Sayings and Thoughts

Sayings and thoughts that guide me through life.

I quoted where I could. Most of these I read somewhere, jotted a note, and added to this list.

Apologizes to the original source if not quoted. Your wisdom and insight is deeply appreciated and makes my life better.

Small things, top of mind

A good attitude and paying attention to small things makes a big difference.

A focused hour outweighs an unfocused day.
A lack of patience changes the outcome.
Arguing with a fool doesn't change them; it changes you.
Attitude, assumptions, and beliefs are the only things you can change.
Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.
Awareness, not age, leads to wisdom.
Champions behave like champions before they're champions.
Common sense is the least common commodity.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Consensus... is the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved.
~ Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher
Discipline is cheaper than regret.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
~ Teddy Roosevelt
Don't be the assistant manager of your life.
Earlier is easier.
Edit yourself for approval and you become a minority shareholder in your own life.
Effort requires no talent. Hustle requires no talent.
Either believe or be leaving.
Experience is what you got when you didn't get what you wanted.
Flashy gets attention. Boring gets results.
Genius has the fewest moving parts.
Go where you're celebrated, not where you're tolerated.
Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions.
~ Mark Twain
Home is wherever there are people you love.
If you don't give your life a direction, the world will give it a distraction.
If you want to kill a big dream, share it with a small-minded person.
If you're on time you're late.
It's better to get a 10X employee at 2X the price than a 1X employee at a half price.
It's either "hell, yes" or "no."
Live it to the limit and love it a lot.
~ Jay-Z
Look for single decisions that remove hundreds or thousands of other decisions.
~ Jim Collins
Luck writes the first chapter, but your actions write the rest.
Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it.
~ Graham Cooke
Most of your problems are just unmade decisions.
~ Victor Mong
One-sided deals are one-time deals.
Opportunity is often missed because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work.
People respond well to those that are sure of what they want. What people hate most is indecision.
~ Anna Wintour
Rainy days are conducive to a private life.
Spend time more carefully than money - you only run out of time once.
Telling yourself you'll do it tomorrow is how dreams die.
The biggest obstacles are internal.
The days are long and the months are short.
The horizon doesn't come closer unless you walk toward it.
The only free cheese is in the mousetrap.
The public praises people for what they practice in private (for years).

My high school tennis coach used to say:

"We win trophies in practice - we only go to tournaments to collect them."
The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled.
The shortest path is the one you don't abandon.
The treasure you seek is in the cave you fear to enter.
The truth is whispered while opinions are shouted.
To Elsa and Jack, the most beautiful chapters of my life.

I spent my entire life waiting for you.
Wealth isn't in the crowd's rush. True treasure waits in the quiet places, where no one's looking.
When in doubt - don't think, move. Action produces information.
Winning tomorrow starts today.
Work becomes great when curiosity drives it beyond obligation.
You are a reflection of what you do.
You can't outlive your beliefs.
You don't have obligations, only consequences.
Your inner monologue determines your outer actions.
The most powerful story in the world is the one you tell yourself.
You'll get over a high bill sooner than bad service.
~ my father

Individuals

Charlie Munger

Charlie Munger was Warren Buffett's long-term business partner at Berkshire Hathaway. Charlie's quotes and sayings are timeless.

I didn't get to where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.
I think a life properly lived is just learn, learn, learn all the time.
It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.
Take a simple idea, and take it seriously.
To get what you want, deserve what you want. Trust, success, and admiration are earned.

Greg Harden

Greg Harden is a performance coach.

"Being assertive means being able to have your needs met while still interacting with great sensitivity to those around you.

It means valuing yourself - valuing your own life, your own goals, your own precious time here on this earth - while at the same time valuing others.
It means recognizing that you have a God-given right to pursue happiness and every other good and worthy thing in life. And that you don't have to put anyone else down to lift yourself up.
It means standing up for what you believe in and expressing your own feelings and opinions in a direct and appropriate way.
It means taking responsibility for your actions, recognizing your achievements, owning your mistakes.
It means knowing that for you to win doesn't have to mean that someone else must lose. It means always being honest, within respectful bounds.
It means protecting yourself and not allowing others to violate your rights or infringe on your happiness or peace of mind.
It means being less concerned about what others think of you and more concerned with who you aspire to be. Being assertive is all about giving yourself the four A's - Self-attention, self-affection, self-approval, and self-acceptance. In other words, self-love."

Jeff Bezos

These are notes from David Senra's interview with Jeff Bezos.

It's human nature to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity.
Entrepreneurs would be well advised to try and bias against that piece of human nature. The risks are probably not as big as you perceive and the opportunities may be bigger than you perceive.
At Amazon we're literally working on a thousand AI applications internally.
Modern AI is a horizontal enabling layer. It can be used to improve everything. It will be in everything. This is most like electricity.
These kind of horizontal layers like electricity and compute and now artificial intelligence, they go everywhere. There is not a single application that you can think of that is not going to be made better by AI.
The world is so interesting right now. We are in multiple golden ages at once. There's never been a more extraordinary moment to be alive. We are so lucky.
Thinking small is a self fulfilling prophecy.
Even when Amazon was a tiny company I always had it in my mind that I wanted to build a company that would outlast me.
My heart is at Amazon. My curiosity is at Amazon. My love is there.
I sold 20% of Amazon for $1 million. It took 50 meetings to raise that money and the most common question was "What is the internet?"
You (founders) need optimism and energy. I don't know how some glum Eeyore type founder could ever lead a company to success. You have to have optimism. You have to have energy. It's got to be contagious. There's going to be a lot of bad days and you need to lift people up.
I wake up and follow my curiosity.
There should be a list where they rank people by how much wealth they've created for other people, instead of a list that ranks your own wealth.
I want crisp documents and messy meetings. The memo should be like angels seeing from on high. It's so clear and beautiful. And then the meeting can be completely messy.
I want the meetings to wander.
I don't want rehearsed meetings. As CEO you're seeking truth. Not a pitch. I don't want to be pitched.
Your emotions are sort of an early warning system. If you're stressed, for me, that is kind of an early radar detecting that there's something I'm not taking action on.
I think of myself as an inventor. I wake up every day and follow my curiosity and I explore. I love problems. And I love having a team of smart people and we work together to find unusual solutions to things.

Focus on the inputs, not the outputs

Jeff Bezos reminds us to focus on the inputs, not the outputs.

He gives the example of a higher stock price and works backward to the controllable inputs:

"What are the inputs to a higher stock price? Okay, well, free cash flow and return on invested capital are inputs to a higher stock price. Let's keep working backwards. What are the inputs to free cash flow? And you keep working backwards until you get to something that's controllable."

He points out we can control costs, which is an input to free cash flow:

"If we can improve our picking efficiency in our fulfillment centers and reduce defects - reducing defects at the root is one of the best ways to lower cost structure - that starts to be a job you would accept. If you're a reasonable person, you would say, I have no idea how to drive up the stock price - I can't manage that directly. It's not a controllable input. But I can make your picking algorithms more efficient, and that will reduce cost structure. And then you follow that chain all along the way. That's what you do in all of these businesses."

John Perry Barlow

25 Principles of Adult Behavior by John Perry Barlow.

John was a lyricist for the Grateful Dead and a founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Principles of Adult Behavior

Be patient. No matter what.
Don't badmouth:

Assign responsibility, never blame.
Say nothing behind another's back you'd be unwilling to say, in exactly the same tone and language, to his face.
Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
Expand your sense of the possible.
Don't trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
Expect no more of anyone than you yourself can deliver.
Tolerate ambiguity.
Laugh at yourself frequently.
Concern yourself with what is right rather than whom is right.
Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
Give up blood sports.
Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Do not endanger it frivolously. And never endanger the life of another.
Never lie to anyone for any reason.
Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
Praise at least as often as you disparage.
Never let your errors pass without admission.
Become less suspicious of joy.
Understand humility.
Forgive.
Foster dignity.
Live memorably.
Love yourself.
Endure.

Estee Lauder

Most people hear Estee Lauder and think of cosmetics - lipstick, perfume, face cream.

But the real story isn't just about makeup - it's about an unstoppable force.

Estee Lauder didn't just build a beauty brand; she rewrote the rules. She turned rejection into fuel, defied industry gatekeepers, and transformed a homemade face cream into a multi-billion-dollar global powerhouse.

"What makes a successful businesswoman?

Is it talent? Well, perhaps, although I've known many enormously successful people who were not gifted in any outstanding way, not blessed with particular talent.

Is it, then, intelligence? Certainly, intelligence helps, but it's not necessarily education or the kind of intellectual reasoning needed to graduate from the Wharton School of Business that are essential.

How many of your grandfathers came here from one or another "old country" and made a mark in America without the language, money, or contacts? What, then, is the mystical ingredient?

It's persistence. It's that certain little spirit that compels you to stick it out just when you're at your most tired. It's that quality that forces you to persevere, find the route around the stone wall. It's the immovable stubbornness that will not allow you to cave in when everyone says give up."

Matthew Dicks

The best storyteller in the world, Matthew Dicks, on the principle of but and therefore:

"A clear majority of human beings tend to connect their sentences, paragraphs, and scenes together with the word and.

This is a mistake. The ideal connective tissue in any story are the words but and therefore, along with all their glorious synonyms. These buts and therefores can be either explicit or implied.

"And" stories have no movement or momentum. They are equivalent to running on a treadmill. Sentences and scenes appear, one after another, but the movement is straightforward and unsurprising. The momentum is unchanged.

But and therefore are words that signal change. The story was heading in one direction, but now it's heading in another. We started out zigging, but now we are zagging. We did this, and therefore this new thing happened.

I think of it as continually cutting against the grain of the story. Rather than stretching a flat line from beginning to end, the storyteller should seek to create a serrated line cutting back and forth, up and down, along the path of the story. We are still headed in the same direction, but the best storytellers don't take a straight line to get there."

Sahil Bloom

These 21 powerful paradoxes of life are from Sahil Bloom.

The Growth Paradox

Growth takes much longer than you expect, then happens much faster than you ever thought possible.

The best things in life come from allowing compounding to work its magic.

Growth happens gradually, then suddenly.

Slowly, then all at once.
The Intelligence Paradox

Intelligence can lead to stupidity.

Highly intelligent people are more likely to fall victim to over thinking, over planning, or over analyzing. They create complexity rather than doing the boring, easy, obvious thing that works.

Never let your head outsmart your common sense.
The Effort Paradox

Effortless, elegant performances are simply the result of a large volume of effortful, gritty practice.

You have to put in more effort to make something appear effortless.

Small things become big things.

1 The Hard Things Paradox

Doing hard things makes life easier.

When you take on voluntary struggle, you're better prepared for the involuntary struggle that inevitably enters your world.

Hard now, easy later. Easy now, hard later.

The choice is yours.

The Mastery Paradox

There's a Zen parable I love:

A martial arts student asks the master how long it will take to achieve mastery.

The teacher replies, "10 years."

The impatient student responds, "I want to master it faster than that. I'll work harder. I'll practice harder. How long will it take then?"

The teacher smiles and answers, "20 years."

Author Aldous Huxley once wrote, "The harder we try with the conscious will to do something, the less we shall succeed."

The more you press, the slower your progress.

Balanced effort creates profound results.
The Persuasion Paradox

Have you ever noticed that the most argumentative people rarely persuade anyone of anything?

Persuasive people don't argue. They observe. They listen. They ask thoughtful questions.

Argue less to persuade more.

Persuasion is an art that requires a paintbrush, not a sledgehammer.
The Failure Paradox

You have to fail more to succeed more.

Our most transformative moments of growth come from our hardest moments of failure.

Don't fear failure. Learn to fail smart and fast. Never fail the same way twice.

Always put yourself in the arena.
The Icarus Paradox

In a tale from Greek mythology, Icarus used wings crafted from wax and feathers to take off in flight and escape the island of Crete. He became emboldened by his early success, ignored his father's warnings, and flew too close to the sun, which melted the wings and sent Icarus falling to his death.

You may achieve early success with one thing, but overconfidence from that success can blind you to coming disruption.

What makes you successful can lead to your downfall.
The Knowledge Paradox

"The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know."
~ Albert Einstein

The more you know, the more you're exposed to the expanse of the unknown.

This should be empowering, not frightening.

Embrace your own ignorance. Embrace lifelong learning.
The Surgeon Paradox

Author Nassim Taleb once proposed that, if choosing between two surgeons, you should choose the one who doesn't look the part.

Appearance is often the worst indicator of competency.

The person who doesn't look the part may have required more competence to achieve their status than the person straight out of central casting.

Never confuse looking right with being right.
The Money Paradox

You have to lose money to make money.

Every successful investor and builder has stories of the invaluable lessons from a terrible loss in their career.

Sometimes you have to pay to learn.

Always put skin in the game.
The Social Media Paradox

More connectedness makes us less connected.

Social media has created more connectedness than ever before, but we feel less connected to those right in front of us.

Disconnect to reconnect.
The Productivity Paradox

Work longer, get less done.

Parkinson's Law says that work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. Give yourself eight hours to do something, it'll take eight hours. Give yourself one hour, you'll finish it in one.

Stop grazing on low value work.

Work like a lion instead. Sprint. Rest. Repeat.
The Shrinking Paradox

You may need to shrink before you can grow.

Growth is never linear. To reach the higher summit, you may need to climb down from the current one.

Normalize short-term subtraction that creates long-term addition.

One step back, two steps forward is a recipe for success.
The Opportunity Paradox

Take on less to accomplish more.

Success doesn't come from saying yes to everything that comes your way. It comes from saying no to the things that don't matter so that you have space for the things that do.

Every yes is a no to something else.

Your time is finite. Protect it.
The Fear Paradox

The thing you fear the most is often the thing you most need to do.

Fears, when avoided, become limiters.

The most successful people run toward what scares them. They treat fear as a magnet for their energy.

The growth you seek is hidden in the fears you avoid.
The Boredom Paradox

Boredom sparks creativity.

Your most interesting, captivating ideas come during periods of boredom.

On a walk. In the shower. In the car. You're bored, your mind wanders, your thoughts mingle, and creative insight strikes.

Make time to be bored.
The Solomon Paradox

King Solomon was known as the wisest man who ever lived. But unfortunately, that legendary wisdom did not extend to his own life. He had 700 wives, 300 concubines, a growing obsession with wealth, and a kingdom that collapsed within a generation of his death.

King Solomon was great at giving advice, but bad at taking his own.

We tend to reason more wisely about others' problems than ours. We see our friends' situations with perfect clarity, but our own through a fog of emotion, ego, and fear.

The wisdom you offer others is inside you. Always ask yourself, "What would I tell my best friend to do?"

Then, take your own advice.
The Speed Paradox

You have to slow down to speed up.

Slowing down allows you to restore your energy. You notice things you previously missed. You're more deliberate with your actions. You focus on the points of highest leverage.

Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
The Beginner Paradox

You have to start weak to end strong.

The most successful people I know love the feeling of being an embarrassing beginner. They thrive on the newness. They love diving into something with child-like curiosity. It's a positive signal.

Every master started out as a novice.

Embrace that embarrassment of being a beginner. It's the cost of entry to the life you want.
The Looking Paradox

Stop looking to find what you're looking for.

Ever notice that when you're looking for something, you rarely find it? Stop looking. What you're looking for may find you.

Applies equally to love, business, happiness, and life.
The Talking Paradox

"We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak."
~ Epictetus

Talk less to say more.

If you want your words and ideas to be heard, start by talking less and listening more. You'll find more power in your words.
The Control Paradox

More controlling, less control.

We've all seen this as children, partners, or parents. The most controlling often end up with the least control.

Humans are wired for independence. The tighter you grip, the more slips through.

Embody the things you want to see in others. Influence and empower, don't control.
The Advice Paradox

Taking more advice can leave you less well-prepared.

Harsh Truth: Most advice sucks. It's well-intentioned, but it's dangerous to use someone else's map of reality to navigate yours.

Build your own filters. Take the signal. Skip the noise.
The Death Paradox

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
~ Steve Jobs, know your death to live your life

The impermanence of life is precisely what makes it so beautiful.

Embrace your own mortality. Time is your most precious asset. Treat it accordingly.

Steve Jobs

These are notes from David Senra's review of "Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success"; also posted on x.com.

You will go far with a single idea expressed clearly.
When advertising your product pick one feature to focus on.
Customers see more choice as more confusion. Steve believed in doing the work for the customer.
Steve's most important concern was making things easier for the customer. Less versions to choose from, less prices to consider. Turn it on and it just works. No hassle. If he found a hassle he'd eliminate it.
Cut the product down to its essence.
Steve believed that if the ultimate decision maker was involved every step of the way the quality of the work increased.

"The way I like to work is where I touch everything." ~ Steve Jobs
Steve did not believe in delegating advertising decisions. He approved every image. He approved every word. He would deliberate over the copy.
He insisted on seeing the ads before his executives. He did not want them to filter what he saw.

Also he wouldn't let his ad agency narrate what he was about to see: "Are you going to be sitting next to me explaining things when I see the ad in the newspaper?"
If Steve didn't believe you were absolutely essential to a meeting he would ask you to leave. Adding unnecessary people added complexity and Steve hated complexity.
Steve had a religious like dedication to simplicity. (This is the main thesis of the book).

This dedication was unrelenting and in your face 24/7.
Complexity creep is inevitable. It is your job as the leader to find complexity and beat it back across the line.
Steve would not bend his quality standards for money. He once cancelled an ad campaign the day before it was to start because the quality was not up to his standards. Apple had spent millions on the campaign. Sunk costs did not factor into his decision.

Quality was his survival strategy.
Steve only had respect for people who did the work. He didn't like overhead or complicated corporate structures.
Big thinking and small everything else. Steve's main organizational principle was small groups of smart people.
You simply cannot mix your messages when selling something new. A customer can barely handle one great idea, let alone two, or even several.

The best example of this in the book: 1,000 songs in your pocket.
Steve would pick one feature or one product to advertise per quarter. All of their focus and resources would be on this one thing for the entire quarter.
The further you get away from one, the more complexity you invite in.

Look up when you feel down

Words and thoughts to live by.

Action creates progress.

Progress creates momentum.

Momentum creates motivation.
Before you speak, let your words pass through three gates:

Is it true?

Is it necessary?

Is it kind?
Don't let your worst moments become your story.

You blow the presentation and spend the drive home scripting perfect comebacks to an audience that's already gone.

Your relationship ends and you spend months replaying conversations that can't be changed.

All the time spent perfecting the past is stolen from the future that's still waiting.

The past is a teacher, not a judge.

Your next move matters more than your last mistake.

~ Farnam Street, Guided by Beauty
Four words to remember when you're at your lowest or your peak.

This too will pass.
It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
~ Dale Carnegie
My body is healthy and beautiful.

Every day, I am growing more financially prosperous.

I am surrounded by loving and satisfying relationships.

I absorb new information quickly and easily.

My mind is quick, agile, and able to see in high definition.

Everything I do creates value.

My body's filled with health.

My life is filled with wealth.
Never regret a day in your life. Good days give happiness, bad days give experiences, worst days give lessons, and best days give memories.
~ Richard Feynman
The difference between failure and success is often just staying with a problem a little longer.

One more rep
One more step
One more minute
One more revision
One more attempt

The difference between average and outstanding is often just one more.
The only job that actually exists is "problem solver."
The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.
~ Jim Rohn
What we consider defining moments, like promotions or a new house, matter less to life satisfaction than the accumulation of tiny moments that didn't seem to matter at the time.

In the end, everyday moments matter more than big prizes.

Tiny delights over big bright lights.

High(er) performance

Perspective + progress = performance.

90 percent of success is not getting distracted.

Talent and potential mean nothing if you can't consistently do the boring things when you don't feel like doing them.

The person who carefully designs their daily routine goes further than the person who negotiates with themselves every day.

Let inertia work for you.
A lack of routine causes more problems than poor choices.

Routines turn desired behavior into default behavior.
After the final no, there comes a yes. And on that yes, the future world depends.
~ Wallace Stevens, The Well Dressed Man With a Beard first published in: Parts of a World (1942), in Collected Poetry and Prose of Wallace Stevens (Library of America ed.), p. 224.
All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity; the less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte
All the time you spend worrying about the opportunities you don't have comes at the expense of maximizing the opportunities you do have.
Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a system.
~ Farnam Street, The Difference Between Amateurs and Professionals
Ambiguity gap

Junior level
- Given clear problem -> Execute solution
Mid level
- Given vague goal -> Define problem -> Execute solution
Senior level
- Given chaos -> Identify what matters -> Define problem -> Structure solution -> Delegate execution
Anything above zero compounds.

Showing up consistently matters more than showing up perfectly.
Small things become big things.
Never allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial.
Big ambitions, low expectations, and high standards are a powerful combination for living your best life.

Ambitions pull you forward when it's hard. They connect you to something larger. One of my most important ambitions is to be a great father and friend. Another is to leave the world a better place than I found it. You can't have a meaningful life without a connection to something larger than yourself.

Reality minus expectations = happiness. You will never be happy unless your expectations are exceeded. If you think the world owes you something, you're going to end up disappointed. The world doesn't owe you anything. You can't sit around waiting for the world to come and hand you what you think you deserve. If you want something to happen, you have to take action. Go positive and go first.

High standards - When it gets hard, do not lower your standards. I am not always at my best, but I always give my best. I hold myself to a high bar. I don't always meet it, but I won't lower the bar to feel better about myself.

~ Farnam Street, Avoiding Problems
Compensation follows autonomy.

When you need to be managed, there's a cap on what you can earn. When you know how to create value and do it without being told, there's no cap. This is structural, not personal.

The compensation gap isn't about performance; it's about autonomy.
Courage is the root of change - and change is what we're chemically designed to do.
~ Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry, Inspirational quotes
Credibility is expensive because the bills never stop.

You pay it in conversations no one overhears, in deals where you leave money on the table, in credit you give away. You pay for it every time you say the hard thing instead of the easy one.

The strange part is that you're paying for years before anyone notices, and you can lose it all in an afternoon.
Current year is too late to care about current thing.
~ Palmer Luckey
Details don't slow you down; they speed you up.
Don't work with jerks. (No exceptions.)

Raw talent is overrated, persistence is underrated.

Collaborators and mentors are great. But in the end, it's on you.
Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.
~ Aristotle
Expectations are one of the greatest things you can give kids because it's a way of saying, "I have faith in you. You can do great things."
Extraordinary results come from doing ordinary things exceptionally well for a long time.
Failure is rarely the result of some isolated event. Rather, it is a consequence of a long list of accumulated little failures which happen as a result of too little discipline.

Failure occurs each time we fail to think ... today, act ... today, care, strive, climb, learn, or just keep going ... today.

If your goal requires that today you write ten letters and you write only three, you are behind by seven letters ... today.

If you commit yourself to making five phone calls and you make only one, you are behind by four phone calls ... today.

If your financial plan requires that you save ten dollars and you save none, you are behind ten dollars ... today.

The danger comes when we look at a day squandered and conclude that no harm has been done. After all, it was just one day.

But add up these days to make a year and then add up these years to make a lifetime and perhaps you can now see how repeating today's small failures can easily turn your life into a major disaster.

~ Jim Rohn, 7 Strategies for Wealth and Happiness
Fall in love with some activity, and do it!

Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter.

Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough.

Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best.

Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do.

Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

~ Richard Feynman
Fear of failure is highest when you're looking at the ultimate destination.

To reduce fear, close the gap. Focus on the smallest action that moves you forward.

~ Farnam Street, Earned Success
Filters to use before talking.

Is this something that needs to be said?
Is this something that needs to be said by me?
Is this something that needs to be said by me right now?

The simplest filter process is always:

"Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary?"
Focus on what's stable, not what changes.

While it's fun to guess what will change in the future, a more important question is, "what's not going to change in the next ten years?"

~ Farnam Street, Why Focusing on What Won't Change is Key to Long-Term Growth
Focused people eliminate options, not accumulate them.
Going all in on something for a month gets better results than dabbling in it for a decade.

The dabbler spreads their energy over many things. The focused person concentrates their effort on one.

The most dangerous competitor is the one with a single goal.
Great ideas often look wrong at first; that's why the independent-minded discover them.
I used to be afraid of failing at the things that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter.
~ Bob Goff
If you want to get rich quickly, the biggest factor is luck.

If you want to get rich eventually, the biggest factor is consistency.
"If you wish to make progress, be content being perceived as foolish and ignorant."

Be content not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time.

Be content taking an interest in what the majority of people are not taking an interest in.

Be content trying to get what you want out of life.

Be content doing what's really interesting to you.

Be content being different.

~ Epictetus' Enchiridion
Intensity versus consistency.

One way to become luckier is to show up consistently.

When people trust that you'll do what you say when you say it, not only will they want to work with you, but they'll want you to be successful. You can't build anything meaningful when you show up inconsistently.

In the short term, you are as good as your intensity. In the long term, you are only as good as your consistency.

~ Farnam Street, Reality is Undefeated
It's true that determining the actual problem takes time, but it's far quicker than solving the wrong one and starting over.
Know what you need to know and gain other knowledge as you need it.
~ Sarah Johnson (a friend)
Long-term thinking eliminates a lot of poor behavior.
Make a life

"Beware of looking for goals," as Hunter S. Thompson wraps up his advice to his friend. "Look for a way of life. Determine how you want to live and then see what you can do to make a living within that way of life."

Determine what your true desires and abilities are, what captivates you, what you could be curious about learning forever, what the person that you are loves to do - then see what you can do to make a life that bends and conforms to those things.

~ Billy Oppenheimer, Bend The Goal To Conform To Your Abilities and Desires
Money follows people who are calm, patient, and opportunistic. You give up too soon. Just remember this. You are never out of the game until it is over.
Most geniuses - especially those who lead others - prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.
~ Andy Benoit
Most people are interested. Few are truly committed.

Interested people act when it's convenient; committed people act no matter what.

Interested people do the minimum; committed people push beyond limits.

Interested people wait to be told; committed people take the initiative.

Fully committing is the key to accomplishment.
No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.
~ Daniel Kahneman
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

~ Calvin Coolidge
People that accomplish great things are often accomplishing them for the first time.
People think good decision-making is about being right all the time. It's not. It's about lowering the cost of being wrong and changing your mind.

When the cost of mistakes is high, we're paralyzed with fear. When the cost of mistakes is low, we can move fast and adapt.

Make mistakes cheap, not rare.
Problems scream for attention while successes only whisper. We're wired to chase whatever's loudest.

Your biggest opportunity isn't hiding in what's broken; it's hiding in what's working that you've stopped noticing.

~ Farnam Street, Disguised as a Straight Line
Progress doesn't come from revolutionary leaps but from the patient accumulation of small, earned advances.
Progress is just falling and getting back up over and over again, disguised as a straight line.
~ Farnam Street, Disguised as a Straight Line
Short-term results come from intensity.

Long-term results come from consistency.
Simple and shallow sound the same until you ask the second question.

The person who earned their simplicity can go ten levels deep when challenged.

The person who skipped the work falls apart at level two.
Success is creating dramatically more value for the world than you create for yourself.
Take a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time... identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.
~ Evan Williams
Talent and potential mean nothing if you can't consistently do the boring things when you don't feel like doing them.
The best essays begin with curiosity, not certainty; they're a journey of discovery for both writer and reader.
The lazy lose to the average.

The average lose to the focused.

The focused lose to the obsessed.
The greats don't wait.

Every major innovation started with someone doing something small. YouTube began with a few friends posting grainy videos. Amazon started by selling books from a garage. Google began as a grad school project.

What separates dreamers from doers isn't talent or luck - it's the willingness to start before feeling ready. The perfect moment is a myth. The right time is now.

But here's the key: Start small and learn fast. Your first move doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to teach you something. Focus more on the next small step that moves you closer to the goal.

Motion creates momentum, and momentum reveals opportunities that standing still never could.
The hidden cost of comfort

This is an old story that I (the author) shared with a friend recently.

A man stumbled upon a cocoon of an emperor moth and took it home to witness its transformation.

One day, a small opening appeared. The man watched as the moth began to struggle to force its body through the tiny crack. A few hours went by as the moth wriggled, fought, and pushed - but it couldn't seem to break through the tiny crack.

Feeling bad, the man carefully cracked the cocoon and peeled away the pieces to open up a path for the moth.

It quickly emerged, but something was wrong. Its body was swollen and its wings weren't working. Days went by without progress. The moth never flew.

Only later did the man learn what had happened: The painful struggle to break free of the cocoon forces fluid from the moth's body and wings. Without that struggle, the fluid was never drained and the moth was permanently incapacitated.

Your entire life will change when you realize that growth feeds on meaningful struggle. When you avoid that struggle, you literally starve your growth of the oxygen it needs to thrive.

Your natural bias to avoid discomfort, and to prevent those you love from feeling it, does more harm than good.

The truth is that long-term freedom is earned through a willingness to endure short-term struggle.

This sparks an important question:

What growth are you starving with the struggle you're avoiding?

It's easy to opt out of the struggle:
- We procrastinate on the important project
- We avoid the difficult conversation
- We hide from the internal work
- We skip the challenging workouts
- We dodge the deep work
- We run from the hard questions
- We numb ourselves with cheap dopamine
- We want transformation - but the transformation is impossible without tension.
Growth isn't a byproduct of ease. Its a byproduct of struggle.

So, the next time you find yourself in that struggle - feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and tempted to quit - remember the moth:

The resistance may be the very thing shaping you into someone who can fly.

The growth you asked for is hidden in the struggle you avoid. Remember that.

~ Sahil Bloom, The Hidden Cost of Comfort
The loudest signals come from the emptiest sources. Those who truly possess something rarely need to announce it.
The people who get the most done don't agonize over decisions. It's not because they have better judgment. They've just structured their lives so being wrong isn't expensive.

When mistakes are cheap, you can move fast and fix what doesn't work. When mistakes are expensive, you overthink everything and still choose wrong.

This is why startups can run circles around big companies. It's not because they're smarter, but because being wrong isn't expensive.
The Physics of Relationships: Going Positive and Going First

People who consistently get better results organize their lives in such a way that they are in a position to have better options and are never forced by circumstances into a bad decision.

~ Farnam Street, The Physics of Relationships
The problem with success is that it teaches you the wrong lessons. What worked yesterday becomes religion, and religions don't adapt.
The real value in setting goals is not in their achievement. The acquisition of the things you want is strictly secondary.

The major reason for setting goals is to compel you to become the person it takes to achieve them.
The Secret Of Everyone Who Has Ever Excelled

At the National Association of Life Underwriters annual convention in 1940, a man named Albert Gray delivered a speech titled The Common Denominator of Success.

The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don't like to do.

Excellence is a qualitative phenomenon: people who excel do things differently from those who don't.
The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.
~ Jim Rohn
The writer Andrei Donderi argues that the world is divided between Askers and Guessers. Askers feel no shame when making requests and are willing to be told no without being hurt. They'll invite themselves over as a guest for a week. They'll ask for money, to borrow the car, a boat, or a girlfriend. They have no compunction about asking and do not take offense when they are refused.

Guessers hate asking for favors and feel guilty when saying no to other people's requests. In Guess culture, Donderi writes, you avoid putting a request into words unless you're sure the answer will be yes. In Guess culture, you never say no to someone else directly. You make excuses. Every request, made or received, is fraught with emotional and social peril.

~ Askers and Guessers: Who Are You?
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
There is a big difference between being interested in something and being committed to something.

Committed people do what interested people won't.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
~ Christopher Morley
Those who fear appearing foolish rarely discover anything new. The genius of tomorrow often looks like an idiot today.
When people talk about traveling to the past, they worry about radically changing the present by doing something small.

But barely anyone in the present really thinks that they can radically change the future by doing something small.

~ Shower Thoughts, x.com
When we lack real problems, we create imaginary ones; when we lack meaningful work, we perfect the unimportant.
When you know what needs to be done, inaction increases stress.

You feel a lot less stress when you do the things within your control that move you closer to your objective.

Action reduces stress.
When you're only halfway interested in something, you'll lose to someone obsessed. It won't even be close.

It's worth asking why.

Small advantages compound over time like interest in a bank account, so being 10% more committed doesn't give you 10% better results; it gives you 10x better results.

Think of it like studying: the genuinely curious person will remember and connect ideas in ways that the person just trying to pass will never.

Being all in doesn't just beat partially in; it crushes it.

~ Farnam Street, Reliability is Magnetic
When your priorities are clear, every "no" becomes a step toward what matters.
While pessimists write reports, optimists write history.
Wisdom is prevention, wise people don't solve problems they avoid them.
You don't need more intensity; you need more consistency.

Intensity impresses; consistency transforms.
You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
~ C.S. Lewis
You only control the effort, not the results.

The work has to be the win. You control the effort, not the results.

So ultimately, you have to love doing it.

You have to get to a place where doing the work is the win and everything else is extra.

~ Ryan Holiday, You only control the effort, not the results
Your biggest fear should not be failure; it should be ignorance.

People are messy

People are messy and I'm a person.

If you see someone failing to take action, it tells you they don't know the cost of inaction.

Just because the cost of inaction is invisible doesn't mean it's not real.

What happens if you don't take action? Nothing.

The cost of inaction is the status quo. If you're ok where you are, then you don't need to do anything. But if you want to get to the next level, you need to understand the cost of doing nothing.

Action is expensive, but inaction costs a fortune.
If you want me to go all in on you, you better be all in on what we're doing together. If you're not all in, if you are only kinda into it, I don't want to work with you.
More often than not, the person is the problem, not the incentive system. No incentive system turns mediocre into extraordinary.
Praise in public, punish in private.
There are two times to admit mistakes: early and late. Early admissions solve problems. Late admissions create them.

A person who proactively tells another they made a mistake gains trust and respect for their honesty. In contrast, one who tries to hide errors quickly loses trust.

Swift admissions build bridges. Slow ones burn them.

Life is difficult

Life is easier once you admit it's difficult.

I asked an elderly man once what it was like to be old and to know the majority of his life was behind him.

He told me that he has been the same age his entire life. He said the voice inside of his head had never aged. He has always just been the same boy. His mother's son.

He had always wondered when he would grow up and be an old man. He said he watched his body age and his faculties dull but the person he is inside never got tired. Never aged. Never changed.

Our spirits are eternal. Our souls are forever. The next time you encounter an elderly person, look at them and know they are still a child, just as you are still a child and children will always need love, attention, and purpose.

~ Kathleen Pennell, I Feel the Same Way
In her book, Winifred Gallagher calls it her grand unified theory.

"Your life - who you are, what you think, feel, and do, what you love - is the sum of what you focus on.

Your life is the sum of what you immerse yourself in."

~ Winifred Gallagher, Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life
The Road Less Traveled

Life is difficult... This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see the truth, we transcend it.

Once we truly know that life is difficult - once we truly understand and accept it - then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.

~ M. Scott Peck, M.D., The Road Less Traveled
The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

~ Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost's poem inspired the following book, which I enjoyed.
A poignant reminder that we're not perfect, that seeking perfection won't solve our problems, and that growth and imperfection leads to a deeper relationship with our selves.

Me: Hey God.

God: Hello.....

Me: I'm falling apart. Can you put me back together?

God: I would rather not.

Me: Why?

God: Because you aren't a puzzle.

Me: What about all of the pieces of my life that are falling down onto the ground?

God: Let them stay there for a while. They fell off for a reason. Take some time and decide if you need any of those pieces back.

Me: You don't understand! I'm breaking down!

God: No - you don't understand. You are breaking through. What you are feeling are just growing pains. You are shedding the things and the people in your life that are holding you back. You aren't falling apart. You are falling into place.

Relax. Take some deep breaths and allow those things you don't need anymore to fall off of you. Quit holding onto the pieces that don't fit you anymore. Let them fall off. Let them go.

Me: Once I start doing that, what will be left of me?

God: Only the very best pieces of you.

Me: I'm scared of changing.

God: I keep telling you - YOU AREN'T CHANGING!! YOU ARE BECOMING!

Me: Becoming who?

God: Becoming who I created you to be! A person of light and love and charity and hope and courage and joy and mercy and grace and compassion. I made you for more than the shallow pieces you have decided to adorn yourself with that you cling to with such greed and fear. Let those things fall off of you. I love you! Don't change! ... Become! Become! Become who I made you to be. I'm going to keep telling you this until you remember it.

Me: There goes another piece.

God: Yep. Let it be.

Me: So ... I'm not broken?

God: Of course Not! - but you are breaking like the dawn. It's a new day. Become!!!

~ John Roedel, I'm not broken

Quotable

Good quotes to live by.

Creativity is a function of the previous work you put in.
~ Robert Greene
I wouldn't have seen it, if I didn't believe it.
~ Marshall McLuhan
No man was ever wise by chance.
~ Seneca
Scarcity is the one thing you can never have enough of.
~ Marc Randolph
The most dangerous enemy is not the one who is as strong as you are, but the one who attacks your weaknesses.
The most selfish act of all is kindness, because its reward is so much greater than the investment.
~ Tom Peters
The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
~ Carl Jung
There is no failure in sports.
~ Giannis Antetokounmpo
What people say about you behind your back is none of your business.
~ John Maeda
When you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.
~ Stephen King

Success

Finding success is fleeting. Start with good advice.

Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.

Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.

Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.

Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.

Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.

Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.

And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.

~ William Martin
Formula for startup success:

Find large highly fragmented industry with low NPS; vertically integrate a solution to simplify value product.
~ Keith Rabois
The Question That May Change Your Life

There's a story about Apple founder Steve Jobs that I love:

When he was 12 years old, he cold-called Bill Hewlett - co-founder of the pioneering technology company Hewlett Packard - to request spare computer parts for an electronics project he was working on.

Surprised by the request, Hewlett not only sent the parts, he also offered him a summer internship.

That opportunity further accelerated the young Jobs' excitement for technology and entrepreneurship - and we all know what came from that.

Reflecting on the story, Steve Jobs said the following:

"Most people don't get those experiences because they never ask. I've never found anybody that didn't want to help me if I asked them for help... and when people ask me, I try to be as responsive, to pay that debt of gratitude back... Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask. And that's what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them."

What would I ask for if I wasn't afraid of hearing no?

Many of life's doors remain closed to us - not because we knocked and were rejected, but because we never knocked at all.

One simple truth to remember:

Closed mouths don't get fed.

There is something you're missing in your life right now - an opportunity, a relationship, a mentor, an inflection point - not because you're unqualified or unworthy of it, but simply because you haven't asked.

If you want something, and you've done the work to deserve it, go ask for it.

The worst case? You're told no and you're right back in the same place.

The best case? Everything changes.

I often wonder how many extraordinary people waste their entire lives simply because they're afraid to ask for the thing they want and deserve.

Stop waiting for good things to happen. Good things don't come to those who wait. Good things come to those who have the courage to ask. Those who confront their fear of rejection. Those who embrace it as the cost of entry.

The life you want is on the other side of the fear you're avoiding.

So, I'll ask again:

What would you ask for if you weren't afraid of hearing no?

Now, do the work and go ask for it.

~ Sahil Bloom

Timeless reads

These have stood the test of time.

"If" is a poem by English writer and poet Rudyard Kipling.

The third and fourth lines of the second stanza of the poem:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster / and treat those two impostors just the same

are written on the wall of the players' entrance to the Centre Court at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, where the Wimbledon Championships are held. These same lines appear at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills, New York City, where the US Open was played until 1977.

In the BBC's 1996 nationwide poll, "If" was voted the UK's favorite poem, gaining twice as many votes as the runner-up.

The boxer Muhammad Ali was known to carry the poem in his wallet throughout his life as a guiding principle.

~ Rudyard Kipling, If - poem and If - Wikipedia
Citizenship in a Republic is the title of a speech given by Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the United States, at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910.

One notable passage from the speech is referred to as "The Man in the Arena."

Someone who is heavily involved in a situation that requires courage, skill, or tenacity, as opposed to someone sitting on the sidelines and watching, is often referred to as "the man in the arena."

It is not the critic who counts;

not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;

who strives valiantly;

who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming;

but who does actually strive to do the deeds;

who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions;

who spends himself in a worthy cause;

who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Shame on the man of cultivated taste who lets refinement to develop in to fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a work day world.

~ Theodore Roosevelt, The Man in the Arena

Small things, top of mind​

Individuals​

Charlie Munger​

Greg Harden​

Jeff Bezos​

Focus on the inputs, not the outputs​

John Perry Barlow​

Principles of Adult Behavior​

Estee Lauder​

Matthew Dicks​

Sahil Bloom​

Steve Jobs​

Look up when you feel down​

High(er) performance​

People are messy​

Life is difficult​

Quotable​

Success​

Timeless reads​