Alexis Rondeau

The Why Cafe

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Cover of The Why Cafe
Kindle

John Strelecky

46 highlights · 10 notes · last read May 2022

Highlights I wrote a note on are shown in full. The other 37 are scrambled: the words are the author's, so here you only see where in the book I underlined something.

“You see John, once you truly ask the question you saw, seeking the answer will become part of your being. You'll find yourself waking up with the question first thing in the morning, and having it constantly flash through your mind during the day. Although you may not remember it, you'll be thinking about it while you sleep, too. It’s a little like a gateway. Once you open it up, it beckons you. And once open, it's very hard to close.”

Location 377

My note The virality of a good question

“Suppose you wanted to become an artist in your spare time, what type of art would you create?” I thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I suppose it would depend on what type of artist I wanted to be. I guess I would just create whatever I wanted.” I stopped and waited for her to comment. She didn’t, so I thought through my answer. “Is it that simple?” I asked. “Once someone knows why they are here, they do whatever they want that fulfills their reason?” As I said the words, I felt a sense of excitement race through my body.

Location 516

My note If i could do anything, i would do what comes naturally

“When a person knows the reason they are here, they have identified their ‘Purpose For Existing.’ We call it ‘PFE’ for short. During someone’s lifetime, they may find they want to do ten, twenty, or hundreds of things to fulfill their Purpose For Existing. They can do all of them. Our most fulfilled customers are the ones who know their PFE, and try all the activities they believe will fulfill it.”

Location 542

My note There are many ways to fulfill your purpose for existing

To my surprise, although he appeared to be moving pretty slowly, sometimes paddling his flippers and other times just floating in the water, I couldn’t keep up with him. I was wearing fins, which gave me propulsion power through the water, and didn’t have on a buoyancy vest or anything that would slow me down, and yet he kept moving farther from me even though I was trying to keep up.

Location 593

My note Paddling, then float can be faster than just paddling

“Well, as I was floating on the surface, I realized that the turtle linked its movements to the movements of the water. When a wave was going toward the shore, and in the face of the turtle, he would float, and paddle just enough to hold his position. When the pull of the wave was back out to the ocean, he would paddle faster, so that he was using the movement of the water to his advantage. “The turtle never fought the waves, but instead he used them. The reason I had not been able to keep up with him was because I was paddling all the time, no matter which way the water was flowing. At first this was fine, and I was able to stay with him. I even had to slow my paddling sometimes. But the more I battled against the incoming waves, the more tired I became. This meant that when the wave was going out, I didn’t have enough energy to take advantage of it. “As wave after wave came in and went out, I became more and more fatigued and less effective. The turtle kept optimizing his movements with the movements of the water, though. That's why he was able to swim faster than I could.”

Location 608

My note Ride the wave, use the wave power to go forward, stabilize when it goes back

My note The more i battled the incoming waves the more tired i became which meant i had less energy when an outgoing wave came

“I think the turtle—the green sea turtle—taught you that if you aren’t in tune with what you want to do, you can waste your energy on lots of things. Then when opportunities come up to do what you want, you might not have the strength or time to spend on them.”

Location 630

My note Not being in tune with the bigger motions means you dont know when to push and when to rest

I realized that in my life, the incoming waves are made up of all the people, activities, and things that are trying to capture my attention, energy, and time but are not associated with my PFE. The outgoing waves are the people, activities, and things that can help me fulfill my PFE. Therefore, the more time and energy I waste on the incoming waves, the less time and energy I have for the outgoing ones.

Location 640

My note Incoming wave: people that want my energy but don't move me towards my purpose.
Outgoing wave: people that give me energy to move foward faste

If from the time I graduated college until the time I was seventy-five years old, I spent twenty minutes per day opening and looking at mail and e-mail I didn’t really care about—that used up almost an entire year of my life.

Location 659

My note Was kann ich in einem jahr erleben und tun was fur mich ist?

“Meanwhile, to offset the fact that we aren’t spending every day doing what we want, we purchase some more things. We hope that in some small way the advertising messages are true, and those items will bring the fulfillment our daily work life does not. Unfortunately, the more we purchase, the more bills we have, and therefore the more time we need to spend at work so we can pay for everything. Since time at our job is not really the way we want to spend our life, more time at work results in more feelings of unfulfillment because now we have even less time for what we want to do.” “And so we buy more things,” I said. “I think I see where this is going. It doesn’t sound like a very positive cycle.”

Location 813

My note Work to buy things that dont make us happy cycle

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