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March 10 - March 21, 2019
YOUR CAREER. What is your definition of work? How do you define a career? How much do you enjoy your career? Do you feel you’re being noticed and appreciated in your career? Do you feel you have what it takes to succeed?
YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. Do you believe that you are creative? Is there a creative person you admire? What do you admire about him or her? What creative pursuits do you engage in? Do you believe you have a talent for a specific creative project?
YOUR FAMILY LIFE. What do you believe is your main role as a life partner? How about as a son or daughter? Is your family life satisfying to you? What were your values about family growing up? Do you believe a family is a burden or an asset to your happiness?
YOUR COMMUNITY LIFE. Do you share the values of the communities that you’re a part of? What do you believe is the highest purpose of a community? Do you believe you’re able to contribute? Do you feel like contributing?
Question 1: Is my model of reality absolute or relative truth?
Question 2: Does this really mean what I think it means?
I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: Constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.
It’s all about finding and hiring people smarter than you, getting them to join your business and giving them good work, then getting out of the way and trusting them. You have to get out of the way so you can focus on the bigger vision. That’s important, but here is the main thing: You must make them see their work as a mission.
“Even as we enter one of the most disruptive eras in human history, one of the biggest challenges we face is that today’s systems and structures still live on, past their expiration dates. We are locked into twentieth-century approaches that are holding back the next big fundamental shifts in human capacity.”
YOUR LOVE RELATIONSHIP. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray. This book is a beautiful and somewhat humorous look at how to live with and love the opposite sex.
YOUR FRIENDSHIPS. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I read this book seven times before I turned twenty; an amazing book for anyone.
YOUR ADVENTURES. Losing My Virginity by Richard Branson. This book inspires you to live a life of adventure and to have fun while pursuing big goals.
YOUR ENVIRONMENT. The Magic of Thinking Big by David J. Schwartz, PhD. This book inspires you to upgrade your quality of life and to dream bigger about your home, your office space, the car you drive, and more.
YOUR HEALTH AND FITNESS. Here I have different recommendations for men or women. For men, it’s The Bulletproof Diet by Dave Asprey. Dave is a friend and the most famous biohacker in the world. This is science meets eating. For women, it’s The Virgin Diet by JJ Virgin, which will challenge your rules about calories and exercise and show you that it’s not about how much you eat, but how you combine the right foods in the right order for your body’s “chemistry lab.”
YOUR INTELLECTUAL LIFE. What better way to optimize your intellectual life than by upgrading your learning systems, learning to speed-learn and improve your memory? I recommend courses by Jim Kwik.
YOUR SKILLS. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss is a great book on finding fast hacks to developing unique skills.
YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch is the best book I’ve read on spiritual growth. But a close tie is Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda, which was Steve Jobs’s favorite book.
YOUR CAREER. Originals by Adam Grant is one of the best books I’ve read on how to be more creative at work and how to think outside the box, sell your ideas, and make a difference.
YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. The War of Art by Steven Pressfield inspires you to shed your artist inertia and get moving with your creative work. It is also one of the most beautifully written books I’ve come across.
YOUR FAMILY LIFE. I believe the root cause of most family issues is the lack of self-love, so I suggest The Mastery of Love by Don Miguel Ruiz.
YOUR COMMUNITY LIFE. Delivering Happiness by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is an inspirational read on starting epic businesses and giving back to the world in a big way.
Exercise: Your Non-Negotiable Set Points
Step 1: Identify the areas of your life where you want to create set points.
Step 2: Determine your set points.
My weight set point is X. My bank account set point is Y.
YOUR LOVE RELATIONSHIP. Set up set points for how much time you spend together, whether it’s the frequency of date nights, working out together, or even regularly scheduled lovemaking.
YOUR FRIENDSHIPS. Create set points for keeping in touch; for example, calling a close friend at least once a week, inviting friends for brunch or dinner once a month, writing a short weekly note to someone going through a tough time.
YOUR ADVENTURES. Consider setting set points for the frequency of holidays or adventure trips. I go on at least two long trips with my entire family every year. We don’t have to be going somewhere exotic or expensive, but by committing to extended time with my family, I have a chance to show them how much I love them while we create lasting memories together. You could commit to going to one new place every month, even if that place is somewhere in your neighborhood. It doesn’t have to cost any money at all, but your world will feel bigger and brighter when you regularly expose yourself to new
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YOUR ENVIRONMENT. Set a few simple set points for keeping your home tidy; for example, making the bed every morning, making sure the sink is clear of dirty dishes at night, sorting the mail as soon as you get it and recycling what you don’t need to keep, and so on. You can also create set points for the level of quality of your life; for example, a weekly full-body massage or spa treatment.
YOUR HEALTH AND FITNESS. Set some specific set points as fitness benchmarks. For me, it’s my push-up routine. It could also be maintaining a specific waist measurement or getting in the routine of going to one yoga or Pilates class per week, or even tracking your eyesight or blood pressure.
YOUR INTELLECTUAL LIFE. Start to incorporate some systems for bringing intellectual richness into your life. It might be reading a few pages each night before bed, visiting a gallery or exploring one room of a museum each week, or attending one play per month. A great set point here is to read at least two books per month.
YOUR SKILLS. Commit to spending a certain number of hours per week reading or studying material to improve skills in your field. I have a set point of taking off one day per month from work to focus on studying and learning how to work better.
YOUR SPIRITUAL LIFE. You might make fifteen minutes of meditation per day part of your spiritual practice, read several pages of spiritual literature each day, or pray or send your thoughts to someone dealing with a problem. My set point in this category is fifteen minutes minimum of daily meditation.
YOUR CAREER. Join a professional group and make sure you go to a certain number of meetings per year. Read one book per month on career issues. If you’re looking to change careers, commit to reading a certain number of articles online per week about this new field and how to break in.
YOUR CREATIVE LIFE. Choose and pursue a creative outlet, and set a reachable set point for making it part of your life. It could be spending twenty minutes journaling each day, joining a weekly improv class, or setting goals to move forward on a creative project that’s been stalled or you’ve been meaning to start. I have set points for the amount of writing I do every week.
YOUR FAMILY LIFE. Set a goal of spending a certain amount of time doing family-oriented activities per week, whether with your kids, the entire family, your parents, or other relatives. It could be calling your mom or dad every couple of days just to say hi, going out for Sunday breakfast as a family, having playtime with your children each evening.
YOUR COMMUNITY LIFE. Decide on an amount to donate annually to good causes, or identify a place where you’ll volunteer on a regular basis. I have an annual set point for money donated to charity. Each year I ensure I can give away a healthy sum to good causes I believe in.
Law 5: Upgrade your systems for living. Extraordinary minds consistently spend time discovering, upgrading, and measuring new systems for living applied to life, work, heart, and soul. They are in a perpetual state of growth and self-innovation.
I used to wake up and the first thing I would do was check my smartphone. Now I don’t do that. And just taking this time—sometimes it can be literally a minute to just look ahead at my day and fill myself with gratitude for the blessings in my life, and set my intention for the day—it immediately takes away this false urgency that we bring into our lives that creates such unnecessary stress.
that our beliefs shape our world.
Stop postponing your happiness. Be happy now. Your thoughts and beliefs do create your reality, but only when your present state is joyful.
grateful for every small win
Keep the big goals—just don’t tie your happiness to your goals. Be happy now.
Have big goals—but don’t tie your happiness to your goals. You must be happy before you attain them.
And so it’s a subtle balance: 1.You have a bold vision for the future pulling you forward. 2.Yet . . . you’re happy in the NOW.
Because I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man.
BENDING REALITY. This is the ideal state where you’re happy in the now, and you have a vision for the future that drives you. Your vision pulls you forward, but you’re happy now—despite not having yet attained that vision. When you’re in this state, there’s a feeling of growth and enjoyment. It’s about the journey as well as the destination. An interesting observation about this state is that it often seems as if the universe “has your back.” Call it what you want—but it starts to feel as if you’re lucky. The right opportunities, ideas, and people seem to gravitate to you. It’s as if your
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Your happiness cannot be tied to your goals. You must be happy even before you attain them.
We shouldn’t do things so we can be happy. We should be happy so we can do things.
Law 6: Bend reality. Extraordinary minds are able to bend reality. They have bold and exciting visions for the future, yet their happiness is not tied to these visions. They are happy in the now. This balance allows them to move toward their visions at a much faster rate while having a ton of fun along the way. To outsiders, they seem “lucky.”
