View this email in your browser

You are receiving this email because you signed up to Caffeine for your Inbox, a weekly newsletter about living a more intentional, innovative life. It’s kind of like caffeine for your life. If you were forwarded this email, you can get your own here.

🥛Cream & Sugar

Ideas and current events about living a more intentional, innovative life. The kind of stuff that makes the internet (and coffee) good.

This past Thursday, I realized that I haven't written a full book chapter for Think Outside the Odds in a month. It has left me feeling unmotivated and disconnected from the project.

As I've struggled to find motivation, I've began thinking about mental toughness—what can propel us to keep going when we feel like we have no motivation left? This week's Cream & Sugar dives into what I learned.

Developing Sisu

There was no warning. On November 30, 1939, planes sent by the Soviet Union came roaring down upon Helsinki, Finland.

The Soviets dropped more than 350 bombs on Finland that day. This was the beginning of the Winter War, where Finnish people had to fight to maintain their independence.

It was a brutal winter. Temperatures dropped to 40 degrees below 0 and the Soviet soldiers outnumbered the Finnish army almost 3-to-1. There was one word that kept the Finnish soldiers' spirit alive: Sisu.

Sisu is an old Finnish concept. It means to keep going, even in the face of extreme odds and repeated failures. It is about persevering even when you are at the end of your limits. It means fighting until the other side can't, even if you're outnumbered by hundreds of thousands of people. It's the final push of motivation when every cell in your body is telling you to stop.

In times when you feel completely tapped out or failure after failure is making your dreams seem impossible, you have to call upon your Sisu.

Case Study: David Goggins

David Goggins grew up regularly facing bullying and racism. At home, his father was physically and emotionally abusive.

By the time he reached his early 20s, Goggins's self-esteem was at an all-time-low. He had asthma, a learning disability, and a stutter. His job involved spraying for cockroaches, and he was earning less than $1000 a month.

One night, he saw a documentary about the Navy SEALS. At 297 pounds, he decided to give it a try. Today, he is known for being one of the world's best endurance athletes. He has won some of the world's most brutal races, which often last more than 24 hours, like the McNaughton 150 Miler which he completed in just over 30 hours.

He believes in the 40% rule—when your mind is telling you you're done, you're actually only 40% of the way through what you're capable of achieving. How do you train yourself to seek out the other 60%?

Goggins trains himself by doing one thing everyday that sucks. This could be running a few miles when it's raining outside or cleaning your room when you want to take a nap. “For a period of time, your brain doesn’t like it, but it starts to realize that this is a new way of thinking,” he says. The key is to get your brain comfortable with the discomfort.

More about Goggins from Polina Marinova here.

💥Jitters

For that moment when the caffeine hits: a random assortment of resources, articles, and other fun things.

• How to Think Better: A short video about how to utilize the different modes of thinking to optimize your workflow.

• What That Heart Emoji Really Means: A fun look at all the heart emojis and how they are each used. After weeks of studying data science through dense academic lectures, this article helped me appreciate the small ways with which we can use data to discover cool things.

• Writing Better Cold Emails: A comprehensive guide on mastering cold emails. Highly recommend bookmarking this one.

💻What's Brewing at My Desk

Updates on Think Outside the Odds and other projects.

Book updates have been MIA from my desk for a while, so this week I worked on getting writing back into my regular schedule. Looking over book drafts, I’ve realized I want to add more actionable insights. I’m still working on a structured way to implement these, but getting re-acquainted with my work has been a good first step.

☕Espresso Shot

All the actionable insights from this newsletter condensed into a few bullet points.

• When you feel like giving up, you've only achieved 40% of what you’re capable of. Keep pushing to unlock the other 60%.

• If you want to develop mental toughness, try doing one thing everyday that your brain intuitively resists. Over time, it will become easier to lean into that discomfort.

• To think better, actively create breaks in your workflow, so you give your brain time to mull over ideas.