Believe in yourself and your story.

As I was exploring the books I read in 2023, I came across Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday. I’d praised Holiday’s work before in this newsletter, but I had a harder time loving that book.  

While Ego is the Enemy talks about the pitfalls of being overly confident and full of yourself, it downplays the power of confidence and self-belief. When I introduced a friend to the book, he said that it was sending the wrong message. I disagreed with him at the time, but now I tend to agree.

While taming our egos is an important lesson and can help us avoid acting pridefully or overconfidently, I believe that for most people, the problem is the opposite: not trusting themselves enough. In this case, Holiday’s work may not be the best influence.

So, as we are heading into the holiday season and start planning our 2024, I’d suggest you trust your ego (within limits of course) and believe in your skills!

📇 Connect with your audience through storytelling

The good folks at Buffer ran an experiment. They launched the same piece of content twice - once by itself and once accompanied by a story. The result?

More engagement and more full-page readers when it started with the story. Amazing, right?

If you too want your content to reach results like these, use the power of storytelling!

There is no better excuse to tell your own story and get people engaged with what you do.

Read the full story (no pun intended) here.

Shelf Shocks

1. The Other Side of Happiness: Embracing a More Fearless Approach to Living by Dr. Brock Bastian

We are hardwired to avoid pain and being uncomfortable - both as individuals and as a society. But Dr Bastian suggests that pain can also be useful - it can make us happier, stronger, and better connected to those around us.

The book will teach you that staying positive isn’t the magic key to happiness, and that accepting pain can make you more fearless and help you do the things you have avoided.

2. Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by Shane Parrish

Our life is made up of small decisions. How do we make sure that those decisions are consistently the right ones? According to Shane Parrish, by learning to think clearly. He has dedicated his life to understanding how people make good decisions and has picked the brains of some of the brightest thinkers of our generation.

The result is a fun, engaging, and practical guide to better decision-making. The book will teach you how to notice the enemies of clear thinking, to be self-accountable, to know your strengths and weaknesses, and to turn your thoughts into effective actions.

3. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live) by Eve Rodsky

Eve Rodsky felt like she was failing to manage all her tasks at home and at work. Then she made a list of all the chores she did for the household and started splitting that work between her and her husband. As if by magic, her life, career, and fulfillment began to increase.

Resulting from hundreds of interviews, Fair Play proposes a system to divide work at home so both you and your partner know what work you should be doing. The result? More time and less anxiety for everyone, making this book an essential read for every busy household.

Fun Links

1. Create custom graphics with ease!

With Jitter.video, you are able to create custom graphics, such as app notifications (for Instagram and Facebook), tweets, reels, and more! Simply hop on their site, choose the right template for your needs, and add your custom text.

What’s best, it offers a great free plan, and if you’d like to pay, you can get even more features. And if you’d like to remove the background from your graphics, simply use the tool below!

2. Remove backgrounds for free!

How many times have you wanted to use a picture for a presentation or a graphic, but didn’t want to use a square - instead, you wanted to just use a part of the picture?

Well, removing the background is actually super easy - with this website! Simply drag and drop your pic and it will deliver the picture with the background removed!

You've reached the end of my newsletter. Hooray! If you have any comments or would like to share what you enjoyed the most, feel free to get in touch! See you in two weeks!