Don’t save your best for volume two

Rather than fight for attention with everyone online, I’ve focused on attending and speaking at events where bloggers are the attendees.

The quality of my writing dropped miserably if I tried to do more than four hours per day. It’s not necessary to put in 9-5 hours.

It has never been easier to create content self-published, but it has never been harder to get the attention you want, or need, to really put something into orbit.

The paper is like a photography darkroom for my mind.

You have gifts to share with the world. You are not alone. You are not flawed. You are human.

If we let the storms pass and choose to reflect, we come out better than ever.

If you don’t care about yourself, make it about other people.

The little things have a big emotional payback, and guess what? Chances are, at least one person you make smile is on the front lines with you, quietly battling something nearly identical.

Go to the gym and move for at least 30 minutes. For me, this is 80% of the battle.

Even if you “feel” like no one loves you or cares about you, you are most likely loved – and most definitely lovable and worthy of love.

I realized it would destroy other people’s lives. Killing yourself can spiritually kill other people.

Sometimes, it just takes one conversation with one rational person to stop a horrible irrational decision.

Fear itself is quite fear-inducing. Most intelligent people in the world dress it up as something else: optimistic denial.

The best people in almost any field are almost always the people who get the most criticism.

Uncertainty and the prospect of failure can be very scary noises in the shadows.

To do or not to do? To try or not to try? Most people will vote no, whether they consider themselves brave or not.

I don’t think people are fearless. If you’re fearless, you’re nuts. But you can learn to fear less

Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear. I got into this habit by attempting to contact celebrities and famous businesspeople for advice.

Here are a few books that have affected me or made me think differently in the last few years. None of them are directly related to business: Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach — this is an important book, originally recommended to me by a neuroscience PhD who benefited from it. The Yaqui Way of Knowledge by Carlos Castaneda. The Body Keeps The Score by Van Der Kolk.

The superheroes you have in your mind (idols, icons, titans, billionaires, etc.) are nearly all walking flaws who’ve maximized 1 or 2 strengths.

Top academic institutions are wonderful, but there are unrecognized benefits to not coming out of one. Grads from top schools are funneled into high-income 80-hour-per-week jobs, and 15–30 years of soul-crushing work has been accepted as the default path. How do I know? I’ve been there.

If you want great mentors, you have to become a great mentee. If you want to lead, you have to first learn to follow.

If the challenge we face doesn’t scare us, then it’s probably not that important.