Happy Tuesday, and welcome to another edition of Positive DONUT. How I feel every week knowing we're about to hit your inbox: 

Today's issue is chock-full of everything from seal pups in the city to penguin meditations. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your weekly, semi-animal-themed mental break.

Have a fantastic rest of your week! And don't forget to submit your everyday wins here to be featured in a future newsletter. 

–Kailyn

Ready, Set, Go: Today's newsletter takes ~3.56 minutes to read (947 words).

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• $200 cash gift card courtesy of SheFinds
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• $200 cash gift card courtesy of Matt’s Flights
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• Dyce Game Pack courtesy of The DONUT
• NoNetz Prize Pack courtesy of Positive DONUT

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Every challenge I face is an opportunity to grow and improve. I am grateful for everything life brings.

Sixty-four years ago, a group of best friends graduating from school agreed to meet up for a monthly beer at the local bar every first Tuesday of the month.

Six and a half decades later, they’ve never missed a meet-up.

Best mates

The "lads" met at Prince Henry's School in Evesham, UK, in 1953. But when it came time for graduation in 1960, they didn’t want to say goodbye.

What started as their “farewell pint” turned into a pact to meet every month – no matter where life might take them. Now all in their eighties, the men have stayed true to their pact and feel like a “band of brothers” all these years later.

• The bros also have room for a redemption arc. One of the group's “newer” members, David Day, started joining for a beer twenty-two years ago after a forty-year hiatus from the friend group.
• "When I returned… it was just like we'd been drinking the night before," he said of his friends from his teenage years. "It didn't take very long to pick up again on what everybody had been up to and feel comfortable chatting to people about it."
• He's been joining the men every month since.

The men talk about anything and everything during their monthly lads’ night. They reminisce on old memories, keep each other updated on their lives and families, and look forward to the future.

While some men understandably miss occasional meetings due to conflicts or vacations, most have been consistent for the 60+ years together. They also stress how special it is for each of them to continue meeting in person. Not only does it get the senior citizens up and out of the house each month, but it continues to remind them of the importance of face-to-face contact and making memories together.

The men have no plans to stop their meet-ups any time soon. Here's to more years and more pints shared together every month🍻.

Spencer Rascoff co-founded Zillow, scaling it into a $16B real estate giant. But everyday investors couldn’t invest until after the IPO, missing early gains.

• "I wish we had done a round accessible to retail investors prior to Zillow's IPO," Spencer later said.
• Now he’s doing just that. Spencer has teamed up with another Zillow exec to launch Pacaso. Pacaso’s co-ownership marketplace is disrupting the $1.3T vacation home market. And unlike Zillow, you can invest in Pacaso as a private company.

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Disclaimer: This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com.

A seal pup wandered onto the streets of New Haven, Connecticut, last week after being spotted near a restaurant in the harbor just the day before. 

To make it to the city, the curious pup traveled galumphed five miles from where he was escorted into the water by officials the previous day. It seems like he just couldn't get enough of the big city life.

👀 Looking ahead...Since the pup had wandered into heavily populated areas two days in a row, an aquarium rescue team determined he was unsafe on his own. They brought the seal back to Mystic Aquarium, where he will take part in “fish school” to teach him how to properly survive in the wild before his eventual release.

🦦 Local Oregon tribes and nonprofits received a $1.56 million grant to lead a planning effort to reintroduce sea otters to the Oregon and Northern California coasts. The adorable creatures have been missing on their land for over a century – locals hope they will help restore the state’s dwindling underwater kelp forests and control invasive sea urchin populations.

🧔🏻 The New York Yankees reversed a decades-long “no-beards” rule, allowing players to grow short and well-groomed facial hair for the first time since 1976.

🩰 Anyone can dance…The Washington School of Ballet has become one of the only premier ballet companies in the world to offer a full curriculum for adults seeking to learn, or relearn, the art of ballet.

When you have a moment, try out this simple meditation technique: Penguin Breathing (s/o @kidtalk.co for the idea).

🐧 How to do it:

1. Stand up with your heels together, toes pointed slightly outward, and arms at your sides.
2. As you inhale, bring your arms slowly up to the sky like a penguin raising its wings.
3. Exhale and slowly bring them back down.
4. Repeat until you're feeling more calm and grounded (and try not to sprout a beak in the process😉).

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We may not be an early-2000s gossip column, but you're all stars in my eyes🤩. Check out the positive news sent in this week from readers just like you:

🤓 Britton D. from New Mexico is making career moves…

• "I recently started a new job and was feeling a little lost and unmoored the first couple of weeks. Things have started to come together, though, and as I move into the first complete month, it's feeling good. I'm excited!"

👯‍♀️ One anonymous subscriber from Chile is looking forward to seeing a friend…

• “I managed to call a friend to postpone a visit, and everything went well; we will meet later!” (translated from Spanish)

🥹 Linsey C. from Texas loves What's Your Win…

• "My win is celebrating with everyone who submits their wins every week. When I am in a depressive low period, I look forward to reading others' positivity!"

❤️ An anonymous subscriber from Montana is the definition of never give up…

• "My win is that I am finally feeling whole and healed after a depression that began after several simultaneous losses and a health challenge. It couldn’t have felt more ridiculous to have so many hard things happen within a two-year space of time. I couldn’t catch my breath from one loss before dealing with another months later. This depression took me DOWN. I fought hard to get myself out of a very dark place. It took some time but I finally shared my depression with a friend and then found a very helpful therapist. It took about a year of making serious changes in my life, including fighting my way out of isolation and negative thinking..."

• She continued: "I just want to share with anyone else out there who might be in a similar place that if I can crawl my way out of that hole I was in, you can too. Just tell one trustworthy person and ask them to help you find a professional or a supportive person. Go to the library, read the good self-help books, start a simple gratitude journal (think: pillow, warm water, a juicy orange for starters!), and fight for yourself. We are enough, we are worth it, and we are complete people - despite what your “depression thoughts” might be telling you. I am so proud of myself. I didn’t know if I would make it out of that place, but spending time with a good friend, going for walks and paying attention to the birds, and eventually having a therapist to help me take one step at a time back to living a *new* life got me here - I want to live again, I want to participate in life, and now I have more good days than dark." 

I think I can speak for all of us when I say we are all so proud of you all!! Thank you for sharing your wins. They inspire me (and, I'm sure, others) each and every week. 

Note: Some responses have been slightly edited (or translated) for clarity

It's our final newsletter of February, so today's trivia theme is Black History.

1. What was Rosa Parks’ occupation at the time of her historic bus boycott protest in Montgomery?
2. Who broke the MLB color barrier in 1947, becoming the first Black player in modern Major League Baseball?
3. Which poet and activist wrote "Still I Rise" and became the first Black woman to recite a poem at a US presidential inauguration (Bill Clinton, 1993)?

I get it: life can get busy and overwhelming. It's hard to see the bright side sometimes.

• But What's Your Win isn't about toxic positivity – it's about perspective and expectations (which some, like our founder, say is the secret to happiness). 
• There truly is always something to be grateful for, even if it's as simple as your favorite cozy blanket or a fantastic latte you had earlier today. 

What's Your Win is about taking a moment to remember the good things in life. Big or small, it's all worth celebrating. And who knows? Sharing your win might inspire someone else to recognize the good in theirs🥰.

Share your everyday wins and gratitude here for a chance to be featured in next week's newsletter and have a positive impact on a stranger's life.

Submit a win – or a friend/partner/family member's win – here.

1. A seamstress  
2. Jackie Robinson 
3. Maya Angelou 

Hit that reply button and let me know, I read every response. Have a great week! 🥰

–Kailyn

P.S. Enjoying this newsletter and want to support my work? It'd mean the world if you forwarded this email to a friend or two.