Life
How to Turn the 7 Deadly Sins Into 7 Happiness Strategies
Many of us have heard of the 7 deadly sins. It’s safe to say that everyone has had some experience with each of these negative traits. Ask anyone – a neighbor, co-worker, stranger on the street, or even your spouse, and they will tell you they’ve had some personal struggle with at least one of these unfavorable offenses.
What are the 7 Deadly Sins?
- Lust, an uncontrollable and inappropriate desire, usually for sex, but can also include a desire for power, money, or fame.
- Gluttony, a need to consume excess amounts of food and drink, and wasting what others need.
- Greed, a great desire for wealth or material possessions.
- Sloth, an avoidance of work, excessive laziness, and a failure to use one’s natural gifts and talents.
- Wrath, an uncontrollable anger and hatred towards another person that can result in an unwillingness to forgive.
- Envy, a strong wrongful desire of what someone else has, including possessions, status, and advantages.
- Pride, a superior opinion of oneself, an “I’m better than you” attitude, which places one-self above all others.
These deadly sins represent all that is negative and offensive with the human race. It seems impossible that anyone can use these as a way to bring happiness into their lives. Let’s take a look at each deadly sin, and see how we can create our own “Happiness Strategies” to boost productivity.
1. Self-Control vs. Lust
Self-control helps to keep our wildest desires in check. When we practice self-control, we use that unbridled energy to benefit others, rather than spending all of that energy on ourselves. It’s about being on a selfless mission rather than a selfish mission. To be honest, self-control is not easy, especially when you have a habit of not reigning in those primitive desires. It needs to be practiced on a daily basis until it becomes your new normal.
When you find yourself desiring a passionate night with a beautiful woman or handsome man who you hardly know, turn that into a desire to find out more about that person. Ask them about their career, their family, their favorite places to visit. Make it your personal mission to learn what it is that makes this person beautiful on the inside.
Happiness Strategy #1 – Choose one of these strategies to practice the next time you are faced with a situation where you need to practice some major self-control.
“If you lose self-control everything will fall.” – John Wooden
2. Temperance vs. Gluttony
Temperance involves self-discipline and moderation, typically when it comes to food and alcohol. It teaches us to use food and drink as a way to be healthy. It’s not that we can’t enjoy food, with all of its flavors and textures and delicious aromas. If we are unhealthy due to the amount of food or drink we consume, then we physically and mentally cannot be at our personal best nor can we be available for the important people in our lives. Being healthy not only gives us an advantage in our own life, but also allows us to be healthy enough to serve others.
Happiness Strategy #2 – Find one way to make a healthy choice.
3. Charity vs Greed
Charity is about placing others above yourself, making sure others are taken care of first, and using your own resources to accomplish both of these things. This is a great example of how doing for others is a key to happiness for yourself.
Giving, in any form, creates a sense of inward happiness. “I am happy because I have the resources available to make someone else happy.” The more often you give of yourself, the more happiness you will find. It becomes a circular pattern. I’m not talking about giving out of guilt or obligation. The attitude with which you do practice charity will have lasting effects on your own personal happiness.
Happiness Strategy #3 – Find an opportunity to give of your time or resources to someone in need.
4. Diligence vs. Sloth
Diligence is a desire to use our energy, our talents, and our gifts to serve others rather than live a life of ease and laziness. Energetic and hardworking is a great way to describe a diligent person. They are working towards a purpose, not simply working to check a task off of a list. Being diligent, though, is more than being a hard-worker. It’s also about responsibility and reliability. Others need to know they can rely on you to do what you said you would and be responsible enough to complete it to the best of your ability.
Having a goal outside of yourself is often what keeps us going until the end. Knowing we’ve accomplished that goal despite our desire to quit, give up, or only do what needs to be done, gives you a sense of pride and accomplishment, and inevitably a sense of happiness. People without a vision or objective in life that they can diligently throw themselves into are inevitably unhappy.
Happiness Strategy #4 – Find a purpose bigger than yourself to use your time and talents to benefit others.
5. Patience vs. Wrath
Patience is taking the time to understand others and being willing to forgive when mistakes or offenses are made. This is not an easy task whatsoever. It is so easy to be upset or criticize the person who offended you, rather than being willing to forgive them.
Forgiveness and understanding are not the norm in our modern culture. There is an underlying attitude of “Eye for an Eye”, or “They got what’s coming to them!”. This will not bring you peace, joy, and least of all any type of happiness.
Living in anger and unforgiveness will destroy you from the inside out. A popular quote about refusing to forgive describes perfectly what living like this truly does to you. “Refusing to forgive is like taking poison but expecting someone else to die.”
Happiness Strategy #5 – Practice patience and forgiveness daily.
6. Kindness vs. Envy
Kindness is a desire to help others, rather than the need to be better than them. We are envious of our neighbors because they have a brand new car. We are envious of our friends because they went on a tropical vacation. We are envious of our brother-in-law because he received a promotion at work. Envy does nothing but cause major rifts between you and the people you are close to. Does this sound like something that can bring you true happiness?
Kindness, especially in spite of the way we feel, will cut you free from the chains of envy and jealousy. It can be practiced daily in simple ways. Kindness can come in many forms. Text your wife a love note while she’s at work. Bring in the mail for your neighbor. Make cookies for your child’s teacher. Smiling at those you pass by will brighten not only your day but theirs as well.
Happiness Strategy #6 – Find one way to practice kindness each and every day.
“Our envy of others devours us most of all.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
7. Humility vs. Pride
Humility is actively letting go of your own false ego and replacing it with an attitude of service. This is definitely not an easy task. Pride allows us to believe we are not in need of help, we are better than everyone else, and we know everything there is to know. Pride also has an uncanny ability to demonstrate in our own lives, the need for humility.
Humility places the emphasis on someone else, besides myself, and their needs. What can I do to help them through this time of struggle? How can I best use my co-workers talents to improve on this presentation? When we practice humility, we begin to see the positive aspects of another person’s life, which in turn helps us see the positive aspects of our own lives.
Happiness Strategy #7 – Practice humility by living a life with an attitude of “others first”.
Now you have seven strategies you can practically implement and use each and every day. Practicing these strategies will create long-lasting habits of self-control, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness, and humility.
Looking at all of these in its entirety can make you feel very overwhelmed. To best implement these strategies, choose one to follow each week. Begin by focusing on the one that you struggle with the most.
Steady and consistent practice of these seven happiness strategies will have you feeling better. Those around you will take notice that you are now a happier and more contented human being.
Entrepreneurs
The Brutal Truth About Entrepreneurship with ADHD (And Why Most Advice Is Making It Worse)
You’re not lazy. You’re not undisciplined… and you’re definitely not broken.
You’re an entrepreneur with ADHD, and right now you’re probably sitting on 19 unfinished projects, 47 open tabs, and a brain that feels like it’s running on 12 different radio stations at once.
You’ve read the books. You’ve tried the planners, the Pomodoro timers, the accountability groups. You’ve even hired coaches who promised to “fix” your focus. Yet here you are — brilliant ideas, massive potential, and a business that still feels like it’s one step away from collapsing under the weight of your own mind.
Here’s what almost nobody in the entrepreneurial space will admit:
The real struggle isn’t your ADHD. It’s that you’ve been trying to run a neurodivergent brain inside a neurotypical business model — and then beating yourself up when it doesn’t work.
Most advice for entrepreneurs was written by people whose brains work differently. They preach consistency, routines, long-term planning, and steady execution like those things are universal truths. For the ADHD entrepreneur, those “truths” feel like trying to swim upstream in cement. You can force it for a while (and you have), but eventually your brain rebels, the burnout hits, and you’re left feeling like a failure who just needs to “try harder.”
That cycle is quietly destroying more talented founders than cash flow problems or bad hires ever could.
The deeper layer most people never reach is this: your ADHD isn’t a bug in the system. It’s a different operating system entirely. And when you stop trying to install Windows on a Mac and start building everything around macOS, the game changes completely.
The Hidden Addiction That Keeps ADHD Entrepreneurs Stuck
You already know the surface symptoms — time blindness, rejection sensitivity, starting strong and fading fast, shiny object syndrome.
But the real trap is more insidious.
It’s the addiction to chaos and novelty.
Your brain is wired for dopamine. New ideas, big visions, last-minute sprints, high-stakes pressure — these things light you up like nothing else. The boring, repetitive, systems-building work that actually scales a business? It feels like torture.
So unconsciously, you keep your business in a state of controlled chaos. You say yes to too many things. You chase the next exciting opportunity. You avoid building the boring infrastructure because “I work better under pressure anyway.”
And every time the pressure gets too high, you crash, swear you’ll get organized next quarter, and repeat the cycle.
Meanwhile, the neurotypical advice keeps telling you to “just build better habits.” As if your brain is a poorly trained dog that needs more discipline instead of a high-performance race car that needs the right fuel and track.
This isn’t a character flaw. It’s neurology.
And until you stop treating your wiring as something to overcome and start treating it as your greatest strategic advantage, you’ll stay stuck in the same exhausting loop.
The Identity Shift That Changes Everything
The entrepreneurs with ADHD who finally break through don’t “fix” their brains.
They redesign their entire business to work with their brains.
They stop trying to become the consistent, routine-loving founder the gurus talk about. Instead, they become the architect of a system that leverages their natural strengths — hyperfocus, pattern recognition, creative problem-solving, relentless drive under pressure — while outsourcing or automating everything that drains them.
This is the layer most ADHD entrepreneurs never reach because it requires something terrifying: accepting that you are never going to be “normal” at entrepreneurship… and that’s exactly why you can win bigger than most.
Your ability to see connections others miss. Your tolerance for uncertainty. Your capacity to go all-in when something lights you up. These aren’t liabilities. They’re unfair advantages in a world that rewards speed, creativity, and bold moves.
The shift is simple but brutal:
Stop trying to manage your ADHD. Start designing your business around it.
How to Actually Build a Business That Works With Your Brain
- Stop fighting your energy cycles — weaponize them. Most ADHD entrepreneurs try to force 8-hour focused days. That’s insane. Instead, track when your brain actually works best (for many it’s 10pm-2am or random 4-hour hyperfocus bursts). Build your schedule around those windows. Protect them like gold. Do the deep, high-leverage work then. Use the low-energy periods for admin, calls, or recovery.
- Build “chaos containers,” not rigid systems. Traditional project management tools feel like cages. Create loose but effective structures that give your brain freedom. Use tools like Notion with massive flexibility, or body-doubling (working alongside someone virtually), or even hiring a “chaos wrangler” — an assistant who thrives on turning your scattered ideas into executable plans.
- Turn your rejection sensitivity into rocket fuel. That intense fear of letting people down or looking stupid? Channel it into creating ridiculously high standards for your customer experience or product quality. Use it as fuel instead of letting it paralyze you.
- Outsource the parts that make you want to die. The execution, follow-through, and maintenance phases are where most ADHD entrepreneurs lose. Hire or partner with people who love the details. Your job is vision, strategy, and big swings. Let someone else own the spreadsheets.
- Create external pressure on your own terms. Deadlines and public commitments work wonders for the ADHD brain. Use them strategically — announce launches, create beta groups, or work with coaches who understand neurodivergence instead of fighting it.
The entrepreneurs with ADHD who are quietly crushing it right now aren’t the ones who finally became “disciplined.” They’re the ones who stopped apologizing for how their brain works and started building empires that are specifically engineered for it.
They have teams that handle the boring stuff. They have systems that flex with their energy instead of fighting it. They’ve turned their “flaws” into the exact reasons their businesses stand out.
Your ADHD brain is not the enemy. The enemy was trying to play the game by rules that were never designed for you.
The moment you accept that and start designing everything… your calendar, your team, your offers, your processes — around how you actually operate, the struggle doesn’t disappear… but it becomes manageable, even exhilarating.
You were never meant to fit the mold. You were meant to break it and build something better.
The world doesn’t need another cookie-cutter entrepreneur. It needs the chaotic, brilliant, all-in, slightly unhinged visionaries who can only operate at full power when the game is built for them.
That’s you.
Stop trying to fix yourself. Start building the business that was always meant to be run by a mind like yours.
Your next breakthrough isn’t going to come from working harder or being more consistent. It’s going to come from finally giving yourself permission to work differently.
And when you do that? Watch what happens.
The same brain that once felt like a curse becomes the exact reason your business becomes unstoppable.
You’ve got this. Not despite the ADHD. Because of it.
If you want to learn more from me or send me a personal message I’ll respond to you on Instagram at https://instagram.com/iamjoelbrown speak soon!
Health & Fitness
The Health Planning Habits That Support Long-Term Success
Most people think about health planning only when something forces them to.
A medical bill arrives unexpectedly. An insurance issue appears during treatment. A diagnosis changes how future care needs are viewed. Suddenly health planning becomes urgent instead of preventative.
The problem is that long-term health stability is usually shaped by smaller habits built quietly over time, not just by major decisions during emergencies.
That includes physical health habits, of course, but it also includes how people approach insurance coverage, preventative care, financial preparation, and long-term healthcare planning before problems become immediate.
The families who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often not the ones avoiding every issue entirely. More often, they’re the ones who built systems early enough to make difficult situations feel more manageable later.
Consistency Matters More Than Perfection
A lot of health advice still revolves around extreme change.
Perfect diets. Aggressive routines. Complete lifestyle overhauls.
In reality, most long-term health success comes from consistency people can realistically maintain for years instead of months. Small preventative habits tend to matter more than dramatic short-term efforts that collapse under pressure.
That principle applies financially too.
People often spend more time researching investment strategies than understanding their healthcare coverage or preparing for future medical costs. But healthcare instability can disrupt long-term financial plans surprisingly quickly when households are unprepared for how expensive even routine care can become over time.
The practical side of health planning is becoming harder to separate from overall financial planning now than it used to be.
Preventative Planning Reduces More Stress Than People Realize
One overlooked benefit of health planning is emotional stability.
People who understand their coverage, maintain preventative care routines, and think ahead about healthcare decisions often describe feeling less overwhelmed when unexpected situations happen. The goal is not eliminating uncertainty entirely. That’s unrealistic.
The goal is reducing how chaotic healthcare decisions feel under pressure.
That’s one reason broader conversations tied to healthcare and health insurance have expanded significantly over the last several years. Rising costs, changing coverage structures, and increasing healthcare complexity have made long-term planning more important for average households than many people expected.
Healthcare is no longer something most families can comfortably approach reactively forever.
People Underestimate How Quickly Healthcare Costs Compound
One reason health planning habits matter so much is that healthcare costs rarely arrive in one dramatic moment alone.
More often, they build gradually:
- recurring prescriptions
- specialist visits
- ongoing treatment plans
- insurance deductible increases
- long-term care considerations
- unexpected procedures layered on top of existing expenses
Families often absorb these costs incrementally until they realize how much financial pressure accumulated over time.
That gradual buildup is part of what makes proactive planning valuable. People who think ahead about coverage structures, emergency savings, provider networks, and preventative care tend to adapt more smoothly when healthcare needs eventually increase later in life.
The difficult part is that many households delay these conversations because they feel healthy right now.
Healthcare Decisions Have Become More Complicated
Another challenge is that healthcare systems themselves continue evolving quickly.
Insurance structures change. Telehealth expands. Employer-sponsored benefits shift. Prescription pricing fluctuates. Patients now carry more responsibility for understanding deductibles, provider networks, and out-of-pocket exposure than previous generations often did.
That complexity creates decision fatigue.
Even relatively organized households sometimes feel uncertain about whether they’re making good healthcare choices because the systems themselves are difficult to navigate confidently. A lot of current health insurance trends discussions reflect this larger issue, healthcare planning is becoming less about isolated medical events and more about long-term sustainability across entire households.
People want predictability, but healthcare systems increasingly feel harder to predict.
The Most Effective Health Habits Usually Feel Boring
One thing people rarely admit is that good long-term planning habits are often not particularly exciting.
Scheduling preventative appointments. Reviewing insurance annually. Building emergency savings slowly. Staying physically active consistently. Maintaining realistic routines instead of dramatic cycles of burnout and reset.
None of those habits feel dramatic at the moment.
But over long periods, they create stability that becomes incredibly valuable once life gets complicated. The people who navigate healthcare stress most effectively are often the ones who built ordinary systems early instead of waiting for perfect motivation later.
That applies financially and physically at the same time.
Why Long-Term Success Depends on Adaptability
Health planning is ultimately difficult because people’s lives keep changing.
Careers shift. Families grow. Aging parents require support. Medical needs evolve. Financial priorities change over decades in ways nobody predicts perfectly in advance.
That’s why the strongest long-term health planning habits are usually flexible rather than rigid.
The goal is not building a flawless plan that never changes. It’s creating enough structure, awareness, and preparation that future adjustments become manageable instead of overwhelming.
Most people cannot control every future health outcome. They can, however, build habits that make uncertainty easier to navigate when it eventually arrives.
Life
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