Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Niklas Göke
Read between
October 10, 2022 - April 30, 2023
“I want to thank me. I want to thank me for believing in me. I want to thank me for doing all this hard work. I want to thank me for having no days off. I want to thank me for never quitting. I want to thank me for always being a giver and trying to give more than I receive. I want to thank me for trying to do more right than wrong. I want to thank me for just being me at all times.”
Your body never gives you an easy time. It won’t lose weight when it should. It doesn’t want you to be fit and lean and healthy. It craves junk food and ice cream and popcorn. But you’re still here.
You don’t know how to be happy. Life is confusing. It’s big and complicated and there are way too many options for everything. But you’re still here.
Every day is special. A once-in-a-lifetime chance. Another reason to be grateful. And you’re still here. So today is a good day.
There’s this quote that “what you do when you don’t have to will determine who you’ll be when you can’t help it.” Why did we leave our perfectly comfortable life for a much harder one? Why did we disappoint the person we love? How did we get here? Did we choose so? Did life choose us?
When you forget your phone, call the wrong person, or miss the deadline you never miss, don’t beat yourself up for being unpredictable. Don’t cast stones into the mirror. Remember you are human. Trust that the detour will eventually make sense. Forgive yourself, then get back into the picture. You’re a star, after all — and the show must go on.
Equating seconds to dollars, a billion dollars is worth 31 years of your time. Would you make that trade?
The only reason our lives have meaning is that they end. The moment we are born, we’re thrown onto an unstoppable curve of momentum, slingshotting towards the only definitive event in life — death.
Once you become aware of a problem, your mind will try and solve it. It doesn’t matter whether you want it to or not. Your subconscious does what it wants, and, luckily, it wants to find creative solutions to all kinds of challenges — so much so, in fact, that it can barely help itself. That’s why communication is key among teams, among friends, and among lovers. Humans can’t consider what they don’t know about, but everything they do know about will somehow be factored into the equation, if only at a subconscious level.
Whatever your struggles, drag them into other people’s periphery. Seeing is solving. Problems only persist while they’re invisible. Don’t keep the lid on for too long.
Don’t forget to inhale.
Today, it often pays more than handsomely to be a “jack of all trades, master of junctions,” as we might update the phrase for our modern age.
Yes, the world will always need specialists, but at some point, most, if not all, specialists will be robots.
“What makes you feel depressed, annoyed, or like your life has gone astray if you don’t do it enough?” If you’re trying to find the work you should build your life around, this double-negative question will deliver better ideas than the usual, generic “What makes you happy?” Why? Because a lot of things make you happy, most of which aren’t work-related to begin with — but even among those that are, you’ll likely struggle to pick favorites.
The ultimate career building question.
Now I also know how much not writing makes me unhappy — and that might be the most valuable lesson of all.
it matters how we practice more so than how much.
the more new mistakes you can fix in a relatively short period of time, the faster you’ll make progress. The emphasis here is on “new.”
Every time you correct a novel mistake, different combinations of neurons fire in your brain, thus creating the mental pathways that lead to mastery.
Fragment it: The easiest way to spot mistakes early is to chop your practice into the smallest sensible unit for your level of proficiency. If
Fuse it: Once multiple small parts feel right, you can piece them back together. One
Feel it: Finally — and this is the difference between professionals and legends — you must learn to “feel it.” By absorbing larger, more complex patterns as chains of microscopic, near-self-evident chunks, you’ll build a strong gut over time.
Fragment it, fuse it, feel it. Use the 3 Fs of mastery, and become not just good but extraordinary.
If you use the 80/20 rule on everything, you’ll live an unsatisfying life.
If you only do 20% of the work, you’ll only get 20% of the satisfaction, regardless of the outcome. Humans aren’t designed for half-assery.
You either work on what matters, or you work on what doesn’t. There is nothing in-between.
Since judgement is so valuable, nature made it hard to get: The only way to good judgement leads through experience which, in turn, you must pay for with time, energy, and by taking risks. Ironically, even more so than all the other factors, you’ll need courage.
I enjoy it so much, I would do it for free. Often, that’s exactly what ends up happening. However, I am still honored to get paid for it some of the time. Enough to keep doing it, even.
“Reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and the things that are honorable finally become, for you, the same.”
“60% of all human communication is nonverbal: body language. 30% is your tone. So that means 90% of what you’re saying ain’t coming out of your mouth.”
“The moment you’re born, you start barreling towards the only finish line [in life], which is death. And no matter what you do, this momentum can never be slowed, and it can never stop.”
The only way to write a book is to start with one page, one paragraph, one sentence. The only way to make a million is to make a dollar. And the only way to be loved is to begin to be loving.
“There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs.”
After I put down the phone and reflected on our chat, I realized: I have hit the stage in life where I don’t need new friends — I need to make sure I don’t lose the friends I have.
“In life, you will always have 30% of people who love you, 30% who hate you, and 30% who couldn’t care less.”
“No matter who you are, no matter what you do, no matter who your audience is: 30% will love it, 30% will hate it, and 30% won’t care.”
The more you talk, the more likely you are to say something stupid. Keep talking long enough, and embarrassing yourself becomes inevitable.
The problem with the world is that it was spinning before you were born, and it will still be spinning long after you die. That makes it such a great, universal excuse, and therefore kind of none at all.
