• Bullshit — Humans only make meaningful changes when they quit believing their own bullshit.
• Poor vs broke — Being poor is a mindset whereas being broke is a temporary condition. You can be broke yet avoid becoming poor by maintaining a healthy attitude towards money.
• Appearance — Dressing well and keeping up with your appearance is a signal of self-respect along with a public service to others. No one likes looking at a slob.
• Mistakes — A thoughtful apology can make up for a multitude of sins.
• Perfectionism — Is fear masquerading as virtue.
• Vision — The flaw in the human eye is noticing what’s wrong instead of highlighting what’s right.
• Being yourself — Being one’s true self is difficult. Societal conditioning and simply having to figure out who you are as a person can be hard. ‘Who am I really?’ is a worthy question worth frequent examination.
• Coping skills — The problem with developing coping skills is gaining the ability to tolerate unacceptable circumstances.
• Few things matter — Most of the things we think are important are not. Outside of health, meaningful work, and enduring love, most things are peripheral.
• Playing it safe — Playing it safe is risky. Without taking calculated risks we are setting our lives up to be boring, average, and full of regrets. Uncalculated risks work too. It is better to throw caution to the wind than to spend a lifetime seeking shelter from a storm.
• There is no destination — Life is an ongoing journey with no specific stopping point. This is why we should always travel well.
• Debt — Money buys freedom, security, and options. Debt causes enslavement, exposure, and limits.
• Rules — They are the prescriptive wishes of the scared. — H/T to Kris Gage
• Insults — If someone insults you, it is wise to entertain the idea that they are correct.
• The cost of things — Everything we own has two costs. The initial price we pay for the item and the cost of maintaining and caring for said item. In many cases, the second cost is higher than the first.
• Randomness — A lot of things that happen to us or happen for us are out of our control. Something to keep in mind when feeling guilty because of failure or elated because of success.
• Certainty — A personal operating system of eager willingness to be proven wrong is at the forefront of lifelong learning. “I am certain of nothing.” — H/T to the late Anthony Bourdain
• Identity capital — A unique set of experiences, skills, stories, and accomplishments should be built over time to make you stand out as an individual. Identity capital is a valuable asset.
• Wealth — To be wealthy is to have complete control over how you spend your time. Money simply helps to facilitate this.
• Complaining — It is for people who either want others to conspire with them or make listeners miserable. Both motives are unproductive.
• Going first — You shouldn’t wait for others to take initiative. Leaders go first. Be the one to arrange a dinner or trip with a group of friends. Send the email, ask for a date, ask for a job, and be the first one on the dance floor.
• Acceptance — People only accept things when they are too tired to fight the circumstances they were originally unwilling to accept.
• Style — Everyone should develop a personal style. If you don’t have one, you should think about acquiring one. — H/T to Steven Pressfield
• Careers — The best careers don’t have dress codes, implied or otherwise.
• Where to live — Along with what to do and who to be with, it is one of the most important decisions to be made. There is a lot of opportunity cost living in an area with no opportunities.
• Immortality — You can’t live forever but you can do things for mankind to ensure your name does.
• People — A good social strategy is simply avoiding the life-sucking people who lead you to their little corner of hell. — H/T to James Altucher
• Hard work — There is no point in doing hard work until you know what it is you should be working on.
• Thinking — “People by and large become what they think of themselves.” To control what you think is to control your destiny. — H/T to the late William James
• Education — Is overrated. Lifelong learning is underrated.
• No — It should be the default answer to most requests. Use the word no to protect your supply of yes’s.
• Focus — It is more beneficial to focus on things that are permanent than to trifle on things that are temporary.
• Regret minimization — Most decisions should be made with the idea of minimizing future regret. Make choices you won’t be sorry about on your deathbed.
• Risk — The best things in life involve it. Sex, travel, food, sunshine, relationships, building wealth, and being considered a thoughtful human.
• Anger — Is an underrated emotion. It can be used as a tool to accomplish great things. People who are truly pissed off about something tend to do something about it.
• Success — It can be a liability if you haven’t experienced meaningful failures.
• Procrastination — Is simply stealing from your future self.
• Good times — The best of times never last. Neither do the worst.
• Personal scarcity — Scarcity drives value. Being intelligent, fit, ambitious, and possessing identity capital increases your personal scarcity making you a valuable, well-rounded, and sought-after human.
• Control — Worrying about things out of our control is pointless. Best to worry about the things we can control — everything else is simply weather.
• What to do — The things we wanted to do as a child are probably the things we should be doing as adults.
• Double lives — Most people live two lives — the one they live and the one they secretly wish they had the courage to live.
• Death — You should always be working on the highlights of your obituary.