Every once in a while you hear about a concept or story that imprints on you and the way you go about things forever Here are 3 that really affected me. --------- 1. Sun Tzu: Wu Qi Sucking the Poison While Sun Tzu wrote the strategic theories, historical commentators like Li Ch'uan illustrated his chapters on leadership with this exact story about General Wu Qi The Act: General Wu Qi was known for living exactly like his lowest-ranking soldiers. One day, he noticed a common soldier suffering from a terrible, festering, poisonous wound. Without hesitation, the great commander-in-chief knelt down and personally sucked the poison and pus out of the warrior's sore to save his life. When the soldier's mother heard the news, she did not rejoice—she broke down wailing and crying bitterly. Confused onlookers asked her, "Why do you cry? The commander-in-chief himself just saved your son!" The mother replied: "Years ago, Lord Wu did the exact same thing for my husband. My husband was so deeply moved by the General's devotion that he never left his side, fiercely fighting until he was killed by the enemy. Now that the General has done this for my son, I know my son will also fight for him unto death. I cry because I know I have just lost my son to the battlefield." Loyalty is very important. As well as helping your brothers in arms. If you see someone struggling and you remove them from their suffering, you may have earned an ally for life. Sometimes all we need is one person to care when it feels like no one does. Don't be afraid to be that person. ------------ 2. Rat Drowning Experiment: A 1950's study by Johns Hopkins University researcher Dr. Curt Richter that explored the physiological effects of hopelessness and the survival power of hope. Richter placed domesticated rats into jars filled with water to see how long they could tread water before giving up and drowning. Most rats gave up and sank due to exhaustion within 15 minutes (though a few gave up in just a couple of minutes, and others lasted much longer). In a second phase, Richter rescued the rats just before they reached total exhaustion, dried them off, let them rest for a brief moment, and then put them back into the water. In the second round, the rescued rats swam for up to 60 hours (2.5 days) instead of 15 minutes. Richter concluded that the rats swam exponentially longer because they had developed hope. Having been rescued once, they believed help was on the way, which pushed their bodies far past normal physical limits. A lot of us can relate to this in so many realms of life, but especially here in crypto. We've all zeroed out or came from zero, and most of us have felt the peaks of running it up big. Even if we lose it again, we keep that hope knowing that it's possible we can get it back. Hope is powerful. It is your strongest weapon. At one point they will try to take it away from you and make you question everything. Never lose hope. --------- 3. Entropy: A closed system will naturally move from order to disorder with no outer input. A clean room takes work to organize, but it naturally gets messy over time if you just live in it without cleaning up. An egg falls and breaks, but a broken egg never un-breaks on its own. To me this one is all about responsibility and awareness. Often we tend to rotate from being an observer and the active player. It can be easy to watch things crumble around you and blame other factors and other people. It can be easy for some to see terrible things happen and just say "That's not my problem." Realize you have a huge impact on your surroundings, and that can even ripple out moreso. Understand your effect on the world and do your best to shape it how you believe it should be. You're a lot stronger than you think. --------------- Would love to hear about a single concept from you that meant something to you