Question: What am I avoiding because it's too painful to address?

Framework: Fundamental Attribution Error.

While we all want to live in a state of low stress, during certain moments, we need to learn to optimize our stress response—we need to learn to harness stress to our benefit rather than allowing it to derail us.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law says that stress and performance are positively correlated, but only up to a certain point, after which more stress reduces performance.

3 strategies for mastering stress: (1) Reframe threat into challenge; (2) Use science-backed breathing techniques to pull back from the edge; and (3) Place yourself in controlled stressful environments to train your stress response.

Question: If you woke up three years from now and were living your ideal life, what were the three things you did to get you there?

Framework: The Pyrrhic Victory.

Theory: Our belief in our ability to create our own luck exposes us to more good fortune (or at least allows us to see the good fortune amidst a sea of bad).

In an early 2000s study, Dr. Richard Wiseman found that lucky people came across "chance" opportunities, while the unlucky people seemed to miss them. Both groups had equal access to these opportunities, but the lucky group saw what the unlucky group tended to miss.

Our daily thoughts, behaviors, and actions serve to expand or contract our luck surface area, which in turn determines our experience as a lucky or unlucky person.

The Luck Razor: When choosing between two paths, always choose the path that has a larger luck surface area.

Question: Do I actually need more information, or do I simply need to act on the information I already have?

Framework: The Identity-Action Grid

I recently got a message from a 22-year-old reader asking for career advice. Career advice is a topic area that I have always found interesting, probably because I feel it so often misses the mark. I take this as a challenge.

I sat down and synthesized the advice I would have wanted to receive early in my career (or what I would tell my own son if he were just starting out).

The 7 pieces of career advice everyone needs to hear: (1) Swallow the frog, (2) Do the old fashioned things well, (3) Work hard first and smart later, (4) Build storytelling skills, (5) Build a rep for figuring it out, (6) Show up early and stay late, and (7) Dive through cracked doors.

Question: Which thorns do you choose?

Framework: The Question of Nine.

The Wall Street Journal recently released a visual breaking down how people spend their time in retirement. The visual shows that the majority of a retiree's time is spent on sleeping, relaxing and leisure, and watching television.

Most of us create this beautiful image of what retirement will look like, but the reality is (likely) much different. Why? Well, the image we create is based on who we are today, while the reality will be based on who we are at retirement age.

The traditional concept of retirement is grounded in a foundational assumption that there should be a "before and after" within your life. I would propose a reframe: The goal is to design a life that you don't need to retire from.

Question: What are the boat anchors in your life?

Framework: Q1 relationships.

David Brooks first proposed a distinction between Résumé Virtues and Eulogy Virtues. Résumé Virtues are the things you put on your resume. Eulogy Virtues are the things people talk about at your funeral.

What I've resolved: We can build both, but only by focusing on the correct directionality. A purposeful focus on Eulogy Virtues will build Résumé Virtues, but a focus on Résumé Virtues will not build Eulogy Virtues.

If there's one thing I learned last week, it's that life is so very fragile. But no matter how fragile it is, each day, we have a choice of how to live it. Each day is a fresh start, a fresh choice to make. How will you choose to live?