On Finding Meaning
Having a problem worth solving gives you a reason to get out of bed. The more meaningful the challenge, the stronger your purpose. This sense of purpose acts as an antidote to bitterness.
Passion comes from doing things right, from putting your heart into what you’re already doing. You create it through action, through moving forward.
“Compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not to who someone else is today.”
On Comparison and Progress
You see other people’s shiny exteriors but miss the reality of their struggles. Everyone carries burdens you can’t see. The person speeding by in a convertible might be contemplating wrapping it around a cement pillar.
The only useful comparison is with yourself. Can you make yourself slightly better today than you were yesterday? That possibility is accessible to everyone. That’s what living virtuously actually means.
Make your criteria for success razor sharp. Then you know when you mess up and can fix it. Keep yourself in the fog and you’ll stay blind to your mistakes while still making them.
On Taking Action
What you’re doing right now has risks too. You’re just blind to them because you’ve adapted to them.
Make a bad plan. Make the best one you can, but implement it. You’ll figure out why it’s wrong when you start, then you can fix it a little, then a bit more, then more.
When you sit down and genuinely ask yourself what you’re doing wrong, you’ll get an answer very rapidly. The probability that you’ll figure out something stupid you did that’s causing your problems is extremely high.
“New paths are made by walking, not waiting.”
On Success Patterns
Successful people share common traits:
- They’re really good at something
- They’re reliable (you can count on their word)
- They’re generous
- They have wide connection networks
That connection network becomes incredibly valuable. Connect to a thousand well-connected people and you’re connected to the entire world.
Most successful entrepreneurs fail repeatedly before something hits. The baseline is failure. Persistence enables you to run many experiments. Your default position as a creative person is failure, so keep going.
On Physical and Mental Health
Get in shape. Be strong and coordinated. You’ll feel better, be more effective, live longer, be less sick. People who’ve been in shape once in their life age way better.
Exercise is the only proven method to maintain cognitive ability as you age. Those brain training apps? They don’t work. Cardiovascular exercise and weightlifting actually stave off cognitive decline that starts at 25.
Stop abusing substances if they’re interfering with important goals, causing financial distress, or getting you in trouble.
On Relationships and Service
Maintain and foster your relationships. Your connection network grows more valuable as you age. It’s one major advantage older people have.
Doing things for other people is more rewarding than virtually anything else you can do. When you genuinely help someone, it’s stunningly satisfying. There’s no better life strategy than being a good person.
“If you want to have everything you could possibly want and more, then be a good person.”
On Taking Responsibility
Go over your past with a fine-tooth comb. Take responsibility for everything you did wrong and everything you failed to do that was right. Does that change the world? It might change it like nothing else possibly can.
Things would be way better than they are if you got your act together. That’s frightening because it means you have that much power.
When you commit to something and make sacrifices, you’re using a primary factor that separates humans from animals. We discovered we could let go of something valuable now to gain something we value even more later.
On Setting Direction
Aim at something. Otherwise your life is meaningless. Pick something and aim at it. As you move toward it, you’ll get wiser. Your aim might change, and that’s okay, but at least it’ll change in an informed way.
Find work where your intelligence puts you in the upper quartile. Be a big fish in a small pond. You don’t want to be the dumbest person in the room, and probably not the smartest either, because that means you should be in a different room.
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
The Bottom Line
Beat yourself up enough to fix the problem, no more than that. Minimal necessary force. Don’t hit anything harder than it needs to be hit.
If you don’t listen to what beckons you forward, you’ll pay for it beyond imagination. You’ll have everything terrible about life and nothing good, and worse, you’ll know it was your fault.