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October 22, 2018 - August 31, 2020
One of the keys to being extraordinary is knowing what rules to follow and what rules to break. Outside the rules of physics and the rules of law, all other rules are open to questioning.
the biggest advantage of language is that it allowed us to create a whole new world within our heads. We could use it to create things that didn’t exist in the physical world but simply as “understandings” in our heads: to form alliances, establish tribes, and develop guidelines for cooperation within and between larger and larger groups. It allowed us to form cultures, mythologies, and religions.
The world of absolute truth is fact-based. The world of the culturescape is opinion-based and agreement-based. Yet even though it exists solely in our heads, it is very, very real.
For the convenience of being able to operate mindlessly in a complex world, we accept many of these culturescape constructs as true. The problem is—much of them are long past their expiration dates.
Much of what you think is true is all in your head. How’d it get there? As Steve Jobs said, it was “made up by people no smarter than you.” Once you understand that the rules aren’t absolute, you can learn to think outside the box and live beyond limits imposed by the culturescape.
very real does not mean very right.
Our culturescape evolved to keep us safe—but in this day and age, we no longer need to fear tigers by the riverbank. Safety is overrated; taking risks is much less likely to kill us than ever before, and that means that playing it safe is more likely just holding us back from the thrills of a life filled with meaning and discovery. Give me the thrill and excitement of the unsafe, rule-breaking, dogma-questioning life anytime over the boring unfolding of a safe life.
They questioned the meaning of careers, degrees, religions, ways of living, and other “be safe” rules. In many cases, their willingness to break away from the culturescape has resulted in innovations and new beginnings that will shift the future of humanity. One such person is Elon Musk.
“I have a high tolerance for pain.”
The dips contain amazing learnings and wisdom that lead to sharper rises in the quality of life afterward.
Wow, this sucks! I can’t wait to see what I’m going to learn here!
“I constantly get out of my comfort zone. Once you push yourself into something new, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. But you might get hurt. But amazingly when you heal—you are somewhere you’ve never been.” You can be 12 or 80—it’s never too late to question the rules and step out of your comfort zone.
If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them.
We don’t have beliefs so much as beliefs “have” us.
The evidence shows that we inherit and transmit behaviours, emotions, beliefs, and religions not through rational choice but contagion.
as our world is undergoing exponential change at a staggering pace, following the masses and doing what’s always been done isn’t a path that leads to being extraordinary.
as humanity is more connected than ever and many of us have access to the various wisdom and spiritual traditions of the world, the idea of adhering to a singular religion might be obsolete.
Furthermore, I believe that the blind acceptance of religious dogma is holding us back in our spiritual evolution as a species.
Don’t get trapped in preset, strict definitions of one singular path, thinking you must accept all of a particular tribe’s beliefs. Your spirituality should be discovered, not inherited.
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
You do not have to dress, eat, marry, or worship in a manner that you disagree with just because it’s part of the culture you’re born into. Culture is meant to be ever-evolving, ever-flowing—in a way, just like water. Water is most beautiful and useful when it’s moving—it creates rivers, waterfalls, the waves of the ocean. But when water becomes stagnant, it becomes poisonous.
recall the words of L. P. Hartley from the 1953 novel The Go-Between: “The past is a foreign country: They do things differently there.” If so, this is your chance to cross the border, visit some place new and exciting, and discover a whole new way of life.
Some say the heart is the most selfish organ in the body because it keeps all the good blood for itself. It takes in all the good blood, the most oxygenated blood, and then distributes the rest to every other organ. So, in a sense maybe the heart is selfish.
“The people making you feel guilty for going your own way and choosing your own life are simply saying, ‘Look at me. I’m better than you because my chains are bigger.’ It takes courage to break those chains and define your own life.”
Humanity today is largely operating within the culturescape, or Level 1—trapped by Brules from generations past.
Every few years, we upgrade our operating systems on our machines to make our computers run faster, better, and take on increasingly complex tasks with ease. But how many of us even think about doing the same for ourselves?
these structures were created long ago by people in very different settings than what we live in today.
But while your beliefs make you, your beliefs are NOT you. You can use consciousness engineering to swap out old beliefs, swap in new ones, and take on new understandings of the world that might serve you better.
When an old belief no longer serves you, you have every right to swap it out.
your models of reality are swappable.
The trick is recognizing what systems you’re running and doing enough self-checks to quickly identify the ones you need to upgrade.
Elon Musk was once asked in a Reddit.com Q&A: “How do you learn so fast?” He replied: “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
According to the book Good without God by Greg M. Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard University, the fourth biggest life adherence in the world today after Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism is now humanism. Humanism is the idea that we do not need religion in order to be good. It differs from atheism in the sense that humanists believe that there is a “God,” but He’s certainly not the judgmental, angry being that many religious texts make Him out to be. Instead, to a humanist, “God” might be the universe, or the connectedness of life on Earth, or spirit. Humanism is opening up a new
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Where did I come up with this particular world view?
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. —ELON MUSK
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.
