Rehearsing the worst case scenarios or negative visualization is a very powerful tool, which paradoxically allows you to become more relaxed and therefore, more response-able, i.e., able to chose your response if you get thrown a curveball question or if you flub and make a mistake in the middle of a live broadcast.

I discourage passive skepticism, which is the armchair variety where people sit back and criticize without ever subjecting their theories or themselves to real field testing.

I encourage active skepticism – when people are being skeptical because they’re trying to identify the best course of action. They’re trying to identify the next step for themselves or other people.

Every time I find myself stressed out, it’s because I do things primarily driven by growth.

Sometimes it pays to model the outliers, not flatten them into averages. This isn’t limited to business.

On how to get over analysis paralysis: set deadlines for decisions (put them in your calendar or they aren’t real) and break large intimidating actions/projects into tiny mini-experiments that allow you to overcome fear of failure.

With routines, you don’t want your threshold for “success” to be checking 100% of the boxes. Look for 3/5 wins or 2/5 wins. Otherwise, the human inclination is self-sabotage with “Well, I miss A or B, so I failed today,” or “Now today is going to be harder” and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Role models who push us to exceed our limits, physical training that removes our spare tires, and risks that expand our sphere of comfortable action are all examples of eustress—stress that is healthful and the stimulus for growth.

When I’m in the pit of despair, I recall what iconic writer Kurt Vonnegut said about his process: “When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

Pure hell forces action, but anything less can be endured with enough clever rationalization.

When — despite your best efforts — you feel like you’re losing at the game of life, remember: Even the best of the best feel this way sometimes.

Greatness is setting ambitious goals that your former self would have thought impossible, and trying to get a little better every day.

When everything and everyone is failing, what is the cost of a little experiment outside of the norm? Most often, nothing.

The first book (4 Hour Work Week) was turned down by 26 publishers.

I’ve certainly stumbled a lot, but that’s how you figure things out.

To do anything remotely interesting you need to train yourself to be effective at dealing with, responding to, even enjoying criticism.

Stoicism can help you to become a better, kinder person. In helping you to become less emotionally reactive (e.g., reflexively angry or annoyed), it helps you to better resolve conflict, and teach others to do the same.

The more you schedule and practice discomfort deliberately, the less unplanned discomfort will throw off your life and control your life.

All I did was think about my todo list the entire time, that’s fine, as long as I’m paying attention to my breath.

That non-attachment to an outcome, i.e. controlling my thoughts, was very helpful.

The physiological or psychological effects are so fascinating, like you said, because you’ll do it for a couple of days and you’re like, whatever. Then you hit this sort of inflection point where you just drop from 200 RPMs to 150. You’re like, “Whoa. Okay. This is different”. The whole week, you’re kind of zenned out. 

It’s like this extended period of calm and ease in decision-making. Uncluttered, like you closed every browser on your computer and shut off the anti-virus, and rebooted the whole thing.

Even if it’s for ten minutes a day so that your not in a reactive mode. It’s really a game changer. Physiologically, it had a lot of effects for me as well. When my cortisol level dropped, I was able to lose body fat more easily in my abdomen, for instance.

Observe your thoughts, instead of being constantly the victim of your thoughts.