Scrunch paper tigers

PLUS: Start where you are

May 20, 2025

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

  • Start where you are

  • Improve your looks in 5 seconds

  • Playing as a team

  • Scrunch paper tigers

  • Arthur Ashe’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Start where you are

Valuable projects and tasks have compounding benefits. When we delay starting them, we delay the compounding effect. Sometimes the delay is because we fear we’re not ready. These fears are often overblown. There’s wisdom in what Arthur Ashe said:

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

— Arthur Ashe
COMMUNICATION

Improve your looks in 5 seconds

Confidence is attractive. Positive body language is our fastest way to appear more confident. Sternum-up and smile. We may not always feel confident, but we can choose to look like it.

Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you’re behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.

— Arthur Ashe
PRODUCTIVITY

Playing as a team

Source: tumblr

The Spanish women’s soccer players could have been distracted by multiple difficulties with their management. Instead, they won the 2023 World Cup.

The players were unified and disciplined. This meant they were able to adapt to different match situations and remain calm under pressure.

Strong relationships with our colleagues help us to navigate work challenges. Each day we get to play as a team.

Everyone knew the goal at the beginning when preparing for the tournament. Everyone is competitive, everyone has a strong mentality to win. We’ve been working a lot of years for this moment and we have it, we have the trophy.

— Aitana Bonmat
1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS

Scrunch paper tigers

I’ve coached and trained thousands of people in the past 25 years. One quality that distinguishes great careers from average careers is the audacity to act. The willingness to act despite fears and doubts.

Most of our career fears are paper tigers. Do you have any that you need to scrunch?

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

— Amelia Earhart
CAREER WISDOM

Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe (1943 — 1993) was born in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated first in his high school and attended UCLA on a tennis scholarship. Ashe completed a business degree in 1966.

Ashe became the first Black man to win the U.S. Open (1968), Australian Open (1970), and Wimbledon (1975). He won 33 singles titles and 18 doubles titles in his career.

Beyond tennis, Ashe was a vocal civil rights activist who campaigned against apartheid. He later developed AIDS following a blood transfusion he received during surgery. Ashe then established a foundation to combat AIDS.

Some of his career wisdom:

Success is largely a matter of holding on after others have let go.

Fear isn’t an excuse to come to a standstill. It’s the impetus to step up and strike.

The best way to judge a life is to ask yourself, ‘Did I make the best use of the time I had?’