The Best Advice You Ever Got
I'm reading The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives by Katie
Couric. She asked a plethora of well-known people from entertainment,
industry, philanthropy, sports, politics and everything in between to tell her what was the best
advice they ever got. It's a terrific compilation of nudges, comfort and
encouragement. It's good if you're not sure where you're going, have a choice
to make, feel disconnected from your dreams or need some motivation in the
middle of a hard slog. Get the regular book version, though. The narration is
terrible. Entirely too many people e-nun-ci-a-ting as if they're speaking to
the dimwitted.
Anyway, I decided to do my own little version of it. I'll go
first.
My parents always told me to do my best and celebrated my
results. When I got a D (as tended to happen in anything math-related - all
those years of hospital school weren't really conducive to
understanding that field), they asked me if I'd done my best. By then, this philosophy
been so much part of my upbringing both in terms of them teaching it to me and
me seeing them do their best every day, too, so the answer was usually yes. And
then we celebrated as if I had gotten an A.
All these years later, I changed the name of that philosophy
a bit to "buy the ticket," but it's made from the same cloth. Do your
best and celebrate the effort.
What's the best advice you ever got?
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