Welcome to the 28th edition of North Star Blueprints! In this weekly newsletter, we embark on a journey of personal and professional growth, offering observations, strategies, and inspiration to help you navigate life’s challenges and reach new heights of success. This edition will provide a summary of the daily insights I posted throughout the week, packed with valuable tips, thought-provoking ideas, and actionable advice on how to take action, controlling your emotions, protecting your mental health, rising above doubt, and understanding how to identify opportunities, in the hopes of helping you to unleash your better self.
August 26: Resilience vs. Patience vs. Action
“Don’t wait. The time will never be just right” – Napoleon Hill
Entering the last week of summer, and the end of a slower period, many of us are starting to mentally prepare for the year ahead. Many industries start to pick up pace in September, and life goes back to full throttle. The summer is also often a period in which we tend to forget (or rather put aside) our struggles, frustrations, and disappointments in exchange for some quiet time to recharge. Unfortunately, few of these problems truly ever go away on their own, and we will have to face them again in just a few days.
You might be tempted to rely on your resilience and patience to get through it, traits that have been honed over many years and served you well in many situations:
Resilience being an active, dynamic quality, defined by one’s ability to adapt, recover, and push through adversity. The capacity to face setbacks, hardships, or failures and keep moving forward with determination and growth.
Patience as a more passive approach, involving the ability to endure discomfort, delay, or provocation without becoming upset or giving in to frustration. Patience requires a calm acceptance of time, waiting without pressuring results or rushing processes.
Both are valuable, and serve different purposes depending on what life demands: the quiet strength to wait or the tenacity to rise again. While resilience and patience are to be admired, every now and then, Action is required – you need to get “angry” to get stuff done. Even the most patient and resilient individuals eventually wear out.
As you reflect on the year so far, and stare down the road to come for the rest of 2024, I highly encourage you to consider whether it’s time to stop weathering the storm and instead adjust course, take another path, or even change your destination altogether. Sometimes the best way out is not through but around. Just be sure to choose your battles wisely.
August 27: Leaders Control Their Emotions
Leaders can make or break an organization, a project, or a team. As a leader, you have an array of responsibilities that go beyond your own work, you are in charge of something greater than yourself, and you are also equally accountable for the outcome as well the consequences. A position of leadership is not to be taken lightly.
Here’s a recent example of what impact a single leader might have on multi-billion companies – Brian Niccol, who oversaw a 773% gain in Chipotle’s stock price during his tenure – announced that he was going to join Starbucks as their new CEO. Chipotle’s stock fell 7.5% on the day of the news for its worst one-day drop in over a year, while Starbucks shares climbed 24.5% for their biggest single-session gain on record.
People look up to you as a leader and its your job to set a good example for them. One of such quality you must display is self control. You have to get to a point where your mood doesn’t shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else of events beyond your control. Don’t allow external factors control your direction. Don’t allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence. I read a post by Echelon Front a couple days that summarized it well – “Leaders who lose their temper also lose respect. If you cannot control your emotions, then how can you be expected to control anything else?”
August 28: Rise Above the Noise
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
A skilled chef won’t judge you for learning to cook; they remember when they started with the basics too.
An artist won’t judge you for picking up a brush; they understand that every masterpiece begins with a single stroke.
A writer won’t judge you for scribbling your first draft; they know the value of every rough idea and messy paragraph.
A athlete won’t judge you for struggling through your first workout; they’ve experienced the same burn and effort early on.
A fluent speaker won’t judge you for stumbling through learning a new language; they’ve been through the same mistakes and mispronunciations.
A traveler won’t judge you for taking your first solo trip; they remember the courage it took to step out of their comfort zone.
A leader won’t judge you for making tough decisions; they’ve faced their own moments of doubt and challenge.
A successful entrepreneur won’t judge you for failing; they understand that failure is part of the journey to success.
It’s always the people going nowhere that have something negative to say. Ignore the doubters and stay focused on your path.
August 29: Protect Your Mental Health
Are you constantly tired? No longer have motivation to work? Feeling increasingly irritated? Perhaps even overwhelmed? Starting to become socially withdrawn? And even neglecting self-care?
Anything that costs your mental health is too expensive. Look elsewhere.
Whether it’s an unfulfilling job, a toxic relationship, or the relentless pressure to meet unrealistic expectations, if it drains your peace and well-being, it isn’t worth the sacrifice. Your mental health forms the foundation for everything else—happiness, productivity, relationships, and long-term success. By taking care of your well-being, you’re making an investment in your future that pays dividends in clarity, resilience, and sustained growth. It’s critical to recognize when something is damaging your mental health and have the courage to step away and seek better alternatives. Your peace of mind is priceless—protect it fiercely.
You owe it to yourself to prioritize your health and well-being above all else.
August 30: Seeing the Unseen
Opportunities only look like opportunities in the rearview mirror. Today, they look like risk.
A stock just dipped to its lowest point in months, should you buy it? What if it goes up significantly within the next couple weeks? But then again, what if it continues to fall? Looking at the charts a month later, you realize that the low price was the best point to enter and you could’ve made a lot of money today. However, this scenario could’ve played out very differently, with you looking at the charts and finding that the company went bankrupt. An Opportunity? Or a mistake? Success or a miscalculated risk? All of these terms are very closely interwoven…
Opportunities often don’t present themselves with a clear label — they’re usually disguised as risks, challenges, or uncertainties. In the moment, what later seems like a golden chance often feels more like a leap into the unknown. The fear of failure and the discomfort of stepping out of the familiar make opportunities hard to recognize as such. It’s only in hindsight, when we see the growth, success, or lessons that came from taking that risk, that we realize it was an opportunity all along. The difference between those who seize opportunities and those who miss them often comes down to courage — the willingness to embrace what looks risky today in the belief that it will pay off tomorrow.
Thank you for joining me on this journey of growth and discovery. I hope these insights illuminate your path forward as you pursue your aspirations with purpose and determination. See you in next week’s edition!
