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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Jeff Olson
Read between
August 21 - September 1, 2017
The purpose of investing in yourself is not to accumulate skills or fluency in specific areas of knowledge. While those things are valuable, they are not the principal aim. The principal aim in self-investment is to train how you think and what you think.
The wisest investment you can make is to invest in your own continuous learning and development. Learning by studying and learning by doing—book smarts and street smarts—are the two essential pistons of the engine of learning. On the path to a goal you will be off-course most of the time. Which means the only way to reach a goal is through constant and continuous course correction. Most of your life—99.99 percent—is made up of things you do an automatic pilot. Which means it’s essential that you take charge of your automatic pilot’s training.
When you and this particular friend get together, are your conversations about responsibility, big dreams, and bold initiatives? Or do they often seem to work their way around to blame or its cousins—envy, jealousy, resentment, and irritation?
As you learn—through study and doing, information and experience, book smarts and street smarts—you gradually lower your level of anxiety by raising your level of mastery.
you want to learn how to do something well, find someone who has mastered that skill and apprentice yourself. Choose your heroes carefully: are they genuine role models you want to emulate? Choose your associates: everything about your life will closely reflect the lives of your five closest friends. Sometimes you need to let go and disassociate. Form and use a mastermind: two minds are better than one, and five are even better.
Newton’s second law of thermodynamics: a body at rest tends to stay at rest—and a body in motion tends to remain in motion.
Dan Millman, in his magnificent classic Way of the Peaceful Warrior (which is my favorite book of all time), said it best: Let it go and let it flow.
Each and every incomplete thing in your life or work exerts a draining force on you, sucking the energy of accomplishment and success out of you as surely as a vampire stealing your blood. Every incomplete promise, commitment, or agreement saps your strength because it blocks your momentum and chokes off your ability to move forward, progress, or improve. Incomplete things keep calling you back to the past to take care of them.
More than anything else, a coach holds up a mirror and shows you what you’re doing, day in and day out.
On the path of mastery you have four powerful allies: The power of momentum: steady wins the race. The power of completion: clear out your undones and incompletes. The power of reflection: facing the man or woman in the mirror. The power of celebration: catch yourself doing something right.
Looking for the best in people serves you; anticipating their worst doesn’t.
Complete control, that is, at first. Until they become automatic and take on a life of their own—a life that will determine the direction of your life. So the question is: which behaviors do you want to have take on a life of their own?
“Nothing is stronger than habit.”
It’s tough to get rid of the habit you don’t want by facing it head on. The way to accomplish it is to replace the unwanted habit with another habit that you do want.
There are two kinds of habits: those that serve you, and those that don’t. You have choice over your habits through your choice of everyday actions. The way to erase a bad habit is to replace it with a positive habit. Here are seven powerful, positive slight edge habits: Show up: be the frog who jumps off the lily pad. Show up consistently: keep showing up when others fade out. Cultivate a positive outlook: see the glass as overflowing. Be committed for the long haul: remember the 10,000-hour rule. Cultivate a burning desire backed by faith: not hoping or wishing—knowing. Be willing to pay
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You must make it specific, give it a deadline, and write it down. You must look at it every day. You must have a plan to start with.
You have to start with a plan, but the plan you start with will not be the plan that gets you there.
The power of a plan is not that it will get you there. The power of a plan is that it will get you started.
There are three simple, essential steps to achieving a goal: Write it down: give it a what (clear description) and a when (timeline). Look at it every day: keep it in your face; soak your subconscious in it. Start with a plan: make the plan simple. The point of the plan is not that it will get you there, but that it will get you started.
What one simple, single, easy-to-do activity can you do, day in and day out, that will have the greatest impact on your health, your happiness, your relationships, your personal development, your finances, your career, and your impact on the world?
I’m going to ask you to make a simple roadmap for each one, consisting of three elements: 1) your dreams for that area, expressed as goals—specific, vivid, and with a timeline; 2) a simple plan to start (and when I say simple think: “find Germans”); and 3) one simple daily discipline that you will commit to doing each and every day from now on. Go ahead, now, and take this stroll through your life; take a pencil as a walking stick.
with a timeline): Plan to start: One simple daily discipline:
What makes a marriage grow richer over the years for one couple, and grow stale, empty, and bitter for another? Nineteen times out of twenty there is no single big, significant answer. It is the little things, day by day, that add up over time to unshakable contentment or unsalvageable misery.
You will become as small as your controlling desire, or as great as your dominant aspiration.
Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Write out your goals and dreams, a simple starting plan, and a single daily discipline: For your health For your happiness For your relationships For your personal development For your finances For your career For your impact on the world
