The best investments are the things no one can take away from you: knowledge, experience, mindset, attitude.
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The weakest investments are the things that you can lose at any time: status, emotions, material things.
When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Honestly, I kind of hate the term "find your purpose" because it implies that it's hiding under a rock somewhere. When really, purpose is something you earn through experimentation and sacrifice.
Every time you delay, you reinforce the habit of delay.
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Every time you act, you reinforce the habit of action.
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In every moment, you are practicing something—make sure it’s what you actually want to get better at.
We are products of our influences, our environments, our family and friends....and random circumstances. Success, or failure, is a collaborative effort. We are, in the end, a reflection of the debts and lessons we receive from the countless people who shape our lives.
A good life is largely defined by what's missing:
- The fights that don't happen
- The health problems you don't have
- The debt you avoid
- The mistakes you don't make
It's less about doing all the right things than it is avoiding the few wrong things.
Left untouched, every IT system degrades into chaos. The same is true for everything. Your home, your relationships, the universe. Security isn’t protection. It’s just temporarily delaying entropy.
Your ancestors survived centuries of floods, wars, famine, slavery, and plagues for you to sit on the toilet and compare your life to people on the internet who you’ve never met.
Be grateful.
Three questions determine 99% of the happiness in your life:
1. What am I working on and why?
2. Who am I spending time with and why?
3. How well am I treating my body and why?
Everything else is noise.
@paulg@naval Bragging Razor
If someone brags about their success or happiness, assume it’s half what they claim.
If someone downplays their success or happiness, assume it’s double what they claim.
Winners don't feel the need to tell you they're winning, it's dead obvious.
Luck doesn’t just happen, it’s created. You can do things to increase the odds of serendipity.
Meeting more people makes you lucky.
Learning more skills makes you lucky.
Being willing to fail makes you lucky.
Offering to help others more often makes you lucky.
The attitude that helps most with intense stress is not mindfulness. It’s hope.
In hard times, it’s overwhelming to live only in the present. What brings strength is anticipating a brighter future.
Resilience lies in remembering that today's burdens may be lighter tomorrow.
The hallmark of expertise is no longer how much you know. It's how well you synthesize.
Information scarcity rewarded knowledge acquisition. Information abundance requires pattern recognition.
It's not enough to collect facts. The future belongs to those who connect dots.