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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Shane Snow
Read between
September 25 - September 28, 2023
the 1980s computer baron Michael Dell achieved billionaire status in 14 years; Bill Gates in 12.
history of technology shows that technological change is exponential,”
Ray Kurzweil in his famous essay The Law of Accelerating Returns.
When he was blocked from doing what he was capable of, he proved himself anyway.
sustainable success achieved quickly through smart work, or smartcuts.
To some people, success means wealth. To others it means recognition, popularity,
it means free time, inventing products, growing businesses, making breakthroughs at work.
true success has more to do with our becoming better people and building a better world while we do these things than it does with the size of our bank accounts.
Contently, at shanesnow.com/contently
how do they move so fast?
shanesnow.com/booklist for my recommendations).
Lateral thinking doesn’t replace hard work; it eliminates unnecessary cycles.
This is what the classic success advice amounts to: work 100 hours a week, believe you can do it, visualize, and push yourself harder than everyone else.
The law of the lever, as shown by the Greek mathematician Archimedes, says the longer the lever, the less force you need exert.
Leverage is the overachiever’s approach to getting more bang for her proverbial buck.
lateral thinking is how the most successful people have always made it.
how momentum—not experience—is the single biggest predictor of business and personal success.
This book is about patterns found in stories of people who didn’t want their hard work to end up in vain, who were too impatient to accept “that’s just how it’s done.”
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
DR. SEUSS
Bigger or Better illustrates an interesting fact: people are generally willing to take a chance on something if it only feels like a small stretch.
With each trade, the players exchanged or provided value—including
psychology of “small wins.”
It was the direction they traded: sideways.
they work hard in their field, then switch ladders and level up, to observers’ surprise.
Business research shows that this kind of ladder switching generally tends to accelerate a company’s growth.
Companies that pivot—that is, switch business models or products—while on the upswing tend to perform much better than t...
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It’s clear that switching ladders can help bypass “dues” and accelerate the Bigger or Better cycle.
It seems fair for success to be determined not by the hardworking but broken model of paying dues, but by merit and smarts.
how are we to determine who’s fit for the job, if not through past experience?
“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” New York was the yardstick.
New York has indeed become a global yardstick—for artists, businesspeople, and dreamers of all stripes.
If you can make it in New York, people assume that you can make it anywhere.
being “a strong and decisive leader” is the number one characteristic a presidential candidate can have.
WE LIVE IN AN age of nontraditional ladder climbing.
Traditional paths are not just slow; they’re no longer viable if we want to compete and innovate.
to be successful, we need to start thinking more like hackers, acting more like entrepreneurs.
We have to work smarter, not just harder.
talent shines through, and he clearly had that.”
Jimmy’s goal since childhood, he explained to Siegel, had been to join the cast of Saturday Night Live.
she couldn’t turn him down; she had never met someone as focused and passionate about a single dream
SNL people said, “Let’s keep an eye on him.”
Homer’s Odyssey.
he entrusted his son, Telemachus, to the care of a wise old friend named Mentor.
it was really the goddess Athena disguised as Mentor who counseled the young man through various important situations.
“Mentor” helped Telemachus shorten his ladder of success.
Mentorship is the secret of many of the highest-profile achievers throughout history.
Socrates mentored young Plato, who in turn mentored Aristotle. Aristotle mentored a boy named Alexander, who went on to conquer the known world as Alexander the Great.
Before the quest heats up, however, he or she receives training from a master:
Quickly, the hero is ready to face overwhelming challenges.
