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Tag: Simon Sinek

Michael J. Fox, Transitions, The Prince of Egypt, Simon Sinek, and Surah Ash-Sharh 94:5

Sunday Supplement #67 (August 21st, 2022)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.”

– Michael J. Fox

Book of the Week:

Transitions – William Bridges

William Bridges was a distinguished authority on change and transition. He spoke and advised on how people should approach transition and sold over a million copies of his books.

Transitions is Bridges’ bestselling book that lays out a guide for understanding and successfully adapting to change.

His process talks about three stages of change: the ending, the neutral zone, and the new beginning. In the book, Bridges shows how each can be embraced to have productive movement forward.

The edition I read had two parts: The Need for Transition and The Transition Process. The first part discussed various topics like relationships, careers, and general life changes.

The second part broke down Bridge’s roadmap for navigating change. I found the first section a little confusing until reading the second part. The second part was brilliant.

Transitions’ subheading is Making Sense of Life’s Changes. I found the book extremely helpful on that front and highly recommend it to those interested in tips on dealing with change.

Movie of the Week:

The Prince of Egypt

The Book of Exodus received a brilliant adaptation from DreamWorks Pictures in the animated movie The Prince of Egypt.

The film starts with the birth of Moses and follows his journey, becoming a prince and ultimately leading the Jewish people out of Egypt.

Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes voice Moses and Ramses. They star in the film and provide a brilliant focal point in the narrative.

The rest of the cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Danny Glover, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Stewart, Helen Mirren, and Steve Martin, help shape the world brilliantly.

The movie only won one Oscar for Best Music – Original Song, but the film would have easily won Best Animated Film of the Year if the category had been around.

Some animated movies truly capture the brilliance of what a film can convey, and The Prince of Egypt is one of them.

Brainfood of the Week:

Navigate and Embrace Change | Simon Sinek

In this video, Simon Sinek gets asked, “Should people continuously change?”

Sinek responds to the first question by stating that he thinks the answer is always yes— to view ourselves or our organizations as works in progress.

He talks about the infinite mindset of constant improvement. Sometimes it’s small changes, and sometimes it’s bigger. There’s always the opportunity to improve something.

There are more questions throughout the video that Sinek addresses.

Sinek discusses the fear behind sudden changes as opposed to incremental changes. He goes on to explain how this affects individuals and companies.

While the latter half of the video veers toward business, there is much to take away from Sinek’s answers on how to approach change and how to recognize how others approach it.

I’ve featured Simon Sinek in three previous Sunday Supplements. If you like this video, check out the others.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“Indeed, with hardship [will be] ease.”

– Surah Ash-Sharh 94:5

This passage from the Quran reminds me of moments of tranquility that can occur from dealing with a hardship.

One of the other English translations of the passage substitutes ease with relief.

I think of the moments when waiting for a response or an outcome after I’ve put in the work and have to accept what comes next.

If there is a challenge or a hardship as a result, after processing my feelings, there comes a moment where I realize I have control over what I do next.

Sometimes I wallowed in a pit of negative emotions for a long time, but, thankfully, I eventually remembered that I could choose how to move forward.

I think there is great power in acceptance and realizing we have control over our actions. 

I believe one of the most powerful feelings can be when you’ve done your best in a difficult situation and can accept whatever happens.

Embrace the changes in your life, and have a blessed week ahead!

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T.D. Jakes, The Fountainhead, Fever Pitch (1997), Simon Sinek, and a Japanese Proverb

Sunday Supplement #42 (February 27th, 2022)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“If you can’t figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose.”

– T.D. Jakes

Book of the Week:

The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

Before any readers jump to conclusions about what I think about this book, know that I don’t agree with Ayn Rand’s Objectivism or the protagonist’s viewpoint in this novel.

The Fountainhead tells the story of Howard Roark, a single-minded young architect who navigates the 1920s New York, refusing to compromise the visions of his work.

The novel follows several different characters, including Peter Keating, a former classmate of Roark and nemesis who turns to Roark whenever encountering design problems, controversial Dominique Francon, and anti-Roark columnist Ellsworth Toohey.

Dominique Francon is one of the most controversial characters of the book and alternates between helping Roark and undermining him.

Ayn Rand’s novel came out in 1943 and is held in admiration or contempt by most. While I don’t enjoy the politics that came from the book or agree with them, I think the novel is brilliant. The prose is beautiful, and the story is epic.

Regardless of your conclusions, The Fountainhead elicits many thoughts and feelings throughout. It is a great novel and worth the read.

Movie of the Week:

Fever Pitch (1997)

The original British version of Fever Pitch tells the story of Paul Ashworth and his love of football. The origins of Paul’s love for the game and his team, Arsenal, were rooted in childhood and a figure in his life that he could always count on.

When Paul meets Sarah Hughes, a fellow English/Literature teacher at his primary school, Paul’s love of football begins to clash with his new relationship.

The movie explores relationship dynamics, childhood trauma, and love of sports in an insightful and hilarious way. The acting brilliantly supports the script with the likes of Colin Firth as Paul, Ruth Gemmell as Sarah, and Mark Strong as Paul’s friend Steve.

Author and screenwriter Nick Hornby penned the hilarious rom-com based on his non-fiction book of the same name. The book reads differently than the movie and is more of a football nerds’ book, while the film is a fun watch that most can enjoy.

The British author is known for High Fidelity and About a Boy. He also adapted the screenplays for An Education, and Brooklyn

Fever Pitch is Hornby’s first book but isn’t widely known outside the United Kingdom. The movie was remade starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon about the Boston Red Sox. I haven’t seen the American version, but I recommend checking out the British version.

Brainfood of the Week:

Where Passion Comes From | Simon Sinek

In Sunday Supplement #13 and #26, I feature a Simon Sinek video. He is an inspirational speaker and author of multiple best-selling books.

In this video, Sinek discusses passion and where it comes from. He explains that passion is an output, not an input. 

We feel passion when were are involved with something deeply personal. You can’t do what you’re passionate about, but you find something that you believe in, which will cause you to experience passion.

Sinek explains how we’re all passionate, but we aren’t all passionate about the same thing. Society can pressure us to have a vision or find our bliss, but trying to fit everyone into the same expectation is an unfair standard.

Sinek then answers the question, “How do you find what you believe in?” You don’t have to have a vision; you have to find one. If you find something that resonates with you, follow it and find a way to use your talents/gifts to contribute to it.

The video is an interesting look at what passion means at how we can pursue our passions. It’s a short video and worth the watch.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“Even monkeys fall from trees” (猿も木から落ちる)

– Japanese Proverb

I love this saying. I think this captures the concept of getting up after falling down brilliantly. The slight humor in the situation is exactly how I think we should view our stumbles. 

We should always learn from mistakes, but when we embarrass ourselves, we should laugh and climb again without worry.

Fear of falling or failure can paralyze many. I often take baby steps when attempting something new, but I always embrace the moments where I leap and encourage myself regardless of the outcome.

I think it’s vital to approach life with the perspective that even the great can slip up. We shouldn’t be afraid. We should keep pursuing our adventures with joy.

I’m glad I came across this proverb in a post by Caitlin Sacasas on the language learning site Fluent in 3 Months. It brought a much-needed smile to my day, and I hope it does for you too.

Encourage yourself or another to keep pursuing their dream, and have a blessed week ahead!

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Lao Tzu, The Power of Myth, The Lord of the Rings, Simon Sinek, and the Rig Veda

Sunday Supplement #26 (November 7th, 2021)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from these recommendations that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”

– Lao Tzu

Book of the Week:

The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers

In 1988, PBS aired a six-episode series composed of interviews with Joseph Campbell. The companion book was released at the same time the series aired. The Power of Myth book has additional discussions not included in the original six-hour docuseries, but it follows a similar format.

The book is based on the interviews between Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. The discussion revolves around Campbell’s lifework in mythology and human history. Campbell uses his own life story and the knowledge of different civilizations’ myths and cultures to present the idea of a global story we all follow— the Hero’s Journey. 

Campbell’s other works, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Masks of God, delve more deeply into the Hero’s Journey. However, The Power of Myth gives the main points and discusses how society has experienced struggle due to the loss of mythology and rights of passage in the modern-day.

The Power of Myth is a brilliant read that gives many insights into the universal human experience. It is well worth checking out and seeing if any of the stages apply to your life and how you can move forward.

Movie of the Week:

The Lord of the Rings (Extended Editions)

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote one of the most popular fiction trilogies in history. Peter Jackson adapted the novels into some of the most accomplished movies ever made. The story is fantasy and adventure-based, but there is so much quality that a genre pigeonhole can’t capture the whole experience.

Frodo, a Hobbit from the Shire, and eight companions set out on a journey to destroy the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom to save Middle-Earth from the Dark Lord Sauron. Across the three films, the world of elves, men, and dwarves is explored and intricately woven into the story. The history and relationships of the people in the film are expertly depicted to give the story a more profound experience than a surface-level action flick.

So many details make these films a fantastic experience— too many to delve into in a short post. I’ll focus on two for the rest of this post.

The first is the practical effects of the films. So many movies in modern times rely on computer graphic imaging to create the effects the audience sees on the screen. Sometimes it works, but older films using this technology often appear outdated in recent times. Lord of the Rings has special effects and CGI, but they used many creative camera techniques to film in real-time and create beautiful and complex images on the screen. Fame Focus goes over some of the best effects in the movies that allowed the scale to be filmed, cities to be created, and actions sequences to be executed.

The other thing I want to touch on is the Hero’s Journey archetype of the story. The points in the journey are beautifully constructed and explored. Each character has their own journey, and many are richly created to have a whole arc. The overall story contains each point in the Hero’s Journey and helps to establish a connection with the audience. Even if you don’t like fantasy, there is something in these films that can resonate with you.

The extended editions are wonderful and fully encapsulate Tolkien’s stories, but either of Jackson’s versions is well worth watching.

Brainfood of the Week:

Simon Sinek – The Truth About Being the “Stupidest” Person in the Room

In Sunday Supplement #13, I featured a video from Simon Sinek about the paradox of being human. Sinek is an inspirational speaker and the author of multiple best-selling books.

In this video, Simon Sinek discusses the benefits of being okay with being the stupidest person in the room. He tells a story about a business meeting where he didn’t understand the concept delivered to the room. Sinek was okay with asking the presenter to repeat the presentation, and after a few questions, it was apparent the premise of the demonstration wasn’t straightforward. If he hadn’t spoken up, the rest of the group would have nodded along because they weren’t comfortable with saying they didn’t understand the presentation.

The idea of the video is that by being okay with being seen as dumb, you open the door for knowledge while being brave enough to speak up.

This video is only a couple of minutes long. It’s worth checking out to see if Simon Sinek is something you’d be interested in checking out.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“A person can achieve everything by being simple and humble.”

– from the Rig Veda

This passage from the Hindu Vedas reminds me of the beauty of doing something you love. I’ve looked back on my actions in the past, and a lot of them used to be based on the feedback I hoped to receive. Moving toward doing more of what I love changed how I approached things and gave me more confidence to be myself. I asked myself whether I would still do the task if no one else knew what I was doing. 

Writing, reading, and playing/watching soccer are all things I’ve done on my own. It’s fun to have company, and I enjoy sharing the things I love with others, but I would still do them independently. I believe if you have goals and dreams for making what you love into a career or a profession, you have to market yourself. But I think you should be doing what you love regardless of outside validation or not.

Like the Rig Veda passage, I often find myself the happiest and most successful doing what I love and not caring about the outcome.

Make time to do something you love and have a blessed week ahead!

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Theodore Roosevelt, Being Mortal, Kingdom of Heaven, Simon Sinek, and 2 Timothy 2:15

Sunday Supplement #13 (August 8th, 2021)

Below is another Sunday Supplement with a quote worth sharing, a book worth reading, a movie worth watching, brainfood worth consuming, and a spiritual passage worth pondering.

I hope you take something away from this post that enriches your week ahead!

Quote of the Week:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

– Theodore Roosevelt

Book of the Week:

Being Mortal – Atul Gawande

Atul Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a professor at both Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and a bestselling author. A quick Google search shows many other awards and associations Gawande is connected with, including the MacArthur Fellowship (“Genius Grant”).

In Being Mortal, a #1 New York Times bestseller, Gawande explores how the advancement of modern medicine doesn’t always sync with human and spiritual needs, especially in the later years of life. The breakthroughs in medicine and surgery have allowed humans to live much longer than previous generations, but Gawande poses that the cost is often overlooked.

His father’s experience with cancer prompted Gawande to research and write Being Mortal. Often, a medical condition requiring surgery can be viewed as something just being broken, and the solution is to fix it. However, what happens if the surgery isn’t wholly successful is often overlooked. Is an additional couple of years of life worth it if that person is bedridden because of a partially successful surgery?

Gawande goes over many different scenarios often misjudged in modern medicine and provides insight into how best to handle doctor visits and surgery decisions. It is an invaluable book that should be read by anyone looking to understand healthcare and how to best advocate for themselves or on behalf of others.

Movie of the Week:

Kingdom of Heaven (Director’s Cut)

Balian mourns the death of his wife and child when his estranged father shows up with an offer for Balian to join him and find solace and salvation in Jerusalem. Balian’s intended journey is thrown into chaos when his estranged father, the lord of Ibelin, passes his title to his son. The lordship comes with power and land that puts Balian at the forefront of the Crusades. He must decide what kind of ruler he will be in the face of enemies and adversaries.

I highlighted Ridley Scott’s The Martian in Sunday Supplement #7 and briefly touched on his poor run of films in the eyes of critics. Kingdom of Heaven fits in that time period but shouldn’t be considered a flop because the movie Scott made never received a theatrical release. Instead, a considerably edited version of the film became the movie that most people saw or passed over.

In the Director’s Cut introduction, Ridley Scott explains how his three-hour movie was cut down to just over two hours. One of the consequences of the cuts was a diminished storyline for a crucial character. Eva Green’s Sibylla becomes a side character that comes off as weak with no purpose in the theatrical version. In the director’s cut, her story is fully fleshed out and excellently explores the conflict of a woman in her position. Sibylla’s character was crucial to the story, and the theatrical cut suffers for her diminished role. 

The original film is truly a masterpiece of Cinema and thankfully was released as a director’s cut. The depiction of Christians and Muslims in the movie is beautifully explored, and the full story should be a classic in film history. The cast is full of brilliant performances, including Liam Neeson, Eva Green, David Thewlis, Alexander Siddig, Ghassan Massoud, Jeremy Irons, Edward Norton, Brendan Gleeson, and Orlando Bloom.

I highly recommend this film.

Brainfood of the Week:

A Simon Sinek clip on “The Paradox of Being Human – Individuals and Groups”

This is a quick clip where Simon Sinek talks about the paradox of putting the individual or the community first. There is no definitive answer because it’s a paradox, but Sinek explains how to be in touch with both in this short clip. It is an interesting way to view a relationship predicament that is prevalent across society.

Sinek is an inspirational speaker and bestselling author. He spoke at the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit in 2016 and later launched a new imprint at Penguin Random House, Optimism Press. The Press aims to find authors from the business world, the nonprofit world, the military, politics, education, the clergy, and elsewhere to offer direction on building a more optimistic world.

Simon’s YouTube page is a fun place to start to get an idea of his work. If you enjoy his content, his books are a great next place to look.

Closing Spiritual Passage:

“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

– 2 Timothy 2:15

When I break this passage down, I think of holding oneself accountable without shame— to be satisfied with one’s presentation.

I believe this happens when you fully accept yourself and can honestly say you’ve done your best. For me, part of that comes from being in touch with my emotions. I believe that feelings can be an internal compass and a way to know when you are in line with your purpose. That doesn’t mean I let my emotions control me, but I do my best not to shut anything out. 

We might not always be at our best, though. And the quote from Theodore Roosevelt at the top of the page reminds me of that— “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” I believe if we live by this principle, we can speak without shame.

This is a work in progress for me but something I will always strive to align with.

Be easy on yourself, and have a blessed week ahead!

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