If you feel stuck, try this: For the next 30 days, every single day, wake up at 5am and work out for at least 30 minutes.
It doesn’t matter what the workout looks like. Go to a gym, go outside for a run, do pushups and squats on your bedroom floor.
This isn’t about the workout. It’s about creating Proof of Agency.
By the end of 30 days, you’ll completely rewire your brain. Scientists call it neuroplasticity. Your brain physically changes in structure and function through action and experience.
The action of waking up early and working out every single day for a month will create evidence that you have the power to take an action and achieve a desired outcome. You’ll see yourself differently. You’ll reorganize your life around this new priority. You’ll eat healthier, go to sleep earlier, and narrow your focus. It creates Proof of Agency.
That has ripple effects into every area of life.
In 2007, Stanford's Joel Peterson gave a 68-minute masterclass on negotiation under pressure.
Most operators negotiate from desperation.
His frameworks:
- "Don't get in that position"
- The unempowered lieutenant
- The ferret brand
12 lessons:
This article should scare the shit out of you, your conscious thoughts should be bulging out of your eyeballs to take action on your life.
Be the moving target in a world of stagnated sheep
I've wasted tens of thousands of dollars on fancy dashboards and business intelligence tools.
And they ALL break.
People stop trusting the data and using it altogether.
But I've seen $2M - $5M companies go to $10M - $20M after implementing one thing they can build in half a day…a CEO Dashboard.
Here’s how you can build one yourself 🧵
In 2007, Stanford professor Joel Peterson gave a 1 hour masterclass on how to negotiate & get what you want.
His ideas:
- Worst position is needing the deal
- Trust beats manipulation in long term
- Great negotiators think in relationships
12 lessons to negotiate better:
In 2013, Yale professor Ben Polak gave a legendary 1-hour lecture on Game Theory.
It will change how you make decisions in negotiations, business, and life.
His frameworks:
• Dominance arguments
• Backward induction
• The proactive bias
12 lessons to make better decisions:
I don't think you'll be able to find a conversation like this one on the internet.
I interviewed @EthanEvansVP (former Amazon VP) about every possible corporate politics situation I could think of and he told me everything since he's retired. Topics we covered:
• Managing people out + promos via reorgs
• Orgs trying to steal scope
• How to fire managers
• What leverage engineers have when getting managed out
• Handling politically skilled operators
• Examples of political messaging
• Handling bad managers and mutiny
• Empire building + effective backchanneling
• Influence without authority
• How to avoid politics if you hate them
It was fascinating in a morbid curiosity kind of way. I heard so many things in this conversation which I wish weren't true but are. Hopefully this conversation is helpful for people navigating corporate politics.
Where to watch:
• YouTube: https://t.co/BKZWftLoYb
• Spotify: https://t.co/W9jGtstlGt
• Apple Podcasts: https://t.co/jOYDGtHtd1
• Transcript: https://t.co/URZFN8pa8h
Most people overcommunicate. They ramble. The dive into the weeds. They lose their audience. And in doing so, lose their credibility. Change how you think and you'll change what you say. And how you say it. Headlines. Punchlines. Here's my 5-step formula to find your voice:
Here some of my Tiny Lessons from this episode with @JamesClear
1. “Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”
2. “You cannot outwork the person working on a better thing.”
3. “The cost of good habits is in the present. The cost of bad habits is in the future.”
4. Prioritize work that keeps working for you once it’s done. Build assets that accumulate, rather than tasks that evaporate.
5. Standardize before you optimize. You cannot improve a habit that does not exist.
6. Shape your environment with friction. Make things you don’t want to do harder and things you do want to do easier.
7. Intensity makes for a good story. Consistency makes for good results.
8. “Do the obvious things first. That gets you 80% of the way there.”
9. Live in two timeframes: 10 years and one hour. Do something right now that benefits you in a decade.
10. “Don’t be the first to tell yourself no. Let the world tell you no first.”
11. Use your current advantages to gain new advantages.
12. The work is not being wasted. It’s just being stored.
13. Success isn’t 10,000 attempts; it’s 10,000 iterations. Don’t just try again—try differently.
14. “The quest for novelty overpowers the desire for results.”
15. When something’s working, we underestimate how long it can go for and how powerful it can be.
16. A lack of patience changes the outcome.
17. “If you’re not outthinking them, you’re not outworking them.”
18. “The most powerful form of preparation is a mindset that can handle uncertainty.”
19. You don’t know when the break will come, but if you keep creating surface area, luck will eventually find you.
20. It is highly unlikely that whatever you are working on right now is the best use of your time.
21. “The heaviest weight at the gym is the front door.”
22. “To start, you only need points A, B, and Z. You don’t need to see steps C through Y.”
23. If your actions are not oriented toward your goal, they’re not accumulating.
24. “Almost every thought you have is downstream from what you consume.”
25. Just because improvements aren’t noticeable, that doesn’t mean improvement isn’t happening.
26. “The tighter you cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.”
27. You don’t want to compete with the person having fun.
28. The fastest way to stop learning is to believe you already know it.
29. Knowledge is about the past, but decisions are about the future.
30. The desire to belong often overpowers the desire to understand.
31. “Habits are the repeated solutions to recurring problems.”
32. Broad funnel, tight filter.
33. Move like thunder: do fewer things, but with a crash that cannot be ignored.
34. Find ways to visualize your progress.
35. “The goal is not to beat the market. The goal is to end up wealthy.”
36. “Reputation takes care of itself if you take care of other people.”
37. Your first idea is not your best idea.
38. “We crave the status as much as we crave the outcome.”
39. Outcome over ego.
40. The only bad mindset is the one you’re fixed in.
41. People want to believe there’s a secret. There isn’t.
42. If you want to be a better writer, read more.
43. Maintain a positive mental attitude regardless of current circumstances.
44. So many problems in life come from your brain over-emphasizing minor details that don’t matter.
45. Success is having power over my days.
46. Don’t waste the reader’s time.