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like to think that if I lost all my money and you dropped me on a random street in any English-speaking country, within five or ten years I’d be wealthy again because it’s just a skillset I’ve developed that anyone can develop. [78] It’s not really about hard work. You can work in a restaurant eighty hours a week, and you’re not going to get rich. Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do it with, and when to do it. It is much more about understanding than purely hard work. Yes, hard work matters, and you can’t skimp on it. But it has to be directed in the right way.
Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.
You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom.
You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.
“Escape competition through authenticity.” Basically, when you’re competing with people, it’s because you’re copying them. It’s because you’re trying to do the same thing. But every human is different. Don’t copy. [78]
we’re still socially hardwired to not fail in public under our own names. The people who have the ability to fail in public under their own names actually gain a lot of power. I’ll
Whenever you can in life, optimize for independence rather than pay.
If you have independence and you’re accountable on your output, as opposed to your input—that’s the dream. [10]
Inputs don’t match outputs, especially for leveraged workers.
Learn to sell, learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
I think the smartest people can explain things to a child. If you can’t explain it to a child, then you don’t know it. It’s a common saying and it’s very true. Richard Feynman very famously does this in “Six Easy Pieces,” one of his early physics lectures.
It’s actually really important to have empty space. If you don’t have a day or two every week in your calendar where you’re not always in meetings, and you’re not always busy, then you’re not going to be able to think.
It’s only after you’re bored you have the great ideas. It’s never going to be when you’re stressed, or busy, running around or rushed. Make the time. [7]
I would combine radical honesty with an old rule Warren Buffett has, which is praise specifically, criticize generally.
If you have a criticism of someone, then don’t criticize the person—criticize the general approach or criticize the class of activities. If you have to praise somebody, then always try and find the person who is the best example of what you’re praising and praise the person, specifically. Then people’s egos and identities, which we all have, don’t work against you. They work for you. [4] Any
If you find yourself creating a spreadsheet for a decision with a list of yes’s and no’s, pros and cons, checks and balances, why this is good or bad…forget it. If you cannot decide, the answer is no. [10]
So you generally want to lean into things with short-term pain, but long-term gain.
“I don’t want to read everything. I just want to read the 100 great books over and over again.”
you’re a perpetual learning machine, you will never be out of options for how to make money. You can always see what’s coming up in society, what the value is, where the demand is, and you can learn to come up to speed. [74]
techniques. [10] Maybe happiness is not something you inherit or even choose, but a highly personal skill that can be learned, like fitness or nutrition.
Today, I believe happiness is really a default state. Happiness is there when you remove the sense of something missing in your life.
Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.
To me, happiness is not about positive thoughts. It’s not about negative thoughts. It’s about the absence of desire, especially the absence of desire for external things.
It’s about the absence of desire, especially the absence of desire for external things.
The more present I am, the happier and more content I will be.
Everything is perfect exactly the way it is. It is only in our particular minds we are unhappy or not happy,
A rational person can find peace by cultivating indifference to things outside of their control.
The mind is just as malleable as the body. We spend so much time and effort trying to change the external world, other people, and our own bodies—all while accepting ourselves the way we were programmed in our youths.
Memory and identity are burdens from the past preventing us from living freely in the present. [3]
A lot of our unhappiness comes from comparing things from the past to the present. [4]
A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.
I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you’re going to be made happy because of some external circumstance.
Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
To me, the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely, who don’t even play the game, who rise above it. Those are the people who have such internal mental and self-control and self-awareness, they need nothing from anybody else.
Jerzy Gregorek—I would consider him successful because he doesn’t need anything from anybody. He’s at peace, he’s healthy, and whether he makes more money or less money compared to the next person has no effect on his mental state.
There’s a line from Blaise Pascal I read. Basically, it says: “All of man’s troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself.” If you could just sit for thirty minutes and be happy, you are successful. That is a very powerful place to be, but very few of us get there. [6]
The enemy of peace of mind is expectations drilled into you by society and other people.
You can increase your happiness over time, and it starts with believing you can do it.
When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you.
At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who you spend the most time with. When we’re kids, we have very few habits.
The people who are the most happy and optimistic choose the right five chimps. [8]
If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day.
realize how many gifts and how much abundance there is around us at all times. That’s all you really need to do. I’m here now, and I have all these incredible things at my disposal. [8]
The most important trick to being happy is to realize happiness is a skill you develop and a choice you make. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It’s just like building muscles.
try to get more sunlight on my skin. I look up and smile. [7]
Every time you catch yourself desiring something, say, “Is it so important to me I’ll be unhappy unless this goes my way?”
Caught in a funk? Use meditation, music, and exercise to reset your mood. Then choose a new path to commit emotional energy for rest of day. [11]
It’s the news’ job to make you anxious and angry. But its underlying scientific, economic, education, and conflict trends are positive. Stay optimistic. [11]
In any situation in life, you always have three choices: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it.
Your life is a firefly blink in a night. You’re here for such a brief period of time. If you fully acknowledge the futility of what you’re doing, then I think it can bring great happiness and peace because you realize this is a game. But it’s a fun game.
