Happy Wednesday, Wise Owl Nation!

This week will be a short one!

My sister is getting married tomorrow and this week my day job is hosting a week-long workshop for all of the Agile Coaches (that's me!).

This just equates to a very busy week.

Most other newsletters would just take the week off, but not this newsletter!

I am here every week to give you all some value and hopefully some motivation to attack the rest of your week with.

So this week I am going to revisit some of my favorite guiding principles.

To quote Galadriel in Lord of the Rings - "May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out." 🧝🏼‍♀️

Let's get into it.

You can find all past issues (including this one) here. 

_____________________________________

Was this email forwarded to you? 

Click here to subscribe

_____________________________________

🦉🧠 Wise Owl Thought(s) of The Week: My Favorite Guiding Principles

As I stated above this week's issue will be a recollection of some of my favorite guiding principles. I've definitely written about them before, but as I wrote last week, it's good to tune yourself up.

Principles are powerful because they are guiding lights that help us solve problems, answer difficult questions, and make tough decisions.

The more principled you are in your thinking, the easier life becomes.

Acquire Knowledge and Improve

When all else fails, I will always have my knowledge to fall back on.

The more I learn, the more I take action on what I learn, and the more capable I become.

When you feel lost or down, I've found this is one of the most consistent ways to lift my spirits. Learn something useful, apply that knowledge to your life, reap the rewards, repeat.

Image via jaozolins

Play Longterm Games

How to play long-term games:

• Systems > Goals
• Discipline > Motivation
• Writing > Reading
• Vulnerability > Confidence
• Trends > News
• People > Projects
• Problems > Solutions
• Questions > Solutions

Good enough is better than Perfect

Perfection is an illusion. It doesn't exist, and yet humans chase it with blind faith and determination. Stop chasing perfect. Good is good enough.

No value ever comes from an incomplete project. Stop starting, start finishing.

Praise in public, criticize in Private

The quickest way to alienate someone is to criticize them in public.

Most people hate the spotlight in general, and a negative spotlight will only compound the discomfort.

So praise publicly when it matters, and criticize privately.

Ask before giving advice

Especially if the advice will be given publicly.

My mind wants to share cool things I've learned to such an extent, that I always have to pause when I hear someone venting about a problem of theirs, less I start blabbing advice that wasn't actually asked for.

Simply ask if someone wants to hear your thoughts or advice on a topic before giving it.

Spend less than you earn

This should be no surprise to any of you, but you can't build wealth if you are spending more than you are earning.

Systems > Goals

I bit if a reiteration but this one is powerful.

Use bursts of motivation to establish repeatable systems rather than using motivation to kick off a new project or idea you're excited about.

The system will keep you going and progressing when you have bad days, where the motivation will end once that energy is spent.

As James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits:

"You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."

Have a great week!

This concludes our issue this week, I hope it gave you some perspective or injected a little motivation into your life!

If it helped, let me know! I read every newsletter response I receive, and I absolutely love hearing from all of you. This newsletter is for you, so I need your help to make it as great as possible.

If you'd like to show me some love for writing all this free stuff, you can always buy me a coffee.

More Resources

I will be adding to this section over time as we find resources that will help you all.

• Check out the Wise Owl Store
• All Wise Healthy Wealthy Articles on Medium
• Start your own Sendfox Newsletter
• Free products to help you level up

Crypto Resources

The Bankless Podcast: This is a link to the bankless podcast on Spotify. Start from the very beginning and learn why I am so positive about the power of Crypto and Ethereum in particular. You can find the podcast easily on the internet, but I am linking to episode 1 on Spotify for your convenience.

Buy your first ETH or BTC:

• On Coinbase - this is the easiest starting place for the newest beginners
• On Gemini - Another great option founded by the Winklevoss brothers. They are based out of New York.
• On Kraken - Kraken has a bit of a harder user interface, but they already have ETH staking enabled with the push of a single button.

Earn interest on your crypto

• BlockFi - Currently, you can earn 4% interest on BTC, 5% interest on ETH, and a whopping 8.5% on stable coins like USDC. Use the referral code b09f24fd to support the newsletter. BlockFi is currently not accepting new customers from the USA for its Crypto Savings Account. Non-US customers are still welcome.

Other tools:

• Argent Wallet - This is the best mobile wallet for Ethereum, Defi, and all things on the Ethereum network, including staking. They even have plans to implement Layer 2 to remove network fees.
• Ethhub - this is a weekly newsletter that lists out all the interesting news, articles, and tweets that have happened in Crypto that week. It's free and awesome.
• Ethdashboard - A simple dashboard to look at various metrics in the ethereum space. I mainly use this as a quick tool to check ETH gas fees.
• Cointracker - this is one of the better tools for tracking all of your various crypto across all of the various wallets, exchanges, etc. You can also use them to do your crypto taxes each year.
• Metamask - this is a crypto wallet that you can access from your browser and allows you to easily interact with blockchain apps online.