Good entrepreneurs don’t fail because they stay at it.

Ego is false confidence, self-respect is true confidence.

To a tree, there is no right or wrong. There is no good or bad.

Only through suffering do you have change and self-improvement.

Art is just creativity, it’s just anything done for its own sake.

I want to see truth. I want to see the world the way it is. Not through my filters. Not through my desires. Not through the way that other people want me to see it. And I want to accept it the way it is.

Today in society you get rewarded for creative work, for creating something brand new that society didn’t even know that it wanted that it doesn’t yet know how to get, other than through you.

The best way to prepare for the future 20 years is find something you love to do, to have a shot at being one of the best people in the world at it. Build an independent brand around it, with your name, not a company’s name or other people’s names around it. Try to make a creative work, so you’ll stay interesting, stay ahead of the game.

Figure out what you’re good at and start helping other people with it; give it away. Pay it forward. Karma sort of works because people are very consistent. On a long enough timescale, you will attract what you project.

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects – that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.

Asymmetric opportunities: Invest in startups. Start a company. Create a book, podcast, video. Create a (software) product. Go on many first dates. Go to a cocktail party. Read a Lindy book. Move to a big city. Buy Bitcoin. Tweet.

Once you’ve truly controlled your own fate, for better or for worse, you’ll never let anyone else tell you what to do.

No one can compete with you if you love to do it. Be authentic and then figure out how to map that to what society actually wants, apply some leverage, put your name on it so you take the risks but you gain the rewards, have ownership and equity in what you do, and then just crank it out.

Being a founder is brutally difficult. It takes a long time and in the long run, the people who succeed are just the ones who persevere.

On who he considers successful: to me the real winners are the ones who step out of the game entirely, who don’t even play the game; who rise above it. Those are the people who have such internal mental and self control and self awareness that they need nothing from anybody else.

No one can compete with you on being you, no one can compete with me on being me, so when I think about what my profession, what my job, what my work is, it’s just being me.

You’re meant to do something. You’re not just meant to lie there in the sand and meditate all day long. You should self-actualize. You should do what you are meant to do.

The best way, perhaps the only way, to change others is to become an example.

If it entertains you now but will bore you someday, it’s a distraction. Keep looking.

‘Consensus’ is just another way of saying ‘average’.

Guard your time. It’s all you have.

As long as you can keep taking shots on goal, and you keep getting back up, eventually you’ll get through. Just stick at it.

Earn with your mind, not your time.

If you could literally just sit for 30 minutes and be happy, you are successful.

The modern mind is overstimulated and the modern body is understimulated and overfed. Meditation, exercise, and fasting restore an ancient balance.

Work as hard as you can. Even though what you work on and who you work with are more important.

In a billion dollar company, the employees aren’t working any harder than people in a million dollar company. They’re just doing the right things.

Your goal in life is to find out the people who need you the most, to find out the business that needs you the most, to find the project and the art that needs you the most. There is something out there just for you.

The greatest superpower is the ability to change yourself.

You do not want to compete, you want to be a market of one.

Most of our suffering comes from avoidance.

A happy, calm, and peaceful person will make better decisions. So if you want to operate at peak performance, you have to learn how to tame your mind.

Mentors won’t make you rich. Doctors won’t make you healthy. Nutritionists won’t make you slim. Teachers won’t make you smart. Gurus won’t make you calm. Trainers won’t make you fit. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility. Save yourself.

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

The people who succeed are irrationally passionate about something

Whether in commerce, science, or politics, history remembers the artists.

To the experts, what looks like hard work from the outside, is play from the inside.

If you have an unswerving desire to do something, then usually you’ll get it.

If you want to operate at peak performance, you have to learn how to tame your mind.

Pick your one overwhelming desire. It’s okay to suffer over that one. But on all the other desires, let them go so you can be calm and peaceful and relaxed.

You’re better off following your genuine intellectual curiosity rather than chasing whatever is hot right now.

The most successful entrepreneurs are authentic to who they are and what they uniquely can do.

All of the really successful people I know have a really strong action bias. They just do things

All greatness comes from suffering.

If you want to see who rules over you, see who you’re not allowed to criticize.

Better motivated on the wrong thing than unmotivated on the right thing.

Picking the direction that you’re heading in in every decision is far, far more important than what force you apply. Just pick the right direction to start walking in, and then start walking.

The biggest mistake any performer can make is to look at the audience.

Your real resumé is a painful recounting of all of your struggles.

When it comes to medicine and nutrition, subtract before you add.