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Larry L. Lewis, Jr. Personal Section:
Mental Toughness
Probably one of the most difficult challenges faced by us today is to develop what I call “mental toughness”. We live in a wonderful age of technology where so much information is processed and available to us.
At times, I find it difficult for me to stay “mentally tough”. Fortunately, I rely on many of the same technologies that process and spit out the aforementioned information, so I try to utilize some of the very technologies that can make me mentally weak if I don’t use them properly.
I define “mental toughness” for myself in three components. Firstly, I’m a big fan of Liberal Arts educations, so I try to read a little about everything. Even if I think a topic might be a little boring, I try to read something about it.
Secondly, being well versed in current events allows me the ability to “think for myself”, and not just accept the regurgitated opinions of the often biased Media.
Lastly, I’m a big proponent of “financial literacy” which has rarely been taught in our school systems. The end result is that we have a Nation that is burdened with debt for decades to come. Being financially literate has positively impacted not just my “mental toughness”, but the other areas of my life as well. The links below will take you to websites that I use to optimize and maintain my own “mental toughness”:
www.bookshare.org
A great resource for reading an ever-growing and already massive collection of books and magazines.
www.loc.gov/nls/braille/
The Library of Congress’ “Web-Braille” effort also offers a wide variety of books and magazines that the blind reader can download into contracted Braille.
www.rfbd.org
An organization that helped me achieve a post secondary education, Recordings for the Blind and Dyslexic continues to evolve to meet the changing technology needs of today’s student.
www.audible.com
Audible is a great resource for downloading audio information to a variety of devices. While this is a great site, I would caution the reader to not let this site take the place of either Braille or large print reading which is great exercise for the mind.
www.usatoday.com
USA Today offers an easy to digest, daily snapshot of what’s happening around the world.
www.cnn.com/audio/radio/winmedia.html
www.cnn.com/audio/radio/cnntv.html
These links provide streaming audio of CNN Radio and CNN TV news broadcasts.
www.online.wsj.com/home/us
In my opinion, the Wall Street Journal gives an excellent perspective on the world’s news and events from a financial point of view.
www.thestreet.com
This is a great website to follow financial trends and to read up on companies in which one might care to invest. Remember, it’s not important how much money one makes, but how one chooses to make that money work for them.
www.richdad.com
I read a book a number of years ago called “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki which totally changed the way that I thought about money management and financial literacy. There were no earth-shattering revelations in this book, but it’s pretty easy to digest. This link will take you to his website which is full of all kinds of interesting bits of financial management information that I have found helpful for me as I continue to improve upon my own financial literacy.
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