James Barry

Articles

This page covers articles on decision making and personal development. New one published every week.

 

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Whether you think you can or you can't you're right.- Henry Ford During one of my first banking interviews, I was asked a classic brain teaser. "How many pot holes are in Manhattan?" Luckily for me, I think I'm fairly good at...

Worrying Over One’s Purpose

You spend so much time thinking about your purpose throughout life. Well, at least I do. I bet you do too though. Because in today's modern world, you don't have an assigned purpose at birth. You're allowed to choose. You have...

My Two Mindsets

I find myself in one of two mindsets when I think about accomplishing anything. There is the "I can do anything!" mindset. I'm in this one ~30% of the time. Then there is "My possibilities are closing off" mindset. That's the...

My Life In 27 Lines

At 1 years old, my brain couldn't create long-term memories. At 2 years old, more of the same, but now I could talk. At 3 years old, I turned a cardboard box into a store. At 4 years old, Legos became my new best friend. At 5...

Life Compounds Upon Itself

Compounding interest is life's most valuable phenomenon. It's often discussed alongside money, where it is a simple mathematical equation. For example, let's say you had $100 and earned a return of 20% per year for 5 years. Here...

Trusting Valium, & False Authority

What a drag it is getting old. - The Rolling Stones On Nov 15th, 1963, Valium was approved by the FDA. It was initially marketed to "reduce psychic tension" and it went on to become one of the world's most widely prescribed...

My Blog is My House

I launched this blog for one reason: To make a change. Life had become stagnant. Reactive, instead of proactive. Four years out of college, I felt like I had made zero life progress. One failed career and one failed business. I...

The Porous Empire & Power of Time

In the 1700s, the Porous Empire was expanding. But not through the traditional means… of war and of blood. They were expanding via surplus. Buying out their neighbors land from underneath them and ushering in a new age of...

Write About What Is Unique To You

When I first began writing, I wrote about everything. Books I had read, life experiences, random thoughts, etc. Even wrote about my 10 favorite beers. Which was fine, but I wanted to be a great writer. I STILL want to be great...