Disciplined professional thinking. Writing toward wisdom, judgment, and learning from real work. Substack: The Growth Initiative
Tampa, FL
Joined December 2023
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Regret isn’t the enemy.
Refusing to grow from it is.
Failure is inevitable.
Living in the graveyard of stagnation is optional.
I wrote about the difference between building a graveyard and building a playground progress.
open.substack.com/pub/masonm…
The parenting trap nobody warns you about:
Both control and withdrawal feel like solutions.
Both quietly damage long-term influence.
The real issue isn’t discipline.
It’s self-reflection.
I broke down the pattern and the fix here: open.substack.com/pub/masonm…
If your team learns more in hallway conversations than in formal training, your training isn’t the learning system.
Your culture is.
Advice isn’t rejected because it’s wrong.
It’s rejected because it’s early.
Life has to catch up to it.
At some point, parenting stops being about control and starts being about trust.
You don’t choose the moment.
You just feel it.
From Forgettable to Actionable—The Science of Making Ideas Stick. Read my last post.
#Writing #Substack #LearningScience
open.substack.com/pub/masonm…
Mark D Mason retweeted
20 Problems = 20 Books
1) Want to break a bad habit?
Read "Atomic Habits" by James Clear.
2) Keep getting distracted while working?
Read "Indistractable" by Nir Eyal.
3) Feeling lost in life?
Read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl.
4) Have trouble controlling your emotions?
Read "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius.
5) Bad at socializing or communicating?
Read "How to Win Friends & Influence People" by Dale Carnegie.
6) Lose motivation to work out quickly?
Read "Can't Hurt Me" by David Goggins.
7) Always saving information but never using it?
Read "Building a Second Brain" by Tiago Forte.
8) In debt or bad at budgeting?
Read "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" By Ramit Sethi.
9) Want to change your limited mindset?
Read "Mindset" by Carol Dweck.
10) Terrible at small talk?
Read "The Fine Art of Small Talk" by Debra Fine.
11) Scared of starting a creative project?
Read "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield.
12) Want to make smarter financial decisions?
Read "The Psychology of Money" by Morgan Housel.
13) Want to become happier, healthier, and wealthier?
Read "The Almanack of Naval Ravikant" by Eric Jorgenson.
14) Bad at negotiating?
Read "Never Split The Difference" by Chris Voss.
15) Want to make more but work less?
Read "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss.
16) Want to build resilience and a stronger mind?
Read "Grit" by Angela Duckworth.
17) Overthinking every decision?
Read "Thinking in Bets" by Annie Duke.
18) Have a product that isn't doing so well?
Read "$100M Offers" by Alex Hormozi.
19) Afraid of being judged or disliked?
Read "The Courage to Be Disliked" by Ichiro Kishimi.
20) Feel overwhelmed by too many priorities?
Read "The ONE Thing" by Jay Papasan.
Reading has a powerful influence to lift and change us.
substack.com/@masonmd1/note/…
Most growth stories celebrate scaling.
Few talk about when growth asks for allegiance.
I built a side hustle that was finally working.
What happens when progress leads to identity drift.
I shared my experience here: open.substack.com/pub/masonm…
I told myself I was productive on five hours of sleep; what I was really doing was borrowing clarity from tomorrow — I finally had to confront that.
substack.com/@masonmd1/note/…
Essentialism
Listing tomorrow’s to-dos an hour before bed brings real clarity. Dumping them out of my head stops the cognitive mischief when I'm trying to relax and sleep.
Peace is worth the extra effort.
Essentialism
The real asset isn’t time.
It’s judgment.
Sleep isn’t self-care.
It’s capacity preservation.
Essentialism
One more hour of sleep produces more than one more hour of work.
A tired brain can’t tell signal from noise.
Essentialism
Planning right before bed feels productive.
It isn’t.
What I call preparation is often just reopening decisions that should already be closed.
Essentialism
Sleep is not a rest problem. It’s a choosing problem. I don’t lose sleep because I’m not tired. I lose sleep because I haven’t finished deciding for tomorrow.
Who feels it?
Disciplined professional thinking.
Writing toward wisdom, judgment, and learning from real work.
Substack:
open.substack.com/pub/masonm…
Mark D Mason retweeted
ONLY True Freshman QB with an 80+ Grade This Season:
🔵 Bear Bachmeier, BYU: 80.3
@BYUfootball
