stage of sleep—light NREM sleep, deep NREM sleep, and REM sleep—offer different brain benefits at different times of night. Thus, no one type of sleep is more essential than another. Losing out on any one of these types of sleep will cause brain impairment.

SLEEP TO FORGET?

Up to this point, we have discussed the power of sleep after learning to enhance remembering and avoid forgetting. However, the capacity to forget can, in certain contexts, be as important as the need for remembering, both in day-to-day life (e.g., forgetting last week’s parking spot in preference for today’s) and clinically (e.g., in excising painful, disabling memories, or in extinguishing craving in addiction disorders).

Moreover, forgetting is not just beneficial to delete stored information we no longer need. It also lowers the brain resources required for retrieving those memories we want to retain, similar to the ease of finding important documents on a neatly organized, clutter-free desk. In this way, sleep helps you retain everything you need and nothing that you don’t, improving the ease of memory recollection. Said another way, forgetting is the price we pay for remembering.

Book: Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Do You Ask These and/or Similar Questions?

1. ‘What is the problem?’
2. ‘Why did I fail?’
3. ‘Why are my relationships not working?’
4. ‘Why am I not able to earn as much as I should?’
5. ‘In which subjects is my child weak?’
6. ‘Why am I not getting what I deserve?’
7. ‘Why am I sick so often?’
8. ‘Why are people so insensitive?’
9. ‘Why are people so unhelpful?’
10. ‘Why did that person insult me?’

Try asking the above questions of yourself; see the kind of answers you get, and also observe the kind of mental themes you are creating for yourself. The themes which may emerge are:
‘I am unlucky.’
‘Life is difficult.’
‘Life is uncertain.’
‘People can’t be trusted.’
‘I can never succeed.’
‘It is not in my destiny.’
‘People are selfish.’

Instead, Prefer to Ask These Questions:

1. ‘What keeps me happy and smiling?’
2. ‘What are the things happening in my life which I value?’
3. ‘What do I value in my relationships?’
4. ‘What is the one thing critical to building happy, healthy and stable relationships?’
5. ‘What changes have I made that have positively impacted my life?’
6. ‘What has inspired me lately?’
7. ‘What does career growth mean to me?’
8. ‘How can I enhance my happiness and positivity today?’

Use ‘I Am’ Statements

1. ‘I am alive at this moment and thank God for that.’
2. ‘I am safe at this moment.’
3. ‘I am grateful for what I have today.’
4. ‘I am worthy and deserving of love.’
5. ‘I am focused only on what I can control now.’
6. ‘I am open and present to this experience.’

In case your habitual ‘I’ statements are negative and disempowering in nature—
‘I am stuck’, ‘I am not enough’, ‘I am worthless’—
replace them with empowering ‘I am’ phrases.

‘I deserve happiness and I am capable of creating my own happy moments.’
‘I love and accept myself as I am.’
‘I have the capability to deal with challenges.’
‘I am in an adventurous moment, I will make it a memorable moment.’
‘I have inner resources and I am learning to use them appropriately.’

Changing ingrained mental habits takes practice.
Regularly practising the above for 21 days will bring a sustainable change.

Book: Psychology of Self-Talk by Prof. Manju Agrawal

Influence ≠ People Pleasing

If you’re bending over backwards just to convince people, you are not influencing.
You are auditioning.

Because being sweet is easy.
Being taken seriously requires a lot of work.

You won’t be remembered for always nodding along.
You’ll be remembered for speaking up when it mattered.
For asking the question no one else had the guts to.

Rudeness ≠ Boundaries

When you’ve spent your life shrinking yourself,
the first time you speak up might come out like an explosion.

“I’m done!”
“Stop it!”
“Not happening!”

You don’t need to attack anybody to protect your space.
You don’t need to offend anybody to be clear.

Boundaries don’t have to burn the house down.
They can close the door—gently, firmly, kindly.

Instead of saying: “I’m not doing that.”
Try: “That doesn’t work for me right now,”
or “That’s not something I can take on.”

Book: Winning People Without Losing Yourself
Ankur Warikoo

Personal recommendation — a community of aspiring individuals who grow together and inspire one another:

FavEngClub | Where stories spark courage to follow your heart

Understanding Fear’s Many Faces in Trading

Fear is the most potent emotion traders face, and it’s responsible for more trading mistakes than all other emotions combined. The irony is that fear, which evolved to protect us from danger, often becomes our biggest enemy in the market. Fear isn’t something you need to eliminate from your trading. Instead, you need to understand, work with, and channel it into better decision-making.

Fear in trading isn’t just one emotion—it’s a complex web of anxieties that can paralyze even the most experienced traders. Each type of fear affects your trading differently, and recognizing which one you’re dealing with is the first step toward managing it effectively.

The most obvious type is the fear of losing money. This hits hardest when you’re watching a profitable trade turn against you or sitting on a losing position that keeps getting worse.

Then there’s the fear of missing out, commonly known as FOMO. This fear drives you to chase moves you’ve already missed, often entering positions at the worst possible moments.

The third primary type is the fear of being wrong. This one is particularly insidious because it simultaneously attacks your ego and confidence. It keeps you on the sidelines, watching opportunity after opportunity pass you by.

The fourth primary type is the fear of leaving money on the table—the anxiety traders feel about exiting profitable positions too early and missing out on additional gains. This fear can be just as destructive as losing money because it causes traders to hold winning positions longer than their strategy dictates.

Each of these fears feels different in your body and mind, but they all share one common trait: they push you to make emotional decisions instead of logical ones. The key is learning to recognize which fear you’re experiencing so you can respond appropriately.

The Biology Behind Your Trading Fear

When your brain perceives a threat—like watching your position move against you—it triggers an ancient survival mechanism called the fight-or-flight response. Within seconds, your brain floods your system with stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol. Your heart rate spikes. Your breathing becomes shallow and rapid. Your rational, analytical brain—the prefrontal cortex—can’t function properly.

Instead of thinking clearly, weighing options, and making calculated decisions, your brain defaults to quick, emotional responses designed to get you out of danger as fast as possible.

Book: A Trader’s Guide to Mastering Your Emotions by Steve Burns & Holly Burns

Your Self-Image Determines Your Life

All your actions, feelings, behaviors — even your abilities — are always consistent with your self-image. In short, you will “act like” the sort of person you conceive yourself to be. Not only this, but you literally cannot act otherwise, in spite of all your conscious efforts or willpower.

The man who conceives himself to be a “failure-type person” will find some way to fail, in spite of all his good intentions or his willpower, even if opportunity is literally dumped in his lap. The person who conceives himself to be a victim of injustice, one “who was meant to suffer,” will invariably find circumstances to verify his opinions.

The self-image is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior.

But more than this: the self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment. It defines what you can and cannot do. Expand the self-image and you expand the “area of the possible.” The development of an adequate, realistic self-image will seem to imbue the individual with new capabilities, new talents, and literally turn failure into success.

Book: Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz

Your Best and Worst Choices Are Separated by Noise

Your best choice and your worst choice are rarely separated by values and skills, and almost entirely by the crowd noise in your brain over those choices.

So, Chasing 10Hz is really the goal, not just to be present but especially for higher orders of decision-making and focus.

Book: Life Explained: Chasing 10Hz by Dr. Izzy Justice