🎉 Happy new year! I’m excited to take P.S. You Should Know into its 5th calendar year. Thank you for your endless support and patronage. You are the best group of readers I could ever ask for!
🎯 I had a professor in college who taught me two valuable lessons. Lesson one began when I bolted up to him after class to argue about a grade. I had been arguing in my head since he handed out the results so proceeded to escalate the argument now that I had him in front of me. His response became a lasting lesson once the sting settled: “Best to be calm, young man.”
Another time I somehow committed to buying a keg for my friends if I scored 100% on a recent exam. I got a question wrong, scoring 98%, but for some reason I can’t recall the professor gave everyone an extra 2 points. Should I buy the keg? I asked the professor for his advice. Once again, a lasting lesson, this time on technicalities: “You scored 100%. Buy the keg.”
Each year I set goals for myself across three categories: personal, family and professional. I just review them. One of this year’s family goals was to enjoy 4 getaways or vacations with family. I smirked when I saw it on the list. When I wrote the goal, we were living in Chicago and our second daughter was about a month old. We had always been big travelers and it was important to me that we carried on. I worried we’d be so swamped with parenting that we’d forget to keep exploring! The trips I had in mind were short breaks from daily routines. The 4 trips we ended up taking were unimaginably different. Yet, in keeping with the good professor’s lesson, I duly scored my goal a success.
There’s one more lesson here, and I hope to never forget it: when good fortune comes knocking, answer the door!