PN | Weekly #12: April 26, 2026
“The hallmark of successful individuals is that they love learning, they seek challenges, they value effort, and they persist in the face of obstacles.”CAROL DWECK |
Happy Sunday, Heroic!
Michael here. 👋
I love my daughters.
And this week’s new Philosopher’s Note, on The Yes Brain by Dan Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, has me sitting with a question:
What’s the thing I most want to give them?
To be honest, it’s not a question that I’d really, REALLY sat with before.
And I’m liking the answer that the The Yes Brain authors frame up.
They call it a “kind of happiness composed of meaning, connection, and peaceful contentedness.”
What the Greeks call eudaimonia.
In The Yes Brain, they say we can cultivate it in our kids by helping them develop four capacities:
- Balance (managing emotions and behavior)
- Resilience (bouncing back when life hits hard)
- Insight (knowing themselves well enough to choose well)
- Empathy (seeing others clearly and showing up for them)
It’s a beautiful, powerful framework.
As I was reflecting on it, I also sat with the fact that it’s going to be hard for me to pass on to my daughters something that I haven't built in myself.
If you’re a parent, you know: kids don't absorb our lectures, they absorb our nervous systems.
They watch how we regulate when the day goes sideways. They watch how we recover when we get knocked down. They intuit whether we actually know ourselves or are just performing a version of someone else. And they model how we treat the people we love when no one's keeping score.
Which makes these four capacities a curriculum not just for childhood, but for all of us.
So this week I'm not asking which one my daughters need most.
I'm asking which one I need most.
And then I'm going to work on it. Out loud. Where they can see me.
Balance. Resilience. Insight. Empathy.
Pick the one that's wobbling in you right now. The one you'd least want your kids (or your team, or your clients, or your partner) to inherit at its current level.
That's the work this week.
Because the most empowering, lasting gift we can give the people we love is the version of ourselves composed of meaning, connection, and peaceful contentedness.
Day 1. All in. Let's go.
Enjoy this past week's featured Notes!
The Slight Edge
by Jeff Olson
by Raymond Kethledge & Michael Erwin
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
by Stephen Covey
The Yes Brain
by Dan Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson
by Mark Divine
by Dan Siegel
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“Your job as a parent is not to prevent them from experiencing setbacks and failures, but to give them the tools and emotional resilience they need to weather life’s storms.”DAN SIEGEL & TINA PAYNE BRYSON |
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