Today I sent an email to a successful lawyer I know.
In response, I got not only the best auto-reply I’ve ever received, but also an email that could actually change your life if you used it.
The Best Auto-Reply Email I’ve Ever Seen
How To Feel Better At Work And Avoid Burnout
“Examine where you are spending most of your time, and look for ways to shift some of the tasks you don’t like off your plate and ways to take on more of the responsibilities that make you feel proud of what you’re doing.”
How Facebook Is Changing Your Internet
“One in five minutes spent online are spent on Facebook. It’s a cyber kingdom with a population of over two billion. That power has made the leaders of many countries feel threatened, so governments have started to push back — attempting to regain some control over how their citizens communicate.”
6 Examples Of Success Advice You Should Ignore
Success advice is everywhere.
But most of it’s wrong.
People tell you anybody can be successful, but they’re wrong.
If anybody could do it, everybody would do it.
Success is only available to the people willing to do what it takes to achieve it.
Most people aren’t.
People tell you to be professional, but what you need is to be unique.
“Professional” is too often code for “do things the way everybody else does them.”
Dress a certain way, act a certain way, follow a particular path.
But in most fields the key to success is to get noticed and you get noticed when you stand out — not when you fit it.
Be responsible. Be dependable. Be excellent. But, most importantly, be unique.
People tell you to be patient, but what you need is to adopt a long-term mindset.
Don’t wait for things to magically happen for you — they won’t.
But base decisions on what’s best for you in the long term as opposed to the short term.
A job that pays more might be a better short-term option, but the job that teaches you more will lead to the better long-term results.
People tell you it only takes hard work, but it takes more.
Hard work guarantees you nothing.
The greatest work ethic in the world won’t ensure your success until you learn to focus that effort on the right things in the right way.
The ability to aim your hard work is as important a skill as committing to do it in the first place.
People tell you failure is a good thing, but that’s only true if you analyze it.
A failure is only as valuable as the lessons you learn from it.
The value of criticism is only unlocked when the criticism enables you to improve.
If you don’t analyze your failures, they’re not a good thing. They’re worthless.
People tell you to do what you’re good at, but you should do what excites you.
You can be good at a lot of things, but you can only be exceptional at that which excites you.
Just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s something you should do.
Focus your energy on things that combine your skills with your interests and you’ve got the chance to do something great.
One more thing…
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How To Write More Effective Emails In Less Time
“Squishy words are your greatest enemy. Self-defeating phrases like ‘I feel,’ ‘I’m not sure,’ ‘perhaps,’ using the passive voice, or pretty much any adverbs waste time for both you and your recipient, and muddle your point.”
To Form A New Habit, Train Like An Amateur
“Instead of wishing you could ‘Be like Mike,’ you need to focus on and enjoy the small everyday tasks in order to accomplish those long-standing stubborn goals such as ‘I need to exercise more.’ In short, you need to become an amateur. An amateur is a consistent practitioner of a healthful habit.”
How To Use Procrastination As An Opportunity
“Our tendency to procrastinate is exactly how we’ll see how our minds work, and learn to be better at all the difficulties of life. Because life will always have these difficulties, no matter how much we’d prefer to avoid them, and how we respond to them will determine everything.”
If You Can’t Be Organized For Yourself, Maybe You Can Do It For Others
“Being close to someone who is consistently all over the place requires a tremendous amount of emotional labor — reminding them to please take care of that task; making adjustments to your own schedule to accommodate their last-minute changes; worrying that you’re nagging them; having to say ‘it’s fine’ and ‘no worries’ every time they drop the ball, because god forbid you are anything other than a chill girl with no feelings.”
Why 2017 Is Filled With Jerks
“Nasty behavior spreads much faster than nice behavior, unfortunately. Research shows that even a single exposure to negative behavior, like receipt of an insulting email, can turn a person into a ‘carrier.’ Literally like a common cold.”
9 Ideas Shaping The Future Of Design
“The discipline of design will be forced to think about the outcomes of our work in a much more long-term context — literally what future do we want to create and more importantly try to avoid.”