Self-Improvement/Reflection
Book Reviews
I am an avid reader, especially of books that focus on developing oneself. Being able to learn from other peoples' decades of experience in a couple of hours and being able to learn from their mistakes is truly the definition of the quote "A wise man learns not only from their mistakes, but the mistakes of others." To summarize and share some key learnings from my favourite books, I wrote articles like the ones below that contain specific action items for readers:
Atomic Habits (my favourite book ever!)
One of the most well-known self-development books of all time. It is the quintessential book to learn how to break bad habits and develop better ones. I regularly reflect upon my learnings from this book in the article I wrote about it to see if I'm committing to the right systems that developing the habits I want to have.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Another very popular book in the self-improvement space. It focuses a lot on developing oneself through the stages from being dependent on those around you, to then becoming independent, and finally, developing interdependence to effectively contribute to society. My article goes over all 7 habits in much more detail.
101 Life Lessons Without the Bullsh*t
It's a book I got for my 18th birthday from friends as a "welcome to adulthood" moment I guess. It's filled with lots of personal stories of a Canadian writer's life experiences as someone who was part of an immigrant family. The article I wrote contains my 1-sentence lessons for all 101 of them, my top 7, and one big question.
Mindsets
So much of what leads to the results we want is from having the right mindset. By understanding which mindset to use in which situation, it can drastically improve your likelihood of success. In my monthly newsletters (which you can check out on the Newsletters page), I recently began making it a habit to talk about a mindset I focused on or learned a lot about in the last month, because I really value the impact they can have. Here are a few articles I wrote to further expand upon my beliefs:
Be Unconventional
So often in life, we want to focus on fitting in. The problem with this, if we want to achieve levels of success, we can't just follow the same path that everyone else is taking. This article talks about my journey with learning to be more unconventional in life.
Bias Towards Action
We all wish we were better at sticking to a certain habit in life, yet we never take the steps needed to make it stick. We spend time planning what to do, and not as much time doing the thing we need to do. I share the importance of this mindset here.
Stoicism
So much of what happens in our life is not in our control. But, as the Stoics have regularly stated, "We are in control of how we choose to respond to what happens in life." This article shares my 1-week stoicism challenge to develop this mindset.
Complacency
This is more of an anti-mindset I talked about. Once we start to get in a groove or start seeing the results of our hard work, it can be extremely tempting to take our foot off the gas and chill for a bit. This article talks about the danger behind that choice.
Personal Growth
I really value my personal growth and have gotten into some very specific habits in the last couple of years that have really helped me in that area. Here are my top 2:
Daily Updates
This started during COVID when I felt aimless and constantly distracted. It was used to create a bit more order and structure to my day, as I would write a Notion page that included my goals for the day, how I was feeling, a reflection of the past day, and what I'm grateful for. In the past few years, it has grown to become something I do basically every day for me to set an intention for my day and make sure I'm sticking to doing the things I most value. You can see the Notion document with all my Daily Updates ever here.
Summer Velocity
As part of The Knowledge Society, a program that focuses on exposing teens to emerging technologies and the skills/mindsets that will lead to future success, we had the opportunity to join the Velocity program within it. This program focused a lot on self-development, learning from role models in society, and having intellectual conversations with like-minded people. When the program ended, I wanted to continue this Velocity program, so I lead it for students during the summer. Here was our Notion page.
The Perspective Podcast
As I began really focusing on expanding my professional network and learning about really cool experiences and work that people I got to learn about were doing, I want to share these experiences with a wider audience. That is why, alongside a friend, we started a podcast to do just that. While we only did 2 episodes together, we enjoyed all the research, preparation, and discussion involved to make them shown below:
S1 E2 - Lloyed Lobo
Lloyed is the co-founder of Boast.ai, a company providing R&D credits to innovators, as well as the co-founder of TractionConf.io, an event-hosting initiative to bring in leaders from different companies to share their learnings and advice. In this episode, we spoke about the importance of prioritization in life, from family to work and everything in between. We got a chance to better understand the importance of community-building in business success. Finally, he shares his insights on the importance of seeking discomfort in our journey to growth through his very personal experiences.
S1 E1 - Steven Woods
Steven is the CTO at Benevity, a business designed to improve workplace giving and volunteering to bring out employees’ true passions in causes they care about. Before, he was the co-founder and CTO at both Nudge.ai and Eloqua (acquired by Oracle), a frequent speaker, and also a published author of a book called "Digital Body Language" which is about deciphering customer intentions online. In this episode, we talked about the science behind human motivation, why companies are becoming stewards of society, changes in identity, and advice for aspiring youth.
Learning from Life
As the common saying goes, "Experience is the best teacher." So much of the lessons I've most deeply connected with and stuck to have been due to personal experiences (and mainly personal struggles) that I've had in the past. Here are 4 articles I wrote to share some examples:
Ode to Homeliness
As I moved out for university, I couldn't help but reflect upon my time spent at home with basically the same people for the first 19 years of home. I thought a lot more about what a "home" meant to be and how it evolved over time here.
The Hospital is my Oasis
As someone who spent lots of time in and out of the hospital for 3+ years while undergoing cancer treatment, I reflected on the uniqueness of that experience in this article. It was important for me to share how much hospital life taught me.
Networking Tips
After attending my very first in-person conference, there was a lot I took away from the event. It was a whole new world I got exposed to, one that made me rethink a lot, and I summarized some key learnings from that experience in this article.
2021 Rewind
I really reflected deeply upon the year as it came to an end. It was a year where I grow so much more than I ever thought I could, but also one that me learn to prioritize the most important parts of life. It's all available in this article.