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When it comes to any big or complicated question, humility is the only sensible point of view. Still, we mortals need to navigate our world as if we understood it.
the nearest we can get to truth is consistency.
No smart investor would buy stock in a company without knowing its past and projected profits.
My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over thirty years, said the best loan customer is one who has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard at something that looks good on a spreadsheet.
You can’t be humble and say, “I succeeded because I am far smarter than the average person.” But you can say your passion was a key to your success, because everyone can be passionate about something or other.
Success caused passion more than passion caused success.
You already know that when your energy is right you perform better at everything you do, including school, work, sports, and even your personal life. Energy is good. Passion is bullshit.
If success were easy, everyone would do it.
I do want my failures to make me stronger, of course, but I also want to become smarter, more talented, better networked, healthier, and more energized.
Good ideas have no value because the world already has too many of them. The market rewards execution, not ideas.
From that point on, I concentrated on ideas I could execute. I was already failing toward success, but I didn’t yet know it.
Apparently my bullshit skills in meetings were impressive.
Dilbert. I’m sure the Zippy Ship name is taken,
This was about the time I started to understand that timing is often the biggest component of success.
If you want success, figure out the price, then pay it. It sounds trivial and obvious, but if you unpack the idea it has extraordinary power.
for once you decide, you take action.
Successful people don’t wish for success; they decide to pursue it. And to pursue it effectively, they need a system.
Most successful people give more than they personally consume, in the form of taxes, charity work, job creation, and so on.
The most important form of selfishness involves spending time on your fitness, eating right, pursuing your career, and still spending quality time with your family and friends.
The way I approach the problem of multiple priorities is by focusing on just one main metric: my energy. I make choices that maximize my personal energy because that makes it easier to manage all of the other priorities.
and I can complete it faster.
I’m suggesting that by becoming a person with good energy, you lift the people around you.
My proposition is that organizing your life to optimize your personal energy will add up to something incredible that is more good than bad.
One of the most important tricks for maximizing your productivity involves matching your mental state to the task. For example, when I first wake up, my brain is relaxed and creative.
I prefer simplicity whenever I’m choosing a system to use.
Optimizing is often the strategy of people who have specific goals and feel the need to do everything in their power to achieve them. Simplifying is generally the strategy of people who view the world in terms of systems. The best systems are simple, and for good reason. Complicated systems have more opportunities for failure. Human nature is such that we’re good at following simple systems and not so good at following complicated systems.
So taking care of your own health is job one. The next ring—and your second-biggest priority—is economics. That includes your job, your investments, and even your house.
Once you are both healthy and financially sound, it’s time for the third ring: family, friends, and lovers. Good health and sufficient money are necessary for a base level of happiness, but you need to be right with your family, friends, and romantic partners to truly enjoy life.
Priorities are the things you need to get right so the things you love can thrive.
attitude. You can literally imagine yourself to
The easiest way to manage your attitude is to consume as much feel-good entertainment as you can.
Another benefit of having a big, world-changing project is that you almost always end up learning something valuable in the process of failing. And fail you will, most of the time, so long as you are dreaming big. But remember, goals are for losers anyway.
Smiling makes you feel better even if your smile is fake.
I’ve also discovered that acting confident makes you feel more confident.
Loving someone makes you want to have sex, but having sex also releases the bonding chemicals that make you feel love.
As a bonus, smiling makes you more attractive to others.
3 When you’re more attractive, people respond to you with more respect and consideration, more smiles, and sometimes even lust. That’s exactly the sort of thing that can cheer you up.
Equally important, avoid friends who are full-time downers. You want friends with whom you can share both the good and the bad, but you aren’t a therapist.
Walk away from the soul suckers. You have a right to pursue happiness and an equal right to run as fast as you can from the people who would deny it.
Once you become good at a few unimportant things, such as hobbies or sports, the habit of success stays with you on more important quests.
A great strategy for success in life is to become good at something, anything, and let that feeling propel you to new and better victories. Success can be habit-forming.
Our brains have a limited capacity to know the true nature of reality. Most times our misconceptions about reality are benign and sometimes, even helpful. Other times, not so much.
The way I motivate myself to take on a task this large is by imagining that I have fascinating and useful things to say that will help people. The reality might be quite different. I can’t see the future, so I have the option of imagining it in whatever way gives me the greatest utility.
No matter what reality delivers in the future, my imagined version of the future has great usefulness today.
Free yourself from the shackles of an oppressive reality. What’s real to you is what you imagine and what you feel.
Seekers obviously find more stuff than the people who sit and wait.
I saw one of my coworkers transform from a hesitant and unimpressive personality to confidence and power within two months of his promotion.
Our core personality doesn’t change, but we quickly adopt the mannerisms and skills associated with our new status and position.
My optimism is like an old cat that likes to disappear for days, but I always expect it to return.
Sometimes you just need a friend who knows different things than you do. And you can always find one of those.
