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April 30, 2019 - February 19, 2025
“learn the macro from the micro.”
a question that serial billionaire Peter Thiel likes to ask himself and others: “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”
This type of practice is how you create yourself, instead of seeking to discover yourself. There is value in the latter, but it’s mostly past-tense: It’s a rearview mirror. Looking out the windshield is how you get where you want to go.
Success, however you define it, is achievable if you collect the right field-tested beliefs and habits. Someone else has done your version of “success” before, and often, many have done something similar.
The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths. Humans are imperfect creatures. You don’t “succeed” because you have no weaknesses; you succeed because you find your unique strengths and focus on developing habits around them.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” —Lao Tzu
“You’re not responsible for the hand of cards you were dealt. You’re responsible for maxing out what you were given.”
Warning: Having Hitachi Magic Wands lying out around your house can go terribly wrong—or terribly right. Good luck explaining your “hypertonic muscles.” As one friend said to me, “I think my wife has that same problem. . . .”
LoL
The ketogenic diet, often nicknamed “keto,” is a high-fat diet that mimics fasting physiology. Your brain and body begin to use ketones (derived from stored or ingested fat) for energy instead of blood sugar (glucose)—a state called ketosis. The diet was originally developed to treat epileptic children, but there are many variations, including the Atkins diet. You can achieve ketosis through fasting, diet, exogenous ketones, or a combination.
Essentially, you can derive more energy per oxygen molecule with ketone metabolism. This oxygen utilization advantage is why some elite cyclists are experimenting with keto. This also helps performance at high altitudes, if you’re going from sea level to mountains, for instance.
When people tell Joe to stop and smell the roses, his first response is, “Who is maintaining the roses?”
“Optimal” Depends on What You’re Optimizing For “[For instance], there’s some literature that suggests that if you have high LDL cholesterol, you can actually build more lean body mass at a faster rate. So, if you’re in a strength-building phase, it actually might be to your advantage to actually have that present . . . you need to know context. You [also] have to understand what the marker actually represents, not just [have] a judgment of whether it’s good or bad.”
To Increase T, Decrease C “As a rule . . . the best thing to increase testosterone is to lower cortisol. Because the same raw material that makes testosterone and cortisol is called pregnenolone. Under conditions of stress, your body is wired to eventually go toward the cortisol pathway.”
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
On the Male/Female Dynamic in Relationships LAIRD: “[Of 10,000 successful couples studied], there’s only one thing that everybody had in common, no matter what the dynamic. What is it? The man respected the woman. The number one thing.” GABBY: “But can I say one thing? I know all those dynamics differ—the woman’s the breadwinner, the man’s the breadwinner, she’s dominant, he’s dominant, whatever—but ultimately, more times than not, if the woman can refrain from trying to change or mother her partner, she has a greater opportunity of putting herself in a position where the guy will respect her.
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On Weighing Sacrifices Based on the Individual—What’s Easy for You Isn’t What’s Easy for Someone Else GABBY: “For a man to say, ‘I’m going to really try to be with one woman,’ they’re giving you . . . most of what they’ve got. They’re giving you like 80%. For a woman, maybe she’s giving you 35% [to be monogamous]. . . . Or let’s say I was very shy and I came out and was having a very nice conversation with you. Maybe I’m giving you 200% because of my nature. So I think it’s also starting to understand who they are, that they’re giving how they can give, and receiving it that way. . . .”
“Movement and pain get mapped. If you experience pain during a given movement for a month, for instance, it’s a chronic pain condition. Your brain starts to map the pain pathway with the movement motor pathway and those become conjoined. The brain starts to remember the movement that created pain (got you injured), and even if there is no trauma, every time you move that particular way, you still get the pain sensation. So, one of the ways that we’re able to help people get out of chronic pain is to give them a new motor program (e.g., don’t squat with your knees in).”
“So at another lull in the conversation, I say, ‘We’re gonna run, Floyd. I don’t wanna be in your way,’ and he says, ‘Hunter, I’m telling you: I’m just chilling, watching the game.’ I said, ‘You’re not wound up about this at all?’ and he goes, ‘Why would I be wound up? I’m either ready or I’m not. Worrying about it right now ain’t gonna change a damn thing. Right? Whatever’s gonna happen is gonna happen. I’ve either done everything I can to be ready for this, or I haven’t.’”
if you don’t do something well, don’t do it unless you want to spend the time to improve it. Still, to this day, I see a lot of guys do stuff in the ring and think, ‘He doesn’t do that well, but he does it all the time.’ You shouldn’t do that.”
“I want to do fundamental breakthroughs, if possible. If you have that mindset, if that’s how you challenge yourself, that that’s what you want to do with your life, with your small amount of time that you have here to make a difference, then the only way to do it is to do the type of research that other people would think of as risky or even foolhardy. That’s just part of the game.”
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I’ll spend the first four sharpening the axe.” —Abraham Lincoln
quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion. No drama. No beating yourself up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process.
“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.” —James Cameron
Don’t Overestimate the People on Pedestals “Get inside the heads of the people who made things in the past and what they were actually like, and then realize that they’re not that different from you. At the time they got started, they were kind of just like you . . . so there’s nothing stopping any of the rest of us from doing the same thing.”
Arnold’s Most Personally Profitable Film Was . . . Twins? “Twins came together because I felt very strongly that I had a very humorous side, and that if someone would be patient enough and willing to work with me as a director, that they would be able to bring that humor out of me.” Arnold loved Ghostbusters, so he pursued the director, Ivan Reitman. Since most people felt a comedy with Schwarzenegger would flop, that was a blind spot they could capitalize on: “We sat around at a restaurant, and we made a deal on a napkin: ‘We’re going to make the movie for free. We don’t want to get any
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The best plan is the one that lets you change your plans.”
if you’re thinking short-term, then [you act as though] if you don’t do them all this week, they won’t happen. The solution is to think long-term. To realize that you can do one of these things for a few years, and then do another one for a few years, and then another. You’ve probably heard the fable, I think it’s ‘Buridan’s ass,’ about a donkey who is standing halfway between a pile of hay and a bucket of water. He just keeps looking left to the hay, and right to the water, trying to decide. Hay or water, hay or water? He’s unable to decide, so he eventually falls over and dies of both hunger
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Lack of time is lack of priorities. If I’m “busy,” it is because I’ve made choices that put me in that position, so I’ve forbidden myself to reply to “How are you?” with “Busy.” I have no right to complain. Instead, if I’m too busy, it’s a cue to reexamine my systems and rules.
Take 45 Minutes Instead of 43—Is Your Red Face Worth It? “I’ve always been very Type-A, so a friend of mine got me into cycling when I was living in L.A. I lived right on the beach in Santa Monica, where there’s this great bike path in the sand that goes for, I think, 25 miles. I’d go onto the bike path, and I would [go] head down and push it—just red-faced huffing, all the way, pushing it as hard as I could. I would go all the way down to one end of the bike path and back, and then head home, and I’d set my little timer when doing this. . . . “I noticed it was always 43 minutes. That’s what
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What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important.
این دو جمله، قطعاً تاثیرگذارترین جملاتی هستند که من طی ۲۵ سال حیاتم باهاشون مواجه شدهام. شاید پنجاه سال دیگه هم همین حرف رو بزنم. کاری که صدها جلسه رواندرمانی نمیتونه برای حل مشکل ایدهآلگرایی بکنه رو این جملات به نحو احسن انجام میدن.
Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.
Don’t Be a Dog—Think “What If?” “From the early days of WordPress, we would always think: ‘Okay, if we do X today, what does that result in tomorrow, a year from now, ten years from now?’ The metaphor I think of the most—because it’s simple—is the dog chasing the car. What does the dog do if he catches the car? He doesn’t have a plan for it. So I find it just as often on the entrepreneurial side. People don’t plan for success.”
“What is the ultimate quantification of success? For me, it’s not how much time you spend doing what you love. It’s how little time you spend doing what you hate.
“The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.”
once you get enough bad ideas, then some good ones have to show up.”
“The blog post I point people to the most is called ‘First, Ten,’ and it is a simple theory of marketing that says: tell ten people, show ten people, share it with ten people; ten people who already trust you and already like you. If they don’t tell anybody else, it’s not that good and you should start over. If they do tell other people, you’re on your way.”
“I think we need to teach kids two things: 1) how to lead, and 2) how to solve interesting problems. Because the fact is, there are plenty of countries on Earth where there are people who are willing to be obedient and work harder for less money than us. So we cannot out-obedience the competition. Therefore, we have to out-lead or out-solve the other people.
چند پدر بین اطرافیانتون میشناسید که دیدگاهی به این اندازه توانمند و دست بالا داشته باشند؟
you can spend a lot of time trying to fix stuff later but starting with the right raw materials makes a huge difference.”
I’m not going to worry about losing one friend if I have a hundred, but if I have two friends I’m really going to be worried. I’m not going to worry about losing my job because my one boss is going to fire me, because I have thousands of bosses at newspapers everywhere. One of the ways to not worry about stress is to eliminate it. I don’t worry about my stock picks because I have a diversified portfolio. Diversification works in almost every area of your life to reduce your stress.”
Capitalism rewards things that are both rare and valuable. You make yourself rare by combining two or more “pretty goods” until no one else has your mix. . . . At least one of the skills in your mixture should involve communication, either written or verbal. And it could be as simple as learning how to sell more effectively than 75% of the world. That’s one. Now add to that whatever your passion is, and you have two, because that’s the thing you’ll easily put enough energy into to reach the top 25%. If you have an aptitude for a third skill, perhaps business or public speaking, develop that
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Charles Schwab didn’t open a better brokerage firm. He opened the first discount broker. This is counter to classic marketing thinking, which is brand oriented: How do I get people to prefer my brand? Forget the brand. Think categories. Prospects are on the defensive when it comes to brands. Everyone talks about why their brand is better. But prospects have an open mind when it comes to categories. Everyone is interested in what’s new. Few people are interested in what’s better. When you’re the first in a new category, promote the category. In essence, you have no competition. DEC told its
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“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Specialization is for insects.
