Chip Conley > Quotes

“Anxiety = Uncertainty x Powerlessness”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“Curiosity = Wonder + Awe”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“Joy = Love - Fear”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“EVENT + REACTION = OUTCOME Many people do not distinguish between something that happens to them and their reaction to it. Yet it isn’t the event or situation that holds the emotional charge; it’s our beliefs that create our response.”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“This equation has helped many people I know identify the difference between practicing happiness and pursuing it. When my happiness feels elusive, I tend to ask myself, “What am I not being grateful for, and what am I pursuing that’s distracting me from that gratitude?”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“Perennials are ever-blooming, relevant people of all ages who know what’s happening in the world, stay current with technology and have friends of all ages. We get involved, stay curious, mentor others, and are passionate, compassionate, creative, confident, collaborative, global-minded risk takers.”
― Chip Conley, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

“Think of your emotions as messages that give you the freedom, rather than the obligation, to respond. Fear protects. Regret teaches. Sadness releases. Joy uplifts. Empathy unites. Emotions”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“all business is fundamentally H2H”
― Chip Conley, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

“As Viktor Frankl wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” You have the power to choose how you respond. You are a product of your decisions, not your conditions. In”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“He summarizes his approach to change in this simple phrase (inspired by Aristotle’s “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”): “We are what we practice and we’re always practicing something. Thus, to make changes we need to practice something new and different.”
― Chip Conley, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder

“Economic gloom lightens your wallet while weighing down your spirit. Five of the ten most stressful life events are related to whether you are employed and whether the quality of your work experience is good. Your work does more than affect your self-esteem; it organizes your day, connects you with others, and can give you a sense of purpose. Not”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“We have a choice in how we tell our life story. We don’t write it in permanent ink. There are no points for consistency, or even accuracy. We can change it at any time, for any reason, including one as simple as making ourselves feel better. After all, a primary function of our life story is to allow us to place difficult experiences firmly in the past and take from them something beneficial that will allow us to thrive in the future. Only when that happens will we know our transition is complete.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Mark Twain didn’t dabble in psychological focus groups, but he certainly knew something about human nature when he wrote, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” A series of surveys explored the premise that time is an important variable in this equation. Researchers asked a random sampling of people, “When you look back on your experiences in life and think of those things that you regret, what would you say you regret more, those things that you did, but wish you hadn’t, or those things that you didn’t do, but wish you had?” The results found that regrettable “failures to act” outnumbered “regrettable actions” by a two-to-one margin and that this was true for both sexes.”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple formulas to help your life work better

“Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Joie de Vivre”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“focus on improving ourselves instead of just proving ourselves.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“When we resist a transition, we are actually resisting one or more of its three phases. We may resist letting go of the old; we may resist the confusion of the in-between liminal state (also known as the “messy middle”); or we may resist the uncertainties of a risky new beginning.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“as we age, we also have to remember that time is our most precious resource and then ask Is the cost worth it?”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“She rejected the values that society imposed on her without her permission, and now she says, “I am an invisible woman. What a relief!”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“That may seem like a brain tease, but think of it this way: “Wanting What You Have” is like practicing gratitude. It means appreciating the good fortune in your life. “Having What You Want,” to me, means that you are pursuing something that will give you gratification, potentially to the neglect of what you already have. In other words, The”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“Understanding what you truly want will get you further in life than talent or hard work.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Philosopher Henry David Thoreau says that “the cost of a thing is the amount of… life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“create a life that’s as deep and meaningful as it is long.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Gratitude without self-judgment: a prescription for a contented life.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“we are in the process of growing old, but we’re also growing whole.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Babies are not self-conscious when they learn to walk. Yet, as we age, our self-judgment and our ego-preservation rob us of all kinds of opportunities to be a neophyte.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Midlife is when we start to realize that happiness does not consist of the gratification of our wishes. It is a choice made in the mind, not in the gym.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“tips for not being triggered when I shouldn’t give a flying fuck: 1. I ask myself, “Over the course of my lifetime, how important is this?” 2. I spend less time on social media and refuse to “doom-scroll.” 3. I’ve stopped seeking a “permission slip” to do something I care about. 4. I feel comfortable saying no to more of the things that have historically felt obligatory.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age

“Gravity can also shape our emotional selves. Emotional baggage, for instance, is a form of gravity; we acquire more of it as we get older, and it weighs us down. The more emotional gravity we’re fighting, the more force we require to move forward. And force moving against gravity creates a lot of friction. On”
― Chip Conley, Emotional Equations: Simple Truths for Creating Happiness + Success

“Our extra longevity means we’re not old longer but in midlife longer.”
― Chip Conley, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age