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May 30 - June 3, 2019
What would this look like if it were easy? is such a lovely and deceptively leveraged question. It’s easy to convince yourself that things need to be hard, that if you’re not redlining, you’re not trying hard enough. This leads us to look for paths of most resistance, often creating unnecessary hardship in the process. But what happens if we frame things in terms of elegance instead of strain? Sometimes, we find incredible results with ease instead of stress. Sometimes, we “solve” the problem by completely reframing it.
Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” It’s a short reminder that success can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations we are willing to have, and by the number of uncomfortable actions we are willing to take.
don’t get daunted out of shooting for something you want, especially by potentially unfounded assumptions.
People who offer bad advice are trying to relive their old glories.
Trust the work. Always trust the work.
“It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.”
“When my legs hurt, I say, ‘Shut up, legs! Do what I tell you to do!’”
“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”
say no to blame, no to complaints, and no to gossip.
What matters is the decisions I made along the way, and every decision failure is an opportunity to learn and adjust my strategy going forward. By doing this, losing becomes a less emotional experience and more an opportunity to explore and learn.
The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.”
it’s the quality of your relationships that will determine the quality of your life. Invest in your connections,
Always take the time to acknowledge people—and not just when you know you have something to gain.
you. People react to kindness with kindness, to respect with respect.
“What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn’t have any doubt—it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn’t want to go anywhere else.”—Hal
if you want to change the world, you have to enroll others in your plans and vision.
trying to understand the world is that it is simply far too complex to grasp, and the more dogged our attempts to understand the world, the more we earnestly want to “explain” events and trends in it, the more we become attached to our resulting beliefs—which are always more or less mistaken—blinding
“In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.”—Albert
“Our fears are always more numerous than our dangers.”—Seneca
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”—William
Macro patience, micro speed.
Most of us are plagued with action bias and really struggle to stay in problem identification.
Sleep? Exercise? Healthy food? Am I resentful because I’m not setting or holding a boundary?
“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.”
Fear of the unknown is generally far worse than fear of something specific.
Be very careful with the moral high ground.
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.”
“Am I able to make a difference right now?”
“Don’t let the weight of fear weigh down the joy of curiosity.”
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
“Part of knowing who you are is knowing who you’re not.”
Tried-and-true basics lay the foundation for everything we do
“The markets that have done great are great investments.” In other words, when someone says, “Buy this because it’s doing well,” you should be thinking, “Be careful, because it’s become more expensive.”
I go for a very long run and remind myself of the beauty of the world, that the sun will rise again tomorrow, that what matters is to be in the arena.
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”
the loss of the opportunity to possibly impress someone is far outweighed by what I learn when I ask more questions.
as we peer at the night sky, feel small, see the universe and say, “Oh, wow, all that mystery,” then we’ll drop some of our nearsighted hubris.
my absolute best is the best possible outcome. That is a “win.”
“Emptiness is the fasting of the mind.”
“Don’t spend time chasing a right answer or a right path, but instead spend time defining how you are going to approach whatever path you choose.”
“Show up in every moment like you’re meant to be there, because your energy precedes anything you could possibly say.”
Choose opportunities based on the quality of people you will get to work with.
Divide your life into ten-minute units and sacrifice as few of them as possible in meaningless activity.”
“Most likely, the problem won’t be around in a year, but my reputation of how I dealt with it will.”
when you make your voice heard, you are guaranteed to receive criticism, but in the end, it’s all worth it.
all events are neutral, and I can choose how to react to them.
“Our brains, our fear, our sense of what’s possible, and the reality of ‘only’ 24 hours in a day give us preconceived notions of what is humanly possible.”
make huge, ambitious plans. Just remember that the big-beyond-belief things are accomplished when you deconstruct them into the smallest possible pieces and focus on each “moment of impact,” one step at a time.
The power broker in your life is the voice that no one ever hears. How well you revisit the tone and content of your private voice is what determines the quality of your life. It is the master storyteller, and the stories we tell ourselves are our reality.
