Jim VandeHei

And then if you do it in bad times, you could become a great person.

My personal motto the last 15 years is when shit happens, shine.

Meaning, in the worst of times, when really bad things happen, that's when I really want to do the next right thing.

That helped me through one of the hardest periods of my professional life.

I had started Politica.

It was my baby.

It's emotional.

And, you know, like a lot of these startups, it was a success, and then there was turmoil, and I felt like I had to leave.

And it's emotional.

And I could have said and done things that would come back to haunt me.

And every minute of every day during that period, I thought, I'm going to do the next right thing.

I'm not going to do things that are going to come back and hurt me or haunt me.

And it helped me get there.

Three, you control your reality.

That might sound weird, but you do.

What you read, what you watch, what you listen to, that forms your reality.

Your podcasts, your YouTube channels, your newsletters, your friends, it's all a reality-shaping machine.

The inputs affect your outputs.

If you're inputting a lot of misery, a lot of doom and gloom,

A lot of trivial stuff, you might be a doomy and gloomy kind of person and kind of trivial.