More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Guy recommends creating “a more wholesome information diet” by studying the wisdom of ultrapatient investors such as Warren Buffett and Jack Bogle. The result? “You’re feeding your mind thoughts that will make it much easier for you to think and act long term.”
invest disproportionately in their own country’s markets—
investing globally actually reduces your overall risk.
Americans significantly overweighted the US market, leaving them relatively underexposed to foreign markets such as the United Kingdom, Germany, China, and India.
Sweden accounts for around 1% of the global economy:
you need to diversify broadly, not only in different asset classes but also in different countries.
bear markets have occurred about once every three to five years. If you lived through the bear market of 2008–09, you know firsthand how emotionally painful these experiences can be.
when the market is plunging, many people sell their battered investments and go to cash at exactly the wrong moment—instead of snapping up bargains at once-in-a-lifetime prices.
many thought the end times had arrived!
these simple rules and procedures will make it easier for you to invest for the long term; to trade less; to lower your investment fees and transaction costs; to be more open to views that differ from your own; to reduce risk by diversifying globally; and to control the fears that could otherwise derail you during bear markets. Will you be perfect? No. But will you do better? You bet! And the difference this makes over a lifetime can amount to many millions of dollars!
if you harness the power of compounding, stay in the market for the long term, diversify intelligently, and keep your expenses and taxes as low as possible, your odds of attaining financial freedom are extremely high.
When people dream of becoming rich, they’re not fantasizing about owning millions of pieces of paper with pictures of dead people on them! What we really want are the emotions we associate with money: for example, the sense of freedom, security, or comfort we believe money will give us, or the joy that comes from sharing our wealth. In other words, it’s the feelings we’re after, not the money itself.
Real wealth is emotional, psychological, and spiritual.
there is a single decision you can make today that can change the rest of your life.
How can you close the gap between where you are today and where you want to be? The answer: you need to master two entirely different skills. The Science of Achievement The first is what I call the “science of achievement.”
What you’ll find is that the path to achievement is followed by a fundamental three-step process. The First Step to Achieving Anything You Want Is Focus.
When you put your entire focus on something that really matters to you, when you can’t stop thinking about it every day, this intense focus unleashes a burning desire that can help you obtain what might otherwise be out of reach.
Here’s what’s going on beneath the surface: a part of your brain called the reticular activating system is activated by your desire, and this mechanism draws your attent...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
The Second Step Is to Go Beyond Hunger, Drive, and Desire, and to Consistent...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
To succeed, you need to take mas...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
You can speed up this process exponentially by modeling people who’ve already been successful,
By studying the right role models, you could learn in a week what might otherwise take you a decade.
The Third Step to Achieving Whatever We Want Is Grace.
I’ve been amazed to see how a deep sense of appreciation brings more and more grace into our lives.
Now you know the three basic keys to achievement. But as important as achievement is, there’s a second skill that you’ll also need to master if you want to create an extraordinary life. This skill is what I call “the art of fulfillment.” The Art of Fulfillment For decades, I was focused obsessively on the science of achievement—on learning to master the external world and on figuring out ways to help people break through and solve every challenge. But I now believe in my heart and soul that the art of fulfillment is an even more important skill to master. Why? Because if you master the
...more
The First Principle: You Must Keep Growing. Everything in life either grows or dies.
I can tell you the secret to happiness in one word: progress.
The Second Principle: You Have to Give.
We’re driven by our desire to contribute. If we stop feeling that deep sense of contribution, we can never feel truly fulfilled.
Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time with billionaires, and some of them are so miserable that you’d feel sorry for them. If you’re not happy, you can’t have a magnificent life, no matter how fat your wallet.
success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.
Robin Williams was a good man who cared deeply about others—a man who contributed so much to the world, despite his long battle with addiction, depression, and ill health. But in the end, he made everyone happy except himself.
I’ve taught for many years about the power of being in an “energy-rich” state: a peak state where you can accomplish anything and where your relationships are filled with passion. By contrast, when you’re in an “energy-poor” state, the body feels lazy, the mind feels sluggish, and you can’t do anything much but worry, get frustrated, and snap at people!
“beautiful state.” Or you’re in a low-energy state (often characterized by internal pain) that could also be described as a “suffering state.” He told me that his spiritual vision was to live in a beautiful state no matter what happened in his life.
By consciously choosing and committing to live in a beautiful state,
we achievers don’t believe that we’re ever “suffering,” do we? No! We just have “stress”!
started to realize that I frequently allowed myself to fall into a suffering state. For example, I’d get frustrated, pissed off, overwhelmed, worried, or stressed.
The trouble is, the human brain isn’t designed to make us happy and fulfilled. It’s designed to make us survive. This two-million-year-old organ is always looking for what’s wrong, for whatever can hurt us, so that we can either fight it or take flight from it.
An undirected mind operates naturally in survival mode, constantly identifying and magnifying these potential threats to our well-being. The result: a life filled with stress and anxiety. Most people live this way, since it’s the path of least resistance. They make unconscious decisions, based on habit and conditioning, and are at the mercy of their own minds. They assume that it’s just an inevitable part of life to get frustrated, stressed, sad, and angry—in other words, to live in a suffering state. But I’m happy to tell you there’s another path: one that involves directing your thoughts so
...more
A Beautiful State. When you feel love, joy, gratitude, awe, playfulness, ease, creativity, drive, caring, growth, curiosity, or appreciation, you’re in a beautiful state.
A Suffering State. When you’re feeling stressed out, worried, frustrated, angry, depressed, irritable, overwhelmed, resentful, or fearful, you’re in a suffering state.
“stress” is just the achiever word for fear! If I follow the trail of your stress, it’ll take me to your deepest fear.
the mental and emotional state in which you live is ultimately the result of where you choose to focus your thoughts.
What’s your favorite flavor of suffering? Which energy-sapping emotion do you indulge in most? Is it sadness? Frustration? Anger? Despair? Self-pity? Jealousy?
all this suffering is really just the result of an undirected mind that’s hell-bent on looking for problems!
1. Suffering trigger is “Loss.”
2. Suffering trigger is “Less.”
3. Suffering trigger is “Never.”
Remember: the mind is always trying to trick us into a survival mindset!
Notice, too, that most, if not all, of our suffering is caused by focusing or obsessing about ourselves and what we might lose, have less of, or never have.
