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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Eric Barker
Read between
December 27, 2021 - March 3, 2022
You need a personal definition of success. Looking
but now the balance must come from you. Otherwise you risk ending up with that number-one regret of the dying: not having had the courage to live the life you wanted and instead lived the life others prescribed.
money’s pretty easy to count and it consistently brings some happiness for at least a short period of time.
People handle having lots of choices in two ways: by “maximizing” or “satisficing.” Maximizing is exploring all the options, weighing them, and trying to get the best. Satisficing is thinking about what you need and picking the first thing that fulfills those needs. Satisficing is living by “good enough.”
that’s a treadmill of always chasing, never arriving.
“If you were granted one wish and you only have one wish that could change the way your mothers or your fathers work affects your life, what would that wish be?” Most popular answer? They wished their parents were “less stressed and less tired.”
“Good enough is almost always good enough.”
Being reactive doesn’t just hurt your chances of getting what you want; it also reduces your chances of real happiness.
When do you waste the most time? When do you overdo one of the big four at the expense of another? You’ll get more bang for your buck changing your routines around these hot spots than by a vague notion of “working less” or “trying to spend more time with the family.”
Most of us use our calendars all wrong: we don’t schedule work; we schedule interruptions. Meetings get scheduled. Phone calls get scheduled. Doctor appointments get scheduled.
You know what often doesn’t get scheduled? Real work.
Also, at least an hour a day, preferably in the morning, needs to be “protected time.” This is an hour every day when you get real work done without interruption.
Shallow work stops you from getting fired—but deep work is what gets you promoted.
Research shows that two and a half to four hours after waking is when your brain is sharpest.
managing your free time is associated with higher quality of life.
By taking some time to plan, you can make it much more likely you’ll really have fun instead of being a couch potato.
Forgiving yourself both makes you feel better and prevents procrastination.
A study of 119 students showed that those who forgave themselves for procrastinating on studying for one test subsequently procrastinated less on a second test. They felt better, and rather than beating themselves up, they were able to move on and perform better.
We get hung up on the heights of success we see in the media and forget that it’s our personal definition of success that matters. And you can achieve that.
revealed that talent usually doesn’t control what you can achieve in life.
What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn, if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.”
What’s the most important thing to remember when it comes to success? One word: alignment.
Success is not the result of any single quality; it’s about alignment between who you are and where you choose to be. The right skill in the right role. A good person surrounded by other good people.
A story that connects you with the world in a way that keeps you going. A network that helps you, and a job that leverages your na...
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level of confidence that keeps you going while learning and forgiving yourself for the inevitable failures. A balance between the big four that cre...
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Are you a Giver, a Taker or a Matcher? Are you more introverted or more extroverted? Underconfident or overconfident? Which of the big four do you naturally fulfill and which do you consistently neglect?
Then align those qualities with the world around you. Pick the right pond. Find a job that leverages your intensifiers. Create a story that keeps you going. Make little bets that expand your horizons. Use WOOP to turn your dreams into realities.
Career success doesn’t always make us happy, but the research shows that happiness does bring success.
Your relationships are what bring you happiness.
that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
If you align your knowledge of yourself with your career and the people around you, it can form an upward spiral that leads to not only career success but also happiness and fulfillment.
