AliciaDale

You don’t want to be rich so you can buy g wagons & flex jet photos. You want to be rich so you can sit on your porch with a coffee for slow mornings. So you can go to the gym middle of the day. Take long walks and call them meetings. Never miss a single family moment. That is being rich, and it has nothing to do with buying things to impress strangers.

If you’re curious and love to learn, there has never been a better time to be alive.

Most people do not know the name of this bridge in the South Loop in Chicago. It's been around for 127 years and it was designated a Chicago landmark in 2007. It's called the St. Charles Air Line Bridge. Image at sunrise last Friday.

An 18-year-old asked me for life advice this week. My response: Don’t stress over the things the world tells you to stress about (college, major, first job). Just try to: (1) Be curious (2) Be valuable (3) Be around great people If you do that, the rest will work itself out.

Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and just do the work. It doesn’t matter how good or how bad it is. You don’t need to set the world on fire with your first try. You just need to prove to yourself that you have what it takes to produce something. There are no artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, or scientists who became great by half-finishing their work. Stop debating what you should make and just make something.

The first minute of action is worth more than a year of perfect planning.

Welcome to July! Friday, America turns 250! #chicago

“No options left” is often just exhaustion talking. When we’re tired, disappointed, or stuck, it’s easy to give up. But the next possibility appears only after we take a breath, ask for help, change the angle, or try the thing that feels too simple to matter.

The scariest thing in the world is truly going all in on something. Because it strips away every single pre-built excuse you may have for falling short. You’re completely naked. It’s terrifying. But it’s also why all the rewards in life go to those who have the courage to do it.

The older I get, the more I realize you can reinvent yourself as many times as you need. New standards. New habits. New mindsets. New people. New career. It's never too late. You can change. Today, tomorrow, and as many times as it takes to create the life you want.

Some doors close because they’re not part of your assignment anymore.

Repeat after me: I no longer fear rejection because rejection is how I learn what isn’t right for me.

Did you know curiosity is free, infinitely renewable and probably the highest-ROI investment a human can make?

I researched human happiness for three years while working on my first book. One thing I learned was that happiness was really about attention. The happiest people didn't have perfect lives. But the imperfections were never their focus. They found joy in ordinary days. Gratitude in small moments. Meaning in simple things. Happiness is about attention, not perfection.