Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Ryan Pineda
Read between
July 12 - July 20, 2023
I could see clearly that no matter how much success I achieved in business, no matter how much money I brought in, it was all worthless without the gifts that give life its richness—faith, friends, family, and the health and happiness that we so often take for granted. Life, I learned, should be lived in the spirit of gratitude and with full responsibility for the nurturance of these gifts.
If you’re not intentionally prioritizing your values, it’s easy to make your business your god.
Research proves that your body and mind ultimately follow the marching orders of your will.
The researchers figured that the low-risk-takers hesitated in making choices so that they could contemplate the wisest course of action. Based on that assumption, they expected to find this group to have more complex neural networks; in other words, they thought that they would be smarter. They ended up finding the opposite.
the brain that never encounters the challenges that follow risks remains underdeveloped.
The brains of risk-takers are more developed because they seek out the challenges.
Wealth Builders, those who live by the Wealthy Way, take action where others remain stuck in indecision that never leads to action, consumption that never translates to production, and planning that never amounts to execution.
Their discontent is outweighed by the fear that they will get swallowed up if they venture outside of what they know, so they do nothing. And doing nothing might work to ensure safety in the short term. Sure, it would be scary to try something new. But guess what? Fear feeds on avoidance.
Faith fuels the will to act, and acting on your will further fuels the faith that inspires the actions to come: bolder ones with greater risks and greater rewards. As it turns out, faith precedes and proceeds the will to act.
Embrace exposure.
Focus on the experience, not the end result.
Mastery results from a long series of unmastered attempts followed by reflection on how to get a little better the next time. Practice, but do so with intention.
using my talents to chase profits at the expense of purpose, relying on the force of will to push past hesitancy of spirit.
Beneath all of the ways we rationalize, a delay is an implicit declaration of faithlessness in ourselves that prevents us from going after what deep down we know that we want now, not when it is safe.
Playing it safe is a habit that gets harder and harder to break.
Identify your dreams.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
Foster a growth mindset.
Reframe challenges and failures along the way as opportunities to grow.
Recognize that it is normal to struggle at something new and that perseverance precedes change.
Leverage regret.
The common denominator was leaps of faith that catapulted me to entirely different playing fields and showed me opportunities that simply did not exist in the safety of the routine or making “enough” money.
Checking out offers a substantial reward: immediate and reliable relief. But in the end, what you are reinforcing is a behavior that doesn’t take you anywhere. Ultimately, checking out leaves you stuck and leads you right back to the doorstep of where you wanted to escape. Checking out pauses living and responsibility—until bedtime, when you (again) wait for the alarm clock to force you back into the nightmare you were trying to escape through distraction.
The harsh truth is that you will always have to listen hard for the voice of determination through the noise of resistance. The constant loudmouth companion on your journey toward achieving your goals is the desire to escape to a situation that offers less resistance and less potential for failure.
The exercise of discipline requires you to continually push through resistance, just as you do with physical exercise.
And discipline requires you to be your own source of accountability, overriding the desires and feelings that compete with whatever you have decided you want to do.
the brain responds to pursuing your goals in the face of temptation like the muscles respond to resistance. Specifically, the capacity of the brain to exert self-control is limited but also expandable.
Everybody can do great when they feel great. But what about those who are consistent and prioritize what matters to them, regardless of how they feel? Those are the ones who find out what they are capable of. I have been more successful than 99 percent of those on social media because I stick to my routine and stand firm in my commitment when 99 percent of them take a day off. There is no magic formula to my success; there is only discipline.
No one owes you anything, but you owe yourself your best.
In those moments, all I saw was failure, not an opportunity to reflect on what had gone wrong and what I could do to address it and avoid the same mistake next time.
When you respond to a setback or negative feedback as though something is inherently wrong with you or that the task itself must be unfair, flawed, or impossible because you fell short of your intention, you have fallen into a “fixed mindset.” Those with a growth mindset recognize adversity as a natural part of the endeavor. They are not only receptive to feedback, but they actively seek it out. They believe that learning and improvement happen when they strive for something and remain open to the lessons that accompany failure.
Cultivate gratitude.
filter accounts and content you cannot honestly say are contributing to your growth.
I realized that regardless of how far we had come in our personal and professional journeys to this point, we were all assembled here unified in competition against a single, undefeated opponent: our unrealized potential.
Through close listening and direct feedback about my unique personal and professional issues, mentorship has represented quite possibly the most powerful source of my education and development as a man and a professional.
a person with an abundance mindset believes that life is bountiful and generative. A person with this mentality meets apparent limitations with creativity instead of despair. They always think of what can be done rather than getting stuck on what’s not possible.
we’re discovering that one of the best ways to care for the self is through caring for others.
Lose your money, and you can make it back. Yet, once you have failed to seize the opportunity of this moment, you have lost your chance.
Instead, they should start with the actions more likely to produce the greatest return, whether that relates to finances or well-being.
What are the most important projects for me now, considering my values and goals?
What time of day am I most productive?
What are the 20 percent of activities that are creating 80 percent of my distraction?
What activities in my personal life produce the most happiness?
remind yourself what’s at stake for making and breaking a commitment to yourself.
When you break an agreement with yourself, you do so at the cost of your self-respect.
How much do I want to work? • How much do I want to sleep? • When do I want to work out? • When do I want to hang out with my family and my friends?
For most of my professional life, I have gone to work at ten and left at five, Monday through Friday.
What has been happening in your life recently? Tell me about yesterday. What went well, and what are you proud of? What did you screw up royally, and what could you have done differently? It seems like there’s something on your mind. What is bothering you?
people who keep a diary recording the things they are stressed out about experience less depression, anxiety, and hostility than those who do not?