Week #2, 2025

Week #2 of 2025 has arrived. And just like that the starting pistol has sounded, all of the anxiety about starting the race is over, and now we are in the middle of the beginning of the New Year.

Time to walk over to your 4K Weeks poster and fill in another square.  Done?

I love the holidays, but I’m not sad that they’re over. This year especially felt more fraught than usual. I heard a similar refrain from a lot of folks my age.

A break in the routine is important, but you know what is more important?

Loving your routine.

If you don’t enjoy your day to day… if you NEED the escape of weekends, vacations and holidays… changing that reality should be your first order of business.


ON WEEK #1 OF 1946...

Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone to the public.

He was 2,706.71 weeks or 51.90 years old.

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger." Buddha

If you have your life together enough to be reading this email, you likely understand this.

Understanding is different from knowing. Who can hurt you? Who can make you angry?

You can experience pain, physical, emotional… but no one can hurt you… you can only be hurt.

It isn’t the mark of a master to never experience hurt or anger. It is the mark of a master to notice the hurt or anger, and choose to let it go… Again, and again, and again.

WHAT I AM CONSUMING THIS WEEK

Rich Roll #813 Harvard Psychologist, Ellen Langer

OMG... There is SO much fascinating stuff in here. And it inspired the “What I am Thinking About This Week” section. I was so into this that I had to pause it while I was exercising because I couldn’t give enough focus to both things.

Instagram Nugget: We all need a friend like this...


Working on a Song, The Lyrics of HadesTown

By Anais Mitchell

Everyone who has read this email for a while knows that I love HadesTown. My wife gave me this book for Christmas.  The book is Mitchell's notes on how each song made its way into the world over the course of more than a decade of consistent work... and also a lot of amazing writing that was left out of the final musical.

In Paragraph 25 of the Enchiridion, Epictetus talks about being willing to pay the cost.

There is a price for everything, and you shouldn’t wish for a thing if you aren’t willing to pay the price.  This is made more difficult by the fact that even if you pay the price, you still might not get the thing you desire.

This book is a real document about what it means to pay the price.  I would love to have written an award winning musical… but I am not willing to spend the next 10 years scraping and clawing to bring it into the world.


Instagram Nugget: Are your attachments worth the weight? 


WHAT I AM THINKING ABOUT THIS WEEK

YOU CAN DO IT!!!

I’m a broken record…

But that is only because all of these thoughts about how to live a good life are like an epic poem with a host of repeating refrains.

When you read this, give me the voice of your most earnest cheerleader. And if you don’t have one, click here and listen to my actual earnest voice, because the energy matters.

We don’t know ANYTHING about what is and isn’t possible.

Take your goals, your dreams, your aspirations and 10x them, and then BELIEVE, to your absolute core, that you will accomplish them.

I mean it. You are capable of SO MUCH. We are all filled with limiting beliefs, we know that… but the real limiting beliefs that matter are the ones that we breathe in and out like air.

The power to be confronted with your shortcomings and still retain the hard as diamond faith that you will be victorious is a muscle. You have to strengthen it by use.

Michael Jordan, famous for making clutch shots to win a game, missed 26 game-winning shots. It isn’t by accident that he believed he would make all of them, including the next one.

Your belief in yourself matters. It is a muscle. Value it and strengthen it.

Live in LaLa Land! Believe crazy things about your potential!! As long as you are being kind to people around you and getting the bills paid, who is anyone else to shape the edges of your reality?

You can pack 10 years of experience and achievement into this year, or you can pack one year of achievement and experience into the next 10 years. It’s up to you… THANK GOODNESS! You are the only thing over which you have ANY control

Until next week! Have fun!

Spencer, Owner of 4K Weeks


P.S. I'm serious about the 33 Day Foundation. It works, and in the nascent 4K Weeks Community, I am happy to help you define your goals and stay accountable.

P.P.S. Here's your reward for reading the whole newsletter! Important to know what your solution is.

DAD JOKE O' THE WEEK

Why did the mushroom go to the party?

Because he was a fungi.

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