• Being paranoid. It feels like we’re on the edge all the time. Are they laughing at me?…. They MUST be laughing at me. I ALWAYS get laughed at. When we have these thoughts, it really changes the way we see the world. But some of us probably have these thoughts are our entire lives, and we just don’t know why. We definitely want to it stop, and people tells us the same things every time: It’s all in your head. Doesn’t help.
• Paranoia is the unrealistic belief that the world is out to hurt us.
  • Paranoia starts from a past event that shapes the way we see the world. - A traumatic event from the past can cause our brain to create an unrealistic belief. The emotional experience we learned for the event shapes the way we think and interpret the things around us. Emotions  We WANT to believe the unrealistic belief, so we subconsciously find all the evidence to support that belief. It’s like the time when you just bought a new car and then you start to see that car everywhere. What we notice and want to see. We tend to find the evidence for it, even if it’s not there.
  • Paranoia has fear and anxiety as the consequences for that belief.
• Use interruptions to stop your negative thoughts.
  • The reason why paranoia spins out of control is due to the chain of negative imagination attached to it. - First is be extremely clear of what your paranoid belief is. Now tally and count every time you found evidences supporting that paranoid belief, then go back to what you are doing. Every time when you have a thought, the tallying is physically interrupting the chain of thought. You are increasing self awareness for every thought you interrupt. Awareness gives us control. We can’t control how we feel, but we can control how we respond to it.
• Actively find other possible explanations for your thoughts.
  • To decrease the intensity of your paranoia, actively think of other possibilities for your thoughts. “Maybe the person is just having a good time and not laughing at me.” If you can, focus on empathizing with the person you felt paranoid about.

• For me, when I can help it, long term choices always seems more worth it. It not EASIER, but it’s worth it. Like working out to strengthen my body a little bit everyday, and it prevent injuries long term. Read 10 minutes a day, and I could finish 2 books a month. Having a long term thinking allows for me to accomplish bigger goals. Small wins only get you so far, because your wins are not purposed and maybe even impulsive. Eating those fries might taste good in the short run, but how about your health for the rest of your life? And….it’s not like we don’t know this either, so it’s more about our choice. If you want change, something in your life has to change.
• Persistence and consistency produce results.
  • I think it’s fair to say good things never come easy. Great artworks are crafted over long periods of time. A healthy body takes careful choice of food. A happy life takes careful choice of friends. We have to pick the right things and invest in them long term. Just doing what feels right at the time makes you at the mercy of your emotions. Seeking the immediate results trains us to become impatient and can never focus long enough to see progress. As a result, we jump from activity to activity without accomplishing anything. Know that good things are usually long term and takes hard work.
  • Tortoise always beats the hare. Don’t forget that. - The old parable of the tortoise and the hare really puts life into perspective. Your whole life is a journey, so don’t sprint half way and stop for the remainder. Invest and grow daily towards your goal in life. Have some short stops for those “hangry” days, and keep strive to be more resilient.
  • It’s a mistake picking friends by superficial traits and not by the quality of their hearts. - Our closest friends have so much influence on us that we need to select them carefully. You want friends that would really accept you not for having brand clothing or great hairstyle but for appreciating who you are as a person. If people are not willing to accept you, either you’re being a bad friend or they have to go.
  • Pay checks - easy to take it and spend it on a nice meal with your friends or go to an amusement park.
• You are your best investment.
  • Do you want your future partner to be amazing? Invest in yourself, because they want the same thing too. - Who wouldn’t want a talented significant other that’s intelligence, kind, sociable, and has a good job? Everyone wants to be with someone like that, but most people don’t put in the work to become someone like that. As a result, everyone looks around and wonder where did all the good people go to. So invest in yourself and inspire others to do it too! When everyone becomes a good catch, the societal standards increase, communities become better, and you don’t have to settle for less in choosing your partner. Everyone wins!

• Kind of tiring to have all the focus on you ALL of the time? Doesn’t matter if it’s you being too smart, too pretty or too ugly. It’s anything that makes you standout and making everyone focused on you. THAT is tiring. Wouldn’t it be nice to relax when you go outside without having to worry about how other people think about you? 
• Attention magnifies your fear of people.
  • We can’t be ourselves under constant attention. - Doesn’t matter the setting, when we have dozen pairs of eyes aiming at us, it just feels weird. There is a reason why public speaking is one of the top fears for people. The thing is it’s not just glances. It’s the judgments & intent behind those glances. What are they thinking? Is something wrong with us? Maybe they are having WEIRD thoughts that we don’t even want to know about. Why are they staring at us? All these thoughts just go through our minds, and we go through our days worrying about it instead of enjoying the day. Other times, we just get tired of people wanting something from us. Too much attention is like putting ourselves under a microscope. we can see EVERYTHING.
• Expectations has the power to change one’s path.
  • Attention feels like we are constantly being judged on that one trait. - If we are known for our smarts, people will expect us to be smart. People will judge us when we are not smart. Smart becomes their expectation of us. It can make us feel anxious and restless, because we are not liked if we are not smart. You can also replace smarts with beauty, money, fame. When people expect these things, they have the power to change the way we act. Why?…because we are people, we like attention. Unless we deliberately break those expectations and replace them with our expectations of ourselves, we’ll feel stressed.
  • We are pressured to become someone else by pretty much everyone and everything. - The world will always try to force you to become one way. You should drive this car, buy this brand, sing this song, eat this food, because it’s a capitalist society. People make money off of you buying their things, which is ok until they start pressuring us to be a certain way. The most apparent is physical beauty. Somehow all the guys are super ripped and all the girls are extremely skinny. That is the standard of beauty, but normal people aren’t like that. We don’t have photoshopped bodies or plastic surgeries, so we can look almost unrealistic. We’re just people. We need to repeatedly remind ourselves that we don’t need to follow their expectation of what is beautiful, smart, or successful. Be you. Just you.
• Walk in your own spotlight, not the ones others made for you.
  • Michael Jordon is without a doubt one of the greatest basketball in history. Adele has one of the most powerful voice in the current music industry. Ibtihaj Muhammad is one of the best female fencers in the world and became the first American Olympian to wear the hijab [a veil traditionally worn by Muslim women]. They all have countless critics, but they still walked their own path upon discovering their unique talents. We have to find our own style and create our own spotlight, not the ones others set for us.

• We are PERECT the way we are! It’s being said too much, but it has to be said. This means don’t try to become someone else. Sadly, this is what our society is constantly doing to us. Bombarding us repeated with how we ought to look, eat, vote, and whatever you can think of. Learn to develop your own opinion, and don’t be afraid to show yourself to others. Life is too short to let other people determine how you ought to walk [Sounds ridiculous]. Go at your own pace!
• We are the most amazing when we show who we really are.
  • The people we admire are the fearless people not being afraid to show their vulnerabilities and weaknesses. When Mother Teresa went out there to love on people, there are probably people that took advantage of her kindness. However, she kept going even though she was hurt inside, because she knew her mission & who she is. We don’t have to be as great as Mother Teresa, but we can take the challenge to express just who we are. We are supposed to be different as people, so let’s appreciate our uniqueness.
  • Korean Beauty Pageant - Lots of girls with the same face due to plastic surgery and strive for societal beauty. I was pretty sad to see how the world educated these young women that you can only look certain way to be beautiful.
• I want to see the real you.
  • Most of the time people hide behind a fancy car, muscular body, face of makeup, or their job that I can’t see who they really are. It’s not bad to have these things; however, if that is all I see when I talk to them, that’s a problem. I think we prefer to talk to people, and not people wearing masks. Being genuine and authentic is attractive. I think we all like to talk to people that are real and honest. However, somehow people have the idea that you can “trick” someone into liking you by having all these “successes”. It doesn’t work that way. We can detect the fakeness [I just created a word] from a mile away. So, just be you. I BELIEVE in you! The only requirement you need to do this is to be very honest with yourself. We are all on the same journey. I am still working on myself too.
  • Looks fade, but people will always remember how we made them feel. - Culture has always embraced beauty, but looks fade. Also, looks doesn’t make you a nice person. Being a nice person makes you a nice person [obviously]. Invest in your character, your generosity, not in just your looks. Abs and beauty won’t even last until your 40s, but your personality will. =D
  • Being you is more freeing, and you can develop traits that matter. - The good thing about being yourself is people will actually like you for you. Also, you have the freedom to cultivate skills that matter to you, and not doing things for the expectations of others.
  • By being genuine, you set an example for the next generation.
    • Kids will copy your freeness to be yourself! If you be yourself around them, you teach them to express their individuality courageously. You are their heroes!
• At times, we are people of high potential doing not the wisest things.
  • We all seen celebrities and sports stars ruin their careers because of bad decisions. We are people of amazing potential, so let’s make decisions that help us become more of who we are, not how others want us to be.
  • It would be amazing to walk down the street and relax without having to worry about how others think about you. - Practice being yourself.

• As people, we definitely need good quality relationships to have a fulfilling life. However, sometimes it feels like the relationships currently around us isn’t the ones we want. Some people might be too critical, and other people gossip about you. Why is THIS happening?! I wish I had peaceful and encouraging relationships. The reason lies in what you are attracting to yourself. What we show to the world is what will attract the world to us.
• You attract what you put out.
  • Why do we attract what we don’t want then? - The sad truth is we actually don’t know exactly how other people sees us. How we see ourselves doesn’t always match how others see us. We might be thinking we’re being very supportive to a friend, but in reality, she might be thinking we’re really annoying. We might be friendly to someone, but he or she might think otherwise. If our perception doesn’t meet reality, then this is most likely why. We have to be very honest in accepting the fact that others might think of us differently than we see ourselves.
  • Have you wonder why you and your friends share the same interests? - Similar people attract each other! Why is it that people of the same race gather in the same neighborhoods? They like each other. They can relate with one another better. They share more of the same interest together. You and your friends share some kind of interest together, and it’s the one you show to the world. It can be your looks, personality, finance, career, or fashion. Your current friends all share something the group can relate to. This means if you want friends that appreciate your personality, show your personality more, so they can find you. We all can do it!
• Most of us want ALL of us to be accepted, not just our looks, intellect, or career.
  • We want to have quality relationships. - Life is incomplete without good quality relationships. There are tons of CEOs out there that are miserable, because his/her family is broken. Make sure to find individuals accepting of the complete you. I know I know... they are hard to find, but keep trying. We are definitely NOT LACKING critical people; however, don’t settle for them. On the other hand, there are also people that like you just for your looks or money, which is very shallow. It might feel good for a little bit, but deep down you know they are not your friends. As soon as things get tough, they are gone like the wind.
• Put out high quality traits, and you will attract the same thing.
  • If you show that you are a tennis lover, you will find passionate tennis players. If you memorized all the products on Vogue catalogue, you will get people that cares about their looks. If you show your love and kindness, people valuing the same things will find you too. What kind of relationship do you want? Which type of relationship is most fulfilling for you? Also please examine yourself and surround yourself with amazing faithful support generals.
• If you like to help all of become better friends, please share what is the top trait you want in your friend and why?

Summary

• I remembered the time when I first failed my math exam. Couldn’t believe it. I REALLY felt like I was less of a person. My identity was shaken. Of course, there is more mistakes in this life than math tests. Missing deadlines at work. Regretting saying things to your significant other. Then it happens again and again. The same mistakes become a cycle, and our self esteem plummets with it. Sometimes it feels like we’re in the bottom of the ocean. Distanced and depressed. I doubt anyone wants to feel this way. I been there through a lot of my failures too. Will things ever change? How can we change it?
• You want to change, but are you committed to change? 
  • When we make a commit to change, it means no going back. You can fail, but you won’t give up. If you want to change, you have to be committed. Usually, people just go into a decision hoping it’s going to work out without any strategies or teachers. Know this: it’s time to learn. Doesn’t matter which life stage you are in, you can learn. You don’t go at a problem the same way every single time. You will get the same EXACT results every time. You examine your past result and ask yourself “What do I need to change?”, “What will make this work?”. Then apply to your next try. Repeat until success. I wish there is an easier way, but bottom line is any change is hard.
• When we change the way we think, we change the way we see the world.
  • Start asking yourself “What can I learn from my mistakes?” - You have to shift your mentality in approaching the your failure. If you only see how much of a failure you are from it, you’re only going to make yourself feel worse. Everyone at some point starts from ground zero. Experts fail more times than the beginner could ever imagine. The difference here is with every failure the expert sees it as an opportunity to get better. Failures are revelations of potential improvements. Doesn’t it excite you that you can get even better? You have more room to grow, and failure shows you exactly what you need to work on.
• If you aren’t preparing to win, it won’t happen.
  • Everyone wants to win, but few puts in the effort to prep for it. If you want to concentrate to read for 30 minutes, do you plan when you are going to read? Did you pick a location where you can concentrate? Did you have paper and pen for notes? These questions are your preparations. They help and make sure you succeed in reading for 30 minutes. So depending on what you are trying to work on, work projects or mending a past relationship, you have to plan to win. Think of all the potential distractions and try to eliminate them. After a strict diet, don’t leave cookie hanging around. Think ahead and know what your vulnerabilities are.

Summary

• Some people really don’t like this word. Some people want it to happen SOOO badly. Commitments. Not just in relationships but everywhere else too. When we are committed to something, we promise to give it our energy and attention. Kids are commitments. Work is commitment. Relationship are commitments too. What makes people avoid it? What makes it so scary? Is it the time and effort? Or do people just want freedom as opposed to constraint? These are all valid reasons. However, I want to talk about the core perspective. Some of the main barriers in the mind that is causing commitment issues.
• Don’t search for a person to make your life better. Become a person that can make your life and others' lives better.
  • Always be searching for something to fill your life with, and you’ll be waiting your whole life. - This one is more the people that dabbles in everything but doesn’t give a lot of effort. This can be relationships, work, hobbies, or life. They are constantly on the go to find the best thing so they can be happy. They want the feeling of happiness. I’ll be straight with you. That’s not going to happen. What is happening is searching for things to fill up your life is the same as looking for others to solve your problems for you. Problem of happiness in this case. However, this problem requires inner work, not outer work. Things on the outside can only make us happy for a transient period of time, so look for purpose within. 
• Uncertainty, especially in the area of security, causes lack of commitment.
  • Unwillingness to take steps towards uncertainty is the limitation for many. - Most of the time, please do your homework in the commitment you are about to take. If it’s a person, look for red flags or major character flaws. If it’s a house, check how it’s going to affect the finances and the safety of the neighborhood. Yet, there always comes to a time where you have to take that leap of faith. Uncertainty is not a beneficial place for people to stay in. Yes or No, pick one. A lot of times people actually want to say no, but they are afraid of losing what they already have. Another reason is people want to benefit of commitment without the responsibility of commitment. This usually means they have some growing up to do.
• The more you push someone, the more they push back.
  • If you want someone to do something in the long run, you have to inspire them to see the reason for doing it. - There is a common saying: “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” If we want others to commit to something, we can’t push them to it. No amount of nagging or force will get someone to willingly do something for long periods of time. In fact, if we use force to get someone to do something, we will push them away more. They will no longer feel like it’s their choice to the commitment. If we want to lead someone towards a decision, we have to inspire them and help them see the reasons why. Ultimately, still letting them pick the choice. If they still insist on waiting longer, you also have the choice to move on.

Summary

• “Just follow your heart.” That’s what people say all the time. It make sense in some situations like choosing a hobby or your ice cream flavor, but not when you are making huge important decision for your life. I get it. You still have to go with your passion and what you enjoy in your decisions, but you also need to consider the practical consequences to your choices. You can choose a very good looking partner with anger issues, but our hearts tell us that we should just go for it anyways. You see an amazing looking chocolate cake [full of sugar!], but you heart wants it bad. Do you follow your heart or your brain? There has to be a balance. Emotions are wonderful creations. We feel all different sensations through our bodies. But I’ll say this when making an important decision, sleep on it first. Then revisit the it with clear eyes and mind.
• Never make decisions based on how you feel. Feelings come and go, but results will remain.
  • Ever had an impulse purchase? That is exactly what I’m talking about. - Emotions comes in bursts. So vivid and alive! It can make everything seem fabulous, even the wrong choices. Just for a slight second suddenly spending $400 on a pair of limited edition shoes seems….somewhat ok. I think. Even though I have rent to pay for. That...my friend is the influence of emotions. Trying to get to the grocery store in the middle of a thunderstorm? That's us making a decision filled with emotions. Whatever decisions we make, we have to take on all the responsibilities and consequences of them. That’s how we grow. Now you can see why I strong advise against making quick and impulsive decisions. 
• Feelings decorate our experiences but cloud our judgments.
  • "Love: A grave mental illness" - Plato - Love is described as just feeling almost possessed. Lovestruck. Head over heels. Don’t get me wrong. Love is great. We need love, but emotions can literally change us as a person. When anger takes over someone, the transformation is almost like Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. Emotions have the ability to intensify our experiences to the utmost. In both cases of love and anger, emotions still expresses who we are as people, but we are at the mercy of them if they take over. There are so amazing paintings and artworks made as a product of emotions. It has creativity and potential, but not judgment. Making a good decision requires our logical side. Planning, scheduling, evaluation, and self control. The logical side is the side we must rely on for selecting the best choices.
  • Feelings are like puppies. Wonderful, unpredictable, but you need to keep in check. - Can you control emotions.? The answer is yes. Why are we having so much problem then? Most of us don’t know how to control it. Emotional intelligence is getting more and more attention in the modern era, because it matters in the long run. If you are super smart but can’t work with anyone at all, who would want to hire you? Understanding how to manage and maintain our emotions is the key to having more freedom. I’m not saying have NO emotions! Manage your emotions. Self control.

Summary

• Rejection! This is almost the number one reason people don’t act on what they want. We dodge potential opportunities, so we don’t have to face this horrible feeling. But I want to have a better job! A better partner! Provide a better life for my kids! Yes, but I’m also….afraid of failing. This is the debate we go all the time. Failure is a strong rejection especially if we make it part of our identity. If I want to share my idea with someone, I don’t want to look unintelligent. Our fear of rejection all really comes down to the fear of LOOKING BAD in front of other people. However, the cost of fear is neglecting your own wants.

• Understand that every single experience is a learning experience.
  • We only learn when we actively focus our minds on learning. - We can literally go through a traumatic experience and not learn anything, which means the same thing is going to happen again next time. Our experience is mainly dependent on what we focus on. We can feel the pain of rejection and work through it, but not trying to find life lessons from it. Life lessons allow us to grow to become wiser individuals in the future. Take the time to see that every rejection is a chance for you to learn: What to do or what not to do. Why caused this rejection to happen? What preparations can I do next time to make it better? Every we do this, we a get chance to be a little more amazing next time!
• A big or small step. Any step towards the right direction is a good step.
  • You are not racing with anyone except yourself, but make sure you are finishing your own race. - I’m of the mindset that you need to define your path and walk towards it. If you are trying to be a great friend, define what makes a great friend and work towards it. However, this also means whatever steps you are taking away from your path is a bad step. Overcoming fear of rejection can be done by just focusing on your own path. It’s ok to be rejected, because you are taking steps forward in your own journey. JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was rejected 12 times before it was published, and now the Harry Potter series has sold more than 400 million copies worldwide. Rejection is part of the progress to grow you as a person. It gives you strength. Small or big. Take that step.
• Not just beauty. Experience is also in the eye of the beholder.
  • Choose to focus on the positive in an experience changes your relationship with rejection. - The common approach after a rejection is more like “I feel SO BAD about myself. I DON’T WANT to try again.” Or at least that’s what we said in our heads. Imagine a happy family picture. We can zoom in on the happy parents on the bench. We can examine the children playing tag of war. We can even just admire the amazing scenery in background. However, that’s not what we do in this case. We just keep pointing out the dirty trash bin on the side. That’s ALL we see! We even see it in High Definition. EVERY SINGLE piece of trash. That is our experience with rejection. There are so many good life lessons we can apply from a rejection, but we ignore everything except the bad aspects. So now….shift your focus to the positives. Embrace the valuable challenge of rejection. Create an amazing rejection experience for yourself!

Summary

• Looks. This has always been a touchy subject, but it shapes our lives. People treat the better looking people nicer and give others less attention. It’s the truth. How we look affects our daily life, self-esteem, how we feel about ourselves. At a first glance, this is what people see. They sometimes judge us as if looks are everything. Also, it doesn’t help that everywhere you look reminds you to get a model-like body or chiseled abs. Looks are part of our identity, but it’s not everything. We have talents other than just looks, and we should bring those talents to light also.
• Everything has strengths and weaknesses. Embrace your uniqueness.
  • Being good looking has it’s perks, but there are also disadvantages. - When you are good looking, a tendency is people come around you, because you look good. Meaning, the relationship is superficial. It will be harder to find friends apart from ones interested in your looks. As for the advantages, people treat you better, give you discounts, etc. I use this as an example to show both sides of the coin, good and the bad. It doesn’t matter how you are born to look embrace both sides and the uniqueness of you.
• Education doesn’t influence just us, but also everyone after us.
  • What we emphasize on and give attention to is what people will notice. - If ever since you were little, all everyone ever talks about was how handsome or beautiful you look, you would spend a lot more time on making yourself look amazing. To look good isn’t bad, but to think you ARE your looks is bad. To think your identity and self worth are all determined by how you look is destructive. So if we are not careful, we could be giving this message to the family members or friends we love. They might grow up with all the pain and misunderstanding about looks.
  • Focusing too much on our physical looks takes away our potential to develop other talents we posses. - Time is all we have. It’s the real currency we are paying in this life. If we educate people on thinking looks is everything, a lot of time is taken away from learning finance, music, science, or kindness. The real damage here is the girl who might have been a world class chef, but her self-esteem was shot down due to her looks. It’s the guy that didn’t become a CEO, because he spend most of his time drowning with doubt about his crooked teeth. Unused talents from potentially amazing individuals are the real casualties of the society with the wrong kind of education.
• What model do you want to set?
  • We vote not just with our election votes, but also our dollar, time, and attention. If we want to support a society where looks is everything, we give time and attention to it. What do you give your attention to?

Summary

• It’s nice to have a friend who supports you when you’re down and be there for your victories. Why is it so hard to find them these days? They looks so easy to find in movies and books, but how is it that in real life they seem so tough to find. Here, I’m not talking about the friends who are only around you when everything is ok. I’m talking about the ones that will stick their neck out for you through the tough times. It’s the individuals that want to see YOU succeed even more than them. To me, that is true friendship.
• Friendship has to be formed on trust.
  • You cannot form genuine friendships from gossip partners. - All the people coming together to talk behind other people’s back have mistrust in common. What holds them together isn’t friendship, it’s a common enemy. When the enemy is gone, all bets are off. They might even go against each other. The friendship you want to form has to be from a place of mutual affection and trust. Move away from gossipers, because chances are they are probably gossiping about you too.
  • Popularity doesn’t determine the amount of true friendships that you have. - All because someone is popular doesn’t mean he or she has a lot of friends. The person might have a crowd because of good looks, money, or intelligence, but that’s not friendship. The people are around him or her just to get something. That’s why sometimes these people can be the loneliest person in the community.
• Too busy for friendship.
  • You have to put yourself in positions to find good friendships to get them. Usually good friends don’t come running to you, because others like them too. - We can’t find people, since our lives don’t cross! If we want our lives to cross with awesome people, we need to change our lives. We might need to join a book club or a fitness gym. Exploring the locations and making yourself available for friendship is crucial. I know sometimes we don’t have enough time because of family, but maybe even small tweaks within your social circle might just be the thing you need.
• Not everyone is going to be friends with everyone else.
  • The truth is not everyone will like everyone, so don’t force a relationship. - When someone doesn’t like us, don’t forget the possibility that we might just not be compatible. Don’t just jump to the conclusion: something is WRONG with me! The reason might actually just be: nothing is wrong with you, the person just prefers to hang out with cricket players. You get my point. Don’t take it personally, and just keep on the path to finding that great friend, which will bring so much more joy and support into your life.

Summary

• I like being myself. Do you? Being carefree, relaxed and not having to act like someone else. I hope you do. When we act like ourselves, we show others who we are. And the cost… is someone will not like you. Going out there with your new haircut, and there is always that one person thinking it was a little too short. Everyone has a different preference for everything, so that’s why you got the haircut and they didn’t.
• When you stand for something, there will always be someone that doesn’t like you.
  • You can’t please everyone. - When you try to please everyone, you actually aren’t pleasing everyone. Since Trump and Hilary both wants to be the president, but there is only one position. Can’t please them both, so don’t try to please everyone. Focus on being yourself and expressing yourself.
  • Gandhi, Rosa Parks, and Abraham Lincoln all stood up for something. They voiced a strong stance. Even if it was for a good cause, some people still hated them for it. - Just look at Stephen Curry the basketball player right now. He is just being himself, but no matter what he does, someone somewhere is going to throw a mean tweet at him. We are not going to get that much adversity from being ourselves but expect some people to not like it. Don’t try to please everyone, because it’s simply not possible.
• If you make a habit of not speaking, people will treat you like you don’t speak.
  • The downsides of not being yourself is silence. - When you are in a group and you usually don’t talk, people will think you won’t have an opinion. We teach people how to treat us. If you show opinions on what kind of food or cloth we want, people will know. If we don’t like how someone treat us, we need to speak up. We can all still do this in a respectful way.
• Challenges are one of your keys to maturing as a person.
  • Learning to face people that don’t agree with you with calmness grows you to handle problems with confidence. - One of the hardest things to do is to try to talk to someone that tries to put you down. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. The feeling of negativity just drains us. Learning to face negativity strengthens your identity. The process helps you understand precisely what you stand for. Challenges build you up as person.

Is There A Perfect Choice?

• There IS a perfect choice, but it’s based on your wants. What is a perfect choice? This is same for buying a car, choosing a partner, or just picking tonight’s dinner. There is no one size fit all, so don’t try to find something that is good for EVERYONE. Remember your individual needs, and if the choice is perfect for your needs. It’s Perfect! Don’t compare, once we go down the road of comparison, everything starts to look like a lesser choice. Make sure the choice caters to YOUR need.
• Most common mistake is not knowing what we really want.
  • We all want to feel like we know what we want, but we sometimes we don’t. - Whenever we come to a big decision in our lives, we should layout clearly what are the pros and cons of each decision. However, instead we either make the decision on the spot or think about it for 5 minutes. That’s not enough! Look back in your past, because it will really tell you what you actually want. After that, you can find what choice will elevate your life and your relationships.
• When we prioritize important tasks, we have to be willing to make sacrifices.
  • What we need shapes our criteria for the perfect choice. - In my life, I might need something to  help me manage my time better, but my friend might need something to keep his body healthy. His perfect choice for a Christmas gift would definitely be different than mine.
    • What are the most important attributes that you value?
  • Not all choices will be perfect. - A car you want might have good gas mileage, but not exactly stylish. Another car might look stunning, but too little leg room. Give and take; there are rarely any selection that fits ALL our needs, so just make sure your top priorities are met.
  • Clear choices come from clear priorities. - Nothing enables speed more than clarity. If you know your destination, you know what you need to do to get there. Clarity is your key time saver, because you don’t need to use extra energy or time to question the decision. You know it already.
  • More clarity means more speed, less hesitation. - How many times have we went into a grocery store and came out with a lot more than we wanted? Or maybe not just at the grocery store? When we know exactly what we want, we are not distracted with what we don’t need. So we can get in, get out, and not waste anymore money, time or energy. What a life saver.
• We can’t let emotions rule our decisions.
  • Emotional decisions can take us off track quickly. Impulse buys usually not are the best buys. - How many bad decision have we made when we were angry? sad? too excited? Yeah, emotions does play on us and make our judgements clouded, so we can’t make decisions straight. Hence the saying “Sleep on it.”, it’s a reminder for us to let our emotions cool off before an important decision.

Summary

• If you are asking this question, the chances are you probably don’t fit in. An analogy is like a seed trying to root itself in the ground. As the seed sprouts, it starts to form its own shape. You can’t predict the exact shape of a tree by looking at the seed, but you can tell it’s going to become a tree. Asking this question “What if I am not sure if I fit in my life?” is saying I’m a seed, but it doesn’t feel right in the dirt. The answer is because you haven’t grow into it yet.
• We are limited by what we know.
  • If I always only order one thing on a menu, I would always only know that one taste. We have to try to discover our fit and preference. - Being afraid of uncertainties or new things is honestly a crutch. The life is comfortable and safer, but that’s it. Your experiences are less, and you become limited by what you know. As a result from not knowing much about the world or your preference, you won’t know yourself that well. A more truthful statement would be “I am not sure if I fit into my life, because I don’t know enough to know what fits my life.”
• Uncertainty is ok, but do something to clear the fog.
  • I seen a lot of people that have problems they complain about, but they don’t do anything to change it. - Every day is a new opportunity. When we are uncertain about something in our lives, figuratively we are standing in midst of a fog. In order to get out of the fog, you need to walk to get outside. Yeah, you don’t know what direction, but doing nothing will get you no where. But a lot of us are just sitting there. You have to take action to get out of the fog!
  • It’s ok to not feel certain, but take action to change that. - Actions are the only thing that causes change. You can think, plan, and schedule, but no execution, no progress. Even if it’s small steps, make the actions consistent. There are few instances in life where you will have 100% assurance. It’s ok to take actions when you are uncertain. There is quote that says, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”
• There isn’t perfect, only priorities.
  • There is no such thing as perfect. In life there has to be certain things that you prioritize so your more important goals are achieved. Rarely does everything you want comes in perfectly. - We only have 24 hours a day, and time is ticking. There are only so many things we can focus on, so we have to prioritize. Maybe we love to play piano and design artworks. However, to specialize, we have to prioritize on one. Just one. If there isn’t a clear singular goal, your efforts will be all over the place. Time is still running, so focus that energy.
  • Choose your priority, and be prepare to give up less important things.

Summary

• I used to dislike moving to new place, because it’s a complete new environment. Going on a vacation for a week is ok. Living there permanently is a complete different story. New people, new neighborhood and I lose all my past relationships. I just don’t know what was going to happen. That bothered me A LOT.
• Experience of uncertainty.
  • I don’t know what’s going to happen. What if _____ happens?
• We are naturally afraid of things we don’t know about.
  • It’s ok. We are all like this. - Why are so many people afraid of the dark? That’s because we don’t know what is in the darkness. You will never see in scary movie a completely bright scene, because darkness gives uncertainty. We don’t like what we don’t know. If you are scared of uncertainty, you are like the rest of us. Join the club! What separates people is after they feel scared, one will choose to do it anyways and the other one stays back.
  • Step out of your fear and understand that this is part of human nature.
• Any form of growth only happens through changes.
  • By facing the change with boldness, it grows you. - When we face change head on, we exercise the courage muscle. The muscle is “when there is a challenge, I face it boldly.” Only through exercising this courage muscle do we grow. The alternative is not taking action towards a challenge or avoid it. We also use a muscle here except it pulls us down. It’s the “if there is a challenge, I don’t do anything or avoid it. The truth is everything that we do moves us closer or away from our goals. There are no neutral actions. Even doing nothing is preventing you from reaching your goal.
  • Sometimes we don’t want change or just try to get it over with, but the change itself is the opportunity to grow. - A lot of times we want the reward that comes with success but not the process TO success. This type of thinking misses the whole point of growth. Why do we respect the champions? Because they put in the work and grind to get there. If they lost the trophy, would they still be the champions? Of course! The trophy is a reward to the champions. Champions are respect because we know their superb abilities. If someone just bought a Superbowl ring, would he/she be considered a Superbowl Champion? You get my point.
• Changes might be scary, but the lesson is worth it.
  • First time you tried to swim or make a new friend. It was scary, but you learned a valuable life lesson and skill. - Focus on the process of learning. It is where the actual growth occurs. If you are not scared or uncomfortable when you are doing something, the chances are you are not learning anything new. Embrace the lessons!

Summary

• Taking everything very personally is a very tough life to live in, because it feels like everything is focused on you and judging you. A small comment at work can RUIN your whole day. Then it ruins your meet up with your friends. It ruins eating the dinner you enjoy, and you can’t even sleep without thinking about it. How do we stop this cycle? I would say everything begins with the belief.
• Stop thinking everything is about you.
  • Taking things too personally is like being on the stage all the time. You don’t have time to relax. - Being on stage is when all the attention is on you, so every small detail is seen clearly. Mistakes or success are both greatly magnified. So if you are constantly on the stage, it maybe destructive for yourself self-esteem. However, we need to understand “we are not always the focus.” Not every negative remark is aimed at us. Not every action people do to ignore us is because we did something wrong. Not every one is out to get us. The truth is very very few people designed their whole entire day just to ruin someone else’s. Maybe your friend wasn’t talkative today not because he was angry with you, but his grandpa passed away. Understanding we are NOT the focus all the time takes all that pressure off.
  • No one can withstand constantly being talked about. - On a psychological level, this is just impossible. It’s like being constantly at mental wars. Take a deep breath. Remember that people are always talking, but it’s not always about you.
• Not everything said is an attack.
  • We look for things to support our story. If we believe that people are speaking badly about us, we will find evidence to support it. - When we care a lot about how people sees us, we develop these sharp ears for hearing our names. If our story is “people will never like me for who I am”, things we see & hear start to become evidence for our story. Suddenly, Tom’s simple “Hi!” becomes “Tom is just saying hi just to be polite, because people don’t like me.”, which make everything feel like an attack on ourselves.
  • Learn to actively think about other possibilities. - One of the ways to break out of our own stories is to actively think about other possibilities. If Nancy didn’t come to the hangout today, what are some possible reasons she didn’t show up? It can be that Nancy doesn’t like you OR she is really sick OR she promised her sister to go eat Italian food. This helps us break out the story, because in reality, there are many reasons for an action.
• Understanding your triggers.
  • There are usually certain topics or things that triggers us to feel like we have to defend ourselves. - If you feel like every time someone talks about your teeth, you cringe. Take note of it. These topics makes us cringe because we don’t like how it feels to us. As a result, we try to avoid it. Not by chance, these are also touch points we feel very personal about. Be aware of them and work through them.
  • Take note of them, and journal about it to understand why you feel so hurt by it.

Summary

• Low self esteem at the core comes from not knowing who you are.
  • Let’s say you’re trying to buy a new jacket. You don’t know if yellow or green is better, so you ask your friend. She says green, so you bought the green one.
    • The small message you are saying is - I don’t know who I want to be, can you decide for me? So you ask your friend. Then your friend decides who you are for you.
    • This is on a small scale. You don’t have to be adamant about every single small decisions, but you can’t let people around you decide the important parts of who you are.
  • Giving up your choice is to let others decide you for you. - Make sure you know your own preference and what you value. Once you know what you want you can make decisions for yourself. Remember your decisions may not be right or better than other people’s, but it is just as valuable. Learn to voice your thoughts, because you deserve to be heard.
• Correctly prioritizing yourself raises your self esteem.
  • At times, we don’t believe we deserve a place in life, which ruins our self-esteem. - This sounds odd. How are we not prioritizing ourselves? Yes it is important to be considerate and sacrificial to the ones we love and want to take care of, but we have to make sure that our life isn’t what THEY want our lives to be. Sometimes we have friends that want the best for us, but they are a bit too pushy. Their suggestions start to more priority than our own decisions! That should not happen. You should always be the one with the last say for your life.
    • No, we are not the king of the world, but we are normal people with great potential.
  • Learn to prioritize your most important interests before others, because you can’t take care of others without taking care of yourself first. - If we want to help our friends and family, the best thing to do is actually prioritizing yourself. When we prioritize ourselves, we are growing our ability to help people. If I learned how to bake an amazing apple pie, I can share and teach that to all my friends. If I know how to build my own chair, I can teach people how to save money on their furniture. However, all these things can ONLY happen if we prioritize ourselves and grow. The reverse is also true. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we don’t have a lot of ability to help others. It also lowers our self-esteem.
• Low self-esteem comes from not knowing your values.
  • When we don’t know our principles, other people make our decisions using their principles. - We all have opinions. If you don’t have one, someone will probably give you theirs.
  • We are most vulnerable when our self esteem rises and falls on other people’s decision. - When our self-esteem rests on how other people sees us, they have us on handcuffs. If we didn’t something they like, they can plummet our self-worth in a snap. This is the place to avoid at all cost.
• Media might not have your best interest in mind.
  • Especially body image, media tries to lower your self-esteem, so you feel like you need their products to be whole again. - Every commercial is trying to sell us something. Sometimes it’s funny commercials, but other times it’s things that make us feel insecure about ourselves. Like our body won’t look amazing without that treadmill or we love to go on that vacation but not having the budget. Be aware that the media is trying to sell us something, so we have to make sure we know what we want and don’t want. Don’t buy things out of feeling insecurity.
  • When you are not careful with what you are absorbing, you will start to take in media’s message.

Summary

• Self esteem is how you feel about your own worth as a person.
  • For most people, self-esteem is how you feel about how other people feel about your own worth as a person. - This pretty much means… you don’t have control over how you feel about your own worth! That’s very scary! Why do we put our self esteem in other people’s hands? We have to take back that control.
  • Example: Let’s say my self-esteem is based a lot on how my shoes looked, which is pretty dangerous. I know it it’s a problem, but that’s what everyone me cares about and people criticizes me if I don’t have good shoes. Here you can see even though I don’t want it to be, but if someone criticizes my shoes, my self-esteem would drop. Also, the TV shows, magazines, buzzfeeds keep telling me that my shoes is the most important thing, which makes me believe I need it for my self-esteem.
  • Example 2: My esteem is dependent on how my social group sees me to be. If somehow the people in the group doesn’t accept me or include me in the small things like hangouts or events, my self-worth or self-esteem takes a hit. I feel like I MUST be included at all times or I feel like I’ll miss out on what they’re doing and they will just leave me out along with all the self-esteem I have.
• Self esteem is only built through understanding what gives you value as a person.
  • You have to know where your self worth comes from. What gives you value as a person? If you don’t have this question figured out, your self esteem will change a lot. - One day you will feel absolutely amazing about yourself, then the next day you might feel like the ugliest and most worthless person in the world. This can happen just by a small comment someone made about you. I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting a ticket to that ride.
  • I know that not everyone believes in the same religion or philosophy, but I hope that we can at all least agree on the fact that people are valuable just as people. The value of you as a person doesn’t change. It’s the same value for everyone. That’s why taking a life is horrible crime, because a valuable life is lost. - This means life is valuable, and you are valuable no matter who you are. You might think you are defective in some way because of your hair, teeth, height, weight, but no you’re not. Your value as a human being doesn’t decrease because of anything.

• Emotional wounds trap us in a portion of our past.
  • A very painful experience can be the stopping point for growing our confidence, but it doesn’t have to be.
    • Every time you think about it, it hurts a lot. You want to hide under a rock and avoid the pain. This is very real, and this is also where we stop in life.
    • No one enjoys pain [except maybe a masochist, but that’s a different story.]. We have a smart brain, and it protects us by moving us away from pain. It’s like a nice parent wanting his/she child to be safe. HOWEVER, if the parent becomes overprotective… this is where the problem starts. Rather than facing and working through healing the pain, they just protect you from ANY pain. As a result, we become people that are scared of failure. This limits our growth and confidence.
  • The importance of working through an emotional wound is often underrated. - Emotional wounds usually don’t heal by themselves like physical wounds, so they have to be sought out and cared for. Most of the time the society thinks “if they look fine on the outside, they are probably fine on the inside.” Nothing can be further from the truth.
  • Your past is the best indication of your future, so why not work through healing your past.
  • Past is not the future, so don’t allowed it to be.
• Replaying a negative experience is often the way people bring their own confidence down through magnifying their weaknesses.
  • You can’t gain confidence when you don’t have a good relationship with it. - “Just be confident.” “Just be yourself.” That’s what people usually say to help others become more confident. But if you don’t have a good relationship with confidence itself, nothing is going to change. If you haven’t experienced confidence, felt confidence, or prove to yourself that you can have confidence, you won’t have it. It’s like telling a beginner to join an advanced level yoga course. Not really helpful and setting yourself up for disappointment.
  • Every time we replay an experience negatively in our brain, we get hurt all over again. We have to understand the experience, accept it, and move on from it.
  • When you fall, don’t keep blaming yourself for tripping. Stand up and remind yourself not to trip again.
• People are your most powerful support and harshest critic.
  • If you are beside people who constantly bring you down, you would have spent more energy defending yourself than growing to be a stronger person. - Picking the right people is so important. Have you ever been around someone you feel like will judge EVERY little thing you do? Tiring right? They might be good people, but you want your closest friends to be the ones that you can be yourself around.
  • We become like the people closest to us.
  • Friends influence us more than you think, good or bad. They influence our decisions, the way we think about ourselves, and our potential. - They say we become the average of the 5 people closest to us. You can believe it or not, but we share the way we think all the time with our friends. The more time we spend together; the more our beliefs mesh together. If they are positive people, you get more positive. If they are not…. you probably won’t be either.
  • Friends who encourage you and build you up are rare finds. Keep them.

• Criticisms are negative perspectives imposed on us.
  • Our experiences are changed from neutral or positive to negative by criticisms. - When others criticize us, they are showing us how they view the world. In reality, other people’s criticisms show us more of who they are than what is said about us. So listen carefully to what their world is like, and remember that their perspective isn’t your perspective.
  • Let’s say you got a lollipop. You’re excited, but your friend said, “I hate lollipops.” There is a negative energy that brings you down from that comment. At the moment, you might feel like “I didn’t ask for your opinion. I am just enjoying my lollipop.”, but people naturally express what they believe about everything. In every conversation, we are constantly learning about each other’s perspective and mindset.
  • Criticisms are not just only downers, but they are personal attacks. - Criticisms not only says an offensive comment, but it’s an offensive comment about US as people! It’s not only that our shirts doesn’t look good, but we are less valuable as people because of it. That one kind of STINGS! Remember this is just how the critic views us, and what’s being said is most likely not true. For the people that feel like they HAVE to bring other people down are in fact very insecure about themselves.
• We are afraid the criticisms might be true about us, and that possibility gives us pain.
  • Criticisms reveal truths about ourselves that we don’t want to admit or feel insecure about. - Maybe we are already not feeling so good about our bodies, and someone just decided to make us feel worse by tell us “We look a little bigger than usual.” What do THEY know about trying to eat on a strict diet and have no progress?! This is when our insecurities comes to the surface. Whenever we touch a freshly cut wound, it’s really PAINFUL! So these criticisms can be guides to show you where you are emotionally hurt.
  • Criticism reveals holes in our confidence, not our abilities. - You don’t need to be perfect to be confident, because there are NO perfect people! Strengths can be weaknesses, and the reverse is true also. Understand that flaws are just flaws, but you can still accept them and be fine with it. We can be confident flawed people.
  • Example - If we are self-conscious about the shape of our face, it’s more painful when someone criticizes it. If deep down inside we believe that it’s a possibility, fear and pain comes with it.
• Strength of criticisms reveals the fact that we care more about what others think of us than we think.
  • Bottom line is: if we don’t care about something, it won’t affect us at all in any way. - Others can hurt us to the extent that we let them. However, this is still an ideal situation to have total control of our environment. We are always influenced by people around us, so sometimes we have to care. The best thing we can do to build ourselves up is to only let positive people become our closest friends. 
• Dangers
  • Proverb: “Constant dripping of water wears away a stone.”
  • Small criticisms, with consistency, can still make mental dents.