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All bodyweight practitioners will tell you a strong core is absolutely key. This is because you won’t be able to perform certain exercises without engaging the entire core just because of the unstable, unilateral nature of calisthenics. Don’t believe me? I bet you can perform a pretty heavy leg press while relaxing the core. But now try to do a single-leg pistol squat while relaxing the stomach. I guarantee you will end up on the floor.

The World's Fittest Book

Ross Edgley

As I have said, that vast plot of Tennessee land * was held by my father twenty years—intact. When he died in 1847, we began to manage it ourselves. Forty years afterward, we had managed it all away except 10,000 acres, and gotten nothing to remember the sales by. About 1887—possibly it was earlier—the 10,000 went. My brother found a chance to trade it for a house and lot in the town of Corry, in the oil regions of Pennsylvania. About 1894 he sold this property for $250. That ended the Tennessee Land. If any penny of cash ever came out of my father’s wise investment but that, I have no recollection of it. No, I am overlooking a detail. It furnished me a field for Sellers and a book. Out of my half of the book I got $15,000 or $20,000; out of the play I got $75,000 or $80,000—just about a dollar an acre. It is curious: I was not alive when my father made the investment, therefore he was not intending any partiality; yet I was the only member of the family that ever profited by it. I shall have occasion to mention this land again, now and then, as I go along, for it influenced our life in one way or another during more than a generation. Whenever things grew dark it rose and put out its hopeful Sellers hand and cheered us up, and said “Do not be afraid—trust in me—wait.” It kept us hoping and hoping, during forty years, and forsook us at last. It put our energies to sleep and made visionaries of us—dreamers, and indolent. We were always going to be rich next year—no occasion to work. It is good to begin life poor; it is good to begin life rich—these are wholesome; but to begin it prospectively rich! The man who has not experienced it cannot imagine the curse of it.

Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1

Mark Twain, Harriet E. Smith, Benjamin Griffin, Victor Fischer, Michael B. Frank, Sharon K. Goetz, a...

Research tells us that memory is not the precise, enduring snapshot of events that we like to think it is. Rather, it decays with time, is subject to a host of cognitive biases, and changes slightly each time we recall an event. None of these deficiencies applies to written entries, making journals a far superior tool for learning from the past and improving our predictions of the future. At the same time, by expanding our time frame from the immediate present to the distant past, five-year journals promote smarter, more thoughtful decision making. One of the essential keys to wisdom is the ability to zoom out and think about the long-term ramifications of a choice, beyond the immediate, short-term gain. The more we reflect on our past experiences, the better positioned we are to reach wise decisions in the present. Keep in mind not all journaling needs to focus on life in general. You could instead focus on a single skill that you’re working to master, like writing, formulating new ideas, or pitching potential clients. Ultimately, the value of a five-year journal is that it automates reflective practice, prompting us to distill the lessons we’ve gleaned from the past and revisit strategies worth building on in the future.

Decoding Greatness

Ron Friedman

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