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👋Hello friends,

Welcome to The Strive Journal, a roundup of 1 - 5 cool things I found and learned this week.

I drank my first cup of caffeinated coffee on Saturday. As you might imagine, it was one of my better writing sessions in recent memory. I'll be sticking with caffeine once per week for the foreseeable future (twice in special circumstances).

As always, if you enjoy this newsletter enough to share it with friends, you can do so with any of the icons here:

Forward

Let's begin.

1) Developing mental toughness

💪 Mental toughness is not a fixed trait like height, instead, it can be improved like physical fitness. This is achieved through exercise, choices, and lifestyle.

Acting mentally tough is saying "failure is not an option".

Being mentally tough is saying "failure might happen but I'm strong enough to deal with it.".

Developing mental toughness starts small. It begins by asking:

"What are some tiny things I can do to change myself for the better?"

As you achieve these small changes, you'll realize that you're stronger than you think and you'll begin to embrace larger and larger challenges.

I learned this here.

2) Extremes lead to extremes

🌧️ "Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better” - Albert Einstein

In 2017, California witnessed one of the best years of rainfall in its history which put a temporary halt to the recent decades of drought they've experienced.

🍻 It was cheers all around but they were short-lived.

"the wettest year in memory was followed by the worst wildfires in memory.

Record rain in 2017 meant a surge of vegetation growth. It was called a super bloom, and it caused even desert towns to be covered in green. That seemed great, but it had a hidden risk: A dry 2018 summer turned that record vegetation into a record amount of dry kindling to fuel new fires.

So record rain led to record fire."
- Morgan Housel

There's a long history of this in nature, life, and business.

Extremes lead to extremes.

Remember this during work and play. Stack too many dopamine-inducing activities/substances on top of each other and expect an emotional dip later. Plan a physically challenging or mentally demanding day, expect a serene night.

This article inspired this bullet.

3) Squid Game

🦑 A new addition to the creepy October picks. Last week it was a Youtube video on Jack the Ripper, this week it's Squid Game.

A fantastic, but gory and twisted, Korean drama. You've probably heard of it as it's quickly becoming the most-watched series Netflix has ever created. So much so that Netflix is being sued for the surge in internet usage in the last month.

Here's the description:

Hundreds of cash-strapped contestants accept an invitation to compete in children's games for a tempting prize, but the stakes are deadly.

Here's the trailer.