Many of our strengths in excess become or create glaring weaknesses.

The best results in life are often held back by false constructs and untested assumptions.

The commonsense rules of the ‘real world’ are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.

Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

If the recipe sucks, it doesn’t matter how good a cook you are.

You’re never as bad as they say you are, but you’re never as good as they say you are either.

Most people are fast to stop you before you get started but hesitant to get in the way if you’re moving.

The goal is to find your inefficiencies in order to eliminate them and to find your strengths so you can multiply them.

Slow down and remember this: Most things make no difference. Being busy is a form of mental laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action.

Time is wasted because there is so much time available.

Never automate something that can be eliminated, and never delegate something that can be automated or streamlined. Otherwise, you waste someone else’s time instead of your own, which now wastes your hard-earned cash.

Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple — many are just emotionally difficult to act upon.

It isn’t enough to think outside the box. Thinking is passive. Get used to acting outside the box.

The fishing is best where the fewest go and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit home runs while everyone is aiming for base hits.

Look for flexible principles so that you can then have a toolkit that’s adaptable.

“Someday” is a disease that will take your dreams to the grave with you.

Enough is enough. Lemmings no more. The blind quest for cash is a fool’s errand.

If you can free your time and location, your money is automatically worth 3-10 times as much.

Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire are fundamentally two very different things.

Your network is your net worth.

I have plenty of money to do what I want to do, and I have the relationships.

If you find yourself saying, “But I’m making so much money” about a job or project, pay attention. “But I’m making so much money,” or “But I’m making good money” is a warning sign that you’re probably not on the right track or, at least, that you shouldn’t stay there for long. Money can always be regenerated. Time and reputation cannot.

Money doesn’t change you; it reveals who you are when you no longer have to be nice.

People don’t want to be millionaires — they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy.

One could argue that I should work on my reactivity instead of avoiding stocks. I’d agree on tempering reactivity, but I’d disagree on fixing weaknesses as a primary investment (or life) strategy.

People are least productive in reactive mode.

It’s often what you do, not how you do it, that is the determining factor. This is the difference from being effective; doing the right things, and being efficient; doing things well whether they are important.

“Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance.

Block out at 2-3 hours to focus on one of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow. 

If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don’t freak out and downward spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do.

If I have 10 important things to do in a day, it’s 100% certain nothing important will get done that day.

The problem with New Year’s resolutions – and resolutions to ‘get in better shape’ in general, which are very amorphous – is that people try to adopt too many behavioral changes at once. It doesn’t work. I don’t care if you’re a world-class CEO – you’ll quit.

Could it be that everything is fine and complete as is?

The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is – here’s the clincher – boredom.

Excitement is the more practical synonym for happiness, and it is precisely what you should strive to chase. It is the cure-all.

I’m often asked how I define “success.” It’s an overused term, but I fundamentally view this elusive beast as a combination of two things – achievement and appreciation.

On the Jar Of Awesome: There is a mason jar on my kitchen counter with JAR OF AWESOME in glitter letters on the side. Anything something really cool happens in a day, something that made me excited or joyful, doctor’s orders are to write it down on a slip of paper and put it in this mason jar.

On the Jar Of Awesome: When something great happens, you think you’ll remember it 3 months later, but you won’t.

On the Jar Of Awesome: Cultivate the habtis of putting something in every day. Can’t think of anything? “I didn’t die today!” is a reliable winner.

The key to not feeling rushed is remembering that lack of time is actually lack of priorities.

I leaned against the wall and slid down until I was sitting on the floor. I closed my eyes, smiled, and took a deep breath. Things were about to change. Everything was about to change.

If you don’t regularly appreciate the small wins, you will never appreciate the big wins. They’ll all fall through your fingers like sand as you obsess on the next week, the next to-do, the next thing to fix.

Friction points and single points of failure happen in any given day potentially, so think in a concise, intelligent way. Out of five items to do, which one would make you satisfied with your entire day?

The question no one really seemed to be answering was: ‘Why do it all in the first place? What’s the pot of gold that justifies spending the best years of you life hoping for happiness in the last?’.

Look for the good, practice finding the good, and you’ll see it more often.

For anything approaching happiness, you have to want what you already have.

Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask. 

I’ve had a life full of doubts… mostly for no good reason.

Life would be boring if we all followed exactly the same rules.

The best results I have had in my life; the most enjoyable times, have all come from asking the simple question: What is the worst that could happen?