Shane Parrish > Shane's Quotes

“The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person that negotiates with themselves every day.”
― Shane Parrish

“If you want new ideas, read old books.”
― Shane Parrish

“In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.”
― Shane Parrish

“You don't need more time, you need more focus.”
― Shane Parrish

“You don't need more time, you need more focus.

Fewer projects. Fewer commitments. Fewer obligations. Fewer responsibilities.

Carefully choose what you commit to, then go all in.”
― Shane Parrish

“Short-term results come from intensity. Long-term results come from consistency.”
― Shane Parrish

“90 percent of success is not getting distracted.”
― Shane Parrish

“Ninety percent of success can be boiled down to consistently doing the obvious thing for an uncommonly long period of time without convincing yourself that you're smarter than you are.”
― Shane Parrish

“Rich people have money. Wealthy people have time.”
― Shane Parrish

“So much advantage in life comes from being willing to look like an idiot over the short term.”
― Shane Parrish

“The most powerful productivity tool ever invented is simply the word "No.”
― Shane Parrish

“Writing is often the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about.”
― Shane Parrish

“Results are a function of position. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them. Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Rationality is wasted if you don’t know when to use it.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Reacting without reasoning makes every situation worse. Whether big or small, these unforced errors consume significant time and energy just to get you back to where you were before.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Not all confidence is created equally. Sometimes, it comes from a track record of applying deep knowledge successfully and other times it comes from the shallowness of reading an article. It’s amazing how often the ego turns unearned knowledge into reckless confidence.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Confidence doesn’t make bad outcomes any less likely or good outcomes more likely, it only reduces our ability to deal with outcomes we don’t intend.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Our desire to feel right overpowers our desire to be right.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“Most people go through life assuming that we’re right about everything all the time and that people who don’t see things our way are wrong. We mistake how we want the world to be with how it actually is. The subject doesn’t matter: we’re right about politics, other people, our memories; you name it. We mistake what we believe for the true facts.
Of course, we can’t be right about everything all the time. Everyone makes mistakes or misremembers some things. But we still want to feel right all the time, and ideally get other people to reinforce that feeling. Hence, we channel inordinate amounts of energy to proving to others—or ourselves—that we’re right. When this happens, we’re less concerned with outcomes and more concerned with protecting our egos.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“The social rewards for going with the crowd are felt long before the benefits of going against it are gained.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results

“No one grows up saying I want to do the same thing everyone else is doing. And yet there is a comfort to surrounding yourself with people who agree with you, or who are doing the same thing you’re doing.”
― Shane Parrish, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results