Hello my, dear.✨
This time, hello to 100+ new readers. I'm overwhelmed. The article I linked last week about how I make $1,500+ of passive income every month went somewhat viral on Medium. As of today, more than 40,000 people read it which is huge to me.
This shows how many people are interested in the topics of lifestyle design, passive income, and how to build an online business. If this is something you want to know more about, know my inbox is open for my subscribers (ie. you)📭. Feel free to ask any questions - I answer every email. I don't know everything (far from it). If I can't answer your question, however, I might know someone who can and point you there.
Now, on to The Self-Letter...
I want to talk about ideas today. We all have them - sparks of inspiration for grand things we could do. Some only last for a moment, others accompany us for a lifetime. Some people are idea machines, while others struggle to come up with good ideas when they need them most.
While I don't believe all ideas should be executed, I believe they all deserve recognition and gratitude. Also, I believe there few, if any, stupid ideas. Let me give you an example:
🧮 In 1679, the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz enthusiastically outlined plans for a binary digital calculating machine. His idea was received with belittlement by the Parisian Académie Royale des Sciences. They found it to be useless in the light of the well-established decimal system and played him down repeatedly, throughout his life.
Leibniz's ideas weren't vindicated until - you guessed it! - the 20th century, when the brave new computer took the main floor.
This is only one example that feeds my conviction no idea is inherently stupid just because people don't find instant value in them.
It might be the wrong time for them and you'll admittedly see little benefit of being called a genius 300 years after your funeral. Nevertheless, this mindset helped me tremendously to overcome my self-doubt and start to generate and express ideas in the first place.
What if, however, you feel like you're an idealess person with zero creativity and inspiration to think outside the box?
This is what J. felt when she commented on my article a few days ago:
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To make this more practical, I want to add I cherished my ideas long before I decided to start a business. I write almost all of them down - who knows what they might be good for later? For this, I have a document I titled, simply, IDEAS.
I'm sure I won't realize most of them. However, they serve as a constant reminder to allow inspiration in. Also, they spark my creativity, help me draw associations, and often resurface in other forms, e.g. as topics for this newsletter.
Things I enjoyed in the past week
Note: You can find all articles and books I read, podcast episodes I listen to, and movies I watch on my virtual Bookshlf (the place where I list all digital content I consume).
📚Tutorial: How to Find the Best Information on any Topic that Interests You by Josh Spector
I always have an incredible amount of stuff in the backlog I want to look up - usually, I just end up reading the Wiki-intro, move on, and forget it forever. Josh Spector's practical guide helped me to find relevant information on topics that interest me and encourages us to dig deeper than a simple Google search.
💡 Idea: What's the Title of Your Book? by Ross McCammon
If you struggle with idea-generation, as discussed above, you can also try this. Everyone has a book inside of them. It doesn't mean everyone should write a book, but to ask what your book would be about can bring you a lot closer to your purpose.
🎁 Tutorial: How to Offer Gifts that Transform Relationships and Accelerate Personal Growth by Sílvia Bastos
A one-of-a-kind tutorial to give meaningful presents. These are incredibly helpful principles for offering gifts that'll change your life and relationships. If you always struggle to pick the right gift for someone, read this.
🌊 Visualization: An Ocean of Books by Google Art & Culture Experiments
I could get lost in this one forever. Google Experiments created a giant, interactive map to visualize how all books of the world are connected to each other based on the topics they explore. I just came back from Maya Angelou island.
💵 Finally, a "radical" idea: Stockton’s Basic-Income Experiment Pays Off by Annie Lowrey
The general consensus between conservatives is if you give people money with no strings attached to lift them out of poverty they become less motivated to find work and spend it all on drugs, booze, and gambling. Turns out, the opposite is true, as empirical evidence finally proves. Radical idea: To lift people out of poverty, you have to literally lift them out of poverty.
Love,
Juli💛
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Thank you for being here.🙏
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💌 If you enjoyed this letter, forward it to a friend who doesn't believe in their ideas.
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