10% Happier by Dan Harris

The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone

A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna Quindlen
A Technique for Producing Ideas by James Webb Young
Adapt by Tim Harford
Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
Are You Fully Charged? by Tom Rath
The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Zander and Benjamin Zander
The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky
The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins
Confessions of the Pricing Man by Hermann Simon
Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Free Will by Sam Harris
The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by Keith Johnstone
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the
incarcerated, and the condemned. Simply punishing the broken only ensures that they remain
broken and we do, too. Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.
The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son by John Graham
Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant
Manual for Living by Epictetus
Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews by Calvin Tomkins
Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful Investor by Seth
Klarman
Mastermind Dinners by Jayson Gaignard
Mastery by George Leonard
The Most Important Thing Illuminated: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard
Marks
Not Fade Away by Laurence Shames and Peter Barton
The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris
On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
On the Shortness of Life by Seneca
The Power of Fifty Bits by Bob Nease
The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner
Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida
The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
Save at least 10 percent of everything you earn and do not confuse your necessary expenses
with your desires. Work hard to improve your skills and ensure a future income because wealth
is the result of a reliable income stream. You cannot arrive at the fullest measure of success
until you crush the spirit of procrastination within you.
Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin Hardy
Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy Wilson
Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
Superhuman by Habit by Tynan
The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran
This is Water by David Foster Wallace
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
100 Ways to Improve Your Writing by Gary Provost
100 Ways to Improve Your Writing
Show Your Work by Austin Kleon
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Show Your Work Summary
You Are a Writer by Jeff Goins
he Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
You Are a Writer Summary
On Writing by Stephen King
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
On Writing Summary
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth Summary
Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins
The Book in One Sentence
The Five Big Ideas
Can’t Hurt Me Summary
Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In by Louis Zamperini
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In Summary
Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The Autobiography by Bear Grylls
Mud, Sweat, and Tears Summary
My Unfinished Business by Dan Kennedy
My Unfinished Business Summary
The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
The Checklist Manifesto Summary
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Meditations Summary
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
The Daily Stoic Summary
The Good Life Handbook by Epictetus
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
The Good Life Handbook Summary
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
A Guide to The Good Life Summary
You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
You Are Not So Smart Summary
59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
59 Seconds Summary
Bounce by Matthew Syed
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Bounce Book Summary
Grit by Angela Duckworth
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Grit Summary
The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
The Happiness Advantage Summary
Principle #1: The Happiness Advantage
Principle #2: The Fulcrum and the Lever
Principle #3: The Tetris Effect
Principle #4: Falling Up
Principle #5: The Zorro Circle
Principle #6 The 20-Second Rule
Principle #7 Social Investment
The Little Book of Yes by Noah Goldstein
The Book in One Sentence
The Little Book of Yes Summary
1. Giving
2. Exchanging
3. Gifting
4. Cooperating
5. Pausing
Further Reading
6. Compromising
7. Knowing
8. Admitting
9. Asking
10. Conversing
11. Humanizing
12. Liking
13. Complementing
14. Labeling
15. Reasoning
16. Committing
17. Implementing
Further Reading
18. Comparing
19. Following
20. Losing
21. Ending
Mindset by Carol Dweck
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Mindset Summary
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Table of Contents
Peak Summary
Chapter 1: The Power of Purposeful Practice
Chapter 2: Harnessing Adaptability
Chapter 3: Mental Representations
Chapter 4: The Gold Standard
Chapter 5: Principles of Deliberate Practice on the Job
Chapter 6 Principles of Deliberate Practice in Everyday Life
Chapter 7: The Road to Extraordinary
Chapter 8: But What About Natural Talent?
Chapter 9: Where Do We Go from Here?
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Predictably Irrational Summary
Spark by Dr. Jeremy Dean
The Book in Three Sentences
The Five Big Ideas
Spark Summary
Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann
The Book in One Sentence
Favorite Quote
Super Thinking Summary
1. Being Wrong Less
Key Takeaways
2. Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will
Key Takeaways
3. Spend Your Time Wisely
Key Takeaways
4. Becoming One with Nature
Key Takeaways
5. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Key Takeaways
6. Decisions, Decisions
Key Takeaways
7. Dealing with Conflict
Key Takeaways
8. Unlocking People’s Potential
Key Takeaways
9. Flex Your Market Power
Key Takeaways
Book Summary: Yes! by Robert B. Cialdini and Et Al.
The Book in One Sentence
Yes Summary
Editor’s Note
Editor’s Note
 10% Happier by Dan Harris
Practicing meditation and mindfulness will make you at least 10 percent happier. Being mindful
doesn’t change the problems in your life, but mindfulness does help you respond to your
problems rather than react to them. Mindfulness helps you realize that striving for success is
fine as long as you accept that the outcome is outside your control.
● “My preconceptions about meditation were misconceptions.”
● “In my experience, meditation makes you 10% happier.”
● Some of the traits we think are fixed like a quick temper or moody-ness or compassion
are learned skills, not fixed characteristics.
● Many people assume they must be paranoid and worry if they want to stay at the top of
their game.
● People care a lot about the bio on an author's page.
● “The best parts of Eckhart Tolle were a form of Buddhism.”
● Most improvements in life make very little difference and that's fine. We spend so much
time searching for transformational change in one easy step, but can we all just admit
that were looking for the easy way out here? Just because you can't change everything
at once doesn't mean you can't get better. In many cases, most cases in fact, you are
only going to see a very small increase from each action. One workout builds a very
small amount of muscle. That is what is to be expected. You're not doing it wrong if you
get very tiny results. Most strategies deliver tiny results and require consistent over a
long period of time. In the book, Harris makes a comment about therapy only working a
little bit: “The limit isn't your therapist. The limit is therapy itself.” It makes a small
difference, but it still makes a difference. The key is to embrace these daily marginal
gains rather than dismissing them because they are small.
● Meditation is like doing focused reps for your mind. Focus on the breath, lose your focus,
bring it back to the breath, repeat. This is the whole game. Keep bringing your mind back
to the breath.
● How to meditate: sit somewhere comfortable, keep a straight spine, focus on a spot, and
bring your focus back to your breath whenever you lose it.
● Meditation helps you shut down your monkey mind for a moment.
● We have 3 habitual responses to everything we experience: 1) We want it. 2) We reject
it. 3) We zone out. Mindfulness is a fourth response. Viewing what happens in the world
without an emotional response about it.
● “Mindfulness represents an alternative to living reactively.”
● Interesting self-sabotage insight: many people worry that if they meditate they will lose
their edge and no longer be competitive or driven.
● “When you squelch something you give it power. Ignorance is not bliss.” You should not
run from your problems and pain. You should acknowledge them.
● The R.A.I.N. Technique for meditation: Recognize. Allow. Investigate. Non-identification.
1) Recognize: Acknowledge your feelings. 2) Allow: Where you lean into the pain. Let
the pain be. 3) Investigate: Check out how the situation is impacting your body. Is my
face hot? Is my back tight? Etc. 4) Non-identification: Realize that just because you feel
pain or frustration or guilt or anger right now does not mean you are an angry or broken
person. It is simply a phase happening at this moment, not your identity as a person.
● Mindfulness seems to be about awareness of the self. You recognize and acknowledge
the things going on around you and the emotions you are feeling. Rather than let the
emotion drive everything, you step outside of it and see it from afar.
● Being mindful doesn’t change the problems in your life. You still need to take action, but
the key is that mindfulness allows you to respond rather than react to the problems in
your life.
● Hedonic adaptation: the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively
stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
● A simple question to ask yourself when you’re worrying: “Is this useful?”
● “I do meditation because it makes me 10 percent happier.”
● “Everything we experience in this world goes through one filter — our minds — and we
spend very little time bothering to see how it works.”
● Meditation will make you more resilient, but it is not a “cure all” that fixes your problems
or relieves all stress in your life.
● One Harvard study shows that gray matter grows in meditators. This is known as
neuroplasticity.
● Scientists have developed a term for the consequence of all our multitasking: continuous
partial attention.
● The Dalai Lama has a theory on selfishness: We should strive to be wise selfish rather
than foolish selfish. Foolish selfish is when you focus on self-centered and shallow
 activities. Wise selfish is when you show compassion and help others because it
benefits you and makes you feel good. Compassion is in our own self-interest.
● Make eye contact and smile at people. This simple habit that will make you feel more
connected and much better each day.
● When police officers or first responders are interviewed about how and why they acted in
a particular way during an emergency they often say, “My training kicked in.” I like this
idea of training yourself to be mindful, aware, compassionate, and so on. These are
traits that can be trained and then will automatically reveal themselves when needed
(assuming you’ve practiced enough).
● Don’t confuse letting go with going soft. Just because you’re aware of what is going on
and being mindful about it does not mean you just let things go when you have the ability
to take action on them and improve. The way to respond to adversity is often to work
through it, not to avoid it altogether in the name of acting Zen.
● Striving for success is fine as long as you realize that the outcome is not under your
control. Be as ambitious as possible, but let go of the result. This makes it easier for you
to be resilient and bounce back if the result is poor.
● Buddhism is “advanced common sense.” It requires you to analyze simple fundamentals
until a deeper understanding is achieved.
● 10 Buddhist Principles for the Modern Worker: 1) Don’t be a jerk. 2) When necessary,
hide the Zen. 3) Meditate. 4) The price of security is insecurity, until it’s not useful. 5)
Equanimity is not the enemy of creativity. 6) Don’t force it. 7) Humility prevents
humiliation. 8) Go easy with the internal cattle prod. 9) Non-attachment to results. 10)
Ask, “What matters most?”
● “Meditation is the super power that makes all the other precepts possible.”
 The 10X Rule by Grant Cardone
The 10X Rule says that 1) you should set targets for yourself that are 10X greater than what you
believe you can achieve and 2) you should take actions that are 10X greater than what you
believe are necessary to achieve your goals. The biggest mistake most people make in life is
not setting goals high enough. Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill your true potential.
● The biggest mistake most people make in life is not setting goals high enough.
● The 10X Rule is based on understanding the level of effort and the level of thinking
required to succeed.
● Operating at activity levels far beyond the normal is 10X action and execution. It will take
you far.
● Set targets that are 10X the goals you would ever dream of.
● Your thoughts and actions are the reason you are where you are right now.
● In order to go farther than you ever thought possible you must both think and act at
levels 10X beyond the norm.
● Why keep working once you have achieved a certain financial level of success?
Because you can be happy while accomplishing things, not while resting and doing
nothing. If you loved your wife and kids yesterday, should you just stop at that? Or
should you build upon it? Same way with your work and legacy.
● Limiting the amount of success you desire is a violation of the 10X Rule.
● The 10X Rule: You must set targets for yourself that are 10X more than what you think
you want and then take 10X the action you think is required to get there.
● Common mistake 1: setting your sights too low.
● Common mistake 2: underestimating how much action is required.
● Common mistake 3: spending too much time competing and not enough time dominating
their sector.
● Common mistake 4: underestimating the amount of adversity they will have to
overcome.
● Any goal you set is going to be difficult to achieve, so why not set them higher from the
beginning?
● Most people feel like they are working – rather than chasing passion – because the
payoff isn't large enough.
● You will either work to accomplish your goals and dreams or you'll be used to
accomplish someone else's goals and dreams.
● Never reduce a target. Do not explain away failure. Always increase your actions.
● Nobody wins when you diminish the importance of success.
● People will say, “success isn't everything.” No shit. Of course success isn't everything.
But it is important. And diminishing that importance with saying like “success isn't
everything” gives you an excuse to limit your vision of success for yourself and the
actions you take.
● It is your duty to be successful. Do not view success as an option.
● Being dependent on only one person or one solution for success is your fault. Winners
bring in success from many different avenues.
● Politicians make all these promises, but your success (or your children's success) is not
dependent on politics. Whether one person gets voted in or not does not determine if
you will win. As long as the system provides the opportunity to succeed, no one
individual, politics, or president will dictate your success – except you.
● Success by others is an indication that something is possible. It should inspire you.
● Those who use blame as a reason for not achieving success will never be successful.
Victim thinking doesn't benefit you.
● If you're willing to take credit when you win then you have to be willing to take
responsibility when you lose.
● Even when bad luck or random events strike there is always something you can do to be
better prepared next time.
● If you were really legit, people would come to you. Stop driving and flying to everyone.
Step up your game.
● If people comment on your level of action, then you're doing something right.
● The biggest business problem is obscurity.
● Money and power follow attention.
● Rid yourself of average thinking and average action.
● Failing to think big in the beginning will lead to failing to act big.
● Set your goals 10X bigger than you think they should be.
● Top achievers don't copy or compete. They dominate. They set the pace.
● How can you get an unfair advantage?
● Never play by the agreed upon norms of your industry. Create new ways to dominate
your sector.
● You don't have to be the first to do something, but you should be the best at it.
● Create “only” practices. What is something only you are doing?
● You have to be obsessed. Nobody has ever accomplished something incredible without
obsession.
● The ability to be obsessed is not a disease. It is a gift.
● What goal would cause you to be obsessed?
● The saying “under commit and over deliver” is stupid. Instead, over commit and figure
out how to show up at a higher level.
● Don't follow the pack. Lead the pack.
● Interesting trend: when people and businesses cut spending and focus on saving, they
almost always save their energy, effort, and creativity as well. It is as if the mindset of
dialing down spending naturally dials down activity in other areas.
● Success is like a garden. You must constantly tend to it and care for it.
● Most people never get close to being overexposed. Nearly everyone is hindered by
obscurity.
● Last minute preparation is just a way to delay and be fearful. Focus on training better
beforehand and when the resistance comes face it and take action.
● Fear is a signal to do what you fear right now. Do not feed fear by waiting and letting it
build.
● Don't worry about time management or balance. Instead, focus on abundance. Don't
think either/or. Instead, think all/everything.
● Time management is more about knowing your priorities clearly than finding balance.
● When the author had his first child, he and his wife created a time schedule for his
daughter's sleep that allowed him to spend an hour with her each morning, maintain the
same work calendar. The bonus was the daughter was asleep by 7pm, which meant
uninterrupted spouse time.
● Nobody will save you or make you successful.
● Weak and overwhelmed individuals resort to criticism.
● Customer satisfaction is not nearly as big of a problem as “non-customer satisfaction.”
People not knowing you exist and not buying your product is the real issue.
● Create an exit survey for non-buyers. (Anyone who leaves sales page?)
● Customer acquisition is the primary objective, not customer satisfaction.
● Customer complaints are not to be avoided. They are problems you can solve.
● Powerful companies and brands are omnipresent. You need to be everywhere.
● The best revenge against your critics is massive success.
● Duplicate the thoughts and actions of successful people and you too will become
successful.
● Approach everything with the attitude that it can be done. Believe that you will figure it
out.
● Losing money or a business never dominated your ability to take action.
● The author told his whole staff they needed to make 50 sales calls. Then he told them
they needed to make the calls in 30 minutes. He went and made 28 calls in 22 minutes.
The point is to stop analyzing and paralyzing yourself with overthinking. Just act.
● Challenge traditions and established ways of thinking.
● Don't worry about how much work it is. Think about how great the results will be.
● Commit first. Figure out the details later.
● Reach up in your relationships. Find people better than you.
● Taking massive actions is the only way to fulfill your true potential.
 A Short Guide to a Happy Life by Anna
Quindlen
The only thing you have that nobody else has is control of your life. The hardest thing of all is to
learn to love the journey, not the destination. Get a real life rather than frantically chasing the
next level of success.
● The only thing you have that nobody else has is control of your life. You job, your day,
your heart, your spirit. You are the only one in control of that.
● “Show up. Listen. Try to laugh.”
● “You cannot be really good at your work if your work is all you are.”
● “Get a life, a real life. Not a manic pursuit of the next promotion.”
● “Turn off your cell phone. Keep still. Be present.”
● “Get a life in which you are generous.”
● “All of us want to do well, but if we do not do good too then doing well will never be
enough.”
● “Knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God gives us.” It is so easy to exist
rather than to live… Unless you know a clock is ticking.
● We live in more luxury today than ever before. The things we have today our ancestors
thought existed for just the wealthy. And yet, somehow, we are rarely grateful for all this
wealth.
● The hardest thing of all is to learn to love the journey, not the destination.
● “This is not a dress rehearsal. Today is the only guarantee you get.”
● “Think of life as a terminal illness.”
● “School never ends. The classroom is everywhere.”
 A Technique for Producing Ideas by
James Webb Young

An idea occurs when you develop a new combination of old elements. The capacity to bring old
elements into new combinations depends largely on your ability to see relationships. All ideas
follow a five-step process of 1) gathering material, 2) intensely working over the material in your
mind, 3) stepping away from the problem, 4) allowing the idea to come back to you naturally,
and 5) testing your idea in the real world and adjusting it based on feedback.
● The quality of your work (and life) is a result of all the forces that have played upon you
throughout life. The goal is to make the most of those forces.
● In learning anything, first you should learn the principles, then you should learn the
method.
● Particular bits of knowledge are just “rapidly aging facts.” What matters are the
underlying principles and methods.
● You can know every fact about an industry and still not be a real expert because you
don’t understand the underlying principles and methods.
● What is most valuable to know is not where to look for a particular idea, but how to train
the mind in the method by which all ideas are produced; and how to grasp the principles
which are at the source of all ideas.
● An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements.
● The capacity to bring old elements into new combinations depends largely on the ability
to see relationships.
● What is the one word which will best arouse the emotion with which I wish this particular
advertisement to be charged?
● The habit of searching for relationships between facts becomes of the highest
importance in the production of ideas.
● Books on social psychology are often better books about advertising than actual books
on advertising.
● There are five critical steps that everyone follows whenever they produce a new idea.
● Step 1: gather new material. This includes specific material (related to the product or
task) and general material (fascination with a wide range of concepts).
● Step 2: work over the materials in your mind. Mentally “chew” your new material by
looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting ideas together.
● Step 3: put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that
excites you and energizes you.
● Step 4: your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight, only after you have
stopped straining.
● Step 5: shape and develop your idea into practical usefulness. Put your idea out into the
world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.
● On getting intimate knowledge of a product: most people stop too soon. If the surface
differences are not striking, we assume that there are no differences. But if we go deeply
enough, or far enough, we nearly always find that between every product and some
consumers there is an individuality of relationship which may lead to an idea.
● The greatest way to develop general knowledge on a subject is to get genuinely
interested in something. Living in a curious way and becoming fascinated with things is a
fantastic way to live and it will ensure you never run out of ideas.
● The more general knowledge you have, the more opportunity you have for creating new
relationships and connections between ideas.
● In advertising, an idea results from a new combination of specific knowledge about
products and people with general knowledge about life and events.
● A great many ideas are lost in the final stage. The idea man, like the inventor, is often
not patient enough or practical enough to go through with adapting his ideas to fit the
actual conditions of the world.
● Good ideas have self-expanding qualities. When someone sees it, they naturally tell you
what should be added and how to make it better.
● If your idea is good, people will tell you how to improve it. Listen to them. Don’t hold the
initial version too close to your chest.
● There are some advertisements you just cannot write until you have lived long enough.
The cycle of years does something to fill your reservoir, unless you refuse to live
spatially and emotionally.
● The central idea of the book reminds me of the Robert Frost quote, “An idea is a feat of
association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.”
 Adapt by Tim Harford
Seek out new ideas and try new things. When trying something new, do it on a scale where
failure is survivable. Seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along.
● The Toaster Project was when one man tried to build a toaster from scratch and realized
the insane levels of complexity required.
● Our world is stunningly complex, but we are so engulfed in this complexity that we take it
for granted. We are blind to it.
● We overestimate the impact any one person or leader can have because we fail to see
how complex the problems are that current leaders face.
● The system we live in is far too complex for any one person to understand. Even
developing expertise in a particular area isn't as useful as you would expect because of
the interrelatedness of things with my areas you know nothing about.
● Failure is everywhere. Ten percent of American companies disappear every year.
● Perhaps the reason companies don't stay at the top is simply because the only way to
go is down. It's really hard to stay at the top and perhaps being a Fortune 100 company
relies on many factors outside your control and not simply running a good company.
When those factors change, so does your incredible success.
● The market fumbles its way to success. The good ideas take off and less successful
ones die out. It's like evolution for economics.
● Avoid survivorship bias. Don't just see success. See all the failures that led to the
eventual success.
● The process of evolution strikes a balance between discovering the new and exploiting
the familiar.
● The evolutionary mix of small steps and occasional wild gambles is the best possible
way to search for solutions.
● Evolution produces ongoing “works for now” solutions and then builds upon those ideas.
● We are more blind than we think.
● Most real-world problems are more complex than we think.
● Seek out new ideas and try new things.
● When trying something new, do it on a scale where failure is survivable.
● Seek out feedback and learn from your mistakes as you go along.
● For some reason, we are obsessed with achieving uniformly high standards in industry
even though it is precisely the opposite (variation and selection) that got us this far in the
first place. In fact, if, for example, every hospital did things the same way, we would
struggle to improve because nobody would test new ideas.
● There is a limit to how much honest feedback most leaders want to hear.
● Accepting trial and error means accepting error. And human brains don't seem to be very
good at doing that.
● “A person who has not made peace with his losses is likely to accept gambles that would
be unacceptable to him otherwise.” -Kahneman and Tversky
● John Endler's guppy studies from the 1970s showcase how environment drives
evolution.
● Make sure you know when you've failed. Measure your progress.
● Measurement can come in many forms. For example, Whole Foods requires new
employees to do a four week trial period and they are only hired if they earn positive
votes from 2/3 of their coworkers. This is a form of peer monitoring (or we could call it
peer measurement).
● Google's 20 percent time is another example of peer monitoring because good side
projects will gain the interest of peers.
● In a company where your peers decide who stays around, there is no room for people
who don't pull their weight.
● 80 percent of Google's projects will fail, but that doesn't matter. People only remember
the 20 percent that succeed.
● “Success is the number of experiments that can be crammed into 24 hours.”
● Formal theory won't get you nearly as far as an incredibly rapid systematic process of
trial and error.
● Niche products grow and usurp incumbents precisely because they appeal only to a few
users and seem inferior to incumbents. They get ignored long enough to grow into a
serious threat.
● Fascinating reason new ideas get sabotaged within organizations: if new business
models catch on they often require people with new skills and that means any big wig in
the current business will lose status. So they consciously or unconsciously sabotage
new ideas because they are inherently threatening to the career they have spent years
building. Yet another reason you must be constantly willing to reinvent yourself.
● If you're going to fail in public, best to do it in front of a limited audience. You need a
relatively safe space to fail.
● Hedonic editing is a way of avoiding thinking about losses and mistakes by convincing
ourselves they aren't that bad.
● The three obstacles that prevent us from learning from our mistakes are 1) denial, 2)
self-destructive behavior, 3) remembering past mistakes as triumphs.
● Our response to failure should be, “I am not a failure, but I have made a mistake.”
 Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
Too many people spend their life pursuing things that don't actually make them happy. When
you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the laws. Never
forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers.
● Sivers sold his business, which he spent 10 years growing, for $22 million.
● Too many people spend their life pursuing things that don't actually make them happy.
● Never do anything just for the money. Instead, just answer calls for help.
● You don't really know what you want until you start doing it.
● Sivers was a professional musician before he started his business. It all started because
he wanted to sell his own CD on his website. Pretty soon he was selling CDs for lots of
musicians and CD Baby was born.
● When you make a business, you get to make a little universe where you create all the
laws.
● When you're onto something great it won't feel like something great. It will feel like
uncommon sense.
● If it's not a hit, switch. Success comes from consistently improving and inventing. Don't
waste years pursing anything other than a hit.
● Hell yeah or no. If it's not a hell yes, then decline. Say yes to less.
● “No plan survives first contact with customers.” -Steve Blank
● Only please customers, not investors. Never forget that absolutely everything you do is
for your customers.
● The way to grow your business is to just focus entirely on your current customers. Just
thrill them and they will tell everyone else.
● Ideas are just a multiplier of execution. The most brilliant idea is worthless with no
execution.
● There is a huge advantage in having many tiny customers. You can fire any individual
client as long as you keep your customers happy in general.
● Your first idea is just one of an infinite number of options. Make plans for many different
scenarios. There is no one path to success.
● How do you grade yourself? You should know what matters most to you.
● Care about your customers more than yourself. Your company should be willing to go
out of business if it's best for your customers.
● Be incredibly clear in your writing. Leave no room for confusion.
● Even if you want to be big, you don't have to act like a big boring business.
● Learn things yourself. It will take longer, but it is nice to be self sufficient. There is joy in
learning and doing.
● You don't sign up for a marathon and hire a taxi to drive you to the finish line. The real
point is what you want to be, not have.
● There is a big difference between being self employed and being a business owner.
When you're self employed everything crumbles if you don't show up. You're not a
business owner until you can leave for a year and your business is doing even better
when you come back.
● Never forget that you can make your role anything you want. You can hire for everything
else.
● You might be much happier as a million dollar business than as a billion dollar business.
● Always trust, but verify whenever you delegate a role.
● A business is a reflection of the creator.
● Pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you.
● Whatever you make, it's your creation. Make it your dream come true.
 Are You Fully Charged? by Tom Rath
There are three keys to being fully charged each day: doing work that provides meaning to your
life, having positive social interactions with others, and taking care of yourself so you have the
energy you need to do the first two things. Trying to maximize your own happiness can actually
make you feel self-absorbed and lonely, but giving more can drive meaning and happiness in
your life. People who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend on
material things.
● Daily well being is what we should be targeting.
● The new research on daily experiences has changed the way we think about health,
happiness, and well being.
● Scientists can now study the day to day experiences of individuals often in minimally
invasive ways. (Fitbit, etc.)
● 3 keys to bring fully charged: meaning, positive interactions, and energy.
● “The odds of being completely engaged in your job increases by 250% it you work on
meaningful projects each day.”
● The pursuit of meaning, not happiness is what makes life better.
● The more value you place on your own happiness, the more likely you are to feel lonely.
If you spend your time seeking your own happiness then you end up feeling more
shallow or self-absorbed. Meaning, however, makes you feel better by giving yourself to
a cause bigger than yourself.
● Fredrickson's research found that 70% of people had higher happiness levels vs
meaningfulness levels. These people displayed a similar genetic markers as those in
stressful and adverse situations.
● Study of teenagers showed that those with a higher percentage of meaningful behaviors
had lower levels of depression. 2014 study followed them for a full year and tested them
in an fMRI scanner about hedonic acts vs meaningful acts.
● Spend time listing the positive impact your work does. Attach meaning to the small
things you do and “connect the dots between your efforts and a larger purpose.” It's
important to understand how you contribute value.
● The differences in how we view our work can just be a result of the stories we tell. You
can tell a negative version of the story or you can tell a positive version. Which true
version do you want to believe?
● Study of hospital workers by Raznoski found that people who made connections with
patients and coworkers found more meaning in their work.
● Most people try to “squeeze meaning in around the edges” of their day rather than
dedicating their work day to meaningful things. “Work for more than a living.”
● “Work is a purpose, not a place.”
● When figuring out what you should do each day begin by asking, “How can my time
make a difference for others?”
● According to one research study, doubling your income only increases happiness by 9
percent.
● The game of upward comparison: “Satisfaction and income are almost entirely relative to
ones comparison group.”
● Many successful people can live stressful and miserable lives if all they do is compare
upwardly.
● Idea: compare downward to maintain perspective? Travel to poor areas? Etc.
● Most work days consist of small wins and tiny actions, not large external bonuses or
rewards. You need meaning to drive you forward on most days.
● Spending more time working toward a shared mission will add meaning to your life.
● One of the downfalls of the “follow your passion” advice is that it assumes that putting
your own passion and happiness at the center of your world is what leads to meaning,
fulfillment and joy. That is often not the case.
● Focus on your strengths every day. People who do are 6x more likely to find meaning in
their job.
● “Cast a shadow rather than living in one.”
● It's easy to fall into a default career path that is more about other people's expectations
than your own interests.
● View work as the original social network. Just how negative and positive emotions can
spread virally online, they can do the same in the office.
● For most of us, reactionary actions take up way more of our day than tasks we initiate.
But most of the meaning we derive is from task we initiate, not reactions we fall into
based on what others need.
● One study: people unlock their phones 110 times per day.
● “We lose 28% of our time each day.”
● Dan Gilbert study: participants reported a wandering mind 48% of the time and “a
wandering mind is an unhappy mind.” (Think about how different a wandering mind is
 from a mind in flow. And we know that flow is one of the most happy and fulfilling
experiences we can have.)
● Rest more: There is always the option to do nothing.
● Physical mail only shows up once per day and then we process it. But email is
something we check all the time. (How can you blockemail and only answer once per
day?)
● Finland's 45/15 break time … Covered by Tim Walker.
● “What the most productive people have in common is that they treat working time like a
sprint (52 minutes on average) and then pairing it with a recharge session (17 minutes
on average).”
● Idea: what if you treated work like practice? At practice each period is planned. Hell,
each minute is planned. And then breaks are planned as well.
● “We need 3 to 5 interactions to make up for each negative one.”
● Being ignored is actually worse than hearing a negative comment. We often think that
not telling someone bad news is preferable, but ignoring people is the worst possible
option. We often assume the worst when we hear nothing — not to mention feeling
lonely.
● The Contagion Effect in relationships explains why the people around us influence our
own behaviors. (NEJM obesity study, smoking, etc.)
● People who spend money on experiences are happier than those who spend on material
things.
● People who spend on other people end up happier AND it makes someone else happy
too.
● Share the things you are planning with other people because anticipation increases well
being. Give people the chance to anticipate great experiences. (Planning a vacation can
often lead to more happiness than the vacation itself.)
● Energy is critical. Yes, doing things for others and living a life of meaning is important.
But without energy you can't do your best work. “If you want to make a difference for
years to come, you have to put your health and energy first.”
● Maintain a better balance of proteins to carbohydrates throughout the day. And reduce
sugar.
● “People now spend more time sitting than sleeping, 9.3 hours per day.”
● “The average American spends over 15 hours per day sitting or sleeping.”
● “After sitting for two hours your good cholesterol drops by 20 percent.”
● 10,000 steps per day is a good baseline target of movement for most people.
● Exercise creates a twelve hour mood boost. This is a good reason to do something
physical early in the morning.
● The 10,000 hours study by K. Anders Ericsson has a hidden finding most people ignore:
the top performers slept over 8 hours on average.
● Rhinovirus and sleep study: those not getting efficient sleep were 5.5x more likely to get
sick when exposed to the Rhinovirus.
● For better sleep avoid light, excessive heat, and noise.
● Chopsticks study: smiling, even when you don't feel like it, you experience less stress.
● Botox study: hindering the frowning muscles led to reduced rates of depression weeks
later.
● “Giving improves well-being in many ways.”
 The Art of Possibility by Rosamund
Zander and Benjamin Zander
Everything in life is an invention. If you choose to look at your life in a new way, then suddenly
your problems fade away. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on the possibilities
surrounding you in any situation rather than slipping into the default mode of measuring and
comparing your life to others.
● Everything in life is based on your reference frame. Look at things in a new way and
suddenly your problems fade away.
● It’s all invented. Everything in life is an invention. The way we see things. The way we
measure things. The way we compete. The way we judge ourselves.
● If it’s all invented, then you might as well invent a way of viewing life that benefits you.
You might as well invent a frame of possibility.
● Give an A. If you automatically assume the best and give everyone an A in life, then you
let the best come out in them and you remove a lot of the barriers that have been the
relationship back.
● Nearly everyone lives in The Measurement World without realizing it. Everything we do
is based on measurement in our lives. How much money we make. Whether our team
wins. How beautiful our spouse is. Everything is based around some form of
measurement.
● You don’t need to play the measurement game. You can play the possibility game. You
can live in The Possibility World.
● Instead of focusing on how you measure up, focus on how you contribute to the world
around you. Contribution is not measured based on other people. It’s only measured
based on what you put into the world around you. That’s it. If you add something, you
contributed.
● Assignment for yourself: write down all the ways in which you have been a contribution
to the world around you in the last week. There is no space for your failures or missteps.
You only get to list how you contributed in a positive way.
● A leader who feels he is superior is likely to suppress the visions of the very people he
needs to rely on to succeed.
● The conductor can lead the most powerful orchestra in the world, but does not make a
sound. His or her only power is in getting the players to produce the beautiful sound they
are capable of.
● What would I say if I was suddenly called upon to lead?
● How much greatness do we expect of those around us? It matters.
● Rule #6: Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.
● If you are worried about making a mistake, imagine that a 500-pound cow will fall on
your head.
● The Calculating Self is who runs our lives in The Measurement World. The Central Self
is who runs our lives in The Possibility World.
● What would have to change to make this possible?
● Redraw the box in your mind to create a reference frame that embraces the way things
actually are and allows you to see them in a new way.
● Zander’s music professor to him when he struggled to learn a new piece quickly: “You
mean, you’ve been playing for THREE MINUTES and you STILL haven’t mastered it?”
● Be with the way things are. We have to distinguish our thoughts and feelings about the
events from how the events actually are. We often let our feelings about how things
should be prevent us from being with the moment and taking appropriate action. We get
so wrapped up in things not being as we wish they would that we prevent ourselves from
moving forward.
● Separate our conclusions about events from our descriptions of the events themselves.
● The more attention you shine on a subject, the more evidence of it you find. This is how
downward spiral talk escalates into a reality.
● People who describe the glass as half full are not delusional optimists. In fact, they are
more based in reality because they are describing a substance that is actually in the
glass. They are describing reality as it is. The cynic who describes the glass as half
empty is focusing their energy on something that is not actually there.
● It is the framework of scarcity — the belief that it exists — that causes divisions between
people, not actual scarcity.
● Don't focus on being the best in the world. Focus on being the best FOR the world.
● When you break a bone, you don't blame it on the leg or the arm. It is a problem of the
entire body. What if we acted that way in society? Instead of blaming groups for violence
or terrorism, we see it as a problem for all of society, something we all have a
responsibility to solve.
● The Truth and Reconciliation Project in South Africa united people who had been on
opposing sides during Apartheid. It was through connection of enemies, not revenge,
that the country found healing.
 The Art of Profitability by Adrian
Slywotzky

There are many ways to make profit and it is unlikely that your business does all of them.
People will pay different prices for the same thing in different situations (think: Coke in the
grocery store vs. Coke in a nice restaurant). Good profit models are easy to brainstorm and
hard to execute.
● There are many ways to make profit and it is unlikely that your business all of them.
● Most people don't care enough about profitability.
● Always do the math yourself. Too many people take numbers from unreliable sources.
● There are 4 levels of learning: Awareness, Awkwardness, Application, Assimilation
● Customer-Solution Profit: Know your customers incredibly well and create a solution
specifically for them.
● Pyramid Profit: Different customers have different price sensitivities. This profit model
works with that. Multiple tiers: Firewall (low-priced tier at bottom that can't reasonably be
underpriced by a competitor), Next tier (mid-range products that you upsell and
cross-sell to from the low-priced tier), Premium tiers (higher-priced products that loyal
customers buy)
● Multi-Component Profit: Same product, several businesses. People will pay different
prices for the same thing in different situations (think: Coke in the grocery store vs. Coke
in a nice restaurant).
● Switchboard Profit: Act as a power broker between buyers and sellers. Only works well if
you can get 15 percent of the market or more because deals flow in your direction given
your network on both sides of the deal.
● Time Profit: Be faster, be newer, be innovative. Be there before everyone else and
exploit the advantage for as long as you can.
● Blockbuster Profit: Have a huge product launch. Think movies, books, and
pharmaceutical product launches.
● Profit-Multiplier Model: Take one skill and make money from it in many ways. (e.g.
Disney turns movies into tee shirts, amusements parks, toys and more.)
● Entrepreneurial Profit: Operate lean and avoid all the wasted resources that major
corporations can afford to have. We can't afford to “subside non-entrepreneurial
behavior.”
● Specialist Profit: Lower costs because of better knowledge. Higher price because of
better knowledge and stronger reputation.
● Installed Base Profit: Initial sales margins are slim, but money is made on the follow up
sales. (Think: revenue from cars vs. revenue from car repairs.)
● De Facto Standard Profit: The more people who buy, the more valuable your become.
Network effects drive your profit up.
● Brand Profit: Pay enough for your brand and you win because people know you.
(Personal note: I hate this one.)
● Specialty Product Profit: Develop new niche products and create them with above
average materials, then charge a premium price.
● Local Leadership Profit: Be everywhere and then every store is like a billboard
(Starbucks, Walmart, etc.)
● Transaction Scale Profit: Specialize in high paying, highly profitable markets. (Think: a
real estate agent who only sells $1M+ homes.)
● Value Chain Position Profit: Certain places in the value chain are incredibly profitable
while others are not. Look for these key control points.
● Cycle Profit: Adjust rates based on the cycle. (Think: Travel industry rates for low, mid,
and high season.)
● After-Sale Profit: Drive profit with upsells, cross-sells, and supplemental products.
Accessories, replacement parts, etc.
● New Product Profit: There is a profit explosion at the beginning of a product's life.
● The Profit Parabola: “The total profit earned by all players in a market goes up, peaks,
and comes back down to zero.” (i.e. Get in on the first half when profit is rising, not the
last half.)
● Relative Market Share Profit: Companies with higher market share tend to be more
profitable.
● Experience Curve Profit: Experience in serving the market results in lower transaction
costs and, eventually, higher profit.
● Low-Cost Business Design Profit: The lower the costs of running your business, the
higher your profit will be. You don't need high revenues to make high profit with a
low-cost business. This is one of the reasons why digital businesses are so attractive.
● Big transactions are a function of relationships.
● Good profit models are easy to brainstorm and hard to execute.
 The Art of War by Sun Tzu
Know when to fight and when not to fight: avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak. Know
how to deceive the enemy: appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Know your strengths and weaknesses: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not
fear the result of a hundred battles.
● “According as circumstances are favorable, one should modify one’s plans.”
● “All warfare is based on deception. Hence when able to attack we must seem unable.
When using our forces we must seem inactive. When we are near we make the enemy
believe we are far away. When far away we must make the enemy believe we are near.”
● “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
● “If he is superior in strength, evade him.”
● “Attack him where he is unprepared. Appear where you are not expected.”
● “The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand.”
● “There is no instance of a country having benefitted from prolonged warfare.”
● “A wise general makes a point of foraging on the enemy. One cartload of the enemy's
provisions is equivalent to twenty of one's own.”
● “Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.”
● “The worst strategy of all is to besiege walled cities.”
● “There are five essentials for victory: He will win who knows when to fight and when not
to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will
win who’s army is animated by the same spirit throughout all it’s ranks. He will win who,
prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military
capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”
● “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred
battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also
suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every
battle.”
● “One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.”
● “In war, the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won.”
● “In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack: the direct and indirect.”
● “An army may march great distances without distress if it marches through country
where the enemy is not.”
● “You can be sure in succeeding in your attacks if you only attack places which are
undefended.”
● “Military tactics are like water. For water, in its natural course, runs away from high
places and hastens downwards. So, in war, the way is to avoid what is strong and strike
at what is weak.”
● “Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move fall like a
thunderbolt.”
● “Ponder and deliberate before you make a move.”
● “A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it
is sluggish and inclined to return.”
● “It is a military axiom not to advance uphill against the enemy nor to oppose him when
he comes downhill.”
● “The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy not coming, but on
our readiness to receive him.”
● “Make your way by unexpected routes and attack unguarded spots.”
● “If they will face death, there is nothing they will not achieve.”
● “The principle on which to manage an army is to set up one standard of courage which
all must reach.”
● “If it is to your advantage, make a forward move. If not, stay where you are.”
 Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
To become a better writer, you have to write more. Writing reveals the story because you have
to write to figure out what you're writing about. Don't judge your initial work too harshly because
every writer has terrible first drafts.
● Write shitty first drafts.
● “We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are
in the face of this.”
● “All you can give us is what life is about from your point of view.”
● “You must assume that we, your readers, are bright and attentive, even if we have lost
the tiniest bit of ground in the last few years. So we are going to catch you if you try to
fake it.”
● Writing reveals itself through writing. As you write, you uncover the hidden gems inside
you that you didn't even know were there. Words come to you, characters reveals
themselves, and dialogue forms that shows who these people are. It pretty much always
works this way: you have to write to figure out what you're writing about.
● Ask people around you to help you with your writing. Call on them for their expertise. If
you want to write about gardening or include a garden in your writing, but you don't know
the first thing about gardening, then ask someone who does. Enlist the help of others to
make your words come alive.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

Steve Martin was one of the most successful comedians of his generation. In his words, his
career involved “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent refining, and 4 years spent in wild
success.” This fantastic book provided beautiful insights not only into the details of his comedy
act, but also into his early life and career development.
● Martin did stand up for 18 years. In his words, “10 years spent learning, 4 years spent
refining, and 4 years spent in wild success.”
● Darkness is essential for stand up success. Audiences don't laugh when they are in the
light.
● All entertainment is, or is about to be, old fashioned. There is always room for something
new.
● Perseverance is a great substitute for talent.
● Practice, practice, practice. The early years of Martin's career were poor and unsexy, but
they were filled with tons of practice. It was by performing his routines in public five or six
times per day and by constantly adapting material from friends that he developed stage
confidence and a unique routine.
● He is the definition of The Helsinki Bus Station Theory. So many of his acts started as
something learned from a friend or adapted from a coworker. Eventually, he stayed on
the bus long enough to transform what he learned into his own routine.
● It is fascinating how he slowly expanded his shoe length with each gig. His early jobs
were short routines or magic tricks of a few minutes. Then he did a five minute skit or a
ten minute show at a club. Then he took on a twenty minute gig and even added in three
poems to read just to add enough length. It's an awesome example of taking on just
manageable difficulties.
● Martin began as a magician but discovered that what he loved was not magic, but
performance. That's when he set his sights on becoming a comedian.
● It wasn't until college that Martin realized he needed to come up with entirely original
content.
● “Through the years, I have learned that there is no harm in charging oneself up with
delusions between moments of valid inspiration.”
● Any new philosophy, even if wrong in some respects, is good for creativity.
● Teaching people, whether in a classroom or otherwise, is a form of show business.
● It is interesting how Martin is convinced the success of his comedy act was largely
dependent on the current events of the time (his act balanced the seriousness of the
Vietnam War, in particular). On the one hand, I think he undersells himself as a
comedian. I'm confident he could be funny in any era. On the other hand, I appreciate
his acknowledgement of luck and timing in his success.
● Never let the audience know you are bombing. “This is funny, you just haven’t gotten it
yet.” Keep going even if the laughs aren’t coming. For eight years he tried this routine
and it didn’t work well.
● One piece of feedback said he was, “The most serious booking error in the history of Los
Angeles music.”
● His agent told Martin to “stick to writing” because his performance was not going to work.
● “I had never really imagined success, I was just trying to be a performer.”
● Martin gave himself a deadline for success. He would be a performer until he was 30
and then had to figure out something else to do.
● Martin doesn’t brag about his relationships with a variety of women, but one thing is
pretty clear: women love men who are funny.
● “It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These
nights are accidental and statistical. Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them
occurring over time. What was hard was to be good. Consistently good. Night after night.
No matter what the abominable circumstances.”
● “As I continued to work, my material grew. I came up with odd little gags, such as, “How
many people have never raised their hands before?” I was now capable of doing two
different 25-minute sets per evening in case some of the audience stayed for the second
show.”
● “Because I was generally unknown, in the smaller venues I was free to gamble with
material.”
● “My act was becoming simultaneously smart and stupid.”
● By his late 20s, Martin had reached a point where he was a successful opening act and
would appear on televisions shows (including The Tonight Show) on a routine basis, but
he was never opening. He realized that the audience never came for the opening act.
People only cared about the headliner. And so, he set a rule to only headline and never
open. Within a year, he was completely broke.
● Even after being on The Tonight Show and starting to headline a few clubs (but without
any mainstream success), Martin wrote in his journal, “My new material is hopelessly
poor. My act is simply not good enough. It’s not even bad.” It is fascinating to see such a
successful creator struggle with his work.
● After 12 years of performing, he finally reached the point where he could afford to only
do one show per night rather than three, four, or five shows per night scattered across
town.
● Right after Martin became famous, he was driving through Beverly Hills with his mother
and said, “Get out and walk down the street so I can watch people look at you.”
● His first album sold 1.5 million copies in 1977.
● At his peak, Martin’s tour schedule was insane. 60 cities in 63 days. 72 in 80 days. 85
cities in 90 days. 18,695 people attended one show in Ohio. 45,000 tickets sold for his
show in New York.
● He became the biggest concert comedian in show business, ever.
● Small insight: during his rise to fame Martin was always surprised by the size of his
crowds. One possible interpretation was that he was relatively unaware of how many
people each venue could hold, which meant he didn't handle the booking and business
side of things. This seems obvious, but it is a critical point: he was 100 percent focused
on his craft.
● Once he achieved peak success, he struggled with trying new material and
experimentation. In his words, “This was no longer an experiment. I felt a huge
responsibility not to let people down. Arenas of 20,000 and three day gigs of 45,000
were no place to try new material.”
● By 1979, he was already booked for the next two years.
● Martin became so famous that he couldn’t go outside without tons of hoopla and,
interestingly, his romantic life vanished. He couldn’t interact with people in a normal way
and just spent his time shuttling from show to hotel room and back. He went into a
depression. “This was the loneliest period of my life.”
● During the height of his fame, Martin would have people chase him down on the
highway, drive their car with one hand while waving the other out the window and
screaming, “I’m a wild and crazy guy!” in reference to his Saturday Night Life bit.
● There is definitely a point where you can become too popular. Your daily life is hindered.
Your relationships suffer. People struggle to understand your troubles. Celebrity has its
drawbacks.
● Martin toured for five straight years with sold out venues. “Then, I saw something in the
back I hadn’t seen in years. Empty seats.”
● “If you have anything to work out with your parents, do it now. One day it will be too late.”
● I agree with Martin that it is not your job to judge the success of your own work: “I do not
know if my act holds up all these years later. It is not for me to decide or even think
about.”
 The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly insignificant
actions. You cannot improve something until you measure it. Always take 100 percent
responsibility for everything that happens to you.
● “Talk about things that matter with people who care.” -Jim Rohn
● The compound effect is the operating system that has been running your life whether
you know it or not.
● “There are no new fundamentals.” -Jim Rohn
● Success is doing a half dozen things really well, repeated five thousand times.
● You don't need more knowledge. You need a new plan of action.
● Consistency is the ultimate key to success.
● If you aren't better, work harder.
● The compound effect is the strategy of reaping huge rewards from small, seemingly
insignificant actions.
● Small choices + consistency + time = significant results.
● Tony Robbins' no man's land concept is when you're not really happy about your life, but
you're not unhappy enough to do anything about it. You want to avoid this complacency.
● Knowledge uninvested is wasted.
● Choice is at the center of all success and failure. It is what we choose that makes the
biggest difference. Too often we sleepwalk through our choices. We default to choices
that our society and culture tells us we should do.
● It's not big choices, but ones that you think don't matter or count for much that derail us.
You don't consciously think about it, but these small decisions can really change things.
● Keep a daily gratitude journal about your spouse. Write down one thing you are thankful
for each day about your spouse then give them the book as a gift one year later.
● Gratitude is acknowledging there are people in your life who have done things for you
that you couldn't do for yourself.
● What you appreciate, appreciates.
● You have to be willing to give 100 percent in your relationships. Always take 100 percent
responsibility for everything that happens to you.
● You alone are responsible for your situation.
● Everyone has the opportunity to be lucky. If you live in a free society, you are lucky.
● The first step toward change is awareness. The best way to become aware is to
measure. Writing it all down is key.
● Tracking your progress and missteps is key for long-term success.
● Track your behavior for at least one week.
● All winners are trackers. You cannot improve something until you measure it.
● Professional athletes are particularly big trackers.
● Tracking will revolutionize your life. The author started by tracking every financial
decision in a notebook.
● Merely becoming conscious of your actions begins to change them.
● Every dollar you spend today is costing you $5 in twenty years. (Because of opportunity
cost from investing.)
● Making small course corrections will result in exactly zero applause.
● The difference between the number one golfer and number ten golfer is just 1.9 strokes.
The difference prize money is huge.
● Start by saving 1 percent of your money each month. Then save 2 percent the next
month. Continue until you are saving 10 percent of what you earn.
● Dave Ramsey: personal finance is 80 percent behavior.
● The earlier you start making changes the more the compound effect works in your favor.
● The key to success is this: are you learning each day?
● No business is going to keep someone around just for showing up. You have to
continually get ready.
● Your life is a result of your moment to moment choices.
● The older your habits are and the deeper their roots, the harder they are to change.
● It stands to reason that since you learned every habit you have, you can also learn new
ones.
● If the nose of a plane is pointed just one percent off course when it leaves LA for New
York, it will end up in Delaware once it gets to the east coast.
● The most motivating choices are ones that align with your “why” and your purpose.
● You need a deep why for doing stuff. With a why that is meaningful enough, you will do
almost anything. (Think of Kristy exercising for the wedding.)
● Too many people focus on achievement without fulfillment.
● If you create goals for yourself that have friction with your values, you're going to
self-sabotage or feel guilty about your progress. For example, if your family is a high
priority, but you set high financial goals for yourself then there is friction between those
 two goals. (Note: this is basically identity-based habits. You can't have friction between
your identity and your goals.)
● Design the life you want first and the business you want second. Most people choose a
career before thinking about what kind of life they want to build. (Note: great idea. Even
better idea might be to test lifestyles. Try one project in various “lives” and see which you
enjoy most. Write a book (author), show a photo project in a gallery (photographer), etc.)
● The Law of Attraction is simply directing your attention toward something that was
already there.
● Write down your most important goals.
● When you set a goal, most people ask, “What do I need to do to achieve your goal?”
Instead, you should ask “Who do I need to become?”
● What is your entertainment vs. education ratio? The top 20% of people spend their time
focused on education.
● Stop watching the news. The news just aggregates the worst, saddest, and most
stressful stories every day.
● If there is a difference between what you say and what you do, then your behavior is the
winner.
● Identify your triggers for your bad habits: the who, what, where, and when that prompts
you to start your bad habits.
● Start by eliminating your triggers. Throw out junk food, etc.
● Stop lying and justifying hard choices by saying things like, “It's not fair for everyone to
avoid sweets just because I don't want to eat sweets.”
● Dean Ornish study found it was easier for people to ditch lots of bad habits at the same
time.
● Any new habit has to work inside your current life and lifestyle. The gym can't be out of
the way. It has to be on the way.
● Montell Williams has an add-in principle where he focuses on adding something in to his
life rather than what he is cutting out or sacrificing.
● Hardy recommends using a Seinfeld calendar for public accountability too. Hangout in
the office, etc. so other people can see it.
● Be patient. You've spent years repeating bad behaviors. It's going to take years to build
good ones.
● Momentum is huge. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion.
● The hardest part of momentum is the beginning. But like pushing the merry-go-round on
the playground… Once you get moving you can keep going very easily.
● With momentum, you can continue succeeding with less work. It's easy to keep things
running once you have momentum.
● Jack Nicklaus had a repeated pre-shot routine that he did the same way over and over
again. A psychologist tracked his pre-shot time for every shot at a tournament and it
never wavered by more than one second. Set yourself up for success.
● Book end your days. You can always ensure how your day starts and ends. Finish your
most important tasks first. Review your day each evening.
● Commit to doing a relationship review each weekend. Cover what went well in your
marriage that week. Rank your relationship on a scale of 1-10 over the last week and
then ask what could get it to a 10.
● “Anyone can fall in love. Falling in love is easy. Staying in love takes real work.”
● When you lose two weeks of work, you don't just lose the work you would have done.
You also lose momentum and that is the bigger problem.
● Garbage in, garbage out. Don't waste your time watching TV, eating junk, reading
useless stuff, consuming negative stories, and more.
● Who is on your personal board of advisors? Who are the 10-12 experts you get advice
from?
● The best people hire the best coaches. Harvey McKay had 20 coaches. A speech
coach, writing coach, humor coach, etc.
● What are you willing to tolerate? If you tolerate people being late that is what you'll get. If
you tolerate earning less than what you're worth, that's what you'll earn. (This is similar
to Mark Manson's idea of “what kind of pain do you want?” Except here it is applied to
the negative forces in our life whereas he applies it to our goals and ambitions.)
● Oprah's 2004 season opener is one of the greatest product launches and examples of
going above and beyond expectations.
● Always go a little bit beyond what people expect. Dress a little nicer. Try a little harder.
● There is a difference between learning and studying. Learning leads to knowledge.
Studying a topic means you are invested in it and try it out. The world already has tons
of knowledge. You don't need to learn more. What you need is to study, to practice, and
to take action on the knowledge you have.
 Confessions of an Economic Hitman by
John Perkins
The United States is engaging in a modern form of slavery by using the World Bank and other
international organizations to offer huge loans to developing nations for construction projects
and oil production. On the surface this appears to be generous, but the money is only awarded
to a country if it agrees to hire US construction firms, which ensures a select few people get
rich. Furthermore, the loans are intentionally too big for any developing nation to repay and this
debt burden virtually guarantees the developing nation will support the political interests of the
United States.
● “Few swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution, and violence.”
● The top 1 percent of third world households account for 70 to 90 percent of all private
financial wealth and real estate ownership in their country.
● There are (were?) a famous group of pirates in Indonesia known as the Bugi. They so
terrorized early European sailors that the sailors came home and told their children,
“Behave yourselves or the Bugimen will get you.” Crazy origin of the phrase.
● “The beacon shines on a destiny that is not always one we envision.”
● The imperialist and capitalist drive is so strong and so pervasive that it has become the
primary cause of most wars, pollution, starvation, species extinctions, and genocides.
● Life is composed of a series of coincidences over which we have no control. Once we
are presented with such coincidences, we gave choices. How we respond, the actions
we take in the face of coincidences, makes all the difference.
● How many decisions (including ones of great historical significance that impact millions
of people) are made by men and women who are driven by personal motives rather than
by a desire to do the right thing?
● This book offers a startling reminder that debt is the new form of prison. Entire countries
are handicapped by their debt to the United States and other major players.
● Lesson: avoid debt at all costs of you want to remain free.
● We decry slavery, but our global empire enslaves more people than the Romans and all
other colonial powers before us.
 Confessions of the Pricing Man by
Hermann Simon
Ultimately, profit is the only valid metric for guiding a company and there are only three ways to
influence profit: price, volume, and cost. Of these three factors, prices get the least attention, but
have the greatest impact. The price a customer is willing to pay, and therefore the price a
company can achieve, is always a reflection of the perceived value of the product or service in
the customer’s eyes.
● Never run a business in which you have no influence on the prices you charge.
● I don’t think much of a business that doesn’t make money.
● Prices determine how much money you make.
● Pricing is about how people divide up value.
● The value we perceive changes as the product ages.
● A business team may have many viable options, but can choose only one. These
decisions involve so many factors and face so many market dynamics that
black-and-white certainty is rare.
● Prices are the central hinges of a market economy. Think about it: every dollar of
revenue and profit that a company generates is the direct or indirect result of a price
decision.
● How much does one minute cost on your mobile phone plan? How much do you pay for
1 kWh of electricity? How much does your daily commute cost you? It is hard to answer
these questions spontaneously, because for many goods and services, prices have
many dimensions.
● There is always one “right” price or price structure and a multitude of “wrong” ones.
● The Russians have a saying which sums this up: “In every market there are two kinds of
fools. One charges too much, the other charges too little.”
● People have asked me thousands of times to name the most important aspect of pricing.
I answer with one word: “value.”
● The price a customer is willing to pay, and therefore the price a company can achieve, is
always a reflection of the perceived value of the product or service in the customer’s
eyes.
● When a company tries to figure out the price it can achieve, only the subjective
(perceived) value of the customer matters. The objective value of the product or other
measures of value, such as the Marxian theory that value is defined by the human labor
time invested, do not matter intrinsically. They matter only to the degree that the
customer thinks they matter and is willing to a pay a price in return.
● Expectations about how the value lasts will have a decisive influence on a customer’s
willingness to pay for luxury goods, consumer durables, and cars.
● The process of price setting begins at the conception of the product idea. A company
must think about prices as early and often as possible in the development process, not
just after a product is ready to launch.
● As the French say, “ le prix s’oublie, la qualité reste.” Loosely translated, that means that
the quality you bought endures long after you have forgotten the price.
● Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods.
● I learned that good advice is not expensive. It is quite affordable, if you can recognize its
value.
● Offering true value is a necessary but by no means sufficient condition for success. Far
too often I have heard managers claim that if you make a good product, it will sell itself.
● The only fundamental driver of willingness to pay is the perceived value in the eyes of
the customer.
● Two of the most powerful intangible benefits we willingly pay for every day are
convenience and peace of mind.
● Whenever possible, you should try to communicate value using hard data, especially in
a business-to-business situation.
● In economic terms, the most important role price plays is in creating a balance between
supply and demand.
● These assumptions about rationality and information first came into doubt through the
work of Herbert A. Simon1 (Nobel Prize, 1978). In his view, people have only limited
capacity to absorb and process information. For that reason, they do not strive to
maximize their profit and their utility. Instead, they content themselves with a
“satisfactory” outcome. He coined the term “satisficing” to describe this behavior.
● This reinforces a key lesson in this book: you need to know what your demand curve
looks like, the more precisely, the better.
● Price is likely to serve as an indicator of quality when buyers are uncertain about a
product’s underlying quality. This happens when they are confronted with a product that
is entirely new to them or one which they rarely buy.
● In one test, study participants received a pain reliever at different prices. One group saw
a tag with a high price, and the other group saw a low price. Without exception, the
participants in the high-price group claimed that the pain reliever was very effective. In
the low-price group, only half of the participants made that claim. In both cases,
however, the pain reliever was actually a vitamin C placebo, which has no objective
ability to relieve pain.
● When buyers know neither the price range of a product category nor have any special
requirements (e.g., high quality, low price), they gravitate toward a price in the middle of
the range.
● The less a buyer knows objectively about the quality of the products and prices in an
assortment, the stronger the pull of the “magic of the middle” will be.
● One of the cleverest tricks to boost sales is to create the perception of scarcity.
● We have observed time and again that the introduction of additional alternatives can
significantly increase sales and shift demand toward higher priced products.
● A price threshold is a price point which triggers a pronounced change in sales whenever
it is crossed.
● The most important argument for the existence of odd prices is that customers perceive
the digits in a price with decreasing intensity as they read from left to right. The first digit
in a price has the strongest influence on perception; that is, a price of $9.99 comes
across as $9 plus something rather than $10.
● My own findings show that it makes no sense to set prices at $9.90 or $9.95. If you want
to remain below a price threshold, then you should set your price as close to the
threshold as possible, which means $9.99 in this case.
● The pain we feel from a loss is greater than the happiness we feel from a gain, even if
the magnitude of the loss and gain themselves is equal.
● It is particularly advisable for people with limited financial means to use cash payments
as a control mechanism.
● When we receive our monthly statement and see that long list of transactions, the effect
of any individual transaction gets watered down. This also hurts less.
● The standard way of expressing a price—for example $16.70—causes a pronounced
response in the brain’s pain center. The response is weaker, however, when the
 respondent only sees 16.70 and the dollar sign is omitted. Apparently the brain does not
immediately perceive that number to be a price. The activation of the pain center is even
weaker for a round number, such as 17.
● A high margin results only in high profit if you achieve a sufficient gap between price and
costs. That is not a trivial observation.
● Even when a company does achieve high margins, it still needs to sell enough units to
make a high profit.
● Premium pricing means offering higher value and demanding a premium price in return.
● Gillette practices premium pricing of the best kind: creating value through innovation,
communicating that value, and then extracting it with premium price
● Superior value is a must: Premium pricing will work over time only if a company offers
superior value to customer.
● Innovation is the foundation: In general, innovation provides the foundation for a
successful, sustainable premium price position. This applies to groundbreaking
innovations as well as continual improvements, such as Miele ’s under the motto
“Forever Better.”
● Consistent, high quality is a must: This prerequisite comes up time and again.
Successful premium suppliers maintain high and very consistent quality levels. Their
service must also meet the same requirements.
● Premium pricers have strong brands: One function of these strong brands is to transform
a technological advantage—which is often temporary—into a long-lasting image
advantage.
● Premium pricers invest heavily in communication: They know that they have to make the
value and advantages of their products perceptible and understandable to consumers.
Remember: only perceived value counts.
● Premium pricers shy away from special offers: They are hesitant to offer promotions and
special offers. If the promotions they offer are too frequent or too steep, these
instruments can endanger the premium price position.
● The key secret to the art of pricing luxury goods is mastering “limited editions.” The
supplier must strictly abide by its own limit; otherwise it risks losing its credibility and
reputation. The limited number of units determines the scarcity and thus the value of the
luxury good.
● Watches manufactured in Switzerland represent just 2 % of the world’s annual watch
production. Yet on the back of this tiny volume, the Swiss watches altogether account for
 an incredible 53 % of the global watch market on a value basis.36 The difference
between their volume-based market share (2 %) and their value-based market share (53
%) is dramatic.
● When a customer pays a very high price for a product, he or she expects that the
product will hold its value.
● Their research revealed two success guidelines, which they referred to as “better before
cheaper” and “revenue before cost.”
● These interesting findings imply that the share of companies which are successful with a
premium price strategy is greater than the share of companies which have achieved
sustained success with low-price strategies.
● “Very rarely is cost leadership a driver of superior profitability .”
● After 40 years in the pricing game I am convinced that only very few companies will
achieve long-term success with a low-price strategy.
● Profit is ultimately the only valid metric for guiding your company. The rationale is simple:
profit is the only metric which takes both the revenue side and the cost side of a
business into account.
● “Profit is a condition of survival. It is the cost of the future, the cost of staying in
business.”
● Price setting requires a thorough understanding of two things: how your customers
perceive your value and the profit level you need to sustain or improve that value.
● The reality in almost all companies is that goal setting is not an “either-or” exercise.
Balance is paramount. The central problem is that most companies are not balanced.
● This means that every business has only three profit drivers: price, volume, and cost.
● Prices get the least attention, but have the greatest impact.
● The obsessive pursuit of the wrong goals—customer counts, revenue, and market share
—leads even the sharpest managers to neglect the effects that discounts and
promotions have on profits.
● Price is the only marketing instrument you can employ with no upfront investment. This
makes it an especially powerful marketing tool for small business or start-ups with tight
financial resources.
● Sellers have some leeway in setting prices. This leeway can be substantial if the product
is innovative or even unique.
● “Pricing is guesswork. It is usually assumed that marketers use scientific methods to
determine the price of their products. Nothing could be further from the truth. In almost
every case, the process of decision is one of guesswork.”
● All paths to profit begin with price.
● This is an important insight. It means that it is not the end of the world if you don’t have
the optimal price figured out down to the last decimal place. It is more important to be in
the right vicinity.
● If your product delivers 20 % more value than the competitors’ products, you should
collect 10 % of that difference in price. If you demand more—or demand it all—the
customer actually never gets to enjoy the difference in value. If your value difference is
20 % and your price difference is 20 %, the customer comes out of the deal
empty-handed despite the greater value you provide. You offset the entire advantage for
the customer by setting the product’s price too high
● Past market data has very limited relevance for predicting future behavior
● George Stigler, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1982, claims that price
leadership is the best solution for companies in a highly competitive oligopoly
● We can see from these comparative graphs that one uniform price —even when set
optimally—exhausts only part of the available profit potential in the market.
● A prerequisite for optimal price differentiation is detailed knowledge about the buyers’
willingness to pay
● When a seller packages several products together and charges a total price less than
the sum of the individual product prices, it is called price bundling. Bundling is a very
effective way to differentiate prices.
● Sellers should choose incremental discounts whenever possible. For buyers the
opposite advice applies. They should ask for full-volume discounts. In other words both
buyers and sellers should focus not only on the percentage of discount they receive, but
also the structure of the discount.
● “Big Data,” the analysis of large amounts of data about transactions on an individual
basis, opens up fantastic new opportunities for person-specific price differentiation.
Interesting here is the question of whether consumers should occasionally order a very
inexpensive product, in order to convey a high level of price sensitivity to the seller. This
could trigger advertisements for special offers and attractive prices—a new kind of
cat-and-mouse game.
● Individuals at different times have different levels of willingness to pay
● Using a penetration strategy is recommended for experience goods. These are products
which require a consumer to gain some experience with them in order to understand
their true value. A low price at launch motivates more customers to give the product a
try, and can create a multiplier effect if customers have a positive experience and start to
comment on or even evangelize about the product.
● Apple supplemented its skimming strategy with continuous innovation and an expansion
of its product line. This process is sometimes called “versioning,” the ongoing
introduction of new versions. Each new version offers superior performance compared to
the previous generation, which allows Apple to keep the prices for its devices relatively
constant.
● The high art of pricing lies in intelligent price differentiation
● In the case of nonlinear pricing, one must know the marginal utilities for each additional
unit. Without knowledge of willingness to pay as a function of time, location, or other
criteria which will serve as the basis for differentiation, managers are stumbling around in
the dark.
● Reaping the rewards of price differentiation is a “micro” task and not a “macro” one. It
requires a microscopic perspective, not a rough or back-of-the-envelope calculation. Gut
feeling, no matter how much experience may back it up, hits its limits on questions of
price differentiation.
● One must understand willingness to pay at the individual level as narrowly as possible,
in order to take advantage of it through a differentiated price structure
● Successful price differentiation requires the ability to separate customers effectively
according to their willingness to pay
● Fencing is effective when the value difference between the two price categories is
sufficiently large and the seller can control access. That means that the highest price
category needs to offer correspondingly high value, and the value in the lowest price
category is kept intentionally low.
● The French engineer Jules Dupuit noted this necessity way back in 1849. At that time,
the lowest class passenger rail cars did not have a roof. “It is not because of the few
thousand Francs which would have to be spent to put a roof over the third class seats,”
Dupuit explained. “What the company is trying to do is to prevent the passenger who can
pay the second class fare from traveling third class; it hits the poor, not because it wants
to hurt them, but to frighten the rich.
● Effective fencing requires adequate gaps in value across the price categories.
● It is not the maximum price differentiation that is optimal, but rather the extent that strikes
the best balance between value and costs.
● It will become more and more difficult to implement differentiated prices for identical
products and services. Customers are simply too well informed and when in doubt they
can buy the product elsewhere at a lower price.
● All multidimensional price structures contain some form of price differentiation, because
the fixed price gets allocated across different volume levels. An advantage of these
systems is that a company makes the same price offer to all customers, but each
customer pays a different amount according to his or her own actual usage.
● The goal of a freemium model is to use the free price to attract the largest number of
potential customers. The company hopes that if the user becomes comfortable with the
basic functionality, he or she will have a growing interest in paying for a version which is
more powerful, and more advanced, or offers additional functionality. Freemium fits very
well to experience goods, whose full value only becomes apparent when customers
have had a chance to use the good.
● The largest hurdle in freemium models is getting customers over this initial price barrier,
or getting them to cross the “penny gap
● The largest hurdle in freemium models is getting customers over this initial price barrier,
or getting them to cross the “penny gap .” The challenge for the publishers is to draw
customers away from the “free” culture and to establish their digital content as a paid
experience.
● A systematic optimization of price and product using a freemium model typically
increases revenues by about 20 %, according to Simon-Kucher & Partners ’ experience.
● The music group Radiohead released its album In Rainbows online in 2007 with a “pay
what you want” model. The album was downloaded over one million times, with 40 % of
the “buyers” paying an average price of $6 apiece.
● In short: businesses should avoid “pay what you want ” systems.
● Instead of perpetuating these revenue-based plans, I strongly recommend that
companies switch to profit-oriented incentive plans. In making that switch, companies do
not need to sacrifice simplicity or confidentiality. One simple approach is to link the
commission or incentive to the level of discount. The lower the discounts a salesperson
grants, the higher his or her commission.
● Surcharges are an appropriate way to take advantage of higher willingness to pay in
peak periods. A passenger railroad could introduce surcharges for travel on Friday
 afternoons or on Sunday evenings. These surcharges would have two effects: they
would increase the company’s profits and also damp demand, which lowers the chances
that trains will be overbooked or overfilled in those peak travel times. Price cuts in
off-peak periods often have little effect, but price increases in peak periods can have a
significant effect. We see these kinds of asymmetries in time-based price differentiation
in a number of industries.
● Often the value of a product depends on how quickly it becomes available or how quickly
a customer can access it.
● Under normal circumstances, managers tend to show a preference for a “lower prices,
constant volume” alternative, but this tendency becomes more pronounced in a time of
crisis. The effort to keep sales and capacity utilization up, and keep people at work,
takes precedence. But in a time of crisis, that can be precisely the wrong approach.
● The same principle applies to renting, not just to purchases. In general, it is more
advantageous for a lessor to offer a new tenant several months of free rent instead of a
discounted price per square foot.
● The biggest challenge facing pricing in the modern world is overcapacity
● As long as this root cause remains unaddressed or unresolved, any changes companies
make are just doctoring with symptoms rather than finding lasting cures. The path to
rational, reasonable, profitable prices often requires the elimination of excess capacity.
● I summarize my insights into price wars very simply: there are smart industries and there
are self-destructive industries. What is the difference? The smart ones avoid price wars,
and the self-destructive ones get stuck in them. The smart ones are profitable; the
self-destructive ones incur losses or destroy profits. The problem is that it only takes one
self-destructive competitor to render an entire industry self-destructive. That’s why it is
better to have smart competitors.
● I advised him to repeat the “profit” mantra every day, as often as possible. He of course
will hear the message every time he says it, but others hear it only once or twice and
won’t get tired of it.
● Pursue price leadership through a consistent communication campaign emphasizing the
importance of price and value.
● “Good pricing has three prerequisites: create value, quantify value, and communicate
value,” I said in summary. “That is when you get the price you deserve, the price you
need for a profitable business. And, last but not least, avoid price wars.
● Profit maximization is the only sensible goal for pricing.
● Pricing belongs on the CEO ’s desk.
 Fooled by Randomness by Nassim
Nicholas Taleb
Randomness, chance, and luck influence our lives and our work more than we realize. Because
of hindsight bias and survivorship bias, in particular, we tend to forget the many who fail,
remember the few who succeed, and then create reasons and patterns for their success even
though it was largely random. Mild success can be explainable by skills and hard work, but wild
success is usually attributable to variance and luck.
● According to Taleb, the book's most popular chapter was Chapter 11, the one in which
he compressed all the literature on the topic of miscalculating probability.
● Important point: “it's more random than we think, not it is all random.” Chance favors
preparedness, but it is not caused by preparedness (same for hard work, skills, etc.)
● “This business of journalism is just about entertainment, particularly when it comes to
radio and television.”
● As much as we want to “keep it simple, stupid” … It is precisely the simplification of
issues that are actually very complex, which can be dangerous.
● “Things that happen with little help from luck are more resistant to randomness.”
● “Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to
variance.”
● One common theory for why people pursue leadership is because of “social emotions”
which cause others to be influenced by a person due to small, almost imperceptible
physical signals like charisma, gestures, and gait.
● This has also been shown via evolutionary psychology: when you perform well in life,
you get all “puffed up” in the way you carry yourself, the bounce in your step, etc. From
an evolution standpoint this is great because it becomes easier to spot the most
successful / desirable mate.
● The concept of alternative histories is particularly interesting. If you were to relive a set
of events 1000 times, what would the range of outcomes be? If there is very little
variance in your alternative histories (i.e. You chose to become a dentist and you will
probably make more or less the same amount of money and live a similar lifestyle all
1000 times), then you are in a relatively non- random situation. Meanwhile, if there is a
 very wide range of normal results when considering 1,000 variations (entrepreneurs,
traders, etc.), then it is a very random situation.
● The quality of a choice cannot be judged just by the result. (I first learned this in
baseball. Just because a pitch you call or play you call doesn't work out doesn't make it
a poor choice. It could have been the right call, but bad luck. Or vice versa.)
● “Certainty is something that is likely to take place across the highest number of different
alternative histories. Uncertainty concerns events that should take place in the lowest
number of them.”
● You should think carefully about getting more insurance / shielding yourself from events
that — although unlikely — could be catastrophic. You essentially want to insulate
yourself from terrible random accidents.
● We have a tendency to see risks against specific things as more likely than general risks
(dying in a terrorist attack while traveling vs. dying on your next trip, even though the
second includes the first). We seem to overvalue the things that trigger an emotional
response and undervalue the things that aren't as emotional.
● We are so mentally wired to overvalue the sensational stories that you can “realize
informational gains by dispensing with the news.”
● Fascinating famous Swiss study of the amnesia patient who couldn't remember doctor's
name but did remember him pricking her hand with a pin.
● “Every man believes that he is quite different.”
● It's better to value old, distilled thoughts than “new thinking” because for an idea to last
so long it must be good. That is, old ideas have had to stand the test of time. New ideas
have not. Some new ideas will end up lasting, but most will not.
● The ratio of undistilled information to distilled is rising. Let's call information that has
never had to prove its truth more than once or twice, undistilled. And information that has
been filtered through many years, counter arguments, and situations is distilled. You
want more distilled information (concepts that stand the test of time and rigorous
analysis) and less undistilled information (the news, reactionary opinions, and “cutting
edge” research).
● There is nothing wrong with losing. The problem is losing more than you plan to lose.
You need clear rules that limit your downside. (“If any investment loses one million
dollars then our firm sells immediately.”)
● Much of what is randomness is timing. The best strategy for a given time period is often
not the best strategy overall. In any given cycle, certain places will be dangerous, certain
trading strategies will be fruitful, etc.
● If you find yourself doing something extraordinarily well in a random situation, then keep
doing what's working but limit your downside. There is nothing wrong with benefitting
from randomness so long as you protect yourself from negative random events.
● Randomness means there are some strategies that work well for any given cycle (an
extreme fad diet), but these cycles are often short to medium term successes. More
importantly, the strategies that work for a given cycle in the short term may not be the
best for long run. They are sub optimal strategies winning over a randomly beneficial
short term cycle. The same can said for setting huge goals, following a fad diet, chasing
an extreme training protocol, and so on. Unsustainable and suboptimal for the long term.
In this way, evolutionary traits that are undesirable can survive for a period of time in any
given population. That is, suboptimal strategies and traits can seem desirable in the
short run even though they will be resoundingly defeated in the long run.
● Important point: you can never affirm a statement, merely confirm its rejection. There is a
big difference between “this has never happened” and “this will ever happen.” You can
say the first, but never truly confirm the second. It just takes one counter example to
prove all previous observations wrong. We never know things for sure, only with varying
degrees of certainty.
● There are only two types of ideas. Those that have been proven wrong and those which
have yet to be proved wrong. (Feynman said something similar.)
● Strive to become a man of leisure who can afford to sit with ideas, think properly about
them, and gradually provide something of value.
● Science is speculation. This is important to remember. Scientists are simply creating
well-formed and well-educated conjectures about the world. But they are still conjectures
that can be proved incorrect by one random event.
● It's a difficult standard to demand that you can actually implement ideas and not merely
share them (there have been many brilliant philosophers and scientists who have had
great ideas they didn't personally use), but is an idea really that great if you can stick to
it? Obviously, everyone has different skills and circumstances, so maybe someone can
use your idea even if you can't. But generally speaking, I think you should be able to live
out the ideas you share.
● Pascal: “the optimal strategy for humans is to believe in the existence of God. For, if God
exists, then the believer will be rewarded. If God does not exist, the believer will have
nothing to lose.”
My first thought: “yes, but what if you believe in the ‘wrong' God?” Should you play a
numbers game and believe in the God most people believe in? Or, can we safely
assume that of the infinite number of possible Gods humans could have designed it is
unlikely that any of the ones we worship are actually the God? So, just believe that a
higher power exists? Whew. Tough call here.
● Social treadmill effect: you get rich, move to a better neighborhood, surround yourself
with more successful people, and feel poor again.
● “Remember that nobody accepts randomness in his own success, only his failure.”
● Skewness and expectations: you can't just look at the odds of something happening, but
also the payoff you receive if it works (and the cost of it failing). A bet on something very
unlikely can be smart if the payoff is large and you have rules to limit the many small
losses that are likely.
● Minor stalemates in life can often be solved by choosing randomly. In many cases it
doesn't really matter so long as you choose something and move forward.
● We follow rules not because they are the best options, but because they make things
fast and easy.
● Humans are inherently flawed. The cognitive biases that we have are simply a result of
how our brains work. Sometimes these biases help us rather than hurt us. But they are
always a result of how we are built. That makes them particularly difficult to avoid.
● We seem to focus too much on “local” changes, not global ones. That is, we care too
much about the latest change rather than the overall trend.
● “Wealth does not make people happy, but positive increases in wealth may.”
● We do not think, but use heuristics to make decisions.
● Emotions are “lubricants of reason.” We actually need to feel things to make decisions.
● Emotions give us energy and they are actually critical to life in the day-to-day world. In
other words, the goal here is not to become a robot who can analyze everything with
perfect logic.
● Even if you know about randomness and cognitive biases, you are still just as likely to
fall victim to them.
● How to overcome these biases? We need tricks. We are just animals and we need to
re-structure our environment to control our emotions in a smart way.
● “Most of us know pretty much how we should behave. It is the execution that is the
problem, not the absence of knowledge.”
● “I try to remind my group each week that we are all idiots and know nothing, but we have
the good fortune of knowing it.”
● Do not blame others for your failures. Even if they are at fault.
● The only aspect of your life that fortune does not have control over is your behavior.
● Repetitiveness is key for determining if you are seeing skill or randomness at play. Can't
repeat it? Not skillful.
● “We favor the visible, the embedded, the personal, the narrated, and the tangible. We
scorn the abstract. Everything good — aesthetics, ethics — and wrong — fooled by
randomness — with us seems to flow from it.”
 Free Will by Sam Harris
We do not have the freedom and free will that we think we do. Yes, you can make conscious
choices, but everything that makes up those conscious choices (your thoughts, your wants, your
desires) is determined by prior causes outside your control. Just because you can do what you
want does not mean you have free will because you are not choosing what you want in the first
place.
● The concept of free will is pervasive in our world.
● “How can we make sense of our lives and hold people accountable for their choices
given the unconscious origins of our conscious minds?”
● “We do not have the freedom we think we have… Either our wills are determined by
prior causes and we are not responsible for them. Or they are the product of chance and
we are not responsible for them.”
● “The intention to do one thing and not another does not originate in consciousness.
Rather it appears in consciousness. As does any thought or impulse that might impose
it.”
● There are famous studies done with fMRI techniques which show that our brains will
indicate the choice we are going to make 700 milliseconds before we are aware that we
are going to make the choice. Other studies have found even larger discrepancies of
7-10 seconds.
● You cannot decide your next mental state, thought, or action until it arises. Where is the
freedom in that process?
● “There is no question that most, if not all, mental events are the product of physical
events. The brain is a physical system entirely beholden to the laws of nature. And there
is every reason to believe that changes in its functional state and material structure
entirely dictate our thoughts and actions.”
● “Consider what it would actually take to have free will. You would need to be aware of all
the factors that determine your thoughts and actions, and you would need to be in
complete control of these factors.”
● “We know that determinism in every sense relevant to human behavior is true.
Unconscious neural events determine our thoughts and actions, and are themselves
determined by prior causes of which we are subjectively unaware.”
● Just because you can do what you want does not mean you have free will. Why?
Because you are not consciously choosing what you want. You simply want it. You can’t
explain why you want it, but you do. And so choosing to do what you want (or choosing
one want over another) does not mean you have free will because your wants have
been given to you not determined by you.
● We make a mistake by separating our “free will” from our neural processes. The neural
processes that support consciousness and nudge our actions are just as much a part of
us as our conscious actions. The machinery that drives our actions is just as real as the
actions themselves.
● All sorts of studies in behavior have proven that we often attribute the actions we take to
incorrect causes. We reason backwardly and create all sorts of causes for our actions. In
this case, Harris is arguing that we don’t merely do this sometimes, but all the time. He
says that free will is an illusion and we do not fully understand what really drives our
actions.
● This is a discussion of the underlying causes of human behavior. In many cases, these
causes are hidden to us.
● Harris acknowledges that, although free will does not exist, we can create a framework
for our choices which makes certain outcomes more likely than others. For example, you
can remove all candy from your house to reduce the odds of eating sweets. Whether you
feel the urge to eat sweets, however, is not something you have control over. Your
“wants” simply are. They are not things you control.
● “You can change your life and yourself through effort and discipline. But you have
whatever capacity you have for effort and discipline is what you have at this moment.
And not a scintilla more. Or less.”
● “You wanted to lose weight for years. Then you REALLY wanted to. What's the
difference? Whatever it is, it's not a difference you brought into being.”
● This has implications for how we judge criminals and interpret actions. If we understand
that it is very possible to be dealt a bad hand in life — bad genetics, bad parents, bad
experiences — then we begin to realize that even criminals have a deeper story that
influences their actions. In a world like this, crimes, even heinous ones, are not easily
attributed to free will and bad ideas. It’s a more compassionate view of our fellow
humans. “The urge for retribution depends on our not seeing the underlying causes of
human behavior.”
● This doesn’t mean we don’t need a criminal justice system nor do we need to separate
dangerous people from society.
● “Not only are we not as free as we think we are, we do not feel as free as we think we
do… Thoughts and intentions simply arise in our mind. What else could they do?”
● It is impossible for us to know the causes of our choices and wants.
 The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
Doing work and making money are not the same thing. Simplify your problem to the point where
you understand the true goal of your organization. With your goal in mind, identify the
constraints within your system (i.e. bottlenecks) and focus on improving the output of that
constraint without worrying about the productivity of all related processes.
● Scientific ideas can never be proven. They can only be disproven.
● Scientific theories are not “truth” themselves, they simply explain a lot of natural
processes.
● To learn, we should not just give people results to memorize, but stories and plots that
allow us to deduce the answers.
● “Whenever we think we have final answers, progress, science, and understanding of our
world ceases.”
● Doing work and making money are not the same thing. Not all work leads to making
money. Much of it is wasted.
● “Just about everyone is working all the time, but we're not making any money.”
● Three metrics that will tell you if the business is doing well: net profit, return on
investment, and cash flow. All three should be increasing all the time.
● You can express a goal in different ways. How can you express “make money” in terms
that fit your business model?
● Three indicators of a healthy business: Operational expense, inventory, and throughput.
● Three important questions to ask: 1) Did we sell any more products? 2) Did expenses go
down? 3) Did inventory go down?
● Most processes are a series of dependent events. In any series of dependent events
most people can only go as fast as the people in front of them. Because of this, your
throughput is only the output of the final person / step in the process.
● Put the fat kid in front. Reverse the order so that the processes go from slow to fast.
● You have to optimize the whole system, not just a local process.
● There is always a bottleneck in every process. You have to manage the process based
on the bottleneck.
● The area with the biggest amount of inventory is usually a sign of a bottleneck.
● Make sure the bottleneck only works on good parts by performing quality control before
parts go into the bottleneck. You can't afford to waste time within the bottleneck.
● Most people are so focused on technical details that they can't see the bigger picture.
Don't bother “checking the numbers” instead “check your assumptions.
● “Making an employee work and profiting from that work are two different things.”
● Rule 1: The capacity of any non-bottleneck process isdeteimed by something else in the
system other than its own capacity.
● Rule 2: Activating a resource and utilizing are source aren't synonymous.
● A system with local maximums is not an efficient system. You should not try to maximize
the productivity of every moment because it's not an optimally designed system.
● The goal is not to reduce cost, but to increase throughput. This has huge implications
because nearly everyone is focused on reducing costs.
● The Theory of Constraints: Step one: identify the systems constraints. Step two: decide
how to exploit the constraints. Step three: subordinate all other processes to the above
decisions. Step four: elevate and improve the systems constraints. Step five: if in a
previous step a constraint has broken, return to step one.
 Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared
Diamond
Some environments provide more starting materials and more favorable conditions for utilizing
inventions and building societies than other environments. This is particularly notable in the rise
of European peoples, which occurred because of environmental differences and not because of
biological differences in the people themselves. There are four primary reasons Europeans rose
to power and conquered the natives of North and South America, and not the other way around:
1) the continental differences in the plants and animals available for domestication, which led to
more food and larger populations in Europe and Asia, 2) the rate of diffusion of agriculture,
technology and innovation due to the geographic orientation of Europe and Asia (east-west)
compared to the Americas (north-south), 3) the ease of intercontinental diffusion between
Europe, Asia, and Africa, and 4) the differences in continental size, which led to differences in
total population size and technology diffusion.
● History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences in their
environments not because of biological differences in the people themselves.
● This book seeks to answer the question, “Why did the rate of progress differ so much for
cultures on different continents?”
● Around 11,000 years ago all human societies were hunter gatherers.
● Understanding the causes of history improves our ability to intervene and improve the
world. Many people mistakenly assume that discussing history is just a way to explain
away tough issues. Not at all. It improves our ability to take effective action.
● The most common explanation of the different trajectories experienced by Europe
compared to Africa, Asia, Oceania, etc. is genetic and biological. People assume there is
some innate biological difference that made Europeans smarter, more creative, or more
resilient. Science, however, has produced no substantial evidence to indicate this is the
primary cause of different outcomes.
● Interesting side note: scientists are always competing to discover the “earliest human
remains” or the earliest XYZ. As a result, every few years there is a new “earliest”
discovery. Only one can actually be the earliest, of course.
● The occupation of Australia was an incredible feat. It was the first use of water craft and
range extension by humans.
● Humans were likely responsible for the extinction of nearly all of Australia's large
mammals. The same is true for many large mammals that occupied the Americas over
10,000 years ago.
● The environment of ancient Polynesian society heavily dictated the lifestyle and
behaviors. The many islands have widely varying landscapes and climates. Whether or
not cultures developed weapons and became skilled at warfare, whether they became
hunter gatherers or farmers, whether they acted more tribal or more hierarchical was
largely determined by the environment in which these people lived.
● Food and animal domestication arose independently in five different areas of the world
(at widely differing times) and possibly four others although there is still some contention
about those.
● We often think there is a clear division between farmer and hunter gatherer lifestyles, but
actually there can be a blending of the two. For example, some cultures plant crops,
resume a hunter gatherer lifestyle while they grow, then return to harvest and eat.
● Agriculture did not lead to an unequivocally better lifestyle. In fact, for those who actually
grow food life tends to be worse than it would be as a hunter gatherer. If this is true, and
the evidence seems to point that way, then it means that advancement of civilization has
essentially happened on the backs of society's have-nots. In other words, the entire
system we live within – agriculture, capitalism, etc. – requires inequality to function.
● Agriculture allowed food production per unit area to increase, which meant a given area
could support a larger population. This allowed farming cultures to defeat hunter
gatherer cultures by sheer force due to larger populations. This, in turn, led to the spread
of more agricultural societies across the globe.
● Throughout the industrial revolution in Great Britain, moths of darker colors became
more likely to survive because the surrounding environment become dirtier and covered
in soot, smoke, and debris. Thus, it was more likely that dark-colored moths would
survive than light-colored moths. As the environment changed, so did the evolution of
moths. A fascinating example of evolution on a small scale.
● Cereal crops alone account for more than half of the food consumed by modern
humans.
● The rise of indigenous food production in certain areas was the result of a few factors.
First, certain areas had plants better suited to domestication. This led people to domestic
earlier in those regions. Second, because of this early start, these people eventually
domesticated more difficult plants. Evidence seems to indicate that all people's are
 capable of food production and even modern hunter gatherers seem to be naturally
moving that way.
● The rise of agriculture in some areas before others has to do with the environment, not
the intelligence of the people.
● The Anna Karenina Principle: In many areas of life, success is not about doing one thing
correctly, but about avoiding many possible modes of failure.
● Domesticated animals differ in multiple ways from their wild ancestors. For example,
many domesticated animals are different sizes and have smaller brains than their wild
ancestors.
● Domestication of large mammals ended approximately 4500 years ago. This indicates
humans attempted to domesticate all of them and no suitable species remained. This is
another piece of evidence that the type of animals available dictated the domestication in
certain regions, not the people living in the region. This the spread of agriculture was
once again impacted by the environment.
● There is a inefficiency during the eating process. The nutrient transfer is much less than
100 percent and typically around 10 percent. For example, it takes 10,000 pounds of
corn to create a 1,000 pound bull.
● The primary geographic axis of North and South America is north-south. That is, the land
mass is more longitudinal than latitudinal. The same for Africa. But for Europe and Asia,
the primary axis is east-west. Interestingly, this positioning and shape matters greatly
because it appears that agriculture and innovations spread more rapidly along east-west
axes than along north-south axes.
● Locations along the same east-west axis share similar latitudes and thus have similar
day lengths, seasons, climate, rainfalls, and biomes. All of which increase the speed of
innovation relative to north-south axes.
● All tropical rainforests are within 10 degrees of latitude of the equator.
● One collection of evidence for the difference in spread along geographic axes is the
spread of domesticated crops. Many crops spread across Asia with one domestication,
while crops like cotton or squash were domesticated in multiple individual areas
throughout Mesoamerica. This is because the crop spread too slowly for one
domestication to takeover the region.
● It is vital to realize that although Diamond is discussing long time frames of hundreds or
thousands of years, the core idea can be applied to short time spans of individual
behavior as well. Indeed, large long term differences only occur because short term
 differences are repeated over and over again. Small environmental differences led to
small changes in individual behavior, which resulted in significant differences when
repeated for thousands of years.
● One reason farming communities developed immunity to diseases that wiped out hunter
gatherer populations is that some diseases (like measles) are “crowd diseases.” They
require a large population to sustain themselves because they act quickly: you either die
or develop immunity. In order for the disease to sustain itself there must be enough new
babies born to contract the disease from those who have already developed immunity.
Only agricultural communities could grow to the required population size.
● On average, farming sustains populations that are 10x to 100x larger than hunting and
gathering.
● North America was populated by about 20 million Native Americans when Columbus
landed in 1492. Within two centuries, 95 percent of the native population had died, most
of them from infectious diseases.
● Writing systems are historically seen as the deciding factor on whether an ancients
civilization is considered advanced or not. This can be debated. The Incas built a great
civilization without writing.
● All alphabets in the modern world evolved from one original alphabet, either in idea or
actual written form, developed in the Middle East.
● Writing evolved independently in a few areas, but was spread via idea diffusion in most
cultures and locations.
● Most inventions are not a result of necessity, but rather the result of tinkers and curiosity.
● Technology develops cumulatively rather than in isolated heroic acts. Even people we
often associate with acts of genius like the Wright Brothers and Thomas Edison actually
built upon the work of predecessors and had capable people who followed them and
advanced ideas.
● Technology finds most of its uses after it has been invented rather than being invented to
solve a foreseen need. The phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention” is generally
incorrect. (Even though some examples, like the Manhattan Project, exist.)
● Long life expectancy is one reason technology might develop and spread faster in some
locations rather than others. A longer life increases the surface area you have to test
ideas and allows you to take on longer projects that you might otherwise avoid with
limited time.
● Geographic location is a key determinant in the pace of technological innovation and
acceleration because a centrally located society will not only accumulate knowledge and
technology from their own inventions, but also from neighboring societies. In the case of
a particularly large land mass like Eurasia, technologies can spread from one culture to
another and continue to do so along the entire span of the continent. This spread occurs
much more quickly in these locations than it would to, say, aboriginal cultures in
Tasmania, which did not receive outside contact from other civilizations for over 10,000
years.
● Government and religion are two of the main reasons some societies overcame others.
These shared myths led to collaboration and increased power.
● There are four levels of organization in society: bands (5-80 people), tribes (100-1000
people), chiefdoms (1000 to tens of thousands of people), and states (50,000 or more
people).
● Humanity has been on a clear path from small groups to larger ones, culminating in
states, over the last few thousand years.
● The size of a population in a region is a strong predictor of the complexity of the society.
● Culture is heavily dependent on population density. The higher the population, the more
culture seems to spawn and spread.
● War, or the threat of war, is the primary factor in the amalgamation of human societies
throughout history. It is how cultures merge.
● Five dog night is an Australian phrase referring to a very cold night because you would
need to use five dogs as blankets.
● Isolation is a key factor preventing creativity and innovation from spreading because
most people and societies get their ideas from outside societies. So constant connection
to others and trading of ideas and resources is essential for technological and creative
progress.
● Food production was a key component in the determining the strength of a society.
People sharing similar ancestors inhabited New Guinea and Indonesia, but the
Indonesians were still hunter gatherers while the New Guineans had develop agriculture.
When Austronesians invaded the region, Indonesians fell under their control, but New
Guineas (with their food, germ resistance, and technologies) were able to resist.
● Again and again, the environment dictated the spread of power throughout islands of
East Asia and the Pacific. Depending on location, islanders differed in their
connectedness to other peoples and in the plants and animals available to them to
 domesticate. People with favorable locations for food production and access to
technology replaced those with less favorable environments.
● The end of Chapter 18 shares multiple interesting examples of peoples who were largely
similar genetically because of similar ancestors, but developed very different societies
and technologies due to the their individual environments.
● Example of cultural evolution: the Moari of New Zealand were able to determine the
most useful rocks and animals for domestication within a century of arriving.
● The striking differences in the histories of peoples on different continents have been due
not to differences among the peoples themselves, but to differences in their
environments.
● There are four primary reasons Europeans rose to power and conquered the natives of
North and South America, and not the other way around.
● Reason 1: Continental differences in the plants and animals available for domestication.
The differences are vast. Europe and Asia had the best prospects, then Africa, then the
Americas, then Australia. The improved agricultural aspects led to larger populations
and larger armies in Europe and Asia.
● Reason 2: the rate of diffusion of technological innovation due to the orientation of
continents (east-west vs. north-south) and geographic barriers (mountains, deserts,
etc.). The favorable geography of the Europe and Asia landmass resulted in much faster
agricultural and technological expansion.
● Reason 3: ease of intercontinental diffusion. It was easy for ideas, technologies, and
innovations to spread between Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, it was quite difficult
for things to spread to the Americas because of large oceans and the only close
landmass being in cold climates and at high latitudes unsuitable for farming.
● Reason 4: continental differences in total population size. Europe and Asia had a huge
landmass where there was constant and widespread competition.
● All human societies contain inventive people. It's just that some environments provide
more starting materials and more favorable conditions for utilizing inventions than other
environments.
● The fragmentation of Europe was a key in enabling Columbus to cross the Atlantic. He
was turned down by four different kingdoms before finally convincing the king and queen
of Spain to fund his trip. Meanwhile, Chona had the technology to explore the world by
ship, but their dictator at the time did not want to do so. In this way, one person
prevented an entire made of people (with the technology) from succeeding. A little
 fragmentation is good. Too much centralized power means one person can handcuff the
creativity of many.
● In the 1960s and 1970s, the decisions of a few Chinese leaders resulted in the schools
closing in the country for five years. Crazy how so much centralized power is still playing
a huge role.
● Europe has always been far more fragmented than China. Even at its peak, the Roman
Empire never controlled more than half of Europe.
● Understanding ultimate causes is essential to understanding human behavior.
● Prediction of history is much easier over long time spans, but basically impossible over
short time spans.
● Great discussion of science in the last half of the epilogue.
● Careful observations of natural experiments (things happening in the real world) can
lead to fascinating and useful insights.
● Epidemiology, ecology, and evolutionary biology are developing better methods for
dealing with the confounding factors often present in natural experiments.
 Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod
Nobody knows the best way to deliver your unique idea, no matter how smart they seem. Every
artist has to find a way to make a living and share their work, preferably in a way that doesn't
ruin both. Finding your own voice and sharing that voice with the world is the most important
thing.
● The more unique your idea is, the harder it will be for people to give you good advice.
Ignore everybody.
● You have to put in the hours. Skill, natural talent, etc. matters less and less as you work
more and more hours. In the long run, the people who work hardest, longest win.
● Your friends love you for who you are right now. Good ideas alter the power balance in
relationships because they mean you become something new. You friends may not want
to grow with you. This is why good ideas are always initially resisted.
● Most people are more concerned with what their team members and coworkers think
than if an idea is interesting and useful. Why? Because it hurts to be rejected by the
people we know, so we seek their approval.
● For every artist there is always a tension between sex (what you want to do) and cash
(what pays the bills). As soon as you accept this your career will move ahead faster.
● Team players aren't very good at creating value in their own. “I don't know. What do you
think?”
● If you don't see yourself as particularly creative, then that is a self imposed limitation.
Only you can decide if you carry that limitation around with you forever.
● “Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don't make at
least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself
lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.”
● Most people hide behind pillars. Pillars are fancy equipment, stuff not required to just do
the work.
● Assume that you will receive no recognition for the work you do. Assume that nobody
will care. Then, create it anyway.
● We underestimate how much time, discipline, and stamina play a part in our success.
● “Meanwhile, the competition is at home, working their asses off.”
● No one person can be good at everything. All the great artists and entrepreneurs figure
out ways to get around their limitations. There is no reason being bad at some aspect of
your art should prevent you from sharing the art entirely.
● “I will love you forever. So long as sex maintains its current level.”
● “Quality isn't Job One. Being totally fucking amazing is Job One.”
● “Selling out is harder than it looks. Diluting your product to make it more commercial will
just make people like it less.”
● It's not about the success you receive. It's about what you are going to create with the
short amount of time you have left on this planet.
● “You have to find a way of working that makes it dead easy to take full advantage of your
inspired moments. They never hit at a convenient time, nor do they last long.”
● Writers block is when you have nothing to say, but somehow think you should. Don't be
so hard on yourself. Go out into the world, experience life, and write when you have
something to say.
● Every great artist has their own voice. You have to find yours. (Writing plus sketches?)
● The best way to get approval is to not need it.
● “People who are ‘ready' give off a different vibe from people who aren't… The minute
you become ready is the minute you stop dreaming.”
● “The less you can live on, the more chance your idea will succeed. This is true even
after you've made it.”
● “Savor obscurity while it lasts. Once you make it your work is never the same.”
● “Work hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Create
your own luck. Be nice. Be polite.”
Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre by
Keith Johnstone

Many of our behaviors are driven by our desire to achieve a particular level of status relative to
those around us. People are continually raising and lowering their status in conversation
through body language and words. Say yes to more and stop blocking the opportunities that
come your way.
● Johnstone’s work has been to rediscover the imaginative response in adults and to
rekindle the power of children’s creativity.
● Johnstone banished aimless discussion from meetings and turned them into enactment
sessions. It was what happened that mattered, not what anybody said about it.
● You are not imaginatively impotent until you are dead. You are only frozen up.
● On the perils of learning creative principles: Dullness is not the consequence of age, but
of education. As we learn creative principles like composition and balance, we start
seeing the world as it ought to be rather than as it is. The problem is that the world as it
is, is actually far more interesting than the version our educated minds wish it to be. We
have to relearn how to attend to the world as it is rather than being disappointed for it not
perfectly matching the rules we have been taught.
● Whenever you hear something, you should reverse it and see if the opposite is also true.
Never believe something merely because it is convenient.
● Normal education is designed to reduce spontaneity and make things orderly and
understood. Johnstone’s theater improvisation teaching techniques were designed to do
exactly the opposite.
● People insist on categorizing and selecting. We are always choosing the best, the top,
the most, the biggest, the smallest. Is this necessary?
● On writing fluently: inspiration isn’t intellectual and you don’t have to be perfect. When
you write and write and write and edit and edit and edit, you become so constrained that
you lose flow.
● On the perils of intelligence: I accepted the idea that my intelligence was the most
important part of me. I tried to be clever in everything I did. In the end, I was reluctant to
attempt anything for fear of failure. My first thoughts never seemed good enough.
Everything had to be corrected and brought into line.
● Maybe school teaches us not to respond in a natural way, but to respond in a muted
way. We unconsciously learn to copy our teachers. To act like we’ve been there before.
To cross our arms, fold our legs, and lean back from the book or the film, rather than into
it.
● On the stupidity of judging people based on their intelligence: I learned to value people
for their actions, rather than their thoughts.
● gradually I realised that I wouldn't work for people I didn't like.
● I'd argue that a director should never demonstrate anything to an actor, that a director
should allow the actor to make his own discoveries, that the actor should think he'd done
all the work himself. I objected to the idea that the director should work out the moves
before the production started. I said that if an actor forgot a move that had been decided
on, then the move was probably wrong.
● The authors of the pseudo-plays assumed that writing should be based on other writing,
not on life.
● I began to think of children not as immature adults, but of adults as atrophied children.
● We learned that things invented on the spur of the moment could be as good or better
than the texts we laboured over.
● the bulk of discussion time is visibly taken up with transactions of status which have
nothing to do with the problem to be solved.
● My attitude is like Edison's, who found a solvent for rubber by putting bits of rubber in
every solution he could think of, and beat all those scientists who were approaching the
problem theoretically.
● Lacking solutions, I had to find my own.
● combining the imagination of two people which would be additive, rather than
subtractive.
● After a while a pattern is established in which each performance gets better and better
until the audience is like a great beast rolling over to let you tickle it. Then hubris gets
you, you lose your humility, you expect to be loved, and you turn into Sisyphus.
● What really got me started again was an advert for a play of mine in the paper, a play
called The Martian. I had never written such a play, so I phoned up Bryan King, who
directed the theatre. ‘We've been trying to find you,' he said. ‘We need a play for next
week, does the title The Martian suit you?' I wrote the play, and it was well received.
Since then I've deliberately put myself in this position.
● I simply approach each problem on a basis of common sense and try to find the most
obvious solutions possible.
● My feeling is that a good teacher can get results using any method, and that a bad
teacher can wreck any method.
● The first thing I do when I meet a group of new students is (probably) to sit on the floor. I
play low status, and I'll explain that if the students fail they're to blame me. Then they
laugh, and relax, and I explain that really it's obvious that they should blame me, since
I'm supposed to be the expert; and if I give them the wrong material, they'll fail; and if I
give them the right material, then they'll succeed. I play low status physically but my
actual status is going up, since only a very confident and experienced person would put
the blame for failure on himself. At this point they almost certainly start sliding off their
chairs, because they don't want to be higher than me. I have already changed the group
profoundly, because failure is suddenly not so frightening any more. They'll want to test
me, of course; but I really will apologise to them when they fail, and ask them to be
patient with me, and explain that I'm not perfect. My methods are very effective, and
other things being equal, most students will succeed, but they won't be trying to win any
more. The normal teacher-student relationship is dissolved.
● I've also trained myself to make positive comments, and to be as direct as possible. I say
‘Good' instead of'That's enough'.
● Wolpe relaxed his phobic patients and then presented them with a very dilute form of the
thing that scared them. Someone terrified of birds might be asked to imagine a bird, but
one in Australia. At the same time that the image was presented, the patient was
relaxed, and the relaxation was maintained (if it wasn't maintained, if the patient started
to tremble, or sweat or whatever, then something even less alarming would be
presented). Relaxation is incompatible with anxiety; and by maintaining the relaxed
state, and presenting images that gradually neared the centre of the phobia, the state of
alarm was soon dissipated—in most cases.
● An exercise: fix your eyes on some object, and attend to something at the periphery of
your vision. You can see what you're attending to, but actually your mind is assembling
the object from relatively little information. Now look directly, and observe the difference.
This is one way of tricking the mind out of its habitual dulling of the world.
● Suddenly we understood that every inflection and movement implies a status, and that
no action is due to chance, or really ‘motiveless'.
● Status is a confusing term unless it's understood as something one does. You may be
low in social status, but play high, and vice versa.
● The messages are modified by the receivers.
● Every movement, every inflection of the voice implies a status.
● Kings and lords used to surround themselves with dwarfs and cripples so could rise by
the contrast. Some modern celebrities do the same.
● A comedian is someone paid to lower his own or other people's status.
● In my view the man who falls on the banana skin is funny only if he loses status, and if
we don't have sympathy with him.
● Tragedy also works on the see-saw principle: its subject is the ousting of a high-status
animal from the pack.
● When a very high-status person is wiped out, everyone feels pleasure as they
experience the feeling of moving up a step.
● Social animals have inbuilt rules which prevent them each other for food, mates, and so
on. Such animals confront eachother, and sometimes fight, until a hierarchy is
established, after which there is no fighting unless an attempt is being made to change
the ‘pecking order'.
● In animals the pattern of eye contacts often establishes dominance.
● Dark glasses raise status because we can't see the submission of the eyes.
● Those who hold eye contacts report that they feel powerful—and actually look powerful.
Those who break eye contact and glance back ‘feel' feeble, and look it.
● I might then begin to insert a tentative ‘er' at the beginning of each of my sentences, and
ask the group if they detect any change in me. They say that I look ‘helpless' and ‘weak'
but they can't, interestingly enough, say what I'm doing that's different. I don't normally
begin every sentence with ‘er', so it should be very obvious. Then I move the ‘er' into the
middle of sentences, and they say that they perceive me as becoming a little stronger.
● I'm keeping my head still whenever I speak, and that this produces great changes in the
way I perceive myself and am perceived by others.
● Moment by moment each person adjusts his status up or down a fraction.
● The body has reflexes that protect it from attack. We have a ‘fear-crouch' position in
which the shoulders lift to protect the jugular and the body curls forward to protect the
underbelly. It's more effective against carnivores than against policemen jabbing at your
kidneys, but it evolved a long time ago. The opposite to this fear crouch is the ‘cherub
posture', which opens all the planes of the body: the head turns and tilts to offer the
 neck, the shoulders turn the other way to expose the chest, the spine arches slightly
backwards and twists so that the pelvis is in opposition to the shoulders exposing the
underbelly—and so on. This is the position I usually see cherubs carved in, and the
opening of the body planes is a sign of vulnerability and tenderness, and has a powerful
effect on the onlooker. High-status people often adopt versions of the cherub posture. If
they feel under attack they'll abandon it and straighten, but they won't adopt the fear
crouch. Challenge a low-status player and he'll show some tendency to slide into
postures related to the fear crouch.
● When the highest-status person feels most secure he will be the most relaxed person.
● People will travel a long way to visit a ‘view'. The essential clement of a good view is
distance, and preferably with nothing human in the immediate foreground.
● We're all giving status signals, and exchanging subliminal status challenges all the time.
● teach that a master-servant scene is one in which both parties act as if all the space
belonged to the master. (Johnstone's law!) An extreme example would be the
eighteenth-century scientist Henry Cavendish, who is reported to have fired any servant
he caught sight of! (Imagine the hysterical situations: servants scuttling like rabbits,
hiding in grandfather clocks and ticking, getting stuck in huge vases.)
● I teach that a master-servant scene is one in which both parties act as if all the space
belonged to the master. (Johnstone's law!) An extreme example would be the
eighteenth-century scientist Henry Cavendish, who is reported to have fired any servant
he caught sight of! (Imagine the hysterical situations: servants scuttling like rabbits,
hiding in grandfather clocks and ticking, getting stuck in huge vases.)
● A servant's primary function is to elevate the status of the master.
● Desmond Morris, in The Human Zqo (Cape, 1969; Corgi, 1971) gives ‘ten golden rules'
for people who are Number Ones. He says, ‘They apply to all leaders, from baboons to
modern presidents and prime ministers.' They are: 1. You must clearly display the
trappings, postures and gestures of dominance. 2. In moments of active rivalry you must
threaten your subordinates aggressively. 3. In moments of physical challenge you (or
your delegates) must be able forcibly to overpower your subordinates. 4. If a challenge
involves brain rather than brawn you must be able outwit your subordinates. 5. You must
suppress squabbles that break out between your subordinates. 6. You must reward your
immediate subordinates by permitting them to enjoy the benefits of their high ranks. 7.
You must protect the weaker members of the group from undue on. You must make
decisions concerning the social activities of your 9. You must reassure your extreme
 subordinates from time to time. 10. You must take the initiative in repelling threats or
attacks arising from outside your group.
● It is the lack of pecking-order that makes most crowd scenes look unconvincing. The
‘extras' mill about trying to look ‘real',
● In life, status gaps are often exaggerated to such an extent that they become comical.
Heinrich Harrer met a Tibetan whose servant stood holding a spitoon in case the master
wanted to spit. Queen Victoria would take her position and sit, and there had to be a
chair. George the Sixth used to wear electrically heated underclothes when deerstalking,
which meant a gillie had to follow him around holding the battery.
● Posture implies a status, then you perceive the world quite differently, and the change is
probably permanent. In my view, really accomplished actors, directors, and playwrights
are people with an intuitive understanding of the status transactions that govern human
relationships.
● Once you understand that every sound and posture implies a status, then you perceive
the world quite differently, and the change is probably permanent. In my view, really
accomplished actors, directors, and playwrights are people with an intuitive
understanding of the status transactions that govern human relationships.
● A good play is one which ingeniously displays and reverses the status between the
characters.
● We are pecking-order animals and that this affects the tiniest details of our behaviour.
● Once we eliminate fantasy, then we have no artists.
● Even after his works had been exhibited in court as proof that he wasn't in his right mind,
Henri Rousseau still had the stubbornness to go on painting!
● Many teachers think of children as immature adults. It might lead to better and more
‘respectful' teaching, if we thought of adults as atrophied children. Many ‘well adjusted'
adults are bitter, uncreative frightened, unimaginative, and rather hostile people. Instead
of assuming they were born that way, or that that's what being an adult entails, we might
consider them as people damaged by their education and upbringing.
● It's not surprising that great African sculptors end up carving coffee tables, or that the
talent of our children dies the moment we expect them to become adult. Once we
believe that art is self-expression, then the individual can be criticised not only for his
skill or lack of skill, but simply for being what he is.
● Imagining should be as effortless as perceiving.
● Imagination is as effortless as perception, unless we think it might be ‘wrong', which is
what our education encourages us to believe. Then we experience ourselves as
‘imagining', as ‘thinking up an idea', but what we're really doing is faking up the sort of
imagination we think we ought to have.
● People maintain prejudices quite effortlessly.
● If an improviser is stuck for an idea, he shouldn't search for one, he should trigger his
partner's ability to give ‘unthought' answers.
● My feeling is that sanity is actually a pretence, a way we learn to behave. We keep this
pretence up because we don't want to be rejected by other people—and being classified
insane is to be shut out of the group in a very complete way.
● A Canadian study on attitudes to mental illness concluded that it was when someone's
behaviour was perceived as ‘unpredictable' that the community rejected them.
● Sanity is a matter of interaction, rather than of one's mental processes,
● Laughter is a whip that keeps us in line. It's horrible to be laughed at against your will.
● Many students block their imaginations because they're afraid of being unoriginal. They
believe they know exactly hat originality is.
● Many students block their imaginations because they're afraid of being unoriginal. They
● But the real avant-garde aren't imitating what other people are doing, or what they did
forty years ago; they're solving the problems that need solving, like how to get a popular
theatre with some worth-while content, and they may not look avant-garde at all!
● The improviser has to realise that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. I
constantly point out how much the audience like someone who is direct, and how they
always laugh with pleasure at a really ‘obvious' idea. Ordinary people asked to improvise
will search for some ‘original' idea because they want to be thought clever.
● No two people are exactly alike, and the more obvious an improviser is, the more himself
he appears. If he wants to impress us with his originality, then he'll search out ideas that
are actually commoner and less interesting.
● An artist who is inspired is being obvious. He's not making any decisions, he's not
weighing one idea against another. He's accepting his first thoughts.
● Suppose Mozart had tried to be original? It would have been like a man at the North
Pole trying to walk north, and this is true of all the rest of us. Striving after originality
takes you far away from your true self, and makes your work mediocre.
● There is a link with status transactions here, since low-status players tend to accept, and
high-status players to block. High-status players will block any action unless they feel
they can control it.
● Then we go to the theatre, and at all points where we would say ‘No' in life, we want to
see the actors yield, and say ‘Yes'. Then the action we would suppress if it happened in
life begins to develop on the stage.
● If you'll stop reading for a moment and think of something you wouldn't want to happen
to you, or to someone you love, then you'll have thought of something worth staging or
filming.
● People with dull lives often think that their lives are dull by chance. In reality everyone
chooses more or less what kind of events will happen to them by their conscious
patterns of blocking and yielding. A student objected to this view by saying, ‘But you
don't choose your life. Sometimes you are at the mercy of people who push you around.'
I said, ‘Do you avoid such people?' ‘Oh!' she said,'I see what you mean.'
● Reading about spontaneity won't make you more spontaneous, but it may at least stop
you heading off in the opposite direction; and if you play the exercises with your friends
in a good spirit, then soon all your thinking will be transformed.
● The stages I try to take students through involve the realisation (1) that we struggle
against our imaginations, especially when we try to be imaginative; (2) that we are not
responsible for the content of our imaginations; and (3) that we are not, as we are taught
to think, our ‘personalities', but that the imagination is our true self.
● Content lies in the structure, in what happens, not in what the characters say.
● Even at the level of geometrical signs ‘meaning' is ambiguous. A cross, a circle, and a
swastika contain a ‘content' quite apart from those which we assign to them. The
swastika is symmetrical but unbalanced: it's a good sign for power, it has a clawiness
about it (cartoonists drew swastika spiders scrabbling over the face of Europe). The
circle is stiller, is a much better sign for eternity, for completeness. The cross can stand
for many things, for a meeting-place, for a crossroads, for a kiss, for a reed reflected in a
lake, for a mast, for a sword—but it isn't meaningless just because the interpretations
aren't one-for-one. Whatever a cross suggests to us it won't have the same associations
as a circle, which makes a much better sign for a moon, for example, or for pregnancy.
● I tell improvisers to follow the rules and see what happens, and not to feel in any way
responsible for the material that emerges. If you improvise spontaneously in front of an
 audience you have to accept that your innermost self will be revealed. The same is true
of any artist.
● The improviser has to be like a man walking backwards. He sees where he has been,
but he pays no attention to the future.
● When you act or speak spontaneously, you reveal your real self, as opposed to the self
you've been trained to present.
● This is what my students do all the time. I ask them for an idea and they say ‘. .. oh . . .
aahh . .. um …' as if they couldn't think of one. The brain constructs the universe for us,
so how is it possible to be ‘stuck' for an idea? The student hesitates not because he
doesn't have an idea, but to conceal the inappropriate ones that arrive uninvited.
● If I say ‘Make up a story', then most people are paralysed. If I say ‘describe a routine and
then interrupt it', people see no problem. A film like The Last Detail is based on the
routine of two sailors travelling across America with a prisoner whom they have to
deliver to a prison. The routine is interrupted by their decision to give him a good time.
The story I fantasised earlier about the bear who chased me was presumably an
interruption of the routine ‘Walking through the forest'. Red Riding Hood presents an
interruption of the routine ‘Taking a basket of goodies to Grandma'. Many people think of
finding more interesting routines, which doesn't solve the problem. It may be interesting
to have a vet rectally examining an elephant, or to show b-ain surgeons doing a
particularly delicate operation, but these activities remain routines. If two lavatory
attendants break a routine by starting a brain operation, or if a window cleaner begins to
examine the elephant, then this is likely to generate a narrative. Conversely, two brain
surgeons working as lavatory cleaners immediately sounds like part of a story. If I
describe mountaineers climbing a mountain, then the routine says that they first climb it,
and then they climb down, which isn't much of a story. A film of a mountain climb isn't
necessarily anything more than a documentary.
● As a story progresses it begins to establish other routines and these in their turn have to
be broken.
● It doesn't matter how stupidly you interrupt a routine, you will be automatically creating a
narrative, and people will listen.
● Sometimes stories themselves become so predictable that they become routines.
● I once asked a girl to close her eyes while I put a coin under one of three cups. Secredy
I put a coin under each cup. When I asked her to guess which cup the coin was under,
she was, of course, correct. After she'd made a correct choice about six times, she was
convinced I was somehow controlling her thoughts, and moved into a rather
disassociated state, so I explained, and she ‘snapped out of it'. I would suggest this as a
possible means of inducing hypnosis.
 Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The true measure of our character is

how we treat the poor, the disfavored,
the accused, the incarcerated, and the
condemned. Simply punishing the
broken only ensures that they remain
broken and we do, too. Each of us is
more than the worst thing we've ever
done.

● “Capital punishment means them without the capital get the punishment.”
● The central question behind Stevenson's work is: how and why people are judged
unfairly?
● “[The United States] has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.”
● One in three black male babies born this century is expected to be incarcerated.
● We are the only country in the world that sentences children to life imprisonment without
parole.
● “Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.”
● “The opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice.”
● “The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the
accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”
● If a belief is contextual is it a belief worth holding? For example, let’s say you believe that
people who commit terrible crimes, say a drunk driver who kills an innocent motorist in
an accident, should be immediately condemned to death. What if that “drunk driver” is
your son or daughter, your husband or wife? Suddenly, we start to see the complexity of
the situation. “They are a good person who made a terrible mistake.” And if you pointed
out this inconsistency, I would assume that many people would say, “Well of course
that’s how I’m going to feel. It’s my son. What do you expect?” But that’s sort of the
point: the only thing that changed in this circumstance is the distance between you and
the person committing the crime. When we’re far enough away from the crime that the
person becomes anonymous it is so easy to pass judgment. But when we know their
name, their face, their history, the joy they have brought to our lives and the lives of
others, the jobs they worked, and the movies they laughed at … then it becomes much
more complicated. We see the good and the bad. But the good and the bad is always
there, even if the person is just an anonymous criminal to us. So how strong in that belief
really? Is it worth holding? Or is it better to apply the mercy we would show to mistaken
loved ones to everyone else as well? (Related question: Are all beliefs contextual?)
● Possible error in thinking about racism: do we have a tendency to view things as racial
events rather than racial patterns? We see and acknowledge the well-known racial event
or period (slavery, The Civil War, The Civil Rights Movement) but we overlook and ignore
the fact that racism was largely unchanged and present for the decades between these
events (Jim Crow, sharecropping, etc.). We see the event but forget about the prolonged
pattern. (Unless you are a member of the oppressed group, of course. In which case you
never forget.)
● “The return of white supremacy and racial subordination came quickly after federal
troops left Alabama in the 1870s.”
● “Black men are eight times more likely to be killed by police than whites.”
● “In debates about the death penalty, I had started arguing that we would never think it
was humane to pay someone to rape people convicted of rape or assault and abuse
someone guilty of assault and abuse.”
● By the mid-1990s DNA evidence revealed many wrongly convicted death row inmates.
“In many states, the number of exonerations exceeded the number of executions.”
● “Simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only
ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our
reciprocal humanity.”
● “Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.”
● “The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they
commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to
kill?”
The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel
Durant
Over the course of history, human behavior has changed, but not human nature. No matter who
is in power, the rewards gradually accrue to the most clever and talented individuals. Ideas are
the strongest things of all in history because they can be passed down and change the behavior
of future generations—even a gun was originally an idea.
● History is the most reliable path to understanding the present and anticipating the
problems of the future.
● The aim of this book is not originality, but inclusiveness.
● Our knowledge of any past event is incomplete. Most history is guessing and the rest is
prejudice.
● The historian always oversimplifies.
● The rate of change increases and inventions cause acceleration to go ever faster.
● History cannot be a science, only an industry, an art, and a philosophy. An industry by
ferreting out the facts. An art by seeking order in the chaos of materials. A philosophy by
seeking perspective and understanding.
● Total perspective is an optical illusion. We must operate with partial knowledge.
● Only a fool would try to compress 100 centuries into 100 pages of conclusions. We
proceed.
● History is a combination of the crimes and absurdities of humankind and the parting
contributions. This enabled each generation to proceed with a greater heritage than the
one before.
● Idea: The contributions and improvement of humankind is the story of humankind. Our
story is the story of collective learning. So, let me tell you a story.
● Idea: there are three worlds. The first world is the external world. The second world was
born when thoughts became possible and consciousness emerged. The third world
emerged when our lives became digital. We can now live in a world where we are not
physically there and it is not in our thoughts, but it exists.
● Other sciences tell us how we might behave. History tells us how we have behaved.
● The present is merely the past rolled up into this present moment.
● You are what you are because of your past.
● We know 1,000 things about the news of today, but rarely about the past. How can we
understand our present without knowing our history?
● Example of technology wild gamble: the invention of airplanes totally redefines the world
of trade and commerce. Previously, water was the primary mode of trade and it dictated
which nations rose to power (those with large shorelines like Greece and Italy). Then,
suddenly, airplanes shifted the power to nations with huge land masses in comparison to
their coasts (USA, China, Russia).
● The lesson of history is that man is tough.
● History is the map of human character. To know how man will act you must know how
man has acted.
● Humans will always be nobler than the universe. Despite dying after a mere blip of time,
we know of our existence while the universe knows nothing of its longevity.
● The influence of geographic factors diminishes as technology grows. Man, not the earth,
makes civilization.
● Idea: Technology overpowers environment as time goes on. This trend, however, started
as soon as man was able to fashion tools, which was a form of technology.
● Progress is real. Man influences his control over the environment as time goes on and
technology increases.
● The environment is still the master of man and other species.
● Idea: The trend is clear: our technology is allowing us to overpower our natural world.
Imagine a time when we can control earthquakes or hurricanes or tornados. Or, when
we went to the moon we figured out how to survive outside of the earth’s atmosphere.
We somehow learned to transcend the boundaries of oxygen and spread our species to
new places.
● Geography is the matrix of history. If you live on the coast, you will almost inevitably
become an addict of the sea.
● You can smell the ocean for nearly anywhere in Great Britain. What happened? They
took to the sea and became the finest naval seamen in history.
● We are controlled by everything around us and in us, but neither one of those two is the
whole story.
● Everything was involved in what made us.
● Idea: we are the product of all of the previous events in history summed up and rolled
into the present moment. However, even though everything is involved in what made us,
 there are a few forces that carry most of the weight. Those forces are genetics, culture,
environment, and technology.
● The first biological lesson of history is that life is competition.
● Cooperation is real and it expands as technologies evolve, but mostly because it is a
form of competition. We cooperate within our group, family, community, and nation in
order to make our group more powerful.
● Cooperation is the ultimate form of competition.
● The second biological lesson of history is that life is selection.
● From nature’s standpoint, we are all born unfree and unequal.
● Nature loves difference because it is what allow selection to focus on the strong and
eliminate the weak.
● Question: how many organisms get selected for? In a given population, what are the
odds of a particular set of traits living on and how robust are those odds? What
percentage of genes remain during this process?
● Freedom and equality are everlasting enemies. When one fails, the other dies.
● Only the man below the average desires equality. Those who are conscious of being
above average desire freedom. In the end, superior ability has its way.
● The third biological lesson of history is that life must breed.
● Nature likes large litters and the struggle for survival that ends up selecting the strongest
few.
● Every advance in agriculture and food production is eventually nullified by the increase
in number of mouths to feed.
● Medicine and technology nullify natural selection by keeping the unfit alive.
● Much of what we call intelligence is the result of individual education, opportunity, and
experience.
● The fertile inherit the earth. The birth rate may determine the fate of belief systems
because the more people believe an idea and the more people are trained in an idea
(usually the kids of believers), the more that idea will take hold. This has happened with
religion throughout a lot of history, but perhaps now it is happening with science.
● All of the history of humankind is a short chapter in the history of biology. And all of
biology is a short chapter in the history of the planet. And the planet is a short chapter in
the history of the universe.
● History is the story of humankind in a struggle with other species and themselves for the
limited resources and gifts of the environment. Competition is the basic law.
● Competition used to be among individuals. Then it was enlarged and it was among
families. Then it was enlarged and it was among communities. And so on.
● The basic reality is competition. If you are not competing in life, what would you
develop? A certain degree of competition is necessary not only for progress, but also for
survival.
● Idea: Will competition ever be enlarged enough to not be between humans? We would
need a stunning wild gamble where another species forces us to bond together and
compete against a common foe.
● The child learns through their hands in early life. So perhaps standing on two feet was
the method through which man became intelligent.
● Idea: It makes sense to me that intelligence and bipedal walking co-evolved.
● The role of accident was essential for the progress of humankind, but now, suddenly that
is changing. Culture was the first way we began overpowering the role of accident.
(Think the education system and teaching humans.) Technology is the second (and
faster) way we are overpowering the role of accident in genetic evolution and the
progress of humankind. Now you can be dealt a poor genetic hand (think learning
disability) and our culture and our technology can still help you to survive.
● History is colorblind and can develop a civilization under any race and in nearly any
circumstance.
● In the long run, differences between people yield to the environment.
● People like to think they are a little special. Without this bit of vanity, we might find it
harder to push forward. In a way, delusion is a motivator.
● Human nature is the fundamental feelings and tendencies of humankind.
● By and large, the poor have the same impulses as the rich, but with less opportunity or
skill to implement them.
● Social evolution is an interplay of custom with origination.
● The imitative majority follows the innovative minority. History is largely the battle of a few
minorities, the winner of which is then lauded as the victor by the majority.
● Out of every 100 ideas, 99 will likely be inferior to the traditional alternative it was
proposed to replace.
● No one person can become so well-informed in one lifetime to rethink and fully
understand the customs and demands of the entire society.
● It is good for new ideas to be heard for the sake of the few that can be used. But it is
also good for new ideas to be tested and questioned.
● Society is not founded on the ideals of humankind, but on the nature of humankind. We
are a product of the forces and instincts that drive us.
● The basic lesson of history is that humans are essentially what they have been all
throughout history. He changes his habits, but not his instincts.
● Over the course of history, human behavior has changed, but not human nature.
● The hero is just the product of a situation. Not the other way around. If it were not for the
situation, we never would have heard of the hero.
● In a way, you could say mental toughness or heroism or other qualities of character are
merely the outcome of what the situation demands.
● Morals are the way society exhorts behavior from its members.
● We can divide history into three stages: hunting, agriculture, and industry.
● It’s possible that things that are vices today were once virtues.
● Gradually, industry changed the structure of human culture and morality. People left the
home and tribe to work in factories and live in cities, etc.
● History as it is usually lived is different from history as it is usually written. By definition,
historians focus on the exceptional.
● Two examples of huge shifts in our cultural evolution: Copernicus and his discovery that
we were but one planet is a vast ocean of planets and galaxies. Darwin and his
discovery that we were just an animal that evolved from many other animals. These two
beliefs radically changed how strongly we believed in religion. If we are but one of many
planets, why would God care so much about us? If evolution is true, how could an
intelligent designer have created us?
● Civilization itself is the most remarkable thing humankind has done.
● Civilization requires a delicate balance of social impulses with animal impulses.
● Durant defines civilization as social order that promotes cultural creation, so you need
order and personal freedom / creative liberty. These appear to be at odds with one
another, but it is often a tense, delicate balance between the two. If social order is too
strong, freedom is restricted. If social order is too low, cooperation is not enabled to the
degree to create civilization.
● You want to reign in your impulses and weaknesses to the point where they are useful,
but not excessive.
● It is very dangerous for an individual to think that — even with 30 or 40 years of studying
— he can judge and overcome the collective wisdom of the human race. Old ideas are
very powerful.
● It is very possible that religion has enabled humans to collaborate all throughout history
and make civilization possible.
● The goal of religion and morals and ethics and really any shared belief system is at least
partially to overcome the impulses of our hunter-gatherer, reptilian brain. We try to
overcome our animal instincts with social instincts. We are casting votes for a new
identity that we hope will overpower the natural identity we have.
● One interesting take on why the decline of religion is quite bad: if religion is the shared
belief that unifies a civilization and that belief system dies, then what will hold the
civilization together?
● In every age, the forces of the individual seem to overpower the forces of the group.
When all else fails, people will do what serves them best. They will do what ensures their
survival.
● Idea: perhaps our natural wiring to ensure our own survival at all costs is why we are so
moved by the act of sacrificing yourself for another. Think: Hodor in Game of Thrones.
● The word sin is relevant only in the sense of the individual violating the group.
● Reason cannot be the dominant aspect of any age because it is just an instrument.
Reason and rationality are tools for thinking, but there are many other useful approaches
that involve reason like sentiment.
● No one individual can ever hope to hold a candle to the insights of humanity as a whole.
It is a fool's errand to think your ideas will be capable of battling such proven concepts.
● Without religion, it is very possible that the world would have been less moral. Yes,
immorality and crime still persisted, but the forces of religion probably dampened their
effects.
● As time wore on, philosophers became the driving forces behind societal changes rather
than the church. And then, eventually science stole that job from philosophy.
● If history supports any religion it is probably dualism, which would explain the good
things and bad things that occasionally happen through the lens of a good god and an
evil god.
● The ultimate result of the industrial revolution was the replacement of religious entities
with secular ones.
● Previously we thought laws were dictated by God. Now it is clear that they are dictated
by fallible humans.
● One lesson of history is that religions have a way of reviving themselves.
● There is no example in history of a society maintaining moral life among the masses
without religion as a force for binding people together.
● The function of religion is to give humankind a belief to be able to tolerate life.
● The individual instincts were hardwired into us by evolution. They are millions of years
old. The social instincts are much younger and were learned over the last 70,000 years.
● Idea: In order for a group to let social instincts override the instincts of each individual,
we need powerful beliefs and concepts. If we were just a horde of unconnected
individuals we would never cooperate. This is where law and religion and capitalism
come into play. They are ideas powerful enough to unite us despite our individual
instincts.
● It seems arrogant to doubt tradition too much, too think that your supposedly brilliant
mind could develop a better solution in 30 or 40 years than humankind has developed
over thousands of years of working together. For this reason, it’s quite possible that we
discount how useful and powerful religion can be.
● You should never trust an old man to be the judgment of youth because they would just
cut off the bold things youth would do before they could do them.
● Idea: this boldness, in fact, is the only way that humankind advances. Most ideas we
propose in our boldest moments are wrong. How could they not be? It’s not as if we are
easily capable of thinking up something brilliant in our narrow window of time on earth.
However, every now and then, the bold youth develops an idea that completely redefines
the world and if we are to make progress, if we are to become better, we must be bold
enough and delusional enough to believe that we can have those ideas.
● Idea: even Plato said that “a certain portion of the population” did not believe in God. So
there were probably many proposals and creations that went against God. Many wild
gambles that failed. But it was only after science was created that we had a wild gamble
that proved worthy of the battle.
● Science deals largely with the external world. It has almost nothing to do with the internal
world. What is consciousness? How can we answer this question with science?
● The men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things and the
men who can manage money manage all.
● Normally, men are judged by their ability to produce. Except in war, when they are
ranked based on their ability to destroy.
● The concentration of wealth in a small portion of the population is a pattern that repeats
itself throughout history. The most valuable talents and skills are confined to a few
 people, which means the most valuable wealth is confined to a few as well. This pattern
shows up again and again.
● Liberty is possible when security has been achieved, but until that point you are facing
competition. It is only because of competition that we developed the ability to create
liberty.
● The first condition of freedom is limitation. If freedom is absolute, then it dies in chaos.
The prime task of government is to establish order.
● The Pax Romana was perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of governance.
● If the majority of abilities are contained within a minority of men (that is, if a few people
have more valuable skills than most others), then a minority rule is as inevitable as a
disproportionate concentration of wealth.
● All consuming toil is usually the price of genius.
● The sanity of the individual lies in the continuity of his memories. The sanity of the group
lies in the continuity of its traditions. Break away from either too fast and chaos follows.
● The only real revolution is in the enlightenment of the mind and the improvement of
character. The only real emancipation is individual. The only real revolutionists are
philosophers and saints.
● The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.
● Idea: this is a disturbing thought, but once culture and shared thought evolved, we
suddenly developed the capacity to perform large swathes of “natural selection” on those
who disagree with us. Imagine a revolt within a country where one group commits
genocide on another group. These mass killings are largely ideological. In a sense, we
could say that these killings are a form of “survival of the fittest”, but in this case it is the
ideas that the ruling group deems fit rather than physical fitness. Suddenly, ideology
becomes a form of natural selection and because we are the ones with the ideas, we are
now the force that selects them. If you take this line of thinking far enough, you get to
some dangerous territory. Who decides which ideas are fit?
● You can’t fool all of the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a
large country.
● Democracy has done less harm and more good than any other form of government.
● The goal of democracy is not to make every man equal, but to make his access to
opportunity more equal. The ideal is not to raise every man to power, but to give him
access to each point of entry where his fitness and skill can be tested. In other words,
 the hope of democracy is to offer a level playing field to start and to let your talents carry
you where they may.
● At what point does liberty become excessive? At what point does it become disorder?
● Civilization is made possible by self-restraint. It is clear that freedom is made possible by
boundaries of some sort. If we cross those boundaries, we have chaos not civilization.
● You cannot have freedom without order.
● War seems to be a constant among all civilizations and times. It is a result of competition
among groups just as individuals compete as well.
● War is, paradoxically, the driver of much technological change and cultural change that
leads to long periods of peace afterward.
● We repeatedly enlarge our instruments without enlarging our purpose. We have
developed more complex ways to pursue basic human needs.
● We can define progress as the increasing control of the environment by life.
● If education is the measure of progress then we have progressed more than ever before.
Education is the transmission of as much of human heritage and learning as we can fully
achieve.
● If progress is real, it is not because we are any richer or wiser than those of the past, but
because we are born at a higher level and further up the pedestal of our heritage. We
are born with the fruits of a larger portion of human heritage.
● Do not feel depressed that life may only have meaning insofar as man puts into it. It is
remarkable that we can put any meaning into life at all. The thing that is rare is the
capability to even invent meaning for ourselves, for such a task appears impossible for
all other animals.
● Do not be an optimist or a pessimist. Instead, be a realist. Accept that life is composed
of difficulties and delights. The difficulties are a natural price of existence. The delights
are goodies you don’t necessarily deserve.
● It is hard to get a sense of the quality of one’s own age. We usually know more about a
previous age’s achievements than their faults. Meanwhile, we usually know more about
our faults and downplay our achievements. This makes comparison between ages
difficult.
● Human nature changes, but it changes at an incredibly slow, geological pace. We can
say with reasonable certainty that human nature has been virtually unchanged in the last
2,000 years and quite possibly far longer than that. Human nature is strongly linked to
 biology. These are the intrinsic traits that we have and they change very slowly through
evolution.
● Progress is an improvement in the means that we use for achieving the same old ends.
It’s possible that our progress is only of means and not of ends. Do we merely achieve
the same desires of 10,000 years ago, but through new, modern means.
● Human nature is uncivilized. It is almost contra-civilization. It is only through culture and
restraint and morality that we acquire civilized activities.
● The technique of disseminating heritage and absorbing it has grown incredibly over time.
Culture is developing a tighter strangle hold on our behavior than ever before. One way
to explain this is to say that there is far more to learn and inherit than there was even
100 years ago. The wealth of human knowledge increases with each passing year and
endows a slightly greater advantage to those born today than those born yesterday.
● “Consider education not as a painful accumulation of facts and dates and reigns, nor
merely the necessary preparation of the individual to earn his keep in the world, but as a
transmission of our mental, moral, technical, and aesthetic heritage. As fully as possible
to as many as possible for the embellishment of man’s understanding, control, and
enjoyment of life. The heritage that we can now more fully transmit is richer than ever
before. It is richer than that of Pericles, for it includes the Greek following that followed
him. Richer than Leonardo’s for it includes him and the Italian renaissance. Richer than
Voltaire for it embraces all the French enlightenment and its ecumenical dissemination.”
-Will Durant
● “If progress is real despite our whining, it is not because we are born any healthier,
better, or wiser than infants were in the past, but because we are born to a richer
heritage, born on a higher level of that pedestal which the accumulation of knowledge
and art raises as the ground and support of our being. The heritage rises, and man rises
in proportion as he receives it.” -Will Durant
● “History is philosophy teaching by examples.” -Henry St. John
● Revolutions are just surface level changes. Human nature remains the same. The
people merely change with the revolution and fall back into the same underlying
patterns.
● Every generation rebels against the preceding one. In many ways, it is natural and
desirable.
● When everybody owns everything, nobody takes care of anything.
● You cannot make men equal by passing laws.
● Economic history is the slow heartbeat of the social organism. No matter who is in
power, the gains gradually accrue to the most clever and talented. Then, eventually,
there is some fracturing of the order, a new minority rises to power, and the pattern
repeats itself.
● Most of the poor are victims of racial discrimination and environmental handicaps.
● Every life, every society, and every species is an experiment. It all ends in death
eventually.
● Every religion should preach morality, not theology.
● Persons under 30 should never trust the economic, political, and moral ideas of other
persons under 30.
● Let our sons and daughters be punished when they break the law, but let us believe in
them when they open their hearts.
● Ideas are the strongest things of all in history. Even a gun was originally an idea.
● In old age, you understand how good it is that there should be radicals and how good it
is that there should be conservatives. The radicals supply the gas and the conservatives
apply the brakes. Both of those functions are indispensable. That tension is required for
a functioning society.
Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His
Son by John Graham
This book is a series of letters written by a successful entrepreneur, John Graham, to his son
offering various pieces of advice throughout the boy’s college years and early career. For
example, 1) It isn’t so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that
counts. 2) Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it
impossible. 3) A good wife doubles a man’s expenses and doubles his happiness, and that’s a
pretty good investment if a fellow’s got the money to invest. And many other insights.
● You’ll find that education’s about the only thing lying around loose in this world, and that
it’s about the only thing a fellow can have as much of as he’s willing to haul away.
● Some men learn the value of money by not having any and starting out to pry a few
dollars loose from the odd millions that are lying around; and some learn it by having fifty
thousand or so left to them and starting out to spend it as if it were fifty thousand a year.
Some men learn the value of truth by having to do business with liars; and some by
going to Sunday School. Some men learn the cussedness of whiskey by having a
drunken father; and some by having a good mother. Some men get an education from
other men and newspapers and public libraries; and some get it from professors and
parchments—it doesn’t make any special difference how you get a half-nelson on the
right thing, just so you get it and freeze on to it.
● The first thing that any education ought to give a man is character, and the second thing
is education.
● I know a young fellow with the right sort of stuff in him preaches to himself harder than
any one else can, and that he’s mighty often switched off the right path by having it
pointed out to him in the wrong way.
● I’m anxious that you should be a good scholar, but I’m more anxious that you should be
a good clean man.
● Education’s a good deal like eating—a fellow can’t always tell which particular thing did
him good, but he can usually tell which one did him harm.
● College doesn’t make fools; it develops them. It doesn’t make bright men; it develops
them. A fool will turn out a fool, whether he goes to college or not, though he’ll probably
turn out a different sort of a fool.
● It isn’t so much knowing a whole lot, as knowing a little and how to use it that counts.
● The sooner you adjust your spending to what your earning capacity will be, the easier
they will find it to live together.
● I can’t hand out any ready-made success to you. It would do you no good, and it would
do the house harm. There is plenty of room at the top here, but there is no elevator in
the building.
● Pay day is always a month off for the spend-thrift, and he is never able to realize more
than sixty cents on any dollar that comes to him. But a dollar is worth one hundred and
six cents to a good business man, and he never spends the dollar. It’s the man who
keeps saving up and expenses down that buys an interest in the concern.
● The boy who does anything just because the other fellows do it is apt to scratch a poor
man’s back all his life.
● Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow.
● Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The
first are all theory; the second are all practice.
● I wanted you to form good mental habits, just as I want you to have clean, straight
physical ones.
● It’s not what a man does during working-hours, but after them, that breaks down his
health.
● A clear mind is one that is swept clean of business at six o’clock every night and isn’t
opened up for it again until after the shutters are taken down next morning.
● Putting off an easy thing makes it hard, and putting off a hard one makes it impossible.
● Habits rule a man’s life.
● On travel: Seeing the world is like charity—it covers a multitude of sins, and, like charity,
it ought to begin at home.
● Have something to say. Say it. Stop talking.
● It’s all right when you are calling on a girl or talking with friends after dinner to run a
conversation like a Sunday-school excursion, with stops to pick flowers; but in the office
your sentences should be the shortest distance possible between periods.
● It’s easier to look wise than to talk wisdom. Say less than the other fellow and listen
more than you talk; for when a man’s listening he isn’t telling on himself and he’s
flattering the fellow who is.
● You’ll read a good deal about “love at first sight” in novels, and there may be something
in it for all I know; but I’m dead certain there’s no such thing as love at first sight in
 business. A man’s got to keep company a long time, and come early and stay late and
sit close, before he can get a girl or a job worth having.
● All he ever needed was a few hundred for a starter, and to get that he’d decide to let me
in on the ground floor. I want to say right here that whenever any one offers to let you in
on the ground floor it’s a pretty safe rule to take the elevator to the roof garden.
● I want to say right here that whenever any one offers to let you in on the ground floor it’s
a pretty safe rule to take the elevator to the roof garden.
● I don’t know anything that a young business man ought to keep more entirely to himself
than his dislikes, unless it is his likes. It’s generally expensive to have either, but it’s
bankruptcy to tell about them.
● Superiority makes every man feel its equal. It is courtesy without condescension;
affability without familiarity; self-sufficiency without selfishness; simplicity without snide.
● There’s no easier way to cure foolishness than to give a man leave to be foolish. And the
only way to show a fellow that he’s chosen the wrong business is to let him try it.
● I want to say right here that the easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire
friends.
● Get the scent in your nostrils and keep your nose to the ground, and don’t worry too
much about the end of the chase. The fun of the thing’s in the run and not in the finish.
● The fun of the thing’s in the run and not in the finish.
● Never marry a poor girl who’s been raised like a rich one. She’s simply traded the virtues
of the poor for the vices of the rich without going long on their good points. To marry for
money or to marry without money is a crime. There’s no real objection to marrying a
woman with a fortune, but there is to marrying a fortune with a woman.
● While you are at it, there’s nothing like picking out a good-looking wife, because even
the handsomest woman looks homely sometimes, and so you get a little variety; but a
homely one can only look worse than usual. Beauty is only skin deep, but that’s deep
enough to satisfy any reasonable man. (I want to say right here that to get any sense out
of a proverb I usually find that I have to turn it wrong side out.) Then, too, if a fellow’s
bound to marry a fool, and a lot of men have to if they’re going to hitch up into a
well-matched team, there’s nothing like picking a good-looking one.
● You can trust a woman’s taste on everything except men; and it’s mighty lucky that she
slips up there or we’d pretty nigh all be bachelors.
● Marrying the wrong girl is the one mistake that you’ve got to live with all your life.
● There’s nothing in the world sicker-looking than the grin of the man who’s trying to join in
heartily when the laugh’s on him, and to pretend that he likes it.
● Always remember that a man who’s making a claim never underestimates his case, and
that you can generally compromise
● It looks to me as if you were trying only half as hard as you could, and in trying it’s the
second half that brings results.
● He knew his business. And when a fellow knows his business, he doesn’t have to
explain to people that he does. It isn’t what a man knows, but what he thinks he knows
that he brags about. Big talk means little knowledge.
● There’s a vast difference between having a carload of miscellaneous facts sloshing
around loose in your head and getting all mixed up in transit, and carrying the same
assortment properly boxed and crated for convenient handling and immediate delivery.
● Poverty never spoils a good man, but prosperity often does. It’s easy to stand hard
times, because that’s the only thing you can do, but in good times the fool-killer has to
do night work.
● Most men get cross-eyed when they come to size themselves up, and see an angel
instead of what they’re trying to look at. There’s nothing that tells the truth to a woman
like a mirror, or that lies harder to a man.
● Tact is the knack of keeping quiet at the right time; of being so agreeable yourself that no
one can be disagreeable to you; of making inferiority feel like equality. A tactful man can
pull the stinger from a bee without getting stung.
● When you make a mistake, don’t make the second one—keeping it to yourself. Own up.
The time to sort out rotten eggs is at the nest.
● Some salesmen think that selling is like eating—to satisfy an existing appetite; but a
good salesman is like a good cook—he can create an appetite when the buyer isn’t
hungry.
● Of course, clothes don’t make the man, but they make all of him except his hands and
face during business hours, and that’s a pretty considerable area of the human animal. A
dirty shirt may hide a pure heart, but it seldom covers a clean skin. If you look as if you
had slept in your clothes, most men will jump to the conclusion that you have, and you
will never get to know them well enough to explain that your head is so full of noble
thoughts that you haven’t time to bother with the dandruff on your shoulders.
● Appearances are deceitful, I know, but so long as they are, there’s nothing like having
them deceive for us instead of against us.
● But it isn’t enough to be all right in this world; you’ve got to look all right as well, because
two-thirds of success is making people think you are all right.
● A man can’t do what he pleases in this world, because the higher he climbs the plainer
people can see him.
● Jack had enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the best shortening for any job; it makes heavy
work light.
● A good many young fellows envy their boss because they think he makes the rules and
can do as he pleases. As a matter of fact, he’s the only man in the shop who can’t. He’s
like the fellow on the tight-rope—there’s plenty of scenery under him and lots of room
around him, but he’s got to keep his feet on the wire all the time and travel straight
ahead.
● No man can ask more than he gives. A fellow who can’t take orders can’t give them.
● There’s no alarm clock for the sleepy man like an early rising manager; and there’s
nothing breeds work in an office like a busy boss.
● You can’t work individuals by general rules. Every man is a special case and needs a
special pill.
● The fellow who can’t read human nature can’t manage it.
● Be slow to hire and quick to fire.
● But when you find that you’ve hired the wrong man, you can’t get rid of him too quick.
Pay him an extra month, but don’t let him stay another day.
● Some fellows can only see those above them, and others can only see those under
them, but a good man is cross-eyed and can see both ends at once.
● A man’s as good as he makes himself, but no man’s any good because his grandfather
was.
● A man who does big things is too busy to talk about them.
● There are two things you never want to pay any attention to—abuse and flattery. The
first can’t harm you and the second can’t help you.
● As long as you can’t please both sides in this world, there’s nothing like pleasing your
own side.
● There are mighty few people who can see any side to a thing except their own side.
● Worrying is the one game in which, if you guess right, you don’t get any satisfaction out
of your smartness. A busy man has no time to bother with it.
● Money ought never to be the consideration in marriage, but it always ought to be a
consideration. When a boy and a girl don’t think enough about money before the
ceremony, they’re going to have to think altogether too much about it after;
● A good wife doubles a man’s expenses and doubles his happiness, and that’s a pretty
good investment if a fellow’s got the money to invest.
● I’ve never been one who could get a great deal of satisfaction out of dreams.
● With most people happiness is something that is always just a day off. But I have made
it a rule never to put off being happy till to-morrow.
 Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends
On It by Kamal Ravikant
Everyone has a truth that they need to live and share. For the author, that truth was committing
to the daily practice of repeating the phrase “I love myself.” When you love yourself, life loves
you back.
● Share your truth. Whatever your truth is, live it. Share it.
● James Altucher: “I don’t do a post now unless I’m worried about what people will think
about me.”
● In simplicity lies truth. In simplicity lies power.
● This is a practice. You don’t go to the gym once and consider yourself done. Loving
yourself is a practice.
● During a dark time in his life when he was feeling incredibly stressed and even
depressed, the author kept repeating to himself day and night, “I love myself.”
● His mantra became his anchor. The one true thing in his life.
● He kept repeating it until it surprised himself doing it automatically. “Imagine the feeling
of catching yourself loving yourself without even realizing you were doing it.”
● What if you don’t believe it? Doesn’t matter. Your role is to lay down the pathway for
doing it. Connect the neurons and your body and mind will respond automatically.
● As you love yourself, life loves you back.
● There are three steps to gently return himself to self-love each day: 1) Mental loop, 2)
Meditation, 3) One Question.
● If you loved yourself truly and deeply, would you limit your life to what you previously
thought possible? Nope. You would blow your own socks off.
● What if you don’t love yourself or even like yourself? Just remain open to the possibility
of loving yourself. The rest is easy.
● Darkness is simply the absence of light. You can’t push darkness away. You can’t hide
from it. Similarly, you can’t hide from depression, anxiety, self-hate, and more. And you
don’t need to. The only thing you need to do is turn a light on. To let the sun shine in
through the window. Whenever you feel like you are in darkness, just let light in through
the window. You don’t need to escape or destroy the darkness. Just let in the light.
● Step 1: Mental Loop
● A thought loop is a pathway laid down by constant use. With enough time and intensity,
if you repeat it again and again, you start to create a mental river that controls you. You
believe it is automatic and the reality you live in, but really it is just a mental loop you
have repeated too many times.
● You can reverse this process. You can create your own focused mental loops. Repeat, “I
love myself” again and again and again. Lay the pathway for that loop to run over and
over. Eventually, it will take hold whether you believe it or not.
● You need to create a groove that is deeper than those unhappy and unhelpful grooves
you’ve laid down over the years.
● Step 2: Meditation
● Each day, the author listens to a 7-minute piece of music that he likes and thinks, “I love
myself.”
● Pattern: Inhale > Think “I love myself” > Exhale > Let out whatever thoughts you have.
● Step 3: Question
● “If I love myself truly and deeply, would I let myself experience this?” The answer was
always “no” for the author.
● This question gently shifts your focus from wherever you are to self-love.
● Can you say, “I’m in love” and have it simply be with yourself? Of course you can. If you
love yourself, you naturally shine. You get a spring in your step and your smile comes
out.
● Beautiful irony: fall in love with yourself and naturally express yourself and the world will
beat a path to your door to fall in love with you.
● The more you think about it, the more you feel it, the stronger the memory. The more you
recall something, the more it strengthens. The emotions you focus on are the same. The
more you focus on negative aspects of your memory, the more they take control. They
more you focus on the positive thoughts and loving yourself, the more they take control.
● Most of what we fear is not useful and not real. When fear arises your job is to remind
yourself of this. “Not useful. Not real. Continue on.”
● Don’t let yourself coast when things are going great. “It’s easy to wish for your health
when you’re sick. But you need to be just as vigilant when things are going great.”
● If you love yourself truly and deeply, you’ll commit to the practice. You won’t get lazy
when things are going well.
● Loving yourself is like putting your oxygen mask on before helping the person next to
you. Loving yourself softens your own ego. Fear hardens your ego. It’s easier to be
helpful and kind when you love yourself.
● Instead of reading loads of self-help books, we should just focus on one thing. Put all our
energy toward that. And place a bet on one thing. For the author, that one thing is “I love
myself.”
● The one key that makes all of this work is this: make the vow. Make the commitment and
make it on paper. Make the vow to yourself to live your truth. Write down whatever it is
that speaks to you. The words don’t matter. Just make sure it comes from you and it is in
your own words. That’s how the magic will happen.
 Manual for Living by Epictetus
Some things are in your power and some are not—do not confuse the two and do not desire the
things that are not in your power. It is our opinion of things that determines how we feel about a
particular event, not the event itself. Think carefully about how you spend your life because
people often spend their lives chasing things that are neither as desirable nor as important as
they seem.
● Some things are in our power and some are not. Examples of things not in our power:
reputation, power, and the things that are not our own acts.
● Remember, if you think the things that are in the power of others are in your own power,
then you will be hindered, frustrated, and annoyed.
● If you desire to do great things, then remember that you must give things your full
attention — not just a mild effort — and leave many other things alone for the time being.
● Before setting your sights on a goal make sure that said goal is within your power — that
is, that it is something you actually have control over — and if it is not within your power,
do not let it concern you.
● Do not be averted to the things not within your power — illness, death, disease, etc. — if
you desire anything not within your power, the result will be unfortunate.
● “It is the act of an ill-instructed man to blame others for his own bad condition.” Your
opinion of things is what makes them good or bad. You are responsible for your own
opinions, thoughts, and feelings.
● Most challenges are an impediment to a particular thing, but not to your will or to you as
a person. “Going lame is an impediment to your leg, but not to your will.”
● If you get the raw end of a business deal or if someone steals from you or if some small
misfortune befalls you — don’t fret over it. Such is the price of living in tranquility and not
allowing every small setback to ruin your life. It is much better to live this way than to try
and squeeze every ounce out of each opportunity for you to get more or get what you
are owed.
● If you seem to be a person of importance to some people, ignore them. Realize you
know nothing. If you accept that you are a person of importance, it becomes harder to
learn.
● Accept the things that come to you — wealth, power, food, relationships, etc. — with
grace and dignity, but do not desire them before they get to you.
● When someone responds negatively to an event — like crying when their child goes off
to college — offer them sympathy and support, but notice that this event does not effect
others. The stranger on the corner does not weep. Thus, it is not the event that is
negative, but the person’s opinion of it. Although you may offer outward sympathy and
support, do not let such events effect you internally.
● I disagree with Epictetus’ point about “we are all actors and your job is to play the role
you’ve been given.” I get that he is making an attempt at saying, “Don’t try to be
someone you’re not,” but I think the language could have been better. His phrasing
makes it sound like, “You have no control over your life. If you’re poor, you’re poor. Get
over it, accept it, and be happy being poor.” In some ways, useful. In other ways, too
much of a fixed mindset for my taste. I prefer a more empowering view of your life and
the control you have over it.
● Each day, keep in mind that death can be close to you. You will not take your time for
granted.
● “Which would you rather have? Money or a faithful and modest friend?”
● “Observe both the things that come first and the things that follow.” You can’t just look at
someone competing on the Olympic stage and desire that. You must also look at the
practice, the effort, the time, and the sacrifice that came before the result. If you consider
all of what is required for a task and then still wish to do it … only then should you
proceed because you will properly understand what is required.
● “If a man has reported to you that a certain person speaks ill of you do not make any
defense to what has been told you, but reply, “The man did not know the rest of my
faults for he would not have mentioned these only.”
● Do not complain of all the bad things that have happened to you. It is not of interest to
others.
● If you are doing something that you believe is right do not worry about people who will
criticize it wrongly.
● Whoa! Chapter 40 is an ancient shout out to female empowerment and equality. “It is
worthwhile to let [women] know that they are valued by men.”
● “You are neither possession nor speech.” If you have more money, then you’re just richer
than someone not better than them. If you are more eloquent than someone, then you
are just better spoken not a better person.
 Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon
Interviews by Calvin Tomkins
This book is a collection of transcriptions from a series of interviews between writer Calvin
Tomkins and artist Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp believed strongly in doing work that was free
from tradition and starting with as much of a blank slate as possible. He was also quite playful,
worked slowly, and saw laziness as a good thing.
● This book is a collection of transcriptions from a series of interviews between writer
Calvin Tomkins and artist Marcel Duchamp.
● Duchamp on staying perpetually young: “You must remember, I am ten years older than
most of the young people.”
● “My thinking was changing all the time.”
● Duchamp believed that art was more than something that appealed to the eye. He
thought it should live in the mind and emanate from there more than merely basing art
on what looked good.
● According to Tomkins, the legacy of Duchamp is about freedom from tradition and
dogmas of any kind.
● Duchamp took nothing for granted. He doubted everything and in the process of
doubting came up with something new.
● Duchamp lived extremely simply and on very little money.
● Duchamp was trying to understand through his work, and sometimes through not
working, how to live life in a way that was going to be satisfying.
● “He wasn't trying to tell you how to live as much as he was trying to figure it out from
himself.”
● “Such an abundant production can only result in mediocrity. There is no time to make
very fine work.”
● “I feel that things of great importance have to be slowly produced.”
● Interesting insight on art collectors, but probably customers in general: “Collectors tend
to feel things. They are feelers, not intellectuals.” In other words, people buy things
based on how it makes them feel.
● Duchamp believed that the monetary influence on art could “melt genius away” and that
it ruined the creation of art. In his opinion, the best way to make something great was to
 completely remove the possibility of making money on it. In other words, go underground
and work in private.
● Interesting take on who determined the value of art: “The artist produces nothing until
the onlooker has said, “You have produced something marvelous.” The onlooker has the
last word on it.”
● “If there is no onlooker there is no art, is there? The artist looking at his own art is not
enough. He has to have someone look at it. I give to the onlooker more importance than
the artist, almost, because not only does he look, but he also gives a judgement.”
● On artists being egotistical and already thinking they know everything: “I hate to argue
in general. You don't argue with artists, you just say words and they say words, and
there is absolutely no connection.”
● Duchamp makes a distinction between someone as a person and their “essential quality”
as a profession. For example, he says many art collectors are nice people, but that the
essential wuality of an art collector is to be a parasite on the artist.
● Duchamp loved playing competitive chess. He enjoyed how clear cut it was. Unlike art,
which always had reasoning and conclusions about a particular piece, chess was logical
and clear. There was a winner and a loser. Duchamp thought the two opposing interests
provided some balance to his life.
● Duchamp believed slower work resulted in better work. “I produced so little and
everything I produced took me quite a long time.”
● “Everything is becoming mechanized in this life.”
● Duchamp graduated early and took the fastest route through his required time of military
service. He was only an average student, but he believed in getting through the things
you were required by society to do as quickly as possible.
● On seeking praise and reward for your work: “That's another chapter of life, the chapter
of ambition. But you have that in business too. You have that everywhere.”
● “Anything systematized becomes sterile very soon.”
● “I mean, what's the use of hating? You're just using up your energy and die sooner.”
● “I remember asking him, “Since you’ve stopped making art, how do you spend your
time?” And he said, “Oh, I’m a breather, a respirateur, isn’t that enough?” He asked,
“Why do people have to work? Why do people think they have to work?” He talked about
how important it was to really breathe, to live life at a different tempo and a different
scale from the way most of us live.”
● On the human tendency to overthink things and our ability to assign meaning to
anything: “Words are taken and repeated and after a certain number of repetitions the
word takes on an aura of mysticism, of magic. And it goes on because men love to do
that.”
● “You do not know at twenty what you are going to do at forty.”
● It took Duchamp about one month to finish one of his most famous works, Nude
Descending a Staircase No. 2.
● Duchamp was a very innovative. At one point, after creating a variety of highly regarded
works on canvas, he abandoned painting on canvas all together because “canvas and
oil paint were the instruments that had been so abused in the last nine centuries.” He
abandoned the whole medium in an effort to come up with something completely new,
which is how he invented his glass pieces.
● Duchamp believed art should not follow tradition. “Tradition is the prison in which you
live.”
● “Why should man work to live, after all? The poor thing has been put on earth without his
permission to be here. He’s forced to be here… That’s our lot on earth, we have to work
to breathe. I don’t see why that’s so admirable. I can conceive of a society where the
lazies have a place in the sun. My famous thing was to start a home for the lazies —
hospice des paresseux. If you are lazy, and people accept you as doing nothing, you
have a right to eat and drink and have shelter and so forth. There would be a home in
which you would do all this for nothing. The stipulation would be that you cannot work. If
you begin to work you would be sacked immediately.”
● On his principle that people shouldn’t have to work: “A mother generally gives and never
takes from her child except affection. In the family there is more giving than taking. But
when you go beyond the concept of the family, you find the need for equivalences. If you
give me a flower, I give you a flower. That is an equivalent. Why? If you want to give, you
give. If you want to take, you take. But society won’t let you, because society is based on
that exchange called money, or barter.”
● On the differences between art and science: “I don’t know why we should have such
reverence for science. It’s a very nice occupation, but nothing more. It has no noblesse
to it. It’s just a practical form of activity, to make better Coca-Cola and so forth. It’s
always utilitarian. In other words, it hasn’t got the gratuitous attitude that art has, in any
case.”
● “I don’t believe in art. I believe in the artist.”
 Margin of Safety: Risk-Averse Value
Investing Strategies for the Thoughtful
Investor by Seth Klarman
Avoiding loss should be the primary goal of every investor. The way to avoid loss is by investing
with a significant margin of safety. A margin of safety is necessary because valuation is an
imprecise art, the future is unpredictable, and investors are human and make mistakes.
● Investors are frequently lured by the prospect of quick and easy gain and fall victim to
the many fads of Wall Street.
● Value investing, the strategy of investing in securities trading at an appreciable discount
from underlying value, has a long history of delivering excellent investment results with
very limited downside risk.
● It is easy to stray but a continuous effort to remain disciplined.
● Avoiding where others go wrong is an important step in achieving investment success. In
fact, it almost ensures it.
● Value investing requires a great deal of hard work, unusually strict discipline, and a
long-term investment horizon.
● It is necessary instead to understand the rationale behind the rules in order to appreciate
why they work when they do and don’t when they don’t.
● The correct choice for investors is obvious but requires a level of commitment most are
unwilling to make.
● Most investors are primarily oriented toward return, how much they can make, and pay
little attention to risk, how much they can lose.
● A margin of safety is necessary because valuation is an imprecise art, the future is
unpredictable, and investors are human and do make mistakes.
● Value investors invest with a margin of safety that protects them from large losses in
declining markets.
● once you adopt a value-investment strategy, any other investment behavior starts to
seem like gambling.
● To investors stocks represent fractional ownership of underlying businesses and bonds
are loans to those businesses.
● In reality, no one knows what the market will do; trying to predict it is a waste of time,
and investing based upon that prediction is a speculative undertaking.
● There is comfort in consensus; those in the majority gain confidence from their very
number.
(Note: This is a great way to think about why we go along with the crowd, “the comfort of
consensus.”)
● But there is one critical difference: investments throw off cash flow for the benefit of the
owners; speculations do not.4 The return to the owners of speculations depends
exclusively on the vagaries of the resale market.
● Stocks and bonds go up and down in price, as do Monets and Mickey Mantle rookie
cards, but there should be no confusion as to which are the true investments
● Investments, even very long-term investments like newly planted timber properties, will
eventually throw off cash flow. A machine makes widgets that are marketed, a building is
occupied by tenants who pay rent, and trees on a timber property are eventually
harvested and sold.
● It is vitally important for investors to distinguish stock price fluctuations from underlying
business reality.
● prices move up and down for two basic reasons: to reflect business reality (or investor
perceptions of that reality) or to reflect short-term variations in supply and demand.
● avoiding loss should be the primary goal of every investor.
● the avoidance of loss is the surest way to ensure a profitable outcome.
● the actual risk of a particular investment cannot be determined from historical data. It
depends on the price paid.
● the effects of compounding even moderate returns over many years are compelling, if
not downright mind boggling.
● A corollary to the importance of compounding is that it is very difficult to recover from
even one large loss, which could literally destroy all at once the beneficial effects of
many years of investment success.
● an investor is more likely to do well by achieving consistently good returns with limited
downside risk than by achieving volatile and sometimes even spectacular gains but with
considerable risk of principal.
● An investor who earns 16 percent annual returns over a decade, for example, will,
perhaps surprisingly, end up with more money than an investor who earns 20 percent a
year for nine years and then loses 15 percent the tenth year.
● Investors must be willing to forego some near-term return, if necessary, as an insurance
premium against unexpected and unpredictable adversity.
● Rather than targeting a desired rate of return, even an eminently reasonable one,
investors should target risk.
● Treasury bills are the closest thing to a riskless investment; hence the interest rate on
Treasury bills is considered the risk-free rate.
● Value investing is the discipline of buying securities at a significant discount from their
current underlying values and holding them until more of their value is realized.
● An investment must be purchased at a discount from underlying worth.
● Above all, investors must always avoid swinging at bad pitches.
● First, since investors cannot predict when values will rise or fall, valuation should always
be performed conservatively, giving considerable weight to worst-case liquidation value
as well as to other methods.
● Graham was only interested in buying at a substantial discount from underlying value.
By investing at a discount, he knew that he was unlikely to experience losses. The
discount provided a margin of safety.
● Because investing is as much an art as a science, investors need a margin of safety. A
margin of safety is achieved when securities are purchased at prices sufficiently below
underlying value to allow for human error, bad luck, or extreme volatility in a complex,
unpredictable, and rapidly changing world. According to Graham, “The margin of safety
is always dependent on the price paid. For any security, it will be large at one price,
small at some higher price, nonexistent at some still higher price.”
● How can investors be certain of achieving a margin of safety? By always buying at a
significant discount to underlying business value and giving preference to tangible
assets over intangibles. (This does not mean that there are not excellent investment
opportunities in businesses with valuable intangible assets.) By replacing current
holdings as better bargains come along. By selling when the market price of any
investment comes to reflect its underlying value and by holding cash, if necessary, until
other attractive investments become available.
● Give preference to companies having good managements with a personal financial
stake in the business.
● A market downturn is the true test of an investment philosophy.
● A notable feature of value investing is its strong performance in periods of overall market
decline. Whenever the financial markets fail to fully incorporate fundamental values into
securities prices, an investor’s margin of safety is high.
● Value investing is, in effect, predicated on the proposition that the efficient-market
hypothesis is frequently wrong.
● The efficient-market hypothesis takes three forms.3 The weak form maintains that past
stock prices provide no useful information on the future direction of stock prices. In other
words, technical analysis (analysis of past price fluctuations) cannot help investors. The
semi-strong form says that no published information will help investors to select
undervalued securities since the market has already discounted all publicly available
information into securities prices. The strong form maintains that there is no information,
public or private, that would benefit investors. The implication of both the semi-strong
and strong forms is that fundamental analysis is useless.
● Of the three forms of the efficient-market hypothesis, I believe that only the weak form is
valid.
● Specifically, by finding securities whose prices depart appreciably from underlying value,
investors can frequently achieve above-average returns while taking below-average
risks.
● The pricing of large-capitalization stocks tends to be more efficient than that of
small-capitalization stocks, distressed bonds, and other less-popular investment fare.
● Investors are more likely, therefore, to find inefficiently priced securities outside the
Standard and Poor’s 100 than within
● many buyers and sellers of securities are motivated by considerations other than
underlying value and may be willing to buy or sell at very different prices than a value
investor would.
● The behavior of institutional investors, dictated by constraints on their behavior, can
sometimes cause stock prices to depart from underlying value.
● “Value investing” is one of the most overused and inconsistently applied terms in the
investment business.
● Value investing is simple to understand but difficult to implement.
● The hard part is discipline, patience, and judgment.
● There are three central elements to a value-investment philosophy. First, value investing
is a bottom-up strategy entailing the identification of specific undervalued investment
 opportunities. Second, value investing is absoluteperformance-, not relative-performance
oriented. Finally, value investing is a risk-averse approach; attention is paid as much to
what can go wrong (risk) as to what can go right (return).
● The entire strategy can be concisely described as “buy a bargain and wait.”
● In investing it is never wrong to change your mind. It is only wrong to change your mind
and do nothing about it.
● Value investors, by contrast, are absolute-performance oriented; they are interested in
returns only insofar as they relate to the achievement of their own investment goals, not
how they compare with the way the overall market or other investors are faring.
● For most investors absolute returns are the only ones that really matter; you cannot,
after all, spend relative performance.
● Absolute-performance-oriented investors, by contrast, are willing to hold cash reserves
when no bargains are available. Cash is liquid and provides a modest, sometimes
attractive nominal return, usually above the rate of inflation. The liquidity of cash affords
flexibility, for it can quickly be channeled into other investment outlets with minimal
transaction costs. Finally, unlike any other holding, cash does not involve any risk of
incurring opportunity cost (losses from the inability to take advantage of future bargains)
since it does not drop in value during market declines.
● While most other investors are preoccupied with how much money they can make and
not at all with how much they may lose, value investors focus on risk as well as return.
● A positive correlation between risk and return would hold consistently only in an efficient
market. Any disparities would be immediately corrected; this is what would make the
market efficient. In inefficient markets it is possible to find investments offering high
returns with low risk.
● Risk and return must instead be assessed independently for every investment.
● It is only when investors shun high-risk investments, thereby depressing their prices, that
an incremental return can be earned which more than fully compensates for the risk
incurred. By itself risk does not create incremental return; only price can accomplish that.
● Unlike return, however, risk is no more quantifiable at the end of an investment than it
was at its beginning. Risk simply cannot be described by a single number.
● There are only a few things investors can do to counteract risk: diversify adequately,
hedge when appropriate, and invest with a margin of safety.
● The reality is that past security price volatility does not reliably predict future investment
performance (or even future volatility) and therefore is a poor measure of risk.
● The trick of successful investors is to sell when they want to, not when they have to.
Investors who may need to sell should not own marketable securities other than U.S.
Treasury bills.
● If what you hold is illiquid or unmarketable, the opportunity cost increases further; the
illiquidity precludes your switching to better bargains.
● The most important determinant of whether investors will incur opportunity cost is
whether or not part of their portfolios is held in cash. Maintaining moderate cash
balances or owning securities that periodically throw off appreciable cash is likely to
reduce the number of foregone opportunities.
● An added attraction of investing in riskarbitrage situations, bankruptcies, and liquidations
is that not only is one’s initial investment returned to cash, one’s profits are as well.
Another way to limit opportunity cost is through hedging. A hedge is an investment that
is expected to move in a direction opposite that of another holding so as to cushion any
price decline. If the hedge becomes valuable, it can be sold, providing funds to take
advantage of newly created opportunities. (Hedging is discussed in greater depth in
chapter 13.) Conclusion The primary goal of value investors is to avoid losing money.
Three elements of a value-investment strategy make achievement of that goal possible.
A bottom-up approach, searching for low-risk bargains one at a time through
fundamental analysis, is the surest way I know to avoid losing money. An
absolute-performance orientation
● The primary goal of value investors is to avoid losing money.
● Markets exist because of differences of opinion among investors.
● To be a value investor, you must buy at a discount from underlying value.
● While a great many methods of business valuation exist, there are only three that I find
useful. The first is an analysis of going-concern value, known as net present value (NPV)
analysis. NPV is the discounted value of all future cash flows that a business is expected
to generate.
● The second method of business valuation analyzes liquidation value, the expected
proceeds if a company were to be dismantled and the assets sold off.
● The third method of valuation, stock market value, is an estimate of the price at which a
company, or its subsidiaries considered separately, would trade in the stock market.
Less reliable than the other two, this method is only occasionally useful as a yardstick of
value.
● How do value investors deal with the analytical necessity to predict the unpredictable?
The only answer is conservatism. Since all projections are subject to error, optimistic
ones tend to place investors on a precarious limb. Virtually everything must go right, or
losses may be sustained. Conservative forecasts can be more easily met or even
exceeded. Investors are well advised to make only conservative projections and then
invest only at a substantial discount from the valuations derived therefrom.
● At times when interest rates are unusually low, however, investors are likely to find very
high multiples being applied to share prices. Investors who pay these high multiples are
dependent on interest rates remaining low, but no one can be certain that they will. This
means that when interest rates are unusually low, investors should be particularly
reluctant to commit capital to long-term holdings unless outstanding opportunities
become available, with a preference for either holding cash or investing in short-term
holdings that quickly return cash for possible redeployment when available returns are
more attractive
● Calculating the present value of contractual interest and principal payments is the best
way to value a bond. Analysis of the underlying business can then help
● analyzing the cash flows of the underlying business is the best way to value a stock.
● My personal rule is that investors should value businesses based on what they
themselves, not others, would pay to own them.
● The liquidation value of a business is a conservative assessment of its worth in which
only tangible assets are considered and intangibles, such as going-concern value, are
not.
● when a stock is selling at a discount to liquidation value per share, a near rock-bottom
appraisal, it is frequently an attractive investment.
● The assets of a company are typically worth more as part of a going concern than in
liquidation, so liquidation value is generally a worst-case assessment.
● Even when a company has little ongoing business value, investors who buy at a price
below net-net working capital are protected by the approximate liquidation value of
current assets alone. As long as working capital is not overstated and operations are not
rapidly consuming cash, a company could liquidate its assets, extinguish all its liabilities,
and still distribute proceeds in excess of the market price to investors.
● value, investors who buy at a price below net-net working capital are protected by the
approximate
● A corporate liquidation typically connotes business failure; but ironically, it may
correspond with investment success. The reason is that the liquidation or breakup of a
company is a catalyst for the realization of underlying business value. Since value
investors attempt to buy securities trading at a considerable discount from the value of a
business’s underlying assets, a liquidation is one way for investors to realize profits.
● Net present value would be most applicable, for example, in valuing a high-return
business with stable cash flows such as a consumer-products company; its liquidation
value would be far too low. Similarly, a business with regulated rates of return on assets
such as a utility might best be valued using NPV analysis. Liquidation analysis is
probably the most appropriate method for valuing an unprofitable business whose stock
trades well below book value. A closed-end fund or other company that owns only
marketable securities should be valued by the stock market method; no other makes
sense.
● an analysis of cash flow would better capture the true economics of a business
● nonrecurring gains can boost earnings to unsustainable levels, and should be ignored by
investors.
● an analysis of cash flow would better capture the true economics of a business. By
contrast, nonrecurring gains can boost earnings to unsustainable levels, and should be
ignored by investors.
● What something cost in the past is not necessarily a good measure of its value today.
● For every business that cannot be valued, there are many others that can. Investors who
confine themselves to what they know, as difficult as that may be, have a considerable
advantage over everyone else.
● the first and perhaps most important step in the investment process is knowing where to
look for opportunities.
● Investors cannot assume that good ideas will come effortlessly from scanning the
recommendations of Wall Street analysts, no matter how highly regarded, or from
punching up computers, no matter how cleverly programmed, although both can
sometimes indicate interesting places to hunt.
● By identifying where the most attractive opportunities are likely to arise before starting
one’s quest for the exciting handful of specific investments, investors can spare
themselves an often fruitless survey of the humdrum majority of available investments.
● Value investing encompasses a number of specialized investment niches that can be
divided into three categories: securities selling at a discount to breakup or liquidation
value, rate-of-return situations, and asset-conversion opportunities.
● A bargain should be inspected and re-inspected for possible flaws.
● Value investing by its very nature is contrarian
● Out-of-favor securities may be undervalued; popular securities almost never are. What
the herd is buying is, by definition, in favor. Securities in favor have already been bid up
in price on the basis of optimistic expectations and are unlikely to represent good value
that has been overlooked.
● Since they are acting against the crowd, contrarians are almost always initially wrong
and likely for a time to suffer paper losses. By contrast, members of the herd are nearly
always right for a period.
● information generally follows the well-known 80/20 rule: the first 80 percent of the
available information is gathered in the first 20 percent of the time spent. The value of
in-depth fundamental analysis is subject to diminishing marginal returns.
● The time other investors spend delving into the last unanswered detail may cost them
the chance to buy in at prices so low that they offer a margin of safety despite the
incomplete information.
● the presence of a catalyst serves to reduce risk. If the gap between price and underlying
value is likely to be closed quickly, the probability of losing money due to market
fluctuations or adverse business developments is reduced.
● Companies get into financial trouble for at least one of three reasons: operating
problems, legal problems, and/or financial problems.
● an investor’s portfolio management responsibilities include maintaining appropriate
diversification, making hedging decisions, and managing portfolio cash flow and liquidity.
● All investors must come to terms with the relentless continuity of the investment process.
Although specific investments have a beginning and an end, portfolio management goes
on forever.
● Since no investor is infallible and no investment is perfect, there is considerable merit in
being able to change one’s mind.
● When investors do not demand compensation for bearing illiquidity, they almost always
come to regret it.
● Because the opportunity cost of illiquidity is high, no investment portfolio should be
completely illiquid either. Most portfolios should maintain a balance, opting for greater
illiquidity when the market compensates investors well for bearing it.
● When your portfolio is completely in cash, there is no risk of loss. There is also, however,
no possibility of earning a high return.
● Investing is in some ways an endless process of managing liquidity.
● when the securities in a portfolio frequently turn into cash, the investor is constantly
challenged to put that cash to work, seeking out the best values available.
● Even relatively safe investments entail some probability, however small, of downside
risk. The deleterious effects of such improbable events can best be mitigated through
prudent diversification. The number of securities that should be owned to reduce
portfolio risk to an acceptable level is not great; as few as ten to fifteen different holdings
usually suffice.
● The number of securities that should be owned to reduce portfolio risk to an acceptable
level is not great; as few as ten to fifteen different holdings usually suffice.
● My view is that an investor is better off knowing a lot about a few investments than
knowing only a little about each of a great many holdings.
● The fact is that a diverse portfolio of overpriced, subordinated securities, about each of
which the investor knows relatively little, is highly risky.
● Diversification, after all, is not how many different things you own, but how different the
things you do own are in the risks they entail.
● There is nothing inherent in a security or business that alone makes it an attractive
investment. Investment opportunity is a function of price, which is established in the
marketplace.
● The single most crucial factor in trading is developing the appropriate reaction to price
fluctuations
● In my view, investors should usually refrain from purchasing a “full position” (the
maximum dollar commitment they intend to make) in a given security all at once. Those
who fail to heed this advice may be compelled to watch a subsequent price decline
helplessly, with no buying power in reserve. Buying a partial position leaves reserves
that permit investors to “average down,” lowering their average cost per share, if prices
decline.
● there is only one valid rule for selling: all investments are for sale at the right price.
● Decisions to sell, like decisions to buy, must be based upon underlying business value.
Mastermind Dinners by Jayson Gaignard

Hosting dinners with like-minded people is one of the most powerful way to build fantastic
relationships in business and in life. You should think carefully about who you invite to these
meals and look for uncommon commonalities that make it more likely the guests will resonate
with one another. Be the gatekeeper of your network and assume responsibility for the people
you surround yourself with in life.
● Jayson spent $600-$800 per dinner in the beginning. Seems like he usually had about 8
people at each dinner.
● “You need to surround yourself with people who are batteries, not black holes.”
● “A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.” Many things in life, and especially
relationship-building and success, are not fixed pie situations.
● “Would you be friends with yourself?” That is, what makes you interesting?
● Three types of dinners: 1) Reconnecting old ties. 2) Connecting people who should know
each other. 3) Connecting with people who I’ve meant to connect with for a long time.
● Be very conscious of the synergy of the group.
● Develop a “go to” restaurant on a regular basis.
● One good strategy: hold dinners around an event (like WDS) because 1) you catch
people on the road, which means they are probably free that night and 2) like-minded
people often hang out at the same events.
● Another option: throw an event for speakers (if you’re speaking at an event yourself)
● There should be at least one commonality around all guests (entrepreneurs, artists, etc.)
● Don’t select people at opposite extremes of that commonality (i.e. Don’t have someone
running a $100M startup and someone just starting their first venture.)
● Don’t select people who are competitors. You want the whole room to feel collaborative.
● Jayson prefers dinners of 4-6 people. In a group of 5, you may want to sit at the end and
play more of a facilitator role. If you have 6 people, you may want a roundtable setup.
And you’ll definitely want to play a facilitator role because one or two people may tend to
dominate the conversation.
● In a group of 8 or more, you’ll need a private dining room. The downside of this is that
there are multiple conversations going on and people may feel lost and left out of
conversations going on at the other side of the table.
● Avoid trying to reach other people cold. Get warm intros. It will massively improve the
success rate of invitations. Always check FB and LinkedIn for common connections.
(Also, ask your network for help with intros.)
● “Friends! I’m traveling to San Diego for the week. Who should I connect with while I’m in
town?” (This is a great way to get intros.)
● You can try two strategies for getting people to say yes to these dinners: First, “work
your way up the food chain” by getting smaller players to say yes first and then going
slowly up the food chain to bigger names. Second, you can try to land one big name to
start and then use that credibility to pull everyone else in.
● Before you do any kind of outreach to a big name, question your motives. Why this
person? Are there other people who could help you reach the same outcome? “It would
be much easier to reach a silver medalist than Michael Phelps.”
● Always ask yourself, “What is in it for this person?” Why would they want to attend this
dinner?
● Put a lot of effort into personalizing your approach. People respond to effort.
● Subject lines in invitation emails are really important. Some examples: 1) “Hey Tim, I’m
in town…” 2) “Adam told me to reach out to you…” 3) “Jon, I’m doing a dinner with a
group of entrepreneurs…”
● Using the person’s name in the email title is great.
● “The shorter the response a prospect needs to give, the better.”
● Start with a small ask. Your only goal is to get a discussion going. “Hey Steve, I’m
hosting a dinner with a group of entrepreneurs, are you interested?”
● YESWARE for Gmail. It confirms that an email has been opened.
● How to handle an someone turning down your invite: “Under what circumstances would
you say, “Yes.”?
● How to choose the perfect restaurant. Get a restaurant that is vegetarian and paleo
friendly.
● If you develop a great working relationship with a particular restaurant, you can get a
kickback, a private room, or a discount.
● Do your research again before the dinner. The more you know about the people you are
dealing with, the better you can serve their needs and ask relevant questions.
● Dan Martell’s idea: he sits in the middle of the table so that he can act as “conversation
cop” and pull people in as needed. He also tries to place the most interesting or
extroverted person in the middle of the group, so conversation doesn’t skew to one side.
● The day of the dinner: arrive 30-60 minutes in advance. Especially important to select
the best table if you haven’t been able to book the table in advance.
● You can order whatever you want. If we’re ordering wine, always order by the glass.
● State an end time in advance. “The dinner is done by 9:30, but everyone is allowed to
stay longer if they want.”
● The more open and vulnerable you are during your intro, the more others will follow suit.
● His favorite opener: Thorns, Roses, and Buds. “Something that is going well, something
that has the potential to turn into something good, and something that is going poorly.”
● Conversation starters: http://www.masterminddinners.com/ice-breakers/
● Take a picture of the group!
● Introduce the group via email afterward. Also, include a resource list in the follow up
email based on what people bring up in conversation at the dinner.
● If people follow up with you after the dinner and say, “How can I repay you?” Or, “How
can I give value back?” Then, take them up on the offer and ask for an introduction to
one additional amazing person that would love to be at a future dinner.
● Be the gatekeeper of your network: If you’re asked to do introductions, then always get
“double opt-in” from both people. There should be a strong and compelling outcome to
each intro. Ask people, “What is your desired outcome from this connection?”
 Mastery by George Leonard
The most successful path to mastering anything is to practice for the sake of the practice itself,
not for the result. All significant learning is composed of brief spurts of progress followed by long
periods of work where if feels as if you are stuck on a plateau. There are no experts–only
learners.
● Definition of mastery: the mysterious process during which what is at first difficult
becomes progressively easier and more pleasurable through practice.
● If there is any sure route to success and fulfillment in life, it is to be found in the
long-term, essentially goalless process of mastery.
● Start with something simple.
● All significant learning is composed of brief spurts of progress followed by long periods
of work where if feels as if you’re going nowhere.
● The seven varieties of intelligence: linguistic, musical, logical/mathematical, spatial,
bodily/kinesthetic, intrapersonal, interpersonal.
● The one physical feat where humans would outperform nearly all other animals of equal
(or even larger) size is endurance running.
● On the path to improvement: the general progression is always the same. To take the
master’s journey, you have to practice diligently, striving to hone your skills, to attain new
levels of competence. But while doing so, you also have to be willing to spend most of
your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even hen you seem to be getting nowhere.
● As we practice things, even though it feels like we are making no progress at all, we are
turning new behaviors into habits. Learning is happening all along.
● The most successful path to mastery is to practice for the sake of the practice itself. Not
for the result.
● On mastery in relationships: In today’s world two partners are rarely willing to live
indefinitely on an unchanging plateau. When your tennis partner starts improving his or
her game and you don’t, the game eventually breaks up. The same thing applies to
relationships.
● Every time we spend money, we make an indication about what we value.
● The anti-mastery mentality is focused on quick fixes. Heart surgery rather than diet and
exercise. Lottery tickets rather than retirement savings.
● In business, some people can make a lot of money in a short amount of time (corporate
raiders, finance whiz kids, tech startups), but often there is very little value created for
others or the national economy. The individual gets rich, but the world doesn’t get much
better. Is this really a better path than the one of the craftsman? Someone who slowly
and methodically improves, contributes something useful and valuable to society, and
makes enough money in the process (despite not getting rich)?
● In the long run, the war against mastery, the path to patient, dedicated effort without
attachment to immediate results, is a war that can’t be won.
● On human nature: Man is a learning animal, and the essence of the species is encoded
in that simple term. The mastery of skills that are not genetically programmed is the most
characteristically human of all activities.
● The five keys to mastery: Instruction, Practice, Surrender, Intentionality, and The Edge.
● On learning: For mastering most skills, there’s nothing better than being in the hands of
a master teacher.
● On finding a good teacher: To see the teacher clearly, look at his students.
● The best teachers strive to point out what a student is doing right just as frequently as
what they are doing wrong. The idea of a teacher rarely giving praise and teaching
through strict criticism is a myth.
● One benefit of learning slowly: it forces you to look deeply at the process and you
discover incremental steps that you might otherwise gloss over if progress came easily.
● Idea: pursuing the path to mastery requires a certain type of mindset and willingness to
work. This is likely influenced by genetics just as our physical abilities are influenced by
genetics. People often say something to the effect of, “I’ve seen so many talented
athletes with God-given ability who just didn’t want to work hard. They faded away.”
These statements are overlooking the fact that psychological abilities are largely fixed
too. The odds that someone has the peak physical abilities (“God-given talent”) AND the
peak mental abilities (willingness to work hard) are incredibly low. Thus, you would
expect the people to perform the best who are very high on mental abilities and high
enough on physical abilities.
● Regardless of your genetic potential, you have to work just as hard to fulfill it. Potential is
just opportunity.
● The best teachers are the ones who have discovered how to involve each student
actively in the process of learning.
● Practice is often used as a description of what we do. Instead, we can look at practice as
something we have, something we are defined by.
● Rewards will always come to someone who commits to the practice, but the rewards are
not the goal. The practice is the goal.
● Mastery reveals so much more to learn as you continue the journey. The destination is
two miles farther away for every mile we travel.
● Masters love the practice and because they love it, they get better. And the better they
get, the more they enjoy the practice. It’s an upward spiral.
● The master of any game is generally the master of practice as well.
● Good idea: having dinner with the family each night is a form of practice, one that you
can commit to just as passionately as practicing your craft.
● “How long will it take me to master Aikido?” a prospective student asks. “How long do
you expect to live?” is the only respectable response.
● Mastery is practice. Mastery is staying on the path.
● The essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction
lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness as subtle variations on
familiar themes.
● There are no experts. There are only learners.
● On how things live on in our minds even after they are physically gone: “More and more,
the universe looks like a great thought rather than a great machine.” -Sir James Jeans
● Every master visualizes their success.
● Now we come, as come we must in anything of real consequence, to a seeming
contradiction, a paradox.
● Almost without exception, those who are masters are dedicated to the fundamentals of
their calling. At the same time, they are the ones most likely to challenge their previous
limits.
● Ancient Eastern wisdom: “Before enlightenment, chop wood and carry water. After
enlightenment, chop wood and carry water.”
● Backsliding is a universal experience. Everyone resists a significant change whether it is
for worse or for better.
● Homeostasis: Our body, brain, and behavior have a built in tendency to stay within very
narrow limits.
● Homeostasis works to keep things as they are even if they aren’t very good.
● Resistance is proportionate to the size and speed of the change, not to whether the
change is a favorable or unfavorable one.
● When you realize more of your potential in any endeavor (even a small one), it can
change the rest of you in many ways.
● The alarm bells that ring when you try something new (fear, sweat, higher heart rate,
discomfort) are signals of growth. It’s important not to ignore them for safety reasons, but
you can also look at them as a sign of your improvement.
● Follow a practice. People embarking on any form of change will gain stability and
comfort though practicing something daily. The practice provides a stable base during
the instability of change.
● To learn is to change. Dedicate yourself to lifelong learning.
● A human being is the kind of machine that wears out from lack of use. There are limits,
but for the most part we gain energy by using energy.
● Maintain physical fitness. It contributes enormous energy to our lives.
● Acknowledge the negative and accentuate the positive.
● Denial inhibits energy while realistic acknowledgment of the truth releases it.
● To move in one direction, you must forgo all others. To pursue one goal is to forsake a
very large number of other possible goals.
● Avoid injury. Most people get injured because of goal obsessiveness. Pay attention to
the signals your body gives and negotiate with them—but don’t override them or ignore
them.
● To be deadly serious is to suffer tunnel vision. Humor not only lightens your load, it
broadens your vision.
● Cool example of ritual: some surgeons wash their hands and put on their gowns in the
same fashion before each surgery. It’s the pattern and ritual of it that sets their mind in
the right place for performance.
● Mastery is not about perfection. It’s about the process.
● It’s truly bizarre when you think about it that we will devote ourselves fully to developing
our tennis game, but leave something like our relationships largely to chance.
● The plateaus, the ups, and the downs are even greater in our relationships than in other
areas of life. And you will discover that your greatest learning happens on the plateaus.
● To be psychologically balanced and centered depends heavily on being physically
balanced and centered.
● The best way to describe your total creative capacity is to say that for all practical
purposes it is infinite.
● Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, asked to be buried in his white belt after death. What
an awesome symbol: the ultimate master forever embracing the mark of a beginner.
● If you want to truly master something, you must be willing to remain a beginner and look
a fool. The beginner’s mind is required for learning anything new.
 The Most Important Thing Illuminated:
Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful
Investor by Howard Marks
You can’t do the same things others do and expect to outperform. The most dependable way to
outperform the market is to buy something for less than its value. It is price, not quality that
determines value: high-quality assets can be risky, and low-quality assets can be safe.
● Successful investing requires thoughtful attention to many separate aspects, all at the
same time. Omit any one and the result is likely to be less than satisfactory.
● You have to follow a disciplined thought process in order to be successful, but it doesn’t
have to be mine.
● “Experience is what you got when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
● Good times teach only bad lessons: that investing is easy, that you know its secrets, and
that you needn’t worry about risk.
● No idea can be any better than the action taken on it.
● Second-level thinking is deep, complex and convoluted. The second-level thinker takes
a great many things into account: • What is the range of likely future outcomes? • Which
outcome do I think will occur? • What’s the probability I’m right? • What does the
consensus think? • How does my expectation differ from the consensus? • How does the
current price for the asset comport with the consensus view of the future, and with mine?
• Is the consensus psychology that’s incorporated in the price too bullish or bearish? •
What will happen to the asset’s price if the consensus turns out to be right, and what if
I’m right?
● First-level thinkers look for simple formulas and easy answers. Second-level thinkers
know that success in investing is the antithesis of simple
● Extraordinary performance comes only from correct nonconsensus forecasts, but
nonconsensus forecasts are hard to make, hard to make correctly and hard to act on.
● You can’t do the same things others do and expect to outperform.
● If your behavior is conventional, you’re likely to get conventional results—either good or
bad.
● In theory there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.
YOGI BERRA
● To beat the market you must hold an idiosyncratic, or nonconsensus, view.
● CHRISTOPHER DAVIS: It is also critical to spend time trying to fully understand the
incentives at work in any given situation. Flawed incentives can often explain irrational,
destructive, or counterintuitive behaviors or outcomes.
● Most people are driven by greed, fear, envy and other emotions that render objectivity
impossible and open the door for significant mistakes.
● SETH KLARMAN: Silos are a double-edged sword. A narrow focus leads to potentially
superior knowledge. But concentration of effort within rigid boundaries leaves a strong
possibility of mispricings outside those borders. Also, if others’ silos are similar to your
own, competitive forces will likely drive down returns in spite of superior knowledge
within such silos.
● The image here is of the efficient-market-believing finance professor who takes a walk
with a student. “Isn’t that a $10 bill lying on the ground?” asks the student. “No, it can’t
be a $10 bill,” answers the professor. “If it were, someone would have picked it up by
now.” The professor walks away, and the student picks it up and has a beer.
● “Being too far ahead of your time is indistinguishable from being wrong.”
● People should like something less when its price rises, but in investing they often like it
more.
● The positives behind stocks can be genuine and still produce losses if you overpay for
them.
● Buying something for less than its value. In my opinion, this is what it’s all about—the
most dependable way to make money. Buying at a discount from intrinsic value and
having the asset’s price move toward its value doesn’t require serendipity; it just requires
that market participants wake up to reality. When the market’s functioning properly, value
exerts a magnetic pull on price.
● Of all the possible routes to investment profit, buying cheap is clearly the most reliable.
● The most dangerous investment conditions generally stem from psychology that’s too
positive.
● Investors who want some objective measure of risk-adjusted return—and they are
many—can only look to the so-called Sharpe ratio.
● “There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to
happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.”
● Quantification often lends excessive authority to statements that should be taken with a
grain of salt.
● Many futures are possible, to paraphrase Dimson, but only one future occurs.
● People usually expect the future to be like the past and underestimate the potential for
change.
● We hear a lot about “worst-case” projections, but they often turn out not to be negative
enough. I tell my father’s story of the gambler who lost regularly. One day he heard
about a race with only one horse in it, so he bet the rent money. Halfway around the
track, the horse jumped over the fence and ran away. Invariably things can get worse
than people expect.
● Risk means uncertainty about which outcome will occur and about the possibility of loss
when the unfavorable ones do.
● High risk, in other words, comes primarily with high prices.
● The greatest risk doesn’t come from low quality or high volatility. It comes from paying
prices that are too high.
● There are few things as risky as the widespread belief that there’s no risk.
● I’m firmly convinced that investment risk resides most where it is least perceived.
● Most investors think quality, as opposed to price, is the determinant of whether
something’s risky.
● High quality assets can be risky, and low quality assets can be safe.
● Quite often “high-quality” companies sell for high prices, making them poor investments.
● Over a full career, most investors’ results will be determined more by how many losers
they have, and how bad they are, than by the greatness of their winners.
● JOEL GREENBLATT: The math behind the compounding of negative returns helps
ensure this outcome (e.g., a 40 percent loss in one year requires a return of 67 percent
to fully recover).
● There is a right time to argue that things will be better, and that’s when the market is on
its backside and everyone else is selling things at giveaway prices.
● When things are going well and prices are high, investors rush to buy, forgetting all
prudence. Then, when there’s chaos all around and assets are on the bargain counter,
they lose all willingness to bear risk and rush to sell.
● Stocks are cheapest when everything looks grim.
● “What the wise man does in the beginning, the fool does in the end.”
● Busts are the product of booms, and I’m convinced it’s usually more correct to attribute a
bust to the excesses of the preceding boom than to the specific event that sets off the
correction.
● Demosthenes: “Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he
also believes to be true.”
● People who might be perfectly happy with their lot in isolation become miserable when
they see others do better.
● High returns can be unsatisfying if others do better, while low returns are often enough if
others do worse.
● Bubbles are capable of arising on their own and need not be preceded by crashes,
whereas crashes are invariably preceded by bubbles.
● Market excesses are ultimately punished, not rewarded.
● Superior investing, as I hope I’ve convinced you by now, requires second-level
thinking—a way of thinking that’s different from that of others, more complex and more
insightful.
● Certainly the markets, and investor attitudes and behavior, spend only a small portion of
the time at “the happy medium.”
● “Once-in-a-lifetime” market extremes seem to occur once every decade or so—not often
enough for an investor to build a career around capitalizing on them. But attempting to
do so should be an important component of any investor’s approach.
● In the long run, the market gets it right. But you have to survive over the short run, to get
to the long run.
● SETH KLARMAN: This is where it is particularly important to remember the teachings of
Graham and Dodd. If you look to the markets for a report card, owning a stock that
declines every day will make you feel like a failure. But if you remember that you own a
fractional interest in a business and that every day you are able to buy in at a greater
discount to underlying value, you might just be able to maintain a cheerful disposition.
This is exactly how Warren Buffett describes bargain hunting amid the ravages of the
1973 to 1974 bear market.
● Most people seem to think outstanding performance to date presages outstanding future
performance. Actually, it’s more likely that outstanding performance to date has
borrowed from the future and thus presages subpar performance from here on out.
● In dealing with the future, we must think about two things: (a) what might happen and (b)
the probability that it will happen.
● The herd applies optimism at the top and pessimism at the bottom. Thus, to benefit, we
must be skeptical of the optimism that thrives at the top, and skeptical of the pessimism
that prevails at the bottom.
● The best opportunities are usually found among things most others won’t do.
● The raw materials for the process consist of (a) a list of potential investments, (b)
estimates of their intrinsic value, (c) a sense for how their prices compare with their
intrinsic value, and (d) an understanding of the risks involved in each, and of the effect
their inclusion would have on the portfolio being assembled.
● There aren’t always great things to do, and sometimes we maximize our contribution by
being discerning and relatively inactive. Patient opportunism—waiting for bargains—is
often your best strategy.
● You’ll do better if you wait for investments to come to you rather than go chasing after
them. You tend to get better buys if you select from the list of things sellers are motivated
to sell rather than start with a fixed notion as to what you want to own. An opportunist
buys things because they’re offered at bargain prices. There’s nothing special about
buying when prices aren’t low.
● JOEL GREENBLATT: This is one of the hardest things to master for professional
investors: coming in each day for work and doing nothing.
● Professional investors: coming in each day for work and doing nothing.
● What’s past is past and can’t be undone. It has led to the circumstances we now face.
All we can do is recognize our circumstances for what they are and make the best
decisions we can, given the givens.
● One of the great things about investing is that the only real penalty is for making losing
investments. There’s no penalty for omitting losing investments, of course, just rewards.
And even for missing a few winners, the penalty is bearable.
● Missing a profitable opportunity is of less significance than investing in a loser.
● You simply cannot create investment opportunities when they’re not there. The dumbest
thing you can do is to insist on perpetuating high returns—and give back your profits in
the process. If it’s not there, hoping won’t make it so.
● When prices are high, it’s inescapable that prospective returns are low (and risks are
high).
● We have two classes of forecasters: Those who don’t know—and those who don’t know
they don’t know. JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH
● It’s frightening to think that you might not know something, but more frightening to think
that, by and large, the world is run by people who have faith that they know exactly
what’s going on. AMOS TVERSKY
● The more we concentrate on smaller-picture things, the more it’s possible to gain a
knowledge advantage.
● Whatever limitations are imposed on us in the investment world, it’s a heck of a lot better
to acknowledge them and accommodate than to deny them and forge ahead.
● In the world of investing, … nothing is as dependable as cycles. Fundamentals,
psychology, prices and returns will rise and fall, presenting opportunities to make
mistakes or to profit from the mistakes of others. They are the givens.
● We may never know where we’re going, but we’d better have a good idea where we are.
● The truth is, much in investing is ruled by luck.
● SETH KLARMAN: This is why it is all-important to look not at investors’ track records but
at what they are doing to achieve those records. Does it make sense? Does it appear
replicable? Why haven’t competitive forces priced away any apparent market
inefficiencies that enabled this investment success?
● The correctness of a decision can’t be judged from the outcome. Nevertheless, that’s
how people assess it. A good decision is one that’s optimal at the time it’s made, when
the future is by definition unknown. Thus, correct decisions are often unsuccessful, and
vice versa.
● Randomness alone can produce just about any outcome in the short run.
● The things that happened are only a small subset of the things that could have
happened. Thus, the fact that a stratagem or action worked—under the circumstances
that unfolded—doesn’t necessarily prove the decision behind it was wise.
● A good decision is one that a logical, intelligent and informed person would have made
under the circumstances as they appeared at the time, before the outcome was known.
● One year with a great return can overstate the manager’s skill and obscure the risk he or
she took. Yet people are surprised when that great year is followed by a terrible year.
Investors invariably lose track of the fact that both short-term gains and short-term
losses can be impostors, and of the importance of digging deep to understand what
underlies them.
● Investment performance is what happens to a portfolio when events unfold.
● Professional tennis is a “winner’s game,” in which the match goes to the player who’s
able to hit the most winners: fast-paced, well-placed shots that an opponent can’t return.
● But the tennis the rest of us play is a “loser’s game,” with the match going to the player
who hits the fewest losers. The winner just keeps the ball in play until the loser hits it into
the net or off the court. In other words, in amateur tennis, points aren’t won; they’re lost.
● So much is within the control of professional tennis players that they really should go for
winners. And they’d better, since if they serve up easy balls, their opponents will hit
winners of their own and take points. In contrast, investment results are only partly within
the investors’ control, and investors can make good money—and outlast their
opponents—without trying tough shots.
● Oaktree portfolios are set up to outperform in bad times, and that’s when we think
outperformance is essential.
● “Because ensuring the ability to survive under adverse circumstances is incompatible
with maximizing returns in the good times, investors must choose between the two.”
● If you minimize the chance of loss in an investment, most of the other alternatives are
good.
● One of the most striking things I’ve noted over the last thirty-five years is how brief most
outstanding investment careers are.
● We believe firmly that “if we avoid the losers, the winners will take care of themselves.”
● The more challenging and potentially lucrative the waters you fish in, the more likely they
are to have attracted skilled fishermen.
● The cautious seldom err or write great poetry.
● Caution can help us avoid mistakes, but it can also keep us from great
accomplishments.
● Worry about the possibility of loss. Worry that there’s something you don’t know. Worry
that you can make high-quality decisions but still be hit by bad luck or surprise events.
● An investor needs do very few things right as long as he avoids big mistakes. WARREN
BUFFETT
● A portfolio that contains too little risk can make you underperform in a bull market, but no
one ever went bust from that; there are far worse fates.
● The success of your investment actions shouldn’t be highly dependent on normal
outcomes prevailing; instead, you must allow for outliers.
● The financial crisis occurred largely because never-before-seen events collided with
risky, levered structures that weren’t engineered to withstand them.
● It’s worth noting that the assumption that something can’t happen has the potential to
make it happen, since people who believe it can’t happen will engage in risky behavior
and thus alter the environment.
● Understanding and anticipating the power of correlation—and thus the limitations of
diversification—is a principal aspect of risk control and portfolio management, but it’s
very hard to accomplish. The failure to correctly anticipate co-movement within a
portfolio is a critical source of investment error.
● If the desire to make money causes you to buy even though price is too high, in the hope
that the asset will continue appreciating or the tactic will keep working, you’re setting
yourself up for disappointment.
● The essential first step in avoiding pitfalls consists of being on the lookout for them.
● Leverage magnifies outcomes but doesn’t add value. It can make great sense to use
leverage to increase your investment in assets at bargain prices offering high promised
returns or generous risk premiums. But it can be dangerous to use leverage to buy more
of assets that offer low returns or narrow risk spreads—in other words, assets that are
fully priced or overpriced. It makes little sense to use leverage to try to turn inadequate
returns into adequate returns.
● One way to improve investment results—which we try hard to apply at Oaktree—is to
think about what “today’s mistake” might be and try to avoid it.
● When there’s nothing particularly clever to do, the potential pitfall lies in insisting on
being clever.
Not Fade Away by Laurence Shames and
Peter Barton
It is more important to live fully than to live in a straight line. The surest gauge of the impact a
life makes is how many other lives it touches. Nothing in life looks the same once you truly
understand that you are not exempt from death.
● On taking time to find yourself: “What's unworthy about working to understand who you
truly are and what you really want from life? What better use can a person make of his
youth?”
● A side effect of taking time to find yourself and goofing off: you gradually find that you
are becoming ready to be mature, responsible, hard working, etc.
● “Nothing which gives comfort [to someone in need of comfort] should ever be despised.”
● “Money needed to be worked for but not fretted over. It would appear when required. In
the meantime, better to climb trees and build snowmen. In other words, to live.”
● “The big things in life are best understood by way of small things.”
● Be careful what you tell children. They can be easily hurt and we remember how we feel
for a lifetime.
● There are many people who hurt, physically or emotionally, on a daily basis. For them,
normal tasks require monumental effort. Remember this and be compassionate and
patient.
● How many of us truly grasp the simple fact that we will die before it is thrust into our
face?
● “Truthfully, my mistakes don't seem to have mattered very much. They were dumb, not
evil, and dumb is part of every life.”
● “People of our generation seemed to agree it was more important to live fully than to live
in a straight line.”
● We often talk and think about what we have done, but what really matters is that we are
there. That we show up at all. It's a shared sense of community and connection that
matters most, regardless of the cause.
● “A problem that can be fixed by money … is not a problem.”
● “If you've got your health, you can always make some money. But all the dough in the
world can't buy back your health.”
● “Isn't it clear that the person who compromises his health in the name of making money
is cutting himself a really lousy deal?”
● Everyone says that health is really important but if you look at how people actually live
they seem to believe the opposite.
● “Maybe the single best thing about having money is that it makes money seem a great
deal less important.”
● “I mistrust rigid definitions. They're the beginning of dogma, and dogma is the start of
narrow-mindedness.”
● It can be easy to get trapped in life. “Staying on a track can kill, one easy day at a time.”
● It is often easier to amend your own beliefs than change an organization. Thus, you
convince yourself to work somewhere you don't really want to work or do something you
don't really believe in.
● “By increments so exquisitely gradual that they might have passed unnoticed, I could
have ended up being totally untrue to myself and living a life I hated.”
● “Wealth is a great deal more enjoyable if you've already taught yourself that you can
have a good time without it.”
● “I promised myself that I wouldn't have a bad day for the rest of my life. If someone was
wasting my time, I'd excuse myself and walk away. If a situation bothered me or refused
to get resolved, I'd shrug and move on.”
● “Mortality doesn't limit us only in time. It limits us, as well, in what we hope to
understand.”
● “Nothing looks exactly the same once you truly understand that you are not exempt from
death.”
● “The truth is that getting ready to die is tough and painful–more so, I believe, than the
merely physical torments that define a bad disease.”
● I love how he describes old age as “the leisurely adventure of growing old with my wife.”
● “…their obsession with detail was a way of masking cluelessness about the bigger
picture.”
● His discussion of happiness in bleak circumstances on pages 140-141 is a personal
anecdote that resonates with the science shared in Stumbling on Happiness by Dan
Gilbert.
● His three rules for finding a job: 1) I would only work for someone I thought to be wildly
smart. 2) I would only work for the head of the company. 3) I would only work in an
up-and-coming industry.
● He went into the cable television business because, in 1982, it's best years were still
ahead. “The industry was essentially a government-subsidized monopoly, financed by
huge tax breaks. It was young and fragmented–there was big money to be made in the
process of consolidation.”
● “Giving up is when you're in a contest and you acknowledge that you've lost. Acceptance
is when you graduate to a different way of looking at the situation.”
● “Illness has always been a temporary setback… Nothing prepares us for that one illness
that doesn't go away.”
● Fun idea: he wore the same shirt at all three of his children's births. “My birthing shirt.”
● Each moment is a life. Life is renewed every time we are walloped by beauty, every time
we are shaken up by gratitude and love.
● He set a rule to be home every day by 6pm to see his kids and stuck to it nearly his
entire career despite helping to run a multimillion dollar company.
● He created “field trips” for his kids and their friends organized around different topics like
grease (fast food), garbage (garbage men and recycling), luggage (luggage factory and
airports). Sounds fun and cool and the kids loved it.
● If cancer beats you it is “such a hollow and inglorious triumph. Because the moment I
die, the tumor starts to die as well. The cancer will have killed itself as well as me.”
“The surest gauge of the scale of a life is how many other lives it touches.”
 The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich
Harris
The two classic drivers of human development are nature (genes) and nurture (environment).
Many people mistakenly believe nurture only refers to how parents raise their children. Although
children do learn things from their parents, they learn far more from their peers. The world that
children share with their peer group is what shapes their behavior, modifies the characteristics
they were born with, and determines the sort of people they will be when they grow up.
● The two classical drives of human development have been thought to be nature and
nurture, genes and environment.
● The nurture assumption is that, aside from their genes, what influences the way children
develop is the way their parents bring them up. In other words, we assume parents are
the whole environment, when in reality the environment includes much more.
● Fascinating: before Freud and behaviorism, clinical psychology books didn't even talk
about parental impact on children. It wasn't until Freud that parental nurture exploded
onto the scene.
● In many ways, children do not imitate their parents. They don't drive cars, light matches,
leave home whenever they please, and so on. You'll also notice many kids of immigrants
don't have accents while their parents do.
● If you start out thinking there is a “good” and a “bad” approach to anything, then you are
clouding you judgment. You have to release your attachment to certain sides of the
argument and start with a blank slate if you want to discover the truth.
● In general, you should put little stock in correlation research and trust experiments much
more. (Most child psychology research is correlational. Child psychologists usually look
for trends rather than setting up experiments.)
● There are two correlations that show up often enough that we can say they are true
(although they may not be particularly strong). First, parents who do a good job of
managing their lives and dealing with problems generally have children who do the
same. Second, child who are shown love and affection are likely to grow up with cordial,
well-adjusted relationships.
● Overall, heredity accounts for approximately 50 percent of behavioral differences among
people. Environment accounts for the other 50 percent.
● Children come into the world already different from one another thanks to their genes.
Then, parents treat their children differently precisely because they think and act in
different ways. Genetics leads to different parenting styles.
● Identical twins raised on the same home are no more alike than identical twins raised in
different homes. Both sets of twins have small personalities and small differences. It
appears genetics accounts for nearly all the differences.
● If parents treat different children in different ways, are they simply responding to genetic
differences in the children? Or are they causing differences by the different treatment
they give each child?
● Birth order is one factor that produces very different micro-environments for each child to
develop in. Any differences in personality are known as birth order effects. Interestingly,
researchers have found no link between birth order and behavioral differences.
● The problem many of these socialization issues run into is what Karl Popper cited: you
can’t prove it, but more importantly you can’t disprove it. You can’t call something
science if there is no way to test whether or not it is false.
● All people behavior differently in different situations. This is true even of babies.
● What you learn in one context will not necessarily work in another.
● Most children have at least two distinct environments: the home and the world outside
the home.
● The patterns of behavior acquired in the family are often different from the patterns of
behavior acquired with peers.
● A parent’s behavior toward a child impacts how the child behaves in the presence of the
parent or in contexts that are associated with the parent.
● One of the book’s key points: although children do learn things from their parents, they
do not only learn things from their parents.
● People tend to be drawn to others like themselves. For example, it is likely your
childhood friend will the same age, sex, race, and have similar values. It is worth noting
that children and adults are very unlike each other in size, intelligence, power, freedom
and more.
● “It takes a village to raise a child.” But only because you need a village to have a large
enough play group. The bulk of child socialization occurs within the play group with their
peers.
● Laughter is the favorite weapon of the group. It is used by kids around the world to keep
others in line with their expectations and norms.
● Research found that peer acceptance or rejection was associated with overall life status
adjustment in adulthood. However, having or not having friends during grade school was
not associated with life status adjustment in adulthood. Social comparison is a key part
of discovering and finding yourself, regardless of what your friendships look like.
● Margaret Mead’s definition of culture: “The systematic body of learned behavior which is
transmitted from parents to children.” This definition is correct about learned behaviors
being passed down, but mistakenly assumes this process only occurs from parents to
children.
● Cultures are not passed on from parents to children. We know this because children of
immigrant parents adopt the culture of their peers. This means neither the parent’s child
rearing methods nor the imitation of the parents by the child are dominant factors in
passing on culture.
● Cultures are not passed on by all of the adults in a society. We know this because cases
where children are of a different culture than the adults (for example, deaf children) take
on the culture of their peers and not the culture of the adults. Thus, the society-wide
adult culture is not a dominant factor in passing on culture.
● According to the author, cultures are passed on by the children’s peer group. She calls
this “group socialization theory.”
● The world that children share with their peers is what shapes their behavior and modifies
the characteristics they were born with and, hence, determines the sort of people they
will be when they grow up.
● A child’s goal is not to become a successful adult no more than a prisoner’s goal is to
become a successful guard. A child’s goal is to be a successful child. Thus, the influence
of peers is stronger than the influence of adults.
● Your power to influence your children’s friendships drops significantly over time. Once
they are 10 years old, you have very little influence over their peer group.
● One of the best strategies parents have at their disposal for influencing their kids is to
move to a different school district. This often hurts kids who rely on their peer group for
good standing, but if the kid is beaten down by other kids and his status amongst peers
is zero, then he has very little to lose.
● Like other aspects of personality, self-esteem is tied to the social context through which
it was acquired. A person can feel good about herself with friends and bad about herself
at home, or vice versa.
● Self-esteem is a function of ones status in their peer group. Low status in the peer group
can wreck a person’s personality.
● The parents have limited control over the child within the peer group, but one way they
can influence peer group status is by making sure their children look normal and
attractive. Normal and attractive means wearing the clothes other kids are wearing,
getting braces, or going to the dermatologist to treat acne.
● We drastically underestimate the fact that children are born different. We do not
appreciate the genetic differences enough.
● The main reason babies become smart adult is not because their parents read to them
or hang fancy mobiles above their head (if so, our ancient ancestors would never
become intelligent). It is because smart babies come from smart parents and thus have
smart genes.
● Sleep training is a completely cultural construct and a product of our modern society.
Babies never slept in separate rooms until recently. In hunter gatherer societies, a crying
baby would never be left alone. It was always with the tribe. It is not natural to let your
baby cry. It is natural to let it sleep with the parent.
● Is there an evolutionary reason why parenting should be hard? It doesn't seem so. In
fact, parenting should be easy and pleasurable. This would ensure we would want to
parent our offspring. Maybe if parenting is a chore, you're working too hard at it.
● Our society is obsessed with equality and fairness, but there is nothing about nature that
states equality must be the rule. In fact, it is far more natural to have inequality in some
cases.
● Quality time is an interesting concept. Most kids prefer to spend quality time with their
peers, not their parents. And yet, parents are supposed to feel guilty if they don’t spend
enough time with their kids.
● Parenting is a job where sincerity and hard work do not guarantee success. Through no
fault of their own, good parents sometimes have bad kids.
● Love your kids because kids are lovable, not because some expert prescribes it. You
can neither perfect nor ruin your kids, they are not yours to perfect or ruin. Just love
them.
 On the Move: A Life by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks was a brilliant physician and a fantastic writer. He lived a full life that included
dealing with criticism over being gay, attending medical school at Oxford University,
experimenting with heavy drug use, traveling the United States and Canada by motorcycle,
suffering life threatening injuries, squatting a California state record of 600 pounds, and being
honored by the Queen of England for his many books and storied career as a physician. Sacks
is a symbol of the importance of writing, the power of exploration and inquisitiveness, and the
need for empathy.
● Sacks makes a brilliant point when talking about the treatment of his schizophrenic
brother: medicine should not merely be about treating symptoms, but also about the
meaning and freedom and social well being of the patient.
● On his tendency to eat a lot whenever food was around: “In the absence of internal
controls, I have to have external ones. I have fixed routines for eating.”
● During his weightlifting days, he favored stiff-legged deadlifts to improve his back
strength.
● Sacks believes that the history and human elements of science are important to our
knowledge and understanding. So often researchers and experts will ignore anything
older than five years because it is “outdated.” But Sacks loves learning about the
inspiring discoveries of old researchers and the history of chemistry or physics or
biology. These stories increase his overall sense of understanding and perspective.
● Sacks once abducted a patient from the neurology ward and took her on a motorcycle
ride to honor the final request of her dying life. He probably should have been fired, but
wasn't because he was also incredibly valuable to the department. His experience
shows the importance of possessing rare and valuable skills. “In general, I was
something of an embarrassment to the neurology department, but also something of an
ornament: the only resident who had published papers and I think this might have saved
my neck on several occasions.”
● Sacks created such muscular imbalances with his squatting that he tore both quadriceps
tendons. Make sure you take proper care to build a strong, but balanced body.
● Sacks took many drugs during his twenties and during one hallucination he called his
friend Carol to say he was about to die. She asked, “What have you just taken?” He
responded, “Nothing! That's why I'm so scared.” She paused then asked, “What have
 you stopped taking?” And they got to the bottom of the problem. I thought Carol's line of
questioning was brilliant. She inverted the question, during a tense and emotional
moment, and got a totally different answer.
● Sacks was an incredibly multidisciplinary thinker and physician. I love that. The greatest
thinkers see the relatedness between concepts.
● “It seems to me that I discover my thoughts through the act of writing — in the act of
writing.”
● Sacks calls himself a “physician, teacher and storyteller.” I like those descriptions.
● Sacks had an incredible book editor who once phoned him in Australia to ask how he felt
about replacing a comma with a semicolon.
● Ludwig Wittgenstein said a book should consist of examples. And Sacks used this
method in his books. The examples of the patients in his books really connected with
readers. (You should do the same in your own writing.)
● While working with deaf students Sacks referred to them as “hearing impaired ” and one
of the students signed back to say maybe he was “sign impaired.”
● Like many fantastic writers, Sacks has no throttle on his writing tendency. He often
behins with the intention of adding a footnote or penning a few paragraphs and suddenly
that small idea expands into the biggest section of the book. I see this over and over with
top artists. Once the faucet starts flowing they can't turn it off. Instead, the act of writing
unleashes a fire hose of thoughts and inspiration. I think it is a sign they love their work
beyond measure.
● Sacks says that in the 70s and 80s everyone was talking about Skinner's stimulus and
response theory, but not many people thought about what came between stimulus and
response. That is, the mind and how it processes those stimuli and responses.
● Sacks would get obsessed with one or two pieces of music and play them again and
again. (So do I!)
● Neural Darwinism, Gerald Edelman's theory of consciousness, is essentially experiential
natural selection. In other words, just as natural selection gradually leads the species in
a particular direction so do our personal experiments and experiences lead us in a
particular direction. We discover what we like, what we don't like, what works for us, how
to walk, and so on through a series of experiences and experiments. It's like natural
selection, but on an individual scale. It's natural selection in our own brains and lives.
● Each baby learns how to walk and how to pick things up in their own way. We do not
each follow the same motor patterns. Instead, we experiment with various motor
 patterns and, over the course of weeks and months, select the ones that work best for
us. In this way and in many others, we make our own individual paths through life.
● Hearing about the extensive writing and personal notetaking that Sacks did throughout
his life makes me feel even stronger about the importance of writing. We need to
observe and record the experiences that happen to us. The things we live through can
teach us an incredible amount, but only if we are willing to investigate and learn lessons
from them. Keeping a journal and writing about your life is a fantastic way to make sense
of the world and leave lessons for others to build upon.
● “The act of writing is itself enough. It serves to clarify my thoughts and feelings. The act
of writing is an integral part of my mental life. Ideas emerge, are shaped, in the act of
writing.”
 On the Shortness of Life by Seneca
We all fear death, but life is long if you know how to use it. Putting things off is the biggest waste
of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the
future: live immediately. In any situation in life you will find delights and relaxations and
pleasures if you are prepared to make light of your troubles and not let them distress you.
● It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough,
and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if
it were all well invested.
● We are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but
wasteful of it. Just as when ample and princely wealth falls to a bad owner it is
squandered in a moment, but wealth however modest, if entrusted to a good custodian,
increases with use, so our lifetime extends amply if you manage it properly.
● Life is long if you know how to use it.
● You will find no one willing to share out his money; but to how many does each of us
divide up his life! People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it
comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to
be stingy.
● You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you
don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full
and overflowing supply – though all the while that very day which you are devoting to
somebody or something may be your last.
● You will hear many people saying: ‘When I am fifty I shall retire into leisure; when I am
sixty I shall give up public duties.’ And what guarantee do you have of a longer life? Who
will allow your course to proceed as you arrange it? Aren’t you ashamed to keep for
yourself just the remnants of your life, and to devote to wisdom only that time which
cannot be spent on any business? How late it is to begin really to live just when life must
end! How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and
sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!
● No activity can be successfully pursued by an individual who is preoccupied.
● Living is the least important activity of the preoccupied man; yet there is nothing which is
harder to learn.
● For being an extremely thrifty guardian of his time he never found anything for which it
was worth exchanging.
● Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness
of the present. But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes
every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day.
● You must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has
not lived long, just existed long.
● Each of us could have the tally of his future years set before him, as we can of our past
years, how alarmed would be those who saw only a few years ahead, and how carefully
would they use them!
● Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It
will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly. It will not
lengthen itself for a king’s command or a people’s favour. As it started out on its first day,
so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. What will be the outcome? You have
been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and you have no
choice in making yourself available for that.
● But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes,
and denies us the present by promising the future.
● The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately.
● Life is divided into three periods, past, present and future. Of these, the present is short,
the future is doubtful, the past is certain.
● Some men are preoccupied even in their leisure: in their country house, on their couch,
in the midst of solitude, even when quite alone, they are their own worst company. You
could not call theirs a life of leisure, but an idle preoccupation.
● Again, do you call those men leisured who spend many hours at the barber’s simply to
cut whatever grew overnight, to have a serious debate about every separate hair, to tidy
up disarranged locks or to train thinning ones from the sides to lie over the forehead.
Notes: 1) Ha. How interesting that they tried to hide baldness back then too.
● On the value of reading and writing philosophy: This is the only way to prolong mortality
– even to convert it to immortality. Honours, monuments, whatever the ambitious have
ordered by decrees or raised in public buildings are soon destroyed: there is nothing that
the passage of time does not demolish and remove. But it cannot damage the works
which philosophy has consecrated: no age will wipe them out, no age diminish them.
The next and every following age will only increase the veneration for them, since envy
 operates on what is at hand, but we can more openly admire things from a distance. So
the life of the philosopher extends widely: he is not confined by the same boundary as
are others.
● Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear
the future.
● It is inevitable that life will be not just very short but very miserable for those who acquire
by great toil what they must keep by greater toil.
● There will always be causes for anxiety, whether due to prosperity or to wretchedness.
● In this kind of life you will find much that is worth your study: the love and practice of the
virtues, forgetfulness of the passions, the knowledge of how to live and die, and a life of
deep tranquillity.
● Everlasting misfortune does have one blessing, that it ends up by toughening those
whom it constantly afflicts.
● I’m afraid that habit, which induces firmness in things, may drive this fault more deeply
into me: long association brings love of evil as well as good.
● Let no one rob me of a single day who is not going to make me an adequate return for
such a loss.
● Bias always affects our judgment.
● I imagine many people could have achieved wisdom if they had not imagined they had
already achieved it, if they had not dissembled about some of their own characteristics
and turned a blind eye to others.
● There are those too who suffer not from moral steadfastness but from inertia, and so
lack the fickleness to live as they wish, and just live as they have begun.
● We must realize that our difficulty is not the fault of the places but of ourselves. We are
weak in enduring anything, and cannot put up with toil or pleasure or ourselves or
anything for long.
● Often a very old man has no other proof of his long life than his age.
● I would not deny that one has to yield sometimes – but by a gradual retreat, and holding
on to our standards and our soldier’s honour.
● Truly, I believe, Curius Dentatus used to say that he preferred real death to living death;
for the ultimate horror is to leave the number of the living before you die.
● You must consider whether your nature is more suited to practical activity or to quiet
study and reflection, and incline in the direction your natural faculty and disposition take
you.
● But nothing delights the mind so much as fond and loyal friendship. What a blessing it is
to have hearts that are ready and willing to receive all your secrets in safety, with whom
you are less afraid to share knowledge of something than keep it to yourself, whose
conversation soothes your distress, whose advice helps you make up your mind, whose
cheerfulness dissolves your sorrow, whose very appearance cheers you up!
● You must especially avoid those who are gloomy and always lamenting, and who grasp
at every pretext for complaint. Though a man’s loyalty and kindness may not be in doubt,
a companion who is agitated and groaning about everything is an enemy to peace of
mind.
● It is easier to bear and simpler not to acquire than to lose, so you will notice that those
people are more cheerful whom Fortune has never favoured than those whom she has
deserted.
● Yet when Diogenes was told that his only slave had run away, he did not think it worth
the trouble to get him back. ‘It would be degrading,’ he said, ‘if Manes can live without
Diogenes and not Diogenes without Manes.’
● How much happier is the man who owes nothing to anybody except the one he can most
easily refuse, himself!
● What is the point of having countless books and libraries whose titles the owner could
scarcely read through in his whole lifetime? The mass of books burdens the student
without instructing him, and it is far better to devote yourself to a few authors than to get
lost among many.
● In any situation in life you will find delights and relaxations and pleasures if you are
prepared to make light of your troubles and not let them distress you.
● So you have to get used to your circumstances, complain about them as little as
possible, and grasp whatever advantage they have to offer: no condition is so bitter that
a stable mind cannot find some consolation in it.
● Think your way through difficulties: harsh conditions can be softened, restricted ones
can be widened, and heavy ones can weigh less on those who know how to bear them.
● Should Nature demand back what she previously entrusted to us we shall say to her too:
‘Take back my spirit in better shape than when you gave it. I do not quibble or hang
back: I am willing for you to have straightway what you gave me before I was conscious
– take it.’ What is the harm in returning to the point whence you came? He will live badly
who does not know how to die well. So we must first strip off the value we set on this
thing and reckon the breath of life as something cheap. To quote Cicero, we hate
 gladiators if they are keen to save their life by any means; we favour them if they openly
show contempt for it. You must realize that the same thing applies to us: for often the
cause of dying is the fear of it.
● He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a living man. But he who knows that
this was the condition laid down for him at the moment of his conception will live on
those terms, and at the same time he will guarantee with a similar strength of mind that
no events take him by surprise. For by foreseeing anything that can happen as though it
will happen he will soften the onslaught of all his troubles, which present no surprises to
those who are ready and waiting for them, but fall heavily on those who are careless in
the expectation that all will be well.
● ‘What can happen to one can happen to all.'
● ‘What can happen to one can happen to all.’ If you let this idea sink into your vitals, and
regard all the ills of other people (of which every day shows an enormous supply) as
having a clear path to you too, you will be armed long before you are attacked.
● Know, then, that every condition can change, and whatever happens to anyone can
happen to you too.
● The next thing to ensure is that we do not waste our energies pointlessly or in pointless
activities: that is, not to long either for what we cannot achieve, or for what, once gained,
only makes us realize too late and after much exertion the futility of our desires.
● We should also make ourselves flexible, so that we do not pin our hopes too much on
our set plans, and can move over to those things to which chance has brought us,
without dreading a change in either our purpose or our condition,
● We should also make ourselves flexible, so that we do not pin our hopes too much on
our set plans, and can move over to those things to which chance has brought us,
without dreading a change in either our purpose or our condition, provided that
fickleness, that fault most inimical to tranquillity, does not get hold of us.
● So we should make light of all things and endure them with tolerance: it is more civilized
to make fun of life than to bewail it.
● The mind should not be kept continuously at the same pitch of concentration, but given
amusing diversions.
● We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and
strength. We must go for walks out of doors, so that the mind can be strengthened and
invigorated by a clear sky and plenty of fresh air. At times it will acquire fresh energy
from a journey by carriage and a change of scene, or from socializing and drinking
freely. Occasionally we should even come to the point of intoxication, sinking into drink
but not being totally flooded by it; for it does wash away cares, and stirs the mind to its
depths, and heals sorrow just as it heals certain diseases.
 The Power of Fifty Bits by Bob Nease
The human brain is wired for inattention and inertia. As a result, many people already have
good intentions, but don’t follow through due to forgetfulness, procrastination, or a general lack
of awareness. We can bridge the gap between our intentions and our behavior by using
strategies to lock in our future behavior like active choice, pre-commitment, good design,
reframing, and simplicity.
● The author, Bob Nease, was an engineer and this book was a result of many
experiments not only on himself, but also on large populations.
● Nease studied “decision analysis” at Stanford, which is essentially an engineering
approach to economics and rational decision making.
● “50 bits design” refers to the 10 million bits of information our brains process and that
only 50 bits of that information is conscious thought.
● Lots of decision making happens “under the radar.”
● Our brains are extremely sensitive to losses, the group, and the present.
● 50 bits design assumes most people have good intentions and seeks to find strategies to
activate those good intentions.
● “The goal of this audiobook is to help you understand why we do what we do and to
equip you with practical tools and a set of principles that you can use to change behavior
for the better.”
● Generally speaking, behavior is the “rate limiter” in our lives. We can usually get
information, access, technology, and resources fast enough these days. But doing the
right thing with all the resources at our disposal is a much harder task.
● The human brain is wired for inattention and inertia.
● The human brain prefers to focus on things that are either painful or pleasurable.
● The intent-behavior gap: marketers, leaders, and designers often INFER what the user
wants based on actual behaviors. In fact, most people aren’t paying close attention and
so their actions are rarely an indication of their optimal preferences. Their is a gap
between what they truly intend and what they actually do.
● Because of the intent-behavior gap, we (marketers and business people) focus TONS of
energy on persuading people’s intent to buy a given product or act in a given way. Nease
argues that this logic is flawed because we are spending lots of time and money trying to
market to an intention the user already believes in. They don’t need to be persuaded to
 believe in the value of education or in the productivity boost of better time management
or in the health impact of eating better. They already have those good intentions. Now,
they need to act on them.
● What we need is to activate the good intentions that people already have.
● We should expect people to forget and procrastinate often. Non-adherence is accidental,
not deliberate. It’s just a result of our brain being wired for inattentiveness.
● This reminds me of what Bryan Harris said about product launches. At any given time,
your product is like number 150 on someone’s to-do list. They simply aren’t aware. The
goal of a great product launch is to skyrocket your product up into the top 10 of your
customer’s to-do list. They can only act once they are aware.
● We should ask if our behaviors are adaptive or maladaptive to the current environment
we find ourselves in. Often, behaviors that are adaptive to our environment seem
“rational” (economic terms) and behaviors that are maladaptive to our environment seem
“irrational” (psychology terms).
● Example of priming? One study claimed people named “Dennis” are more likely to
become dentists.
● Asking people why they do what they do (for example, in a customer survey or focus
group) can be a misleading way to get behavior or — at best — incomplete. People are
only telling you the 50 bits of conscious thoughts that impact what they do. Everything
else that impacts their behavior simply isn’t on their mind and won’t be mentioned.
● We have three shortcuts that our brain uses frequently.
● Brain Shortcut 1: Fit in. Humans have a strong urge to fit in and work with one another.
For example, one reason many people buy green cars like a Toyota Prius is to “fit in” and
showcase their personality and beliefs about living green. Additionally, we often keep
track of who is doing the work in a group project or who pays for dinner because people
want to feel like things are “fair.” We do not like cheaters or people who don’t contribute
their fair share. Social contracts are very important to humans.
● Brain Shortcut 2: Avoid losses. All losses have a reference point and our brains are
wired to feel pain if we just miss that reference point. Examples: Wharton study found
the professional golfers make more par putts (avoid bogey) than birdie putts (gains)
even though both count for one stroke. Students are more likely to retry SAT if they
narrowly miss a round number. Baseball players change strategy near end of season if
close to batting .300. The key here is that the losses are close to the reference point.
Losses that are far away don't cause the same pain and motivation. Winning a silver
 medal is more painful than bronze because you narrowly missed gold. With proper
design, you can utilize this function of loss aversion to motivate good behaviors.
● Note: loss aversion is another vote for small habits and one percent improvements
because it is only narrow misses that prompt the feeling of loss aversion.
● Brain Shortcut 3: hyperbolic discounting. We give more weight to long-term benefits
when they are in the future and more weight to immediate pleasure when we are in the
moment. This leads to a cycle of making earnest plans, procrastinating and choosing
something outside the plan in the moment, making more earnest plans for the future,
and so on. (I believe this is the same idea as time inconsistency.)
● There are 7 strategies we can use to turn the good intentions we already have into
consistent behaviors.
● Strategy 1: Active choice. This strategy interrupts the user during a process or workflow
and asks them to make an active choice about their preferences. For example, PetSmart
interrupts the checkout process to ask users if they want to donate to “help save
homeless animals.” Through that strategy alone, they raised over $40 million in a year.
This is an interesting indication that there was a lot of latent demand to donate for
homeless animals. People didn’t need to be convinced, they simply needed to be asked
at a moment when they had the power to act. The rest of the time, the issue of donating
simply wasn’t on their radar (even though the desire / intention was there). It’s important
to note that this strategy asks you to make processes less seamless for the user, but the
interruption occurs at an important and well-considered moment.
● Strategy 2: Lock in good intentions for the future. Use pre-commitment and
implementation intentions to secure good behaviors. Remove all of your TVs from your
home. Throw out all sweets and candy. Voluntarily add your name to the “do not gamble”
list. Take the drug antabuse to make yourself feel sick if you drink alcohol, etc.
● Richard Thaler ran an experiment on pre-commitment and created an automatic 401k
saving program that increased savings as employees earned raises. What they found
was that people saved nearly double the amount they would have for retirement. Most
people WANTED to save more, they just never got around to it when their pay increased
because of inattention and inertia. Thaler’s plan made it automatic.
● The author ran an implementation intentions study at Express Scripts to increase
participation at the annual walk. People who pledged to walk were 3 times more likely to
show up vs. those just saying they would walk.
● When used as prescribed, the pill has a failure rate (i.e. unintended pregnancy) of only
1%. But in the real world, people delay getting prescriptions, forget to take it, etc. and the
failure rate jumps to 9%. Meanwhile, implantable contraceptives (known as “long-acting
reversible contraceptive methods”) have a failure rate in the real world of less than 1%.
That is, they make contraception happen automatically everyday in the future once the
decision to use them have been made. This technological fix makes the right behaviors
automatic by shifting it to a one-time decision that bypasses our daily inattention and
inertia.
● Behavior-based commitments (e.g. “workout 3 days per week”) work better than
outcome-based commitments (e.g. “lose 20 pounds”) because it is too easy to make
exceptions in the moment when the outcome is in the future. Meanwhile, the behavior is
also in the moment, so sticking to your behavior is a choice for the here and now. Of
course, the outcome are often a natural consequence of the behavior as well.
● Strategy 3: Let it ride. Make the default decision a better one. Rely on people to “opt out”
rather than “opt in.” It’s the difference between requiring consent vs. assumed consent.
Basically, people procrastinate on everything. In this way, you let people lock themselves
into better behaviors. This is also a really compelling example of the fact that people
aren’t paying attention. We live our lives with inattention and inertia.
● Use the opt-out approach only when there will not be a ton of people wanting to opt-out.
● Strategy 4: Get in the flow. Items that are most frequently bought are at eye level and on
the displays at the ends of aisles. You post a sticky note on the mirror to remind yourself
in the morning. Amazon adds recommendations beneath the items you are browsing.
Netflix does the same with shows. Home delivery prescriptions coming with a message
on the final refill that says on top of the cap: “Last refill. Call your doctor. New Rx
needed.” These are all examples of injecting reminders into the normal flow of the user.
● The power of getting in the flow is best when they user can act upon the reminder
immediately. In other words, it should be a hot trigger.
● Strategy 5: Reframe the choices. Consider if Petsmart asked customers to “donate to
animal shelters” vs. “donate to save homeless pets.” It’s a small shift, but a big
difference. Homeless pets is a very personal, emotional phrase and it leads to more
action. Basically, this is just great copywriting. Word choice matters. This is especially
big to consider when crafting behavior for businesses and governments.
● Social norms messaging can shift behavior is a positive way. For example, showing
people how they compared on energy consumption to their neighbors led to
 improvements in energy consumption. You have to be careful using this strategy though.
Social norms mean some people are “in the group” and some people are “out of the
group.” That “out of the group” segment can often react negatively to social norms
messaging, which nullifies the positive impacts.
● It is best to “bundle losses and enumerate gains.” Amazon Prime is a good example.
They bundle all of the losses (shipping fees) into one yearly cost. Then, they enumerate
gains by showing you the “free shipping” options every time you purchase. This matches
with the philosophy of “stacking the pain” that I learned in business school.
● Decoy options are another way to change behavior and nudge people toward a
particular option.
● Piggybacking is when you use pleasure in the present moment to pull people into
behaviors that are better over the long term. One example was making toothpaste
pleasant to use. One way to do this is to change the experience (like the toothpaste
example). Another way to do it is with temptation bundling (Katy Milkman’s strategies).
● When you are presenting multiple options to someone, you should offer them in order of
decreasing effectiveness. That is, the most effective option is covered first. Then, the
second most effective. And so on. This ensures that the entire conversation is framed
around the topic of effectiveness and, thus, the person you are talking to can make a
decision for what they want while always knowing what works best. Offering alternatives
in a different order often colors the conversation and frames it around something besides
effectiveness. For example, the conversation might be framed around the option you are
currently using or around the option you are most familiar with already.
● Write out, in plain language, the behavior you intend to follow.
● Avoid deception. Ask yourself whether a reasonable person armed would feel deceived
by the way you are presenting information or nudging behavior if they knew everything
you did.
● Typically, we use big data to change behavior by targeting specific populations and
tailoring recommendations to them. Which segment should receive a coupon? And so
on. These choices are often made from a marketing and persuasion standpoint. By
realizing that most people fail to act because of forgetfulness and procrastination (not a
lack of desire), you can open up new opportunities for using big data.
● Fifty Bits Design assumes the best in people. There is no trickery or deception. It
assumes people want the best and then simply presents them with better options and
improves their ability to act on the good intentions they already have.
 The Practicing Mind by Thomas M.
Sterner
All of life is practice in one form or another. Actively practicing something is very different from
passively learning. You will never reach a level of performance that feels complete, so learn to
love the art of practicing your skill.
● The skill is practicing the goal, not having the goal.
● All of life is practice in one form or another.
● Good practice is not stressful, it is free flowing. (You get in flow.)
● Actively practicing something is very different from passively learning.
● Education: when school funding is determined by how many high test scores we put out,
what students actually learn is merely a footnote.
● Japanese perfect plate story. “Why would I need someone to make sure I do my job
correctly?”
● Your goals are like a rudder on a boat, they provide direction. (Goals as rudder versus a
dock?)
● Judging your work is wasted energy that can't go into the work.
● If your mind races off, you're like a chariot without the reigns. Take the reigns and be in
control of your mind.
● Your goals are a compass, not the buried treasure. The goal is not the destination or
where you end up, but rather the compass that guides the journey.
● The greatest part of entrepreneurship is breaking down your limiting beliefs. It has
nothing to do with money.
● Zen concept of Beginners Mind. It's harder to concentrate as you advance in skill level.
● A habit is the “natural way we do something.”
● There is no point of performance you can achieve where you will feel “done”.
● Make time to just sit. You need relaxing time.
 Profit First by Mike Michalowicz
Before you pay your expenses, take your profit first. Run your business based on what you can
afford to do today, not what you hope to be able to afford someday. When profit comes first, it is
the focus, and it is never forgotten.
● The solution is profoundly simple: Take your profit first.
● Money is the foundation. Without enough money, we cannot take our message, our
products, or our services to the world. Without enough money, we are slaves to the
businesses we launched.
● Growth is only half the equation. It is an important half, but still only half.
● Most business owners try to grow their way out of their problems, hinging salvation on
the next big sale or customer or investor, but the result is simply a bigger monster.
● The perfect size for your business? It will happen naturally, when you take your profit
first.
● Profit is not an event. Profit is not something that happens at year-end or at the end of
your five-year plan or someday.
● Profit isn’t even something that waits until tomorrow. Profit must happen now and
always. Profit must be baked into your business. Every day, every transaction, every
moment. Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit.
● Profit must be baked into your business. Every day, every transaction, every moment.
Profit is not an event. Profit is a habit.
● Profit is not an event.
● “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king”?
● Take profit first. You can’t grow out of your profit problem. You need to fix profit first, then
grow.
● You must figure out the things that make profit and dump the things that don’t.
● Sustained profitability depends on efficiency.
● When less money is available to run your business, you will find ways to get the same or
better results with less. By taking your profit first, you will be forced to think smarter and
innovate more.
● We place additional significance on whatever we encounter first.
● When profit comes first, it is the focus, and it is never forgotten.
 ● Eliminating unnecessary expenses will bring more health to your business than you can
ever imagine.
● If you get a $1,000 deposit, I am telling you, starting today, transfer $10 into your
PROFIT account. If you could run your business off $1,000, you can surely run it off
$990. If you get $20,000 in deposits, you transfer $200 into your PROFIT account. If you
can run your business off $20,000 you absolutely can run it off $19,800. You’ll never
miss that 1 percent. It is a low bar. But something magical will happen. You will start
proving the system to yourself. You won’t get rich overnight this way, but you will get a
wealth of confidence.
● Profit First is a cash-management system.
● Run your business based on what you can afford to do today, not what you hope to be
able to afford someday.

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

This book is an autobiography written by a 13-year-old boy from Japan about what it is like to
live with autism. The way autistic people view the world is very different than the way we may
perceive them to view the world. This disconnect between how we view and treat people with
autism and how they actually view the world makes living with autism is even more difficult than
it already is.
● “When you see an object, it seems that you see it as an entire thing first, and only
afterwards do its details follow on. But for people with autism, the details jump straight
out at us first of all, and then only gradually, detail by detail, does the whole image float
up into focus.”
● “On our own we simply don't know how to get things done the same way you do things.
But, like everyone else, we want to do the best we possibly can. When we sense you've
given up on us, it makes us feel miserable. So please keep helping us, through to the
end.”
● “But I ask you, those of you who are with us all day, not to stress yourselves out because
of us. When you do this, it feels as if you're denying any value at all that our lives may
have–and that saps the spirit we need to soldier on. The hardest ordeal for us is the idea
that we are causing grief for other people. We can put up with our own hardships okay,
but the thought that our lives are the source of other people's unhappiness, that's plain
unbearable.”
● “True compassion is about not bruising the other person’s self-respect.”
● “To give the short version, I've learnt that every human being, with or without disabilities,
needs to strive to do their best, and by striving for happiness you will arrive at happiness.
For us, you see, having autism is normal — so we can't know for sure what your ‘normal'
is even like. But so long as we can learn to love ourselves, I'm not sure how much it
matters whether we're normal or autistic.”
● “Everybody has a heart that can be touched by something.”
● There is a fantastic story that Higashida tells about learning to wave goodbye to a friend.
People kept telling him that he was doing it incorrectly, but he didn't understand why until
someone had him look in a mirror. He finally realized that he was waving goodbye to
himself with his palm facing toward his own face rather than his palm facing away and
toward the other person. He was simply mimicking what he saw when someone waved
goodbye to him (the other person's palm), but couldn't fully translate what he saw into
the correct behavior.
● He spends much of his day feeling like a failure and knows he screws up often.
● Childish behavior does not equal childish intelligence.
● My biggest takeaway was that when it comes to many everyday circumstances
Higashida “gets it,” but he can't act on it. Perhaps I was just ignorant about autism, but I
feel that we often assume that autistic people are “out of it” and aren't really following
what's going on. (And how would we know when we have no outward or physical
indication otherwise?) But he does understand. He gets context and subtlety. He knows
what is happening even if he can't take appropriate action.
The Richest Man in Babylon by George
S. Clason

Save at least 10 percent of everything

you earn and do not confuse your
necessary expenses with your desires.
Work hard to improve your skills and
ensure a future income because wealth
is the result of a reliable income stream.
You cannot arrive at the fullest measure
of success until you crush the spirit of
procrastination within you.
● The 7 simple rules of money: 1) Start thy purse to fattening: save money. 2) Control thy
expenditures: don't spend more than you need. 3) Make thy gold multiply: invest wisely.
4) Guard thy treasures from loss: avoid investments that sound too good to be true. 5)
Make of thy dwelling a profitable investment: own your home. 6) Ensure a future income:
protect yourself with life insurance. 7) Improve thy ability to earn: strive to become wiser
and more knowledgable.
● To bring your dreams and desires to fulfillment, you must be successful with money.
● The laws of money are like the laws of gravity: assured and unchanging.
● Money is plentiful for those who understand the simple laws of making money.
● Babylon was the wealthiest city in the world at the time of its height because its people
appreciated the value of money.
● You must constantly have an income that keeps your purse full.
● “It costs nothing to ask wise advice from a good friend.”
● It’s simple to say, but many people never achieve a serious measure of wealth because
they never seek it. They never truly seek it, focus on it, and commit to it.
● Youth often assumes, incorrectly, that the old and wise only have wisdom about days
gone by.
● You will only begin building wealth when you start to realize that a part of all the money
you earn is yours to keep. That is, pay yourself first. You always pay others for goods
and services. Pay yourself as much as you can. Save money.
● You should save at least 1/10th of what you earn. More if you can afford to do so.
● Do not take advice on finance from a brick layer. Go to people who are experts in a
particular subject if you want expert advice. It’s too easy for amateurs to give out advice.
● Build for yourself a mountain of gold first, then you can enjoy as many banquets as you
wish without worry. Don’t spend your money as soon as you earn it.
● Surround yourself with people who are familiar with money, who work with it each day,
and who make lots of it.
● Enjoy life while you are here. Do not overstrain to save.
● Do not put your money in investments which do not pay a dividend, but also do not
invest in risky places that seem too good to be true.
● What each person calls their “necessary expenses” will always grow to match your
income unless you resist that urge. Do not confuse your necessary expenses with your
desires.
● “A man’s wealth is not in the coins in his purse. It is in his income.”
● Ensure a future income. Every person gets old. Make sure your income will continue
without work.
● Buy life insurance. Provide in advance for the protection of your family.
● Increase your ability to earn. Improve your skills. As you perfect your craft, your ability to
earn more increases.
● The more we know, the more we may earn. The person who seeks to know more of their
craft is capable of earning more.
● You cannot arrive at the fullest measure of success until you crush the spirit of
procrastination within you.
● The 5 Laws of Gold: 1) Gold comes easily and in increasing quantity to the person who
saves at least 1/10th of their earnings. 2) Gold labors diligently and multiplies for the
person who finds it profitable employment. 3) Gold clings to the protection of the person
who invests their gold with wise people. 4) Gold slips away from the person who invests
gold into purposes through which they are not familiar. 5) Gold flees the person who tries
to force it into impossible earnings.
● If you desire to help you friend do not do so in a way that brings their burdens onto you.
There are many ways to help people. You don’t have to choose the ways that restrict
your time, money, energy, or ability to care for yourself.
● The wise lender always has a guarantee of repayment should the investment go poorly.
● Above all you should desire safety for your money. Better a little caution than a great
regret.
● Protect yourself with insurance. You cannot afford to be unprotected.
● Do not live beyond your means.
● No man respects himself if he does not repay his debts.
● The soul of a free man looks at the world as a series of problems to be solved.
Meanwhile, the soul of a slave whines, “What can I do?”
● “Where the determination is, a way can be found.”
● If you are in debt, live on 70% of what you make. Save 10% for yourself. Use the
remaining 20% to repay your debts.
● Stick with the plan. Money accrues surprisingly quickly and debts are gone fast with
discipline and consistency.
● Work attracts friends who admire your industriousness. Work attracts money and
opportunity. “Hard work is the best friend I've ever had.”
 Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke
This book contains a number of “rules for a knight,” which are lessons on how to live better. For
example, 1) never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one and 2) the only
intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude, and 3) how a knight lives is what is
important, not on which particular afternoon he was born or on which specific morning he might
die. Along with many other insights.
● If I return safely home from tomorrow’s battle, all the better; but should I not, then turn to
these pages whenever you might look for my voice in guidance. I do not want you
children to use my untimely death, or any setback that life may deliver, as an excuse not
to take responsibility for yourselves.
● I decided to seek out the wisest man I could find and ask him to tell me how to live.
● Am I weak or am I strong? Am I kind or cruel? I have been all these things! I don’t even
truly understand the difference between right and wrong. Just and unjust. And what does
any of it matter, since in no time at all everybody I know will be rotting in the ground
feeding worms?”
● The first thing you must understand is that you need not have gone anywhere. You are
always in the right place at exactly the right time, and you always have been.”
● Create time alone with yourself. When seeking the wisdom and clarity of your own mind,
silence is a helpful tool. The voice of our spirit is gentle and cannot be heard when it has
to compete with others. Just as it is impossible to see your reflection in troubled water,
so too is it with the soul.
● He said, “While I teach you about the ways of war, I want you to know that the real
struggle is between the two wolves that live inside each of us.” “Two wolves?” I asked,
seated on an old log near the fire. My eyes were transfixed by the flames twisting
uncomfortably in the night air. “One wolf is evil,” he continued. “It is anger, envy, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, deceit, false pride.” He paused, poking
the embers of our fire with a long stick he’d been carving. “The other is good. It is joy,
love, hope, serenity, humility, loving-kindness, forgiveness, empathy, generosity, truth,
compassion, faith.” I considered that for a minute, then tentatively asked, “Which wolf will
win?” Sparks danced towards the stars as the old man stared into the glare of the flames
and replied: “Whichever one you feed.”
● Never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one. You are better than no
one, and no one is better than you.
● All living things rely on each other. If there were no earthworms, the soil would be
depleted, grow no food, and we would die. Understanding that he relies on all that
surrounds him, a knight is kind above all. He knows he will need many friends. Proper
manners are not trivial. Being polite is part of our daily meditation on the equality of
mankind.
● Humility is the ability to see yourself in the context of a much larger world.
● “Be humble or get humbled,” Grandfather would say. “A knight is never so arrogant as to
think he has nothing left to learn.”
● “Expect nothing, and you will enjoy everything!”
● The only intelligent response to the ongoing gift of life is gratitude.
● The simple joys are the great ones. Pleasure is not complicated.
● Never pretend you are not a knight or attempt to diminish yourself because you deem it
will make others more comfortable. We show others the most respect by offering the
best of ourselves.
● We all see the world through the prism of our identity.
● A knight is the best kind of servant, leaving every space he enters brighter and cleaner
than when he arrived. His surroundings reflect his state of mind.
● “Shoot for nothing. When an archer shoots for a prize, he gets tight.”
● “When you shoot to impress, your eyes divide. You see two targets,”
● We must live and work together as brothers or perish together as fools.
● I learned that evening that rain falls equally on all things.
● There are only two possible outcomes whenever you compare yourself to another, vanity
or bitterness, and both are without value.
● The quality of your life will, to a large extent, be decided by with whom you elect to
spend your time.
● Remember, a friend does not need you to impress him. A friend loves you because you
are true to yourself, not because you agree with him. Beware of grand gestures; the real
mettle of friendship is forged in life’s daily workings.
● It’s difficult to explain, but in some ways it can be easy to be supportive when your friend
is hurt or sad. You may find it is more challenging to be wholeheartedly supportive when
extreme good fortune befalls a friend and not you.
● Those who cannot easily forgive will not collect many friends. Look for the best in others
and yourself.
● Every great knight has weaknesses. You will be no different.
● Like a dead branch falling from a tree, which then decomposes and nourishes the soil,
your disappointments can transform into the elements of change and growth.
● We do not need a “perfect” family or the “ideal” community. The one we have is good
enough with which to begin our work.
● To head north, a knight may use the North Star to guide him, but he will not arrive at the
North Star. A knight’s duty is only to proceed in that direction.
● Don’t fear suffering. The strongest steel is forged in the hottest fire.
● Without a little agony, none of us would bother to learn a thing.
● Anything that gives light must endure burning.
● Courage is our ability and willingness to overcome our fear.
● Horsemanship—virtually every task I can think of is aided by an awareness of breath. It
is the connective tissue of the universe, binding all living creatures together. By focusing
on our breath, we are able to more adeptly inhabit our bodies and function on instinct.
● Every task I can think of is aided by an awareness of breath. It is the connective tissue of
the universe, binding all living creatures together. By focusing on our breath, we are able
to more adeptly inhabit our bodies and function on instinct.
● Pay attention: what you need to know is usually in front of you. There are no secrets, just
things people choose not to notice.
● Later he told me when he was younger he learned the secret to performing under
pressure: don’t do it for yourself. Do it for someone else. “I know your grandfather
always tells us to think of nothing. But when I get scared I just think of someone I love.”
● Grace is the ability to accept change. Be open and supple; the brittle break.
● Habit, routine, and too much consistency numb our minds and pave the road for us to
sleepwalk through our lives.
● But to live well, sometimes you will need to hold two seemingly opposing truths, one in
each hand, and carry them both comfortably. Nature creates its balance with opposites.
We need the sun and the rain, the glacier and the desert.
● Young people, women and men, often use the possession of beauty or wealth as
permission to be uninteresting, undisciplined, and ill-informed.
● As you grow into maturity, do not concern yourself with aging. A rose is striking in full
bloom only because it will never be so again, but a budding rose is also stunning, as are
the dark petals of autumn.
● As you grow into maturity, do not concern yourself with aging. A rose is striking in full
bloom only because it will never be so again, but a budding rose is also stunning, as are
the dark petals of autumn. It is the fact that time is passing that creates its preciousness.
● There is no such thing as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
● There is a moment for action, and with a clear mind that moment is obvious.
● There is only one thing for which a knight has no patience: injustice. Every true knight
fights for human dignity at all times.
● A knight sets out to illuminate the darkness in society, not from its leaves but from its
roots. This is how justice will be realized. Find the source.
● You were born owning nothing and with nothing you will pass out of this life. Be frugal
and you can be generous.
● There have always been two ways to be rich: by accumulating vast sums or by needing
very little.
● The peregrine falcon is the swiftest, most adept animal I have ever seen. It is worth
noting that, like many birds, the falcon’s bones are hollow. Travel light.
● “A hearty laugh is the telltale sign of good health.”
● “Sometimes I think that the more wealth people accumulate, the less they laugh.”
● “I am happy where I am,” he confided to me. “I have friends. I’m good at what I do. And
that is enough.”
● In the field of battle, as in all things, you will perform as you practice; so practice hard.
● The better a knight prepares, the less willing he will be to surrender.
● Oddly, with discipline, structure, and order, you will find there is freedom.
● Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then
we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose.
Happiness is not an objective.
● Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering.
● Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best.
● Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are
concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task.
● You are not fragile. Engage.
● “There are only two things worth hating: an easy life and too much success.”
● Ordinary effort, ordinary result.
● Everyone wants to be a knight; wanting is no great accomplishment.
● You must not wait for the inevitable storms of life before you ready your mind. Thought
precedes action. How we handle times of peace and calm will determine our behavior in
moments of crisis.
● Do not speak ill of others. A knight does not spread news that he does not know to be
certain, or condemn things that he does not understand.
● Disparaging yourself in order to rouse compassion in others is not humility.
● A knight does not whine. He concerns himself with affecting change, not burdening the
world with his grievances.
● Never make a big decision without first walking a mile.
● In matters of great importance, trust your own gut. Don’t be fooled, and don’t be hurried.
There is plenty of time to make mistakes.
● Every knight holds human equality as an unwavering truth. A knight is never present
when men or women are being degraded or compromised in any way, because if a
knight were present, those committing the hurtful acts or words would be made to stop.
● Love is the end goal. It is the music of our lives. There is no obstacle that enough love
cannot move.
● Confrontation is always preferable to dishonesty, or injustice.
● Do the good you have the power to do.
● Life is a long series of farewells; only the circumstances should surprise us.
● How a knight lives is what is important, not on which particular afternoon he was born or
on which specific morning he might die.
● One thing he had learned in his long life was that if he understood something, things
were just as they were, and if he did not understand something, things were still simply
just as they were.
 Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Human history has been shaped by three major revolutions: the Cognitive Revolution (70,000
years ago), the Agricultural Revolution (10,000 years ago), and the Scientific Revolution (500
years ago). These revolutions have empowered humans to do something no other form of life
has done, which is to create and connect around ideas that do not physically exist (think
religion, capitalism, and politics). These shared “myths” have enabled humans to take over the
globe and have put humankind on the verge of overcoming the forces of natural selection.
● Human cultures began to take shape about 70,000 years ago.
● There have been three major revolutions in human history: the cognitive revolution, the
agricultural revolution, and the scientific revolution.
● Prehistoric humans (2 million years old or so) were no more important and impressive
than other mammals.
● Homo Sapiens means “wise man.”
● Humans first evolved in Africa about 2.5 million years ago.
● The author believes it is unlikely Homo sapiens will survive for another 1,000 years.
● From about 2 million years ago until 10,000 years ago, multiple human species roamed
the earth together. The depiction of man evolving from hunched over to upright
incorrectly displays human evolution as a linear trajectory. In fact, the species lived
simultaneously.
● Humans have huge brains for their body size.
● Human brains account for 2-3 percent of body size, but use 25 percent of energy.
● Human kind was very much in the middle of the food chain until 400,000 years ago and
didn't leap to the top of the food chain until 100,000 years ago.
● Most animals at the top of the food chain made it there gradually over millions of years.
Humans, however, jumped to the top relatively rapidly. This means that the rest of the
food chain wasn't ready and neither were we. Hence we feel anxious and stressed
because we aren't used to being at the top.
● The advent of fire and cooking food may have opened the way for the evolution of a
smaller intestinal track and a larger brain.
● There are two theories of how Homo sapiens evolved: Interbreeding theory and
Replacement theory. The reality is probably a combination of both theories.
● Perhaps this is why Homo sapiens wiped out the Neanderthals: “They were too familiar
to ignore, but too different to tolerate.”
● The last dwarf species of humans died out 12,000 years ago.
● Homo sapiens conquered the world because of its unique language.
● The Cognitive Revolution occurred between 70,000 to 30,000 years ago. It allowed
Homo sapiens to communicate at a level never seen before in language.
● As far as we know, only Homo sapiens can talk about things we have never seen,
touched, or smelled. Think religions, myths, legends, and fantasies.
● The telling of myths and stories allow Homo sapiens to collaborate in large numbers in
extremely flexible ways. This separates us from all other animals.
● Chimps can't form groups of more than 50 or so. For humans, the group size is usually
150 or so. Beyond that, you can't rely on gossip and personal communication. You need
something more to get large numbers of people working together.
● Large numbers of people can collaborate by sharing common myths and beliefs.
● In academic circles, stories are known as fictions, social constructs, or imagined
realities.
● An imagined reality is not a lie because the entire group believes it.
● Ever since the Cognitive Revolution, humans have been living in a dual reality: the
physical reality and the imagined reality.
● The way people cooperate can be changed by changing the stories as myths we tell.
● Because Homo sapiens shared myths were not genetically based, they could adapt and
change their behavior as soon as they adapted their new belief. They didn't have to wait
millions of years for a genetic change.
● Homo sapiens are the only animals that conduct trade.
● As far as we know, the humans of 30,000 years ago had the same physical, emotional,
and intellectual capabilities that we have today.
● Evolutionary psychology claims that most of our psychology was developed during the
period before the Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago.
● The instinct to gorge on high calorie food is wired into our DNA.
● Ever since the Agricultural Revolution, there hasn't been one predominant way of life for
all humans. There have only been options from a variety of cultures.
● The dog was the first animal domesticated by humans around 15,000 years ago.
● In ancient human groups (over 10,000 years ago) there was very little privacy, but also
very little loneliness.
● Most of our ancient ancestors had much wider and deeper knowledge of their physical
surroundings than we do. They were not unintelligent at all.
● The human collective today knows far more overall than the whole population of 15,000
years ago. However, at the individual level we are much more specialized today. Ancient
foragers were the most knowledgable and skillful people in history.
● It is far easier to pass “unremarkable” genes along today than it was 10,000 years ago.
● Our lack of knowledge about prehistoric religions and beliefs is one of the biggest holes
in our understanding of human history.
● Humans traveling across the sea and landing in Australia was one of the most important
expeditions in history. It marked the moment humans cemented themselves at the top of
the food chain.
● Homo sapiens first made it to America about 16,000 years ago.
● The settling of America – across the Siberian peninsula through Alaska into Canada and
the United States down through Mexico and Central America into the Andes and the
Amazon and all the way to the tip of South America – was one of the most rapid and
incredible invasions by a single species the world had ever seen.
● Incredibly, the Agricultural Revolution sprang up independently in many different parts of
the world.
● There is no evidence modern humans have become more intelligent with time.
● The Agricultural Revolution actually didn't make the life of the average human better at
first. It did, however, allow humans to collect more food per unit area and thus the overall
population multiplied exponentially.
● Fascinatingly, the first few thousand years of the Agricultural Revolution actually made
life harder for humans by creating more work, less leisure, and a ballooning population
that created more mouths to feed. Each individual generation didn't see how their life
was becoming worse because the small changes were so tiny.
● One of history's few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn
new obligations. Once people begin to enjoy new luxuries they tend to become expected
and then count on them.
● The evolutionary success of the Agricultural Revolution (greater population) was actually
cause for much suffering on the individual level. Not just for humans, but for
domesticated animals like cows, sheep, and chickens as well.
● The advent of the Agricultural Revolution marked the time when worries of the future
became prevalent: the weather, the crop yield this year, etc.
● The myths that surround us and make up our lives dictate so much of what we believe
and what we do.
● Like the ancient Egyptians, most people dedicate their lives to building pyramids. It's just
that the names, shapes, and sizes of the pyramids change from one culture to another.
● In order to change the imagined order, you must first find a group that believes in a
current imagined order. New myths must build upon or evolve from previous myths.
● The main purpose of writing is to record numbers, which our brains did not evolve to
manage well. Our brains are much better at remembering biological, zoological, and
social information.
● There is an ancient writing system used by the Incas known as a quipu. They are not
written words at all, but a series of knots of different colors and strings that represent
words and numbers.
● Writing has actually changed the way humans think. We can use writing and record
keeping to think far more categorically than ever before.
● Numbers are the world's most prevalent language.
● Social hierarchies, inequality, and so on are human inventions.
● Most rich people are rich because they were born into rich families. Most poor people
are poor because they were born into poor families.
● Unjust discrimination often gets worse, not better, with time.
● As of 2006, there were still 53 countries where a husband could not be legally
prosecuted for raping his wife.
● When it comes to gender inequality: biology enables, culture forbids. The idea of
“unnatural” behaviors is actually a result of Christian theology, not biology.
● If it is possible biologically, then it is natural. From a scientific perspective, two men
having sex is natural. Traveling at the speed of light is not natural.
● Why are men valued in many cultures more than women?
● All human cultures are filled with inconsistencies. For example, America currently values
individual freedom and equality. But these two ideals don't always play nicely. It is part of
the human experience to reconcile them. These inconsistencies aren't necessarily bad.
They force us to think critically. Consistency is the playground of dull minds.
● History is moving relentlessly toward unity. The whole planet is moving toward one world
culture.
● The creation of money was purely an intellectual revolution. It doesn't exist except in our
minds.
● More than 90 percent of all money is just electronic data, not physical money.
● Everyone always wants money precisely because everyone else always wants money.
● Empires have been the world's most common form of political organization for the last
2,500 years.
● In general, empires do not fall because of uprisings. They almost always succumb to
outside invasion or splits from within the empower class.
● Most of what we firmly believe is part of “our culture” was actually forced upon us by
other empires who conquered our ancestors.
● Despite the obvious negatives of empires taking over a culture, there are many benefits
too. Art, music, governance, and more are the result of empires forming. Often, they
blended new together with the conquered people to create a new culture.
● It seems obvious that we are moving fast toward a singe global empire. Global markets,
global warming, and commonly accepted concepts like human rights make it clear we all
need one collective entity, not man states and countries.
● Religion is the third great unifier of humankind, alongside money and empires.
● The Agricultural Revolution was accompanied by a Religious Revolution.
● Interestingly, polytheism is more open and accepting of multiple beliefs even though we
often look at it as more barbarian and uneducated than our current beliefs.
● Monotheism seems to push away polytheism, but actually is very similar to polytheistic
gods with the use of patron saints. Praying to the patron saints of farmers isn't much
different than praying to the god of rain.
● The central tension with monotheism is how to deal with the fact that there is evil in the
world while the omnipoten God is believed to be good and caring. If God is good why
would he allow evil things to happen?
● Even the rich and famous are rarely satisfied.
● According to Buddhist tradition: the mind naturally craves more in all situations. And all
suffering arrives from craving.
● There are a variety of “natural law religions” that are popular today like communism,
capitalism, and liberalism.
● Over the last 200 years, science has increasingly revealed that human behavior is
determined by hormones, genes, and neurological synapses. If this is true, then for how
much longer will we ignore that biology does not agree with the concept of free will?
● To describe how something happened means to reconstruct the series of specific events
that led from one point to another.
● To describe why something happened means to find causal connections that led to this
particular series of events to the exclusion of all others.
● The deeper your knowledge of a particular area of history, the harder it becomes to
explain why one particular outcome occurred and not another.
● It is an inevitable rule of history that what seems obvious in hindsight is impossible to
predict beforehand.
● The are level one and level two Chaotic Systems. Level one does not respond to
predictions about it, like the weather and weather forecasts. Level two does respond to
predictions about it, like the stock market and analyst reports about rising oil prices.
● There is no proof that history is working for the benefit of humans or that human well
being increases overtime. It's good for the victors, but is it good for us all?
● The Scientific Revolution started in Europe around 500 years ago. The last 500 years
have witnessed an unprecedented growth of human impact.
● One difference between religion and science is that science assumes humankind does
not know the answers to many of life's biggest questions. Religion, however, assumes
that the important stuff is already known. Science assumes human ignorance.
● Modern culture has been able to admit ignorance more than any previous culture.
● Previous cultures and belief systems compiled their theories using stories. Science
compiles its theories using mathematics.
● The story of how Scottish Widows was founded is an awesome example of the power of
probability.
● Scientists generally agree that no theory is 100 percent correct. Thus, the real test of
knowledge is not truth, but utility. Science gives us power. The more useful that power,
the better the science.
● The military arms race drives science forward in rapid fashion. The truth is war prompts
many scientific discoveries.
● In the past, the best minds of the day worked on finding ways to give meaning to death.
Today, our best minds work on preventing death through biological, hormonal, and
genetic means. Science does not take death as an inevitability.
● The economic, religious, and political interests that impact the flow of money into
scientific and technological research have a huge impact on the output of science.
● It is not enough to consider science in a vacuum. Economic and capitalistic interests, for
example, determine what we research and what to do with the research findings.
● Why did Europeans discover and conquer the Americas? Why not the Chinese or those
from India or the Middle East who possessed just as much knowledge and technology
as the Europeans? The European ideology to explore the world was the primary
difference.
● For most of human history, per capita production remained the same. Since the launch
of capitalism, however, per capita production has skyrocketed.
● Modern capitalism has exploded the growth of humankind thanks to the creation of
credit, which allows you to borrow money now because we collectively trust that the
future will be better than the present.
● Adam Smith's brilliant insight about capitalism in The Wealth of Nations was that
increasing private profits is the basis for increasing collective wealth and prosperity. In
other words, by becoming richer you benefit everyone, not just yourself. Both parties get
a bigger slice of pie. (Note: this only works if profits get reinvested, not hoarded.)
● For capitalism to work, profits must be reinvested in new production.
● The “religion” of capitalism says economic growth is the supreme because justice,
freedom, and happiness requires economic growth.
● All credit is based on the idea that science and technology will advance. Scientists
ultimately foot the bill of capitalism.
● The annual sugar intake of the average Englishman rose from nearly zero in the early
17th century to 18 pounds in the early 19th century.
● The life expectancy, child mortality, and calorie intake are significantly improved for the
average person in 2014 compared to 1914, despite exponential population growth.
● Until the industrial revolution, human behavior was largely dictated by solar energy and
plant growth. Day and night. Summer and winter. Everything was determined by man
power and animal power, which were determined by food, which is determined by
photosynthesis.
● “This is the basic lesson of evolutionary psychology: a need shaped in the wild continues
to be felt subjectively even if it is no longer really necessary for survival and
reproduction.”
● Harlow's infant monkey studies from the 1950s (and a variety of followup studies) have
shown that animals have strong psychological needs as well as purgative physical
needs. Note to self: never disregard your psychological needs.
● Each year the United States population spends more money on diets than the amount
needed to feed all the hungry in the rest of the world.
● Most people don't realize just how peaceful of the times are we live in.
● In recent years, more people die from suicide each year than from war and violent crime.
The same can said for car accidents.
● Live a safe community, drive as little as possible, and love yourself. Violent local crime,
car accidents, and suicide are some of the biggest killers of humans.
● War is at an all time low because the costs of war have increased because of nuclear
weapons, the benefits of war have decreased because physical resources drive less of
the economy and international trade is more lucrative than conquest, and the tightening
of international connections because a worldwide culture is less likely to battle itself.
● Our view of the past is heavily influenced by recent events.
● Researchers have investigated nearly all aspects of history, but have rarely have asked
whether historical changes have made humans happier.
● Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
● If happiness is based on pleasurable feelings, then increasing our happiness is a matter
of increases biochemical release. If happiness is based on meaning, then increasing our
happiness is a matter of deluding ourselves about the meaning of our lives.
● One uncommonly cited benefit of religion: belief in the afterlife gives meaning to your life
in the present.
● Buddhism has studied happiness for over 2,000 years. Interestingly, Buddhism shares
many viewpoints on happiness with science. Most notably, that happiness results from
processes within the body and not from the outside world.
● The Buddhist philosophy of happiness centers around the idea that you are not the
events that happen to you, but you are also not the feelings you have. You are not your
feelings. They are just feelings. Thus, if you understand this, you can release the needs
to keep chasing the need to feel happy or to not feel angry or to not feel sad. In other
words, you have to understand yourself.
● For close to 4 billion years, every organism developed according to evolution. But in
recent decades, humans have begun to evolve according to intelligent design. In other
words, there are people who would have been selected out of the gene pool millennia
ago, but not today.
● Genetic engineering is allowing humans to break the laws of natural selection.
● The next stage of human history will not only involve biological and technological
changes, but also changes in human consciousness and identity. Changes that are this
fundamental will call the very term “human” into question.
● Many people think the question we should ask to guide our scientific pursuits is, “What
do we want to become?” However, because we seem to be on the path to genetically
engineering and programming nearly every facets of our wants, desires, and
consciousness, the real question we should ask is, “What do we want to want?”
● In the past 1000 years, humans have evolved to take over the world and are on the
verge of overcoming natural selection and becoming gods. Yet, we still seem unhappy in
many ways and we are unsure of what we want. Is there anything more dangerous that
dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don’t know what they want?
 Slipstream Time Hacking by Benjamin
Hardy

What if we measured our lives based on “distance” traveled rather than time elapsed? If we
measure life by distance rather than time, then it becomes very clear that you can hack time by
figuring out how to jump further along the timeline of life. This enables you to live many lives in
one lifetime. For example, someone who retires at age 30 will free up an extra 40+ years of life
compared to their peers, which means they can live an entire second life that many people will
never get to experience.
● The faster someone moves toward a desired destination, the slower time moves for
them.
● But what if we did measure time as a distance? How would our lives look? What if rather
than focusing on how long something took, we focused on how far we went?
● According to Einstein’s special relativity theory, time is a description of distance traveled.
● This is how time relativity works. Time feels the same to each individual but can be
vastly different—speed is relative to each person.
● What if we were to measure our entire lives as we measure light-speed—as distance
traveled rather than time elapsed? How would each day look, if rather than passing
through 24 hours, we measured how far we moved that day?
● “The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who
has most felt life.” —Jean-Jacques Rousseau
● After acclimating to the speed of my new system, it became obvious to me that I had
covered more ground in terms of time-distance than many of my associates. In other
words, while we had all experienced the same few years, I felt like I had aged, or
changed, by decades.
● Today, innovation is so fast that we accomplish more in a day than previous generations
did in a lifetime.
● If we measure life by distance rather than time, some people may travel great distances
on a given day while others can’t remember a single significant thing they did.
● If time is relative, we don’t need to assume one minute means one minute. Perhaps, five
minutes could be squeezed into one minute, of five hours, or five years. The
 compression of time is not a matter of compounding activities, but the compounding of
meaning.
● If the goals you are pursuing do not require wormholes, your approach to life is far too
small. The highest pursuits available are those that literally require exceptions to the
rules, because such aims cannot be done conventionally.
● Nobody achieves the impossible without thinking they can.
● Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities aren’t really that rare.
● Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” —Roald Dahl
● The Jewish physicist, Albert Einstein, centered light as the single constancy of the
universe with his special relativity theory. Rather than time being the absolute and
unchanging force as previous theorists assumed, Einstein rendered light-speed
constancy as the unchanging backdrop to his theories. Light is the framework of the
universe and the fundamental reality.
● For example, to a person driving a car, the objects in the car (his iPod or Big Gulp)
appear to be motionless despite the fact that they are moving at the speed of the car.
The objects are at rest with respect to the driver.
● The faster an object travels through space, the slower its progress in time.
● The faster an object travels through space, the slower its progress in time. If an object
could travel at the speed of light, time would stand still.
● To move fast is to have all the time in world.
● If we have a lot of time, it tends to be filled with busyness. If we are crunched for time,
we use that time efficiently.
● Thus, to slow time, one only needs to set shorter timelines. If the goal is to get to Hawaii
in 15 years, reduce that timeline to 15 months and voilà, put on your flower-shirt.
● If a task is perceived to be unimportant, it will take enormous amounts of time to
complete. Conversely, if a task is perceived to be important, it will get done
soon—sometimes immediately, depending on how important and urgent.
● By pursuing things we believe to be important and breaking them down into their
smallest parts, time slows and more is accomplished.
● Certain people are moving so fast that they can arrive at destinations in moments that
would take most of us decades.
● For example, assuming Tim and I had the same goal, if Tim could accomplish this goal
in one day (like make a successful multi-million dollar investment) the same would likely
take me 10 or more years. Tim is moving over 3,650 times faster than me. Thus, time
 has dilated 3,650 times for Tim. While he can now set grander and greater goals, I
continue plugging along. One day to Tim is 3,650 days to me.
● Bill Gates is another who is moving so fast he has potentially traveled the same distance
in his life as the combined distance of millions of people.
● Advances in technology are a great example of time dilation. Due to the rapid progress
of technology, humanity is able to progress hundreds to thousands of times faster than
we used to.
● From a linear perspective of time, Bill Gates will live the same years as most other
people do. From a nonlinear perspective, he is squeezing the same amount of life into
seconds that most people experience in their entire lifetime.
● Each of us has a vision of the ideal life we want to live. Living congruently with our ideal
is how time slows down. Consequently, success is defined as living that ideal for the
maximum amount of time. The sooner we get there, the longer we have to live.
● “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone” —Henry
David Thoreau
● When we were children, time slowed down. Time meant something; or more likely, we
were oblivious to linear time. Ignorance of time literally was bliss.
● In contrast, if we know what we want and align our life to what matters most, to reality,
time will slow down. All of those things we have spent our life chasing are nothing more
than a distraction from what matters most.
● The closer we get to reality, our authentic self and desires, the slower time goes.
● What good is money when you don’t have time?
● A person choosing to spend large portions of time in an unsatisfying job in order to make
ends meet is on a fast track to his deathbed.
● You may be young in years, but you are closer to death than you think.
● If a moment is remembered, no matter how quickly it passed, that moment lasts forever.
● You could live more life in one congruent day than many people live their entire lives.
● The goal isn’t an infinite quantity of time, but the highest quality of time. This is where
time slows down.
● People who think “I will be happy when…” are speeding up their time rather than slowing
it down. In other words, they believe that once they accomplish a certain task or goal,
only then will time slow. If we could learn how to get to where we want instantaneously,
we could learn the truth that happiness is now. Time can slow now.
● There is always a way to get to where we want to go almost instantly.
● Newtonian time’s most fatal flaw is determinism—the present is determined by the past.
● Don’t let what may appear to be a setback become a missed wormhole of opportunity.
● Change doesn’t have to take a long time, it happens the instant we decide.
● Each person lives in their own perceived reality. Stephen Covey expressed, “We don’t
see the world as it is, but as we are.”
● When another cyclist rides directly behind the first, they get caught in this particle trail
and experience a large reduction of resistance while simultaneously being pulled forward
by the front rider’s momentum diffusion. Riding in the slipstream allows a rider to keep
pace while using approximately thirty percent less energy.
● The root of the word decision means to cut-away and remove other options. Thus, when
a decision is made, it is separated from other decisions which could have been made.
There are opportunity costs to every decision.
● When choosing a slipstream to enter, it is crucial to be mindful. Destinations, as well as
paths, must be chosen wisely.
● Don’t get stuck in one slipstream just because it worked in the past. What got you here,
won’t get you there.
● Psychologists have found that the ability to experience joy has a ceiling effect.
● Whatever we seek—we imagine the satisfaction to be far greater than it really is.
Eventually life is just life again.
● This is the experience of the successful. To them, life is normal. Not worrying about time,
money, or volatile relationships is just how life is. The newness has long since worn off.
However, even they have moments where they wake up and cannot believe how far they
have come.
● To push my own progress, I chose to surround myself with people several decades
(literally) older than me. I made friends with people who were near retirement or already
retired. I began to see movies with them, hang out at their houses, and engage in their
same activities. I wanted to learn now what took them an entire lifetime of experience to
learn. I gradually reduced my time with people my own age, recognizing they were at
best, in the same boat I was in, and therefore had less experience and wisdom to offer.
● When we buy a new home, it isn’t really costing us $300,000. What it really costs is the
time spent working to pay the monthly mortgage.
● Sadly, people today not only spend the time they have, they also spend away their
futures. To accrue debt is to sell away our future time.
● Not only is time the ultimate currency, but in actuality time is our only currency. Our time
is the only thing that really belongs to us. Everything else belongs to the world and the
universe. We can’t take our money or stuff with us when we die. Although we may “own”
something, we don’t really own it. At most, we are stewards over our possessions, but
they are ultimately the Earth’s. The only thing that is fundamentally ours is our time. To
waste our time is to waste ourselves.
● There are three distinct requirements for personal freedom: 1) a heart at peace, 2)
healthy relationships, and 3) upright character.
● There are many successful businesses but few successful families.
● Meaningful moments exist forever in our minds—memories are timeless. We get to relive
them again and again.
● Leadership is not forcing people to follow. Rather than the bee going out searching for
honey, it’s being the flower and allowing the bees to come to you.
● In our world with limitless options, limitless books to read, limitless clothes to wear,
limitless paths to take, it is extremely important to be picky.
● We must not be afraid of committing to our true desires at the expense of forgoing
others.
● I’m not going to be lured by a great opportunity when it’s the wrong opportunity.
● Those who become the greatest and go the farthest are highly selective about what they
take on. They are clear on where they want to go and recognize that most of what life
offers will not get them there. Almost everything in life is a non-essential distraction
● “Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go
with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit
of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it
won’t make them happy.”
● “Anything is possible, but not everything is possible” —Tyler Rex
● Right now, most of us engage in far too many priorities. If we have more than three
priorities, we have none.
● Everything is a myth. It’s not only impossible, it’s ridiculous. You can’t have it all.
● The fewer the priorities in our lives the better.
● “The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes
another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he
vowed to make it.” —J.M. Barrie
● The gap between what we know we should do and what we actually do is enormous.
● Despite turbulence and other conditions keeping the plane off course 90% of the flight,
most flights arrive in the correct destination at the correct time. The reason for this
phenomenon is quite simple—through air traffic control and the inertial guidance system,
pilots are constantly correcting. Essentially, the plane is on a straight course and keeps
getting nudged a degree off course here and pushed a degree or two off course there.
When immediately addressed, these course corrections are not hard to manage.
However, if a pilot only occasionally checked the course the aircraft could potentially
become so far off course that the requisite corrections would take substantial time and
resources to execute.
● True commitment can only occur when turning back is no longer an option. This moment
constitutes conversion in the highest regards. Failure is no longer caused by a lack of
commitment. If you are going to fail, you are going to fail epically. If you are going to
succeed, you will live at your highest level.
● “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold to them 98
percent of the time.” —Clayton Christensen
● When you commit to something 100%, all of your future choices are already made—no
matter how attractive the circumstances
● A true pro gets paid, but doesn’t work for money. A true pro works for love.
● “To the individual, character is destiny. To the organization, culture is destiny.” —Tony
Hsieh
● Essentialists are people who make fewer decisions, but take the time to contemplate
those decisions. By doing so they make fewer, better choices.
● Avoid checking email or answering the phone during the first few hours of your day—that
time is sacred. Checking your email is simply a database of other people’s agendas.
Thus, by checking your email at the beginning of the day, you have already set a pattern
that your day is not going to be designed by you, but someone else.
● Leveraging other people’s time, skills, and money is essential for getting where you want
to go faster. You simply don’t have the time to do it all.
● “If you ever find a man who is better than you are – hire him. If necessary, pay him more
than you would pay yourself… If you always hire people who are smaller than you, we
shall become a company of dwarfs. If, on the other hand, you always hire people who
are bigger than you, we shall become a company of giants.” —David Ogilvy
● Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the world was local and linear. Humans were
hunter gatherers, with limited goals, living in limited space. Consequently, our brains
 have evolved to think locally and linearly. However, today’s world is global and
exponential.
● We all have invisible doors in our direct proximity that will transport us decades into our
best futures.
● The people that have moved the needle of humanity live on forever. The time they have
expanded for others is their contribution to humanity—their footprint on evolution.
● “Do what is right, let the consequence follow.”
● Life is filled with an almost infinite wealth of hard decisions. You are bound to fumble
along time way.
● One thing is certain, life rewards those who act—the hustlers; not the wishers.
● When the end of life comes, we leave with nothing but our relationships.
 Strangers to Ourselves by Timothy
Wilson
We do not realize how much the nonconscious mind impacts our behavior and personality. In
many cases, the nonconscious mind influences our behavior more than our conscious thoughts
do and the two minds will often conflict with one another, which can make it difficult to keep our
desires and our actions in alignment. The first step to bringing our nonconscious inclinations into
alignment with our conscious desires is to act more like the person we want to be.
● This book answers two main questions: why it is that people often do not know
themselves very well. And how they can increase their self-knowledge.
● Much of what we want to know about ourselves resides outside of conscious awareness.
● The idea that a large portion of the human mind is nonconscious was Freud's greatest
insight.
● Not only can we study what people are thinking, we can study what goes on inside
people's heads that even they can't see.
● Many of the discoveries by psychological researchers appeared to occur outside of the
conscious thoughts of the people they studied.
● The mind operates most efficiently by relegating a good deal of high-level mental
processing to the nonconscious.
● The adaptive nonconscious mind does an excellent job of sizing up the world, setting
goals, initiating action, and warning people of danger.
● We often refer to the human mind as a single entity. In reality, it is a collection of many
processes that work in concert with one another. It is a system of thinking with various
mental feedback loops.
● The mind is a well-designed system that is able to accomplish a great deal in parallel.
You can perform a conscious behavior and a nonconscious one at the same time.
● William Hamilton noted that the human mind can attend to one thing nonconsciously
while performing another behavior consciously. Such as drifting to another train of
thought while reading aloud.
● William Hamilton theorized that habits acquired early in life had a distinct effect on
nonconscious mental processes.
● Fascinating: Freud didn't believe experiments and the scientific method could reveal
insights about the nonconscious mind. He thought only careful clinical observation could
do that. Which might explain how he ended up with so many unscientific theories.
● It is not possible to access our nonconscious minds, thus one of the best strategies we
have is to work backwards by running experiments, examining our behavior, and coming
up with a theory that, while unlikely to be perfectly accurate, is useful enough to shed
insight on our nonconscious behavior and help adjust our future actions.
● We could not have a conscious mind without a nonconscious one. We need all of the
nonconscious processes (like proprioception) to function properly. Just like a computer
screen needs the hardware and software for any image to appear.
● We often mistakenly equate nonconsciousness with inattention. The nonconscious is
composed of mental processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence
judgments, feelings, or behavior.
● Your brain processes 11 million bits of information per second via the five senses. This
was calculated by counting the number of receptors on each sense organ and nerve
signals being sent to the brain. Your eyes alone process 10 million pieces of information
per second. Yet, you can only consciously process 40 of them (and that's a high-end
estimate). The vast majority of life lives in the nonconscious mind.
● The typical explanation for why our nonconscious mind developed is an evolutionary
one. Those mental processes were selected for by evolutionary pressures. It's just a
theory, but a good theory.
● The world is “one great blooming, buzzing confusion.” -William James
● Cocktail Party Effect: tons of people are talking, but you tune them out and focus on your
conversation. Then, someone nearby mentions your name in conversation and you
suddenly pick up what they are talking about. Were you listening the whole time? You
must have been because you heard your name, but you felt fully engaged in the first
conversation. Your brain is pulling in tons of information, but only consciously thinking
about some of it. This is selective attention.
● The adaptive nonconscious helps our brains deal with situations where there is a lot to
analyze but only a small slice of information that matters. It allows your brain to act like a
spotlight and highlight what is happening on center stage while keeping the rest of the
theater in the dark.
● Accessibility of information actually has a neurological component. Information can be
“energized” and has higher action potentials when it is easier to recall.
● When it comes to maintaining a sense of well-being, we are ultimate spin doctors of
information. We will twist, confuse, contort, and ignore whatever information we need to
maintain our sense of self. Daniel Gilbert refers to this as the psychological immune
system, which fires up whenever we are trying to protect our psychological well-being.
● What makes us feel good depends on our cultures, our personalities, and our level of
self-esteem. But our desire to feel good is probably universal.
● Psychological defenses operate frequently in the nonconscious because that way we
don't even realize distortion is occurring (if you realized, you could correct for it).
● The conflict between the desire to be accurate and the need to feel good about
ourselves is one of the major battlegrounds of the self.
● Nonconscious processes, though generally beneficial, are not perfect.
● Evolutionary pressures influence our mind as well as our bodies.
● It is reasonable to assume the adaptive nonconscious is an older system from an
evolutionary perspective. Conscious thought evolved later in human history.
● Idea: I’m not so sure we need to make a hard division between the conscious and
nonconscious mind. It might help us understand and discuss the two systems, but in
reality, they are both part of the same body. Humans are constantly taking in information.
Some of it is known to us and some of it is unknown.
● Idea: the body is just a collection of many systems or feedback loops and the vast
majority of the systems are nonconscious (digestive system, for example). There is at
least one conscious system, which is our conscious mind.
● The adaptive nonconscious cannot think about the past or make plans for the future. It
lives in the here and now.
● The ability to think about and plan for the future endows human with a tremendous
survival advantage, but can be a two-edged sword if our conscious decisions conflict
with our nonconscious desires.
● Automatic thinking has five defining features: nonconscious, fast, unintentional,
uncontrollable, and effortless.
● Study by Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett found that children (around the age of 3) who
were rewarded for drawing were less likely to draw during free time. Presumably, they
applied the discounting principle without knowing it. (“I drew with the pens and was
rewarded, thus I must have been drawing because I was rewarded and not because I
actually like drawing.”) This discounting principle holds up in adulthood as well where we
 often find that people actually are less likely to follow through on behaviors they
previously enjoyed if they start receiving external rewards for them.
● Very young children may have a nonconscious mind that drives their behaviors earlier in
life than their conscious mind.
● The adaptive nonconscious learns patterns easily. It is designed to scan our
environment and detect patterns.
● Evolution works with what it has.
● “Personality is the psychological processes that determine a person's characteristic
behavior and thought.” -Gordon Allport
● Research has revealed five key traits that are fundamental to all people: extroversion,
emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
These traits are viewed as the fundamental building blocks of personality that everyone
possesses to some degree.
● Typically, genetic factors have been found to account for 20-50 percent of the variance in
these personality traits.
● In the late 1960s, Walter Mischel noticed that the many ways of analyzing personality
only predicted behavior to a modest degree at best. Meanwhile, the social situation
provides much stronger clues.
● The central thesis of this book is that human personality resides in two places: the
adaptive nonconscious mind and in conscious construals of ourselves.
● “Human beings owe a surprisingly large proportion of their cognitive and behavioral
capacities to the existence of an automatic self, of which they have no conscious
knowledge and over which they have little voluntary control.” -Jonathan Miller
● Many personality studies predict behavior only slightly better than chance.
● Three desires seem to be part of the nonconscious personality: the need for affiliation,
power, or achievement.
● When people are describing their own personalities, they are often reporting their
theories and constructions, which may or may not correspond to their nonconscious
dispositions and motives.
● It is clear that genetics, culture, and experience all play a role in the formation of the
conscious and nonconscious mind.
● Behavior automaticity (forming habits) is one example of how a behavior can go from
conscious to nonconscious and we can't say precisely how.
● One way something can become automatic (nonconscious) is through lots of repetition
and practice.
● McClellan's research: the kinds of early childhood experiences that affect the
nonconscious seem to have a cultural basis.
● It makes little sense to talk about humans having one “self” when the conscious self and
the nonconscious self have stable ways of responding to situations (which often differ
significantly).
● People are motivated to see themselves through rose-colored glasses. Most of us
believe we are a little more kind and smart and generous than we actually are.
● Research by Joachim Brunstein and Oliver Schultheiss has shown the importance of
having conscious and nonconscious motives in sync. People who had more alignment
between their conscious and nonconscious goals had greater well-being and satisfaction
than those who did not.
● The distinction between personality and the social environment is artificial because
people’s personality often determines how they construe their environment.
● Many social situations tend to be so powerful that virtually everyone construes them in
the same way and they overpower personality differences.
● There may not be any situations in life where the nonconscious mind does not impact
our behavior. If that is true, however, it is very hard to know it because our nonconscious
mind is inaccessible to us directly.
● The idea that conscious thoughts cause behavior is vastly overrated. Instead, it is often
the case that nonconscious stimuli cause both you actions and the conscious thoughts
you use to justify them.
● Our reasons for why we do the things we do are really just conjectures. That's a hard
idea to accept. We want to believe we understand ourselves and our motives better than
a stranger would, but that doesn't always appear to be the case.
● The idea that we can have nonconscious feelings and emotions is controversial. Many
philosophers and scientists reject the idea of nonconscious feelings as an oxymoron.
● William James believed that emotions are created by experiences and bodily reactions.
It is the experience that triggers the emotion.
● There are different levels of processing within the brain. Wilson refers to them as the low
road and high road. Kahneman calls them System 1 and System 2. The point is the
same: we have a collection of processes that respond quickly and automatically. And we
 have a collection of processes that respond slowly, thoughtfully, and often adjust the
reactions of the fast processing level.
● When people are unsure of how they feel, they often understand their emotions based
on their bodily responses in that moment (think: love on the bridge study).
● When it comes to happiness and sadness, only recent events matter. This is especially
true for adolescents who can return to their baseline mood within 45 minutes after a
spike of extreme happiness or extreme sadness.
● People are more resilient than they realize.
● There is some evidence that happiness is a heritable trait. Monozygotic twins have
similar levels of happiness even when raised in separate families.
● It is very important to have something to work toward. The pursuit of a goal is often
better than the accomplishment of it.
● Daily absorption in your work is more important than your paycheck.
● A change in standards often occurs for people as they experience more of life, but
happiness rarely does. What was once special is now the norm.
● How we judge an experience depends on three factors. First, how we group experiences
for comparison (all restaurants vs. Greek restaurants). Second, how recently we
experienced something (eating an incredible restaurant last week vs. last year). Third,
how much we have experienced something (100 Greek restaurants vs. two).
● Allostasis vs. homeostasis. In homeostasis, there is a single set point the body tries to
maintain. In allostasis, there are upper and lower boundaries at the extremes, but the set
point adjusts based on the needs of the situation.
● It can be useful to think of happiness by using blood pressure as a metaphor.
Sometimes blood pressure is maintained at a lower level (like when you sleep) and other
times it is maintained at a higher level (like when you are walking around). There is no
on perfect blood pressure because the best level depends on what is required for the
situation. However, it is advantageous for blood pressure to never get too low or too
high. Happiness is similar. We can experience waves and troughs of happiness and
sadness, but it’s best to not stay at this level for days or weeks. There are mechanisms
in place that prevent you from experiencing prolonged periods of extreme happiness and
extreme sadness, and the psychological costs that would accompany prolonged
emotional reactions. It is probably not good for us (from the perspective of evolutionary
survival) to stay in a state of prolonged happiness or sadness.
● Opponent Process Theory helps explains what happens at a physiological level when
processes oppose one another. Perhaps psychological processes follow similar
patterns?
● Interesting: we seek to make sense of and explain extreme negative and positive events
in our lives, but in the process of doing so we reduce the novelty, surprise, and
emotional power of the event. Gradually the extraordinary becomes ordinary and loses
its emotional impact.
● Some researchers have theorized there is a psychological immune system responsible
for emotional health the same way there is a biological immune system responsible for
physical health.
● Durability bias: we don't realize just how resilient we are. People have a far greater
ability to bounce back than they assume.
● “There is no tragedy so heartbreaking as introspection.”
● Pennebaker's approach for dealing with traumatic events: write by yourself for 15
minutes per day for three days. Develop a meaningful narrative that helps explain the
event.
● Ruminating over negative events in a repetitive way is not healthy and beneficial.
However, thinking through your issues and constructing a meaningful and coherent
narrative about these events is an effective way to deal with issues. Even if the narrative
is not 100 percent accurate it can have a beneficial effect.
● Subliminal messages have little to no effect on consumer behavior when used in
advertising.
● There is little harm in believing we are better, more popular, and more talented than we
actually are. This likely leads to more happiness and satisfaction. The problems occur
when our self estimates deviate too wildly from reality.
● If we want to change our adaptive nonconscious one method is to start deliberately
acting like the person we wish to be.
● Observations of our own behavior can be a major window into ourselves and why we act
the way we do. The problem is we often infer the wrong reasons for our behavior.
Namely, we drastically underestimate the power of the situation.
● Our tendency to underestimate the influence of the situation is known as fundamental
attribution error.
● In many cases, we actually want our nonconscious tendencies to change and align with
our conscious motives and desires.
● “We acquire virtues by first having put them into action. We become just by the practice
of just actions, self-control by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts
of courage.” -Aristotle
● The first step to changing our nonconscious inclinations is to change our behavior. Act
your way into a new way of being.
● There are two ways our actions lead to change at the automatic, nonconscious level.
The first is by providing the opportunity for our brains to infer from our behavior
(nonconsciously) that we are new people. It gives your mind new data and more bits of
insight about your attitudes and feelings. (Note: this is similar to your identity votes
concept.) Second, the more frequently we perform a behavior, the more automatic it
becomes.
● One of the most enduring lessons of social psychology is that behavior change often
precedes changes in attitudes and feelings. Changing our behavior to match our desired
conscious perceptions of ourselves is a good way to bring about changes in the adaptive
nonconscious.
● A simple approach to becoming better: do good, be good. By acting in ways that are
helpful and caring toward others, we will view ourselves as more helpful and caring.
● There is a practice effect associated with acting like the person you want to be. The
more you practice it, the better you become.
● Small changes in behavior can lead to small changes in your self-concept. And small
changes in self-concept can make the next change easier.
● Do the behavior first and let the feelings follow.
● To establish a desirable pattern of nonconscious motives, the best advice is to practice,
practice, practice. Train yourself into the nonconscious mind you want.
● There is no direct pipeline to the adaptive nonconscious. It must be inferred by taking a
careful look at cues from your own behavior and others reactions.
● What matters most when it comes to making sense of our lives and is that people
commit to a believable narrative that corresponds reasonably well to their adaptive
nonconscious. You can’t keep revising your story and the reasons for why things
happened without ruminating senselessly. A good self narrative does not need to be
constantly retold.
● All of us have the ability to act more like the person we want to be.
 Stumbling on Happiness by Dan Gilbert
What makes humans different from every other animal is that we think about the future.
However, our brains fall victim to a wide range of biases that cause our predictions of the future
(and our memories of the past) to be inaccurate. Because of these mental errors it is remarkably
difficult to predict what will make us feel happy.
● The greatest ability of the human brain is to imagine, to see the world as it has never
been before.
● “What makes humans different from every other animal is that they think about the
future.”
● Our brain makes predictions incredibly quickly and about nearly everything in life. When
our experiences don't match what our brain expects, we feel surprised.
● The frontal lobe is responsible for planning and anxiety — two key future-oriented
functions.
● Our frontal lobe is what allows us to be the only animal that experiences and envisions
the future as we do.
● We like to daydream because the mere dream itself can be a joy.
● Within a few weeks even earthquake survivors tend to return to previous levels of
optimism.
● If we don't have the opportunity to predict our future it is more scary than if we can
predict s bad future (variable shock study).
● One of the central needs of humans is to control things. Enacting control over your own
life is a source of pleasure.
● Imagination’s three shortcomings are: 1) Imagination tends to add and remove details,
but people do not realize that key details may be fabricated or missing from the imagined
scenario. 2) Imagined futures (and pasts) are more like the present than they actually
will be (or were). 3) Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they
actually happen—most notably, the psychological immune system will make bad things
feel not so bad as they are imagined to feel.
● “Experience is unobservable to everyone except the person who it happens to.”
● “The pursuit of happiness is built into the very definition of desire.”
● The researcher / tourist study where a construction worker obscures the researcher with
a door. We don't notice changes if we are not focused on an experience as it changes. In
 this case, we rely on our memories to remember and recognize a change, but our
memories are quite faulty.
● Nobody really knows what happiness feels like for others (and there are lots of
research-backed reasons why), so that means we can’t say definitely whether someone
in a situation that might seem bad to us (like being a conjoined twin) is actually less
happy than we are. In fact, it’s entirely possible they are just as happy or even more so.
● “They only think they’re happy because they don’t know what they are missing.” That’s
actually the point. Not knowing what we are missing is the very thing that allows us to be
happy despite not having some other opportunity.
● The Experience-Stretching Hypothesis: your experiential background can dramatically
change your happiness levels. Once you know something exists and have experienced
pleasure from it, then your definition of happiness changes compared to what it was in
the past.
● Physiological arousal can be interpreted in a variety of ways and our interpretation of the
arousal depends on what we believe caused it. But our beliefs can be mistaken and thus
we think we’re experiencing one thing when, in fact, we are experiencing something
else. We can be wrong about our own experiences.
● “We might call this the Language Squishing Hypothesis because it suggests that an
impoverished experiential background causes language to be squished, as it were, so
that the full range of verbal labels actually represents a very restricted range of
experiences.” The danger of this theory is that we all have different experiences and that
means nobody actually knows what happiness really is.
● Experience and awareness are closely related but not the same. Experience refers to
partaking in an event. Awareness refers to being cognizant that the event is happening.
● Psychological sciences will always be imperfect because we are trying to observe
someone else's subjective experience, but it's the best we've got and the closest an
outside observer can get to understanding the inside of someone else's mind.
● The Law of Large Numbers: when a phenomenon arises from very large numbers of
something, but not smaller versions of it. For example, billions of neurons lead to a
conscious human brain, but two neurons are not a small version of consciousness.
● One persons subjective experience of happiness (and life) might be imperfect and
subjective, but when we look at hundreds or thousands of people truths and patterns
start to emerge. The individual imperfections cancel out.
● What we think is reality is merely just a version of reality. It's just our interpretation of the
world. More in Chapter 3 of audiobook.
● Our brains “fill in” all sorts of information each day. Our predictions are influenced by our
experiences. We make assumptions about things that we predict based on the previous
experiences we have had or heard about before.
● “When we imagine the future we often do so in the blind spot of our minds eye.”
● It is easy for our mind to notice what is there (a dog barking) but very difficult to notice
the absence of something (you rarely recognize a dog not barking as an event because
it's just silence). The silences, misses, and absences of events are crucial in determining
the real world implications of things, but we rarely pick up on them. We tend to
remember what did happen, but not what didn't happen.
● A life with blindness is about a lot more than being blind, but when we imagine life as a
blind person we tend to only think about seeing and forget all the other parts of life.
● When we imagine the distant future, we tend to imagine things in generalities and gloss
over the details. When we imagine things in the near future (like tomorrow), we tend to
think in concrete details.
● It could be useful to perform an exercise where you write down the concrete details of
future tasks, events, goals, etc… This will force you to be clear about the specific action
steps and fully imagine the details of the event rather than remaining in dream mode
where the details are fuzzy or forgotten. Do this each week or month?
● “One of imaginations shortcomings is that it takes liberties without telling us it has done
so.”
● “When scientists make erroneous predictions they almost always err by predicting that
the future will be too much like the present.”
● Everyone tends to use the present as a way to imagine the future and influence
memories of the past. Thus, our memories and imaginations are often closer to our
current reality than actual reality.
● “One of the hallmarks of depression is that when depressed people think future events
they can't imagine liking them very much.”
● Your starting point matters because we often end up close to where we started. (This
could be applied to many areas of life: memories, socioeconomic status, education, etc.)
● Habituation effect decreases pleasure with repeated cycles, but it can fade over time.
“Variety is the spice of life” can be false depending on timing. When considering options
available to you during a single session (like many appetizers at one meal) variety is
 good. When considering options spaced out over time (like what to order at your favorite
restaurant each month) go with your top pick every time because the habituation effect
will decrease between each session and you'll get full enjoyment each time.
● Presentism refers to judging historical events or people by modern day standards. It is
largely useless and unfair because you can't expect historical figures to make the same
decisions as we do now because they lived in a very different context. It's “sort of like
arresting someone in the 1920s for not wearing a seatbelt.”
● Most people overestimate how terrible traumatic events will actually be. For example,
quadriplegics and earthquake victims generally rate themselves as much happier than
people would ever imagine.
● “We cannot do without reality and we cannot do without illusion. Each serves a purpose,
each imposes a limit on the influence of the other, and our experience of the world is the
artful compromise that these tough competitors negotiate.”
● We all look at our version of reality through rose colored lenses, but that version still
needs to feel credible. If it's too good, then we will reject it.
● Research shows that people actually feel less pain when they believe they are suffering
for something of great value.
● We have “psychological immune systems” which often get triggered when we experience
particularly traumatic events. These systems protect us from events that we would
assume would be intensely painful and thus we are able to recover from them better
than we often assume we would.
● “People are not aware of the fact that their defenses are more likely to be triggered by
intense than mild suffering. Thus, they mis-predict their own emotional reactions to
misfortunes of different sizes.”
● “We’re more likely to look for and find a positive view of things we’re stuck with than of
things we’re not.”
● “It’s only when we can’t change our experience that we look for ways to change our view
of the experience.”
● Inescapable situations will trigger our psychological immune systems, which then
promote our brain’s ability to deliver a positive outlook and happiness from an
inescapable situation.
● We tend to overvalue freedom. We can easily imagine all of the benefits freedom will
provide to us, but we tend to underestimate the fact that freedom hinders us from
moving forward because we are constantly debating if their are better options out there.
 Only when we have fully committed and gone “all in” do we reach an inescapable
situation where our brain can easily justify our behavior and circumstances.
● Simply writing about traumatic events — especially if you explain the event itself —
people show increased psychological and physiological well being including increased
viral antibodies.
● Uncertainty can preserve and prolong our happiness. When events seem rare,
unexplainable or strange, we tend to value them more than things that can be explained,
seem ordinary, or otherwise make general sense. (Note: does this explain something
about why we love to believe myths or religious stories, often with very strong
emotions?)
● “The least likely experience is often the most likely memory.”
● “We tend to remember the best of times and the worst of times not the most likely of
times.”
● There is little evidence supporting the idea that women are more irritable during their
menstrual cycle.
● Wealth will make you much happier when you go from poverty to the middle class but
not much more happy beyond that. Some making $5M per year is about as happy as
someone making $100K per year.
● Everyone says that having children is a wonderful and joyous experience. When you
actually measure happiness of parents, however, you see that it is not raised at all. We
continue to perpetuate that children bring happiness belief because it is a “super
replicator.” That is, people who believe kids are great tend to have them (and pass on
that belief) and people who believe the opposite tend to avoid having kids.
● “The average person doesn’t seem herself as average.” One example: 90 percent of
motorists consider themselves to be safer than average drivers. Rather than being
caused by pure selfishness, this could be an indication of our tendency to believe we are
unique and different from others (in good and bad ways).
● “We don’t always see ourselves as superior, but we almost always see ourselves as
unique.”
● Bernoulli’s calculation for happiness: multiply the odds of getting what you want by the
utility of getting what you want (i.e. probability x pleasure). Each successive dollar
provides a little less pleasure than the one before it. “The determination of the value of
an item must not be based on its price, but on the utility it yields.” The problem is that it’s
 nearly impossible to predict the utility we will get from our choices because of the many
biases we have.
● “People are sensitive to relative rather than absolute values.”
 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by
Mark Manson
Finding something important and meaningful in your life is the most productive use of your time
and energy. This is true because every life has problems associated with it and finding meaning
in your life will help you sustain the effort needed to overcome the particular problems you face.
Thus, we can say that the key to living a good life is not giving a fuck about more things, but
rather, giving a fuck only about the things that align with your personal values.
● Conventional self-help advice which tells you to visualize success and think about the
type of person you want to be only reinforces the idea that you are not that thing.
● Everyone wants you to believe that the secret to a good life is to have a nicer job or a
better car or a prettier girlfriend.
● The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving
a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.
● We are no longer facing a material crisis. We have plenty of resources: TVs and clothes
and goods that we don’t need. The problem we face is existential and spiritual. We have
so much stuff and so many opportunities that we don’t know what to give a fuck about
anymore.
● Because there’s an infinite amount of things we can now see or know, there are also an
infinite number of ways we can discover that we don’t measure up, that we’re not good
enough, that things aren’t as great as they could be.
● The desire for a more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And,
paradoxically, the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive
experience.
● Pursuing something only reinforces that you lack it in the first place.
● Accepting your experience of life as being great and wonderful is the single greatest
thing you can do for your happiness.
● “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You
will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” -Albert Camus
● Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative
experience.
● If you are able to not give a fuck about the pain your goals require, then you become
unstoppable.
● The moments when we don’t give a fuck and take action are often the moments that
most define the course of our lives.
● You are going to die someday. Everyone you know is going to die soon. And in your
short life you only have a certain amount of fucks to give.
● Learning how to focus and prioritize your thoughts effectively based on finely honed
personal values is perhaps the greatest and most important struggle in life.
● Subtlety #1: Not giving a fuck is not about being indifferent. It just means you’re
comfortable with being different. Don’t say fuck it to everything in life, just to the
unimportant things.
● Subtlety #2: To not give a fuck about adversity, you must first care about something
more important than adversity.
● Subtlety #3: Whether you realize it or not, you are always choosing what to give a fuck
about. The key is to gradually prune the things you care about, so that you only give a
fuck on the most important of occasions.
● When a person has no problems, the mind automatically finds a way to invent some.
● I think what most people — especially educated, pampered middle-class white people —
consider “life problems” are really just side effects of not having anything more important
to worry about.
● Finding something important and meaningful in your life is perhaps the most productive
use of your time and energy.
● It’s okay for things to suck some of the time.
● Practical enlightenment is the act of becoming comfortable with the idea that some
suffering is always inevitable.
● There is no value in suffering when it is done without purpose.
● Don't hope for a life without problems. Hope for a life with good problems.
● Problems never stop. They merely get exchanged or upgraded.
● Happiness is found in solving problems, not avoiding them.
● True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy
solving. Happiness is wanting the problems you have and wanting to solve them.
● Emotions are simply biological signals designed to nudge you in the direction of
beneficial change.
● Negative emotions are a sign that something is going unaddressed. They are a call to
action. Positive emotions are the reward for taking the correct action.
● We should question our emotions because they are not always right.
● Don’t ask yourself what you want out of life. It’s easy to want success and fame and
happiness and great sex. Everybody wants those things. A much more interesting
question to ask yourself is, “What kind of pain do I want?” What you are willing to
struggle for is a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.
● You can’t merely be in love with the result. Everybody loves the result. You have to love
the process.
● The climb to the top is a never-ending upward spiral with new problems always surfacing
and new processes that you must fall in love with. You are never allowed to stop
climbing because the entire point is to love the climb. If you ever stop loving the climb,
the results will never come.
● Self-esteem, by itself, is overrated. It doesn’t help to feel good about yourself unless you
have a good reason for feeling that way. The struggle makes self-esteem useful, not the
participation trophy.
● Your problems are not privileged in their severity or pain. You are not unique in your
suffering.
● The more exposed we are to opposing viewpoints, the more we seem to get upset that
those other viewpoints exist. This seems like a logical trend to me because before the
internet and our hyper-connected modern world, people didn’t have as much likelihood
of running into ideas that disagreed with their own. Today, alternate ideas are far more
likely to cross your radar screen.
● Most of us are pretty average at most things we do. Even if you’re exceptional at one
thing, chances are you’re average or below average at most other things.
● Our lives today are filled with information from the extremes of the bell curve of human
experience. The best of the best, worst of the worst, and most upsetting of the upsetting.
We only see the most exceptional news stories because that’s what drives revenue. This
is a real problem when it comes to comparison because you can only be exceptional in
one thing thing and you’re going to be below average in nearly everything else. That
makes comparison a very dangerous game to play.
● The problem is that the pervasiveness of technology and mass marketing is screwing up
a lot of people’s expectations for themselves.
● One of the most pervasive narratives about masculinity in our culture is that the most
valuable thing a man can attain is sex and it’s worth sacrificing nearly anything to get it.
(Interestingly, this corresponds to one of the dominant female narratives, which is that
the greatest thing a woman can be is beautiful.)
● People who are exceptional become that way by thinking they are average and focusing
on improvement. You don’t become exceptional by believing you are exceptional.
● The more uncomfortable the answer, the more likely it is to be true.
● Problems are inevitable, but what they mean is flexible. We get to control what our
problems mean to us based on how we choose to think about them and how we choose
to measure them. The way we measure success influences how we view the problems
we face.
● “Pleasure is a false god. Research shows that people who focus their energy on
superficial pleasures end up more anxious, more emotionally unstable, and more
depressed. Pleasure is the most superficial form of life satisfaction and therefore the
easiest to obtain and the easiest to lose.”
● People who base their self-worth on being right about everything prevent themselves
from learning from their mistakes.
● “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”
-Sigmund Freud
● People who are terrified of what others think about them are actually terrified of all the
negative things they think about themselves being reflected back at them.
● When we feel that we’re choosing our problems, we feel empowered. When we feel that
our problems are being forced upon us against our will, we feel victimized and
miserable.
● We don’t always control what happens to us. But we always control how we interpret
what happens to us, as well as how we respond.
● Accepting responsibility for our problems is the first step to solving them.
● A lot of people hesitate to take responsibility for their problems because they believe that
to be responsible for your problems is also to be at fault for your problems. This is not
true. We are responsible for experiences that aren’t our fault all the time. This is part of
life.
● People will often fight over who gets to be responsible for successful and happiness. But
taking responsibility for our problems is far more important because that’s where real
learning comes from.
● Growth is an endlessly iterative process. When we learn something new, we don’t go
from “wrong” to “right.” Rather, we go from wrong to slightly less wrong. We shouldn’t
seek to find the ultimate “right” answer for ourselves, but rather, we should seek to chip
away at the ways that we’re wrong today so that we can be a little less wrong tomorrow.
● Certainty is the enemy of growth.
● All beliefs are wrong—some are just less wrong than others.
● Counterintuitive insight by Baumeister regarding evil: some of the worst criminals often
felt good about themselves. Low self-esteem was not always associated with evil acts.
● The more you try to become certain about a particular issue, the more uncertain and
insecure you will feel.
● The more you embrace being uncertain and not knowing, the more comfortable you will
feel in knowing what you don’t know.
● The man who believes he knows everything learns nothing.
● Manson’s Law of Avoidance: The more something threatens your identity, the more you
will avoid it. The more something threatens how you view yourself, the more you will
avoid getting around to doing it.
● If I believe I’m a nice guy, I’ll avoid situations that could potentially contradict that belief.
If I believe I’m an awesome cook, I’ll seek out opportunities to prove that to myself over
and over again. The belief always takes precedence.
● Manson’s idea of “kill yourself” is similar to Paul Graham’s idea of “keep your identity
small.” The central point is that if you don’t have an identity to protect, then change
becomes much easier.
● For any change to happen in your life, you must accept that you were wrong about
something you were doing before.
● “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
-Aristotle
● If it feels like it’s you versus the world, chances are it’s really just you versus yourself.
● The magnitude of your success is tied to how many times you’ve failed at that thing.
● Goals are limited in the amount of happiness they can provide in our lives because they
are finite. Once you achieve the goal, it can no longer provide happiness because the
finish line has been crossed. Paradoxically, then, by choosing processes as your focus,
you can increase your overall, lifelong happiness by focusing on the process and not the
goal. Processes never end, which means happiness can continue indefinitely.
● Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it. Do something and
inspiration will follow.
● How do you write a tons of books? Write “200 crappy words per day” and you’ll find
motivation often flows out of you.
● Manson’s “do something” principle sounds a lot like the philosophy behind the 2-minute
rule. Do something now, even if it’s really small, and let good actions cascade as a
result.
● To truly appreciate something, you must confine yourself to it. There’s a certain level of
joy and meaning that you reach in life only when you’ve spent decades investing in a
single relationship, a single craft, a single career. And you cannot achieve those
decades of investment without rejecting the alternatives.
● The mark of an unhealthy relationship is when two people try to solve each other’s
problems in order to feel good about themselves.
● Trust is the most important ingredient in any relationship for the simple reason that
without trust the relationship doesn’t actually mean anything.
● Investing deeply in one person, one place, one job, one activity might deny us the
breadth of experience we’d like, but pursuing a breadth of experience denies us the
opportunity to enjoy the rewards of depth of experience.
● Commitment, in its own way, offers a wealth of opportunity and experiences that would
never otherwise be available to you, no matter how many surface level experiences you
pursued.
● Rejection of alternatives liberates us. In a strange way, commitment to one thing offers
more freedom than anything else because it relieves you of all the second guessing
about what else is out there.
● If there is no reason to do anything, if life is pointless, then there is also no reason to not
do anything. What do you have to lose? You’re going to die anyway, so your fears and
embarrassments and failures don’t mean anything. You might as well try.
● All of the meaning in our life is shaped by our innate desire to never truly die. Our
physical bodies will die, but we cling to the idea that we can live on through religion,
politics, sports, art, and technological innovation.
● The only way to be comfortable with death is to understand and see yourself as
something bigger than yourself, to contribute to some much larger entity.
● It is the act of choosing your values and living by them that makes you great, not any
outcome or accomplishment.
 ● “We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each
other, but it doesn’t.” -Charles Bukowski

Superhuman by Habit by Tynan

You can do just about anything if you break down the task into habits. You are more likely to
stick with good habits over the long run if you start with tiny habits that are incredibly easy in the
beginning. When you miss a habit once, getting back on track and sticking with the next
occurrence of that habit should become the top priority in your life.
● Habits allow you to stick with behaviors that would require a lot of willpower as a
one-time attempt, but only need a little willpower to remain a habit.
● Whenever you're going to not do a habit, explain to your brain why you're missing.
● Absolutely never skip twice. Missing two days of a habit is like habit suicide.
● When you miss a habit once, sticking with the next occurrence of that habit should
become the top priority in your life.
● Plan for failure. Figure out why you missed a habit and plan solutions in advance.
● Plan for variances in habits ahead of time. “I won't follow my normal workout routine
when I go on my trip to Europe. So I will do 20 push-ups per day while I'm there and then
return immediately to my previous workout routine once I get home.”
● When you don't feel like doing a habit, do a crappy job.
● If you beat yourself up every time you miss a habit, you are basically ruining the whole
purpose of the experience. Habits are supposed to make your life better. Hating yourself
for missing a habit introduces negativity that completely offsets the positive benefits.
(Note: we could use a finance metaphor here. Getting a new credit card to earn a bunch
of frequent flier miles is pointless if you don't pay off the balance each month. The
negatives offset any positive gain. Same situation here with habits.)
● Use your mistakes to focus. They are an indicator of where to direct your energy.
● There is no guarantee of success once you introduce your habits into the outside world.
But, you can control your behavior, so focus on the process not the results.
● It is best to always assume that it is your fault. We are quick to claim to be the victim, but
not quick enough to claim responsibility. (Note: when we lose our job, we assume it's the
economy. When we don't get a job, we assume it's because we don't have the right
network. We make all sorts of assumptions. If you're going to assume something,
assume it's your fault. There is always something more you could have done.)
● When you mistreat others, feel guilty. When you mistreat yourself, feel compassion.
● You can do just about anything if you break down the task into habits.
● There are two types of people: those who find it easier to add new habits into their life
and those who find it easier to cut habits out of their life. (Note: you may find it varies by
habit. Attack your habits from both sides.)
● If you're not going to follow through on a habit, it is better to not start it at all and focus on
a habit you can actually stick to instead.
● In many situations it is better to try and fail than to not try at all. Not so with habits. It is
better to try a small one and stick with it than to try a big one and fail. (Note: this is
because all the benefit of habits comes from the long-term consistency.)
● Note: most people optimize for the finish line. Goals, outcomes, milestones, deadlines.
Instead you should optimize for the starting line. Reducing friction, etc.
● Learning how to build new habits is useful because you can translate the skills you learn
to new habits. That's one reason why building an incredibly simple habit is still
worthwhile.
● The way you live your normal day is full of triggers for possible habits.
● Doing something occasionally or whenever you feel like it is an inconsistent hobby.
Doing it on a predictable schedule is a habit.
● First you need to acknowledge your bad habit. Then you need to develop a specific plan
to solve the problem.
● Chain your habits together with the easiest habits at the beginning. Make it really easy to
start and let the momentum build.
● If you're struggling to find time and space for old and new habits, then let your old habits
slide while you build the new ones. Once the new habit becomes routine you will be
more likely to fall back into the routine with the old habits because you already had it
mastered previously.
● It's a good idea to become completely accountable to yourself.
● There must be consequences for failure.
● Reserve accountability for your most important habits. It can be a logistical pain to setup
accountability partners, but it works really well.
● If you want to grow, you have to expose yourself to high-quality influences.
● Only quit habits when you no longer want to quit. The time when you have lots of
emotional benefit from quitting is the beginning.
● Expose yourself to ideas you disagree with and actually try them out.
● The 3 big negative habits are: 1) drugs and alcohol, 2) addiction to stimulation, 3)
negative friends.
● It's a shame everyone else is such an idiot. Of course, to someone else, we are the idiot.
● Remember that everyone is just trying to do their best and be happy. Just like you.
● Eating healthy is perhaps the most impactful health habit you can adopt.
● The key elements of great sleep habits are complete darkness and silence.
● It takes two months of building a meditation habit before you start experiencing the
benefits.
● Meditation creates a space between feeling an impulse and acting on it.
● Most people who work indoors are deficient in Vitamin D.
● Everything in life is either input or output. We are either creating something or
consuming something.
● International travel, reading books, and seeking out masterpieces from all fields are
some of the best ways to increase the quality of your input.
● Writing daily, dancing, and organization habits are some of the best ways to increase the
quality of you output.
● For writing habits: what you write about and the quality of writing are not important.
Following the habit is important.
● For organization habits: practice imperfect cleaning where you get your home or work
space to a 9/10 cleanliness, but don't worry about perfection.
● Calendar habits: the critical component of a calendar habit is getting everything on the
calendar. If you don't keep every single event on the calendar then you can't trust it and
that defeats the purpose.
● Unclutter your life. If you're 90 percent sure you won't use it in the next 6-12 months,
give it away.
● “Twice, then quit.” The first time you want to quit, don't. Push through. The second time
you want to quit, don't. Push through again. The third time you want to quit, then you can
stop.
● Eliminate starting procrastination. If you want to procrastinate on some future part of
work, that's fine. But you're not allowed to procrastinate starting the behavior. You have
to start right now – don't delay, plan, strategize, research, etc. Of course, if you get
started you probably won't want to procrastinate later because you'll have built
momentum.
● At this end of each day, rate yourself based on how much time you wasted and so on.
 The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S.
Ramachandran

Humans are unique among the animal kingdom because of their brain. The human brain
evolved through two methods: biological evolution, which takes a long time and cultural
evolution, which is incredibly fast by comparison. These evolutionary processes have resulted in
the development of mirror neurons, which contribute to our remarkable levels of creativity,
ambition, communication.
● The author has unearthed many of his discoveries by working with people who have
interesting or strange brain injuries and disabilities.
● The Heinsenberg Principle reveals that at the subatomic level even our most basic
sense of cause and effect breaks down.
● The deciphering of the genetic code in the 1950s marked the birth of modern biology.
● Humans are different, plain and simple. We are not “just another ape.”
● It is impossible to understand the human brain without understanding how it evolved.
● “Nothing in biology makes sense, except in light of evolution.” -Theodosius Dobzhansky
● Fascinating: many traits evolved from previous traits with very different functions. For
example, wings evolved from scales. The original purpose was insulation not flight.
● Evolution found ways to radically repurpose functions in the ape brain into remarkably
more powerful functions in the human brain.
● “All good science emerges from an imaginative conception of what might be true.” -Peter
Medawar
● Ramachandran loves “small science” which doesn't require big teams or lots of
technology and can be repeated by almost anyone.
● Homogeneity breeds weakness. Science (and life) needs many different styles and
viewpoints.
● Application for mental models: Many scientists let the most expensive equipment drive
their research and not the most interesting questions. If your lab spends $1 million on a
state of the art brain imaging machine, then you tend to get pressured to use it at all
times. Every scientific problem gets forced through the lens of one machine. Consider
how often we do this with our thinking and our decision making. How often do we let one
identity (politics, religion, capitalism, etc.) dictate all of our thinking? (See Paul Graham's
 “Keep your identity small.”) How often does the highest paid person's mental model win
out? (See: HiPPOs.) Be careful to not let investments overpower mental models.
● Humans are part of the animal kingdom, descendants of apes, but also transcendent
and unique among the animal kingdom. We are both.
● Incremental changes do not always lead to incremental results. Sometimes there is a
“phase transition” like heating a block of ice from 31 degrees to 32 degrees.
● Phase transitions can occur in society as well. The rise of the Internet, new political
orders, etc.
● Sometime around 150,000 years ago, this phase transition happened within the human
brain.
● We can view evolution as going through two avenues: biological, which takes a very long
time and cultural, which is shockingly fast by comparison. Ideas evolve much faster than
bodies do.
● The cortex of most other mammal brains is mostly smooth and flat whereas the human
cortex has grown so much that it has developed many folds and valleys to increase
surface area (the walnut-like appearance).
● The cortex is especially well developed in dolphins and primates.
● An intention tremor is an example of an oscillating feedback loop in the human body.
(Thinking in Systems makes the point that delays in feedback loops lead to oscillations
in systems.)
● Biology so clearly drives behavior. Damage to the basal ganglia, for example, can lead
to Parkinson's and a shuffling gate. This new behavior (a shuffling walk) is not a choice
on the patient's part. It is simply a consequence of changes in the neurological structure
of the brain. We are quick to admit the influence of biological factors on behavior in
cases like these, but we too often overlook them otherwise.
● Wernicke's area in the brain plays a critical role in language and deciphering meaning. It
is 7x larger in human than in other primates and is one of the key biological differences
between our brain and other animals.
● Some of the complex traits that embody human nature: ambition, empathy, and
foresight.
● At least three areas have developed extraordinarily rapidly in human brains relative to
other primates: Wernicke’s area, the prefrontal cortex, and the IPL region in each
parietal lobe. These three areas structurally evolved in small steps, but functionally they
led to massive leaps forward compared to other primates.
● Within some of these regions there is a special class of nerve cells called mirror
neurons. These fire not only when you perform an action, but also when you watch
someone else perform an action.
● Mirror neurons are incredibly important and are an area of huge research focus right
now. They may be central to social learning, imitation, and the cultural transmission of
skills and attitudes.
● Mirror neurons are hyper developed in humans compared to animals. This allowed
humans to learn new skills within just one or two generations as opposed to the
hundreds or thousands of generations required for genetic evolution. Cultural evolution
operates at light speed compared to genetic evolution.
● Look up servo loop.
● Experience modifies the brain by strengthening or weakening the synapses that link
neurons together.
● The regions of the brain are not cleanly divided in their roles and functions, but rather
work together in a remarkable fashion. They are strongly linked and some regions can
even take over functions for damaged areas. There is much redundancy among the
brain areas.
● Humans are the only species to use neural plasticity to such an extreme degree. You've
probably noticed how reliant humans are on their parents compared to say, how a baby
giraffe can walk within hours of being born. This is not a weakness, but rather a strength
because it allows humans to maintain remarkable brain plasticity during the first ten
years of life.
● Vision is so incredibly powerful for living creatures that it evolved separately in different
species.
● When you see something the light rays seen by your eye are converted into nerve
impulses. There is no image in your head. Just impulses that describe it to your brain –
like writing could describe how a chair looks even though the words on the paper look
nothing like the chair itself.
● Wieskrantz’s studies on blindsight offer an interesting look at nonconscious sight. The
patient was able to point at a spot on the wall correctly time after time despite saying that
he could not see the spot at all.
● The Coolidge Effect: the phenomenon where males are sexually excited by new partners
over and over again. Proven by a seldom known rat study where a sex deprived rat has
 sex with a female until exhausted. Then a new female is introduced and it happens
again. And then again even though the rat was seemingly exhausted before.
● Synesthesia occurs when someone experiences the combining of senses. For example,
the number 7 might seem red or chicken might taste “pointy.”
● In the fetus there is a massive over connection of neurons and then they are gradually
pruned down to strengthen and prioritize certain connections.
● One fascinating explanation of synesthesia is that two adjacent areas of the brain are
crosswired which leads to increased crosstalk between, say, colors and numbers.
● Interesting theory: a high percentage of artists and creators have been reported to have
synesthesia. It's quite possible that the cross linkage between neurons that leads to
synesthesia also enables artists to create metaphors and connections between ideas in
an easier fashion than most people.
● It is very possible that the crosswiring of adjacent areas of the brain was selected for by
evolution because it enabled those people to be more creative (and thus increase the
odds of survival) with the unharmful side effect that some people would experience
synesthesia.
● This is how science works: begin with simple, tractable questions that can be answered
and will pave the way to the big questions.
● Humans mature at a glacial pace compared to most animals. What do we gain from this
vulnerable period that would seem to decrease our odds of survival? The answer is
culture.
● Culture is transferred from person to person through language and imitation. Accurate
imitation depends on our unique human ability to see the world from someone else’s
vantage point.
● Humans can develop a mental model of what others think of them. This is known as a
“theory of mind” and our ability to construct these scenarios in our head is unique to
humans.
● There are still many important questions about the evolution of the human mind that
remain unanswered. Here are Ramachandran’s five big unanswered questions about the
evolution of the human brain:
● Wallace’s Problem: The human brain reached its present size about 300,000 years ago,
yet many of our modern attributes like tool making, fire, and perhaps even language
appeared only about 75,000 years ago. Why did it take so long for all of this latent
potential to blossom? And why did it blossom so suddenly?
● 2) Homo habilis likely created the first tools 2.4 million years ago. What was the role of
tool use in shaping human cognition?
● 3) Why was there a sudden explosion in human cognition around 60,000 years ago?
Widespread clothing and shelters show up around this time. (Jared Diamond refers to
this as “the great leap.”)
● 4) Why are humans so good at reading one another’s intentions? Why can we develop
theories of others minds? Why do humans have better neural circuits for this than any
other animal?
● 5) How did language evolve?
● Natural selection can only select for expressed abilities, not latent ones.
● Giacomo Rizzolatti's study showed that monkeys had some ability to read another
monkey’s mind, which means they had some mirror neurons.
● Mirror neurons are like “nature’s own virtual reality simulations of the intentions of other
beings.” They allow you to envision what someone else is doing and to predict what will
happen next. This is how we interpret other people’s complex intentions.
● Mirror neurons also allow you to imitate the skills of others, which makes it possible for
us to inherit the skills and culture of others.
● Anytime you watch someone doing something, the neurons your brain would use to do
the same thing become active as if you yourself were doing it.
● The brain and free will: Your brain has to inhibit yourself from imitating everything you
see, so there are some inhibitory circuits that cut off those actions. This might be how
free will occurs. You are presented with many options and your brain ignores all but one
of them.
● The brain has multiple layers of communication between neurons. If you see someone
experiencing pain but your skin receptors do not experience pain, then your body knows
it is not happening to you and so you empathize with that person rather than actually feel
their pain.
● Mirror neurons appear to be wired from birth to some degree. A newborn baby, just a
few hours old, will often echo its mother by sucking its tongue out when watching its
mother do it.
● Mirror neurons have multiple functions. They allow you to predict another person's
intentions. They allow you to adopt someone else's point of view and to see yourself as
others see you (self-awareness). They allow you to transform a map in one dimension
into a map in another dimension (ex. visual to auditory).
● Imitation was one of the key steps in the evolution of humans. Imitation allows us to
learn by example, which means we made the massive shift from Darwinian evolution
(which takes millions of years) to cultural evolution (which can spread ideas and skills
rapidly).
● IQ as a measure of intelligence sort of misses the point because intelligence is a
collection of complex, multifaceted abilities not one general ability.
● Interesting: two doctors discovered autism independently and, incredibly, they both
named the condition “autism.”
● Ramachandran ran an experiment where subjects bit a pencil horizontally, so it shaped
their mouth somewhat like a smile. While in this position, their brains would register
someone’s frown, but would not imitate someone else’s smile. The hypothesis was that
the mirror neurons which would fire while looking at and imitating someone else’s smile
were already busy with the own person’s smile (or similar shape), thus they did not fire.
In some ways, this link between imitation and action reminds me of Brene Brown’s idea
that it is much harder to be closed off emotionally if you are active physically. It’s like if
the body is moving, the activity in your neurons makes it harder to “close off” emotional
pathways.
● Humans have an incredible capacity for language. It is one of the traits that separates us
most clearly from the rest of the animal kingdom.
● Interesting definition of natural selection: the progressive series of chance variations that
enhance the organism's ability to pass on its genes to the next generation.
● Alfred Russell Wallace independently discovered natural selection. He deserves more
credit than he gets.
● You can't get very far in science by trying to explain one mystery with another mystery.
● Trying to ascribe a numerical value to how much genes or environment impact the
outcome misses the point. Both impact it and the percentage to which it impacts it can
vary widely. The key is to realize they are connected and not to worry about some single
numerical value. Psychologists often make this mistake – especially when discussing IQ
as a single trait.
● The PKU example showcases how the same problem can appear completely genetic or
completely environmental under different conditions.
● How it is possible for neural circuitry to embody meaning is one of the great unsolved
mysteries of neuroscience.
● The three bones in the inner ear of mammals – the malleus, incus, and stapes – actually
evolved from the jaws of reptiles, which have three bones in their jaw rather than the one
bone (mandible) in mammals. It's fascinating how many functions in the body would
never have been designed that way from scratch, but just resulted from “works for now”
evolutionary adaptations.
● There seem to be some universal factors in the recognition of beauty. For example,
tropical male birds developed remarkably beautiful feathers to attract females of their
own species, but humans find them beautiful as well and use them in headdresses.
Perhaps there is a fundamental “truth” of aesthetics that speaks to all creatures.
● Bowerbirds create very detailed nests in an effort to court a mate. They are even original
artists with different birds (within the same species) having different aesthetic tastes and
styles. Another interesting example of how beauty might have some fundamental
principles that extend outside the human concept of art.
● Three questions to ask when analyzing any human trait. 1) What is the internal logical
structure of the trait you are looking at? 2) Why does the particular trait have the
structure it does? What did it evolve for? 3) How is this trait mediated by the neural
machinery in the brain?
● Knowing the small details doesn't mean you comprehend the whole picture.
● Vision evolved to discover and respond to objects: recognize them, eat them, catch
them, or mate with them quickly and reliably.
● Ramachandran refers to a phenomenon known as The Peak Shift Effect, which is also
called supernormal stimuli by other experts. It seems like a very powerful concept to me.
It essentially says that the brain learns certain rules for discriminating between things
and that if you present the brain with an exaggerated version of that rule, it strongly
prefers it. Tinbergen’s famous studies on herrings provide a good example. Baby
herrings will peck at a red spot on their mother’s beak when they want food. If a research
presents a fake beak with three red spots, then the baby herring goes berserk. This
supernormal stimuli is preferred by the brain as if the baby bird is saying, “Wow! What a
beak.”
● Caricatures are an example of supernormal stimuli in human art. Caricatures amplifying
the features of a given face. Also, many female sculptures have exaggerated breasts
and hips, which seems to be preferred by our brains.
● Most theories are stated in a way that doesn’t even allow them to be tested or proven
wrong. This isn’t really science. It’s just conjecture. Science requires you to state a
 hypothesis (or theory) and then develop an experimental way of testing to see if it is
confirmed or refuted.
● There are three ways to test ideas about peak shift (and other supernormal stimuli). 1)
Galvanic skin response (GSR) tests, 2) recording nerve impulses from single nerve cells
in the visual area in the brain, 3) utilizing your “laws” or hypotheses to create more
reliable, consistent, or successful results.
● Your brain has 100 billion nerve cells, but only a small subset can be active in any given
instant. (How many, exactly?)
● Ramachandran conducts an interesting exercise in class where people must rank three
drawings of a horse. One drawn by an autistic seven year old is often preferred to one
down by Leonardo DaVinci. (The three pictures.)
● The Isolation Principle. There appears to be some aspect of isolation in the brain that
can lead to enhanced creativity. For example, when autistic children have damaged or
poorly functioning areas of the brain it often opens up the ability for one area (like the
right parietal lobe) to receive more attention and results in remarkable creativity (like
drawing).
● Idea: I also wonder how much other areas of the brain dampen signals to a given area
and when they are damaged (like in autistic children) reduced dampening leads to
greater creativity.
● It's possible regular folks have latent creative talent waiting to be unleashed but it is
being held back by inhibition from other brain areas (which is normal) and only arises
when those inhibitors are damaged.
● There were some remarkable brain studies conducted in Australia, which used TMS
(transcranial magnetic stimulation) to deactivate parts of normal people's brains for a few
moments. Almost instantly they could draw better or perform mathematical feats. This
supports The Isolation Principle.
● The process of vision is carried out through a series of processes and feedback loops in
the brain. This occurs in such a way that multiple visual options are presented, but only
one wins out – the final image you see. In this sense, vision and hallucination are closely
related. We are always “hallucinating” and our brain selects the one hallucination that
seems to most closely match reality based on the external stimuli we receive.
● Our minds prefer symmetrical faces. Even minor deviations in symmetry are seen as
undesirable. There is an evolutionary explanation for this. Parasitic infestations During
 infancy can cause small variations in symmetry. So, biological health is somewhat tied to
symmetry.
● Interestingly, the male brain may prefer blondes over brunettes because it is easier to
identify certain ailments like jaundice in a fair blonde complexion than in brunettes. In
other words, it's easier to judge if a blonde is a healthy mate.
● The self consists of many components and the notion of one, unitary self may be an
illusion.
● Qualia is the word for your unique sense and perception of the world. It refers to how
things seem to you. Examples: the pain of breaking your leg or the color of a sunset.
Qualia refers to your subjective experience of the world.
● Qualia (your subjective experience) and the self are different things, but you can’t get
qualia without a self.
● Freud, despite his faults, was correct that the modern brain is largely unconscious and
that the conscious self is but a small slice of our whole world.
● The self seems to emerge from a relatively small cluster of brain areas.
● Blindsight is an example of how your conscious mind is tied to your visual cortex, yet a
lot of other information you are taking in can be processed nonconsciously.
● The human brain and body seem to have a default tendency for harmony. We feel
tension that needs to be resolved if there is a mismatch between our conscious mind
and nonconcious body. (Extreme examples: transsexual man trapped in female body or
phantom limb.)
● Neuroscience is currently at the stage chemistry was at in the 19th century. Grouping
together the basic elements of the field and not yet attempting any grand,
all-encompassing theories.
● Science tells us that humans are animals, another type of beast. But, importantly, we
don't feel that way. We feel like angels who aspire to become something more than a
mere animal. So, perhaps we are both an animal and an angel.
 This is Water by David Foster Wallace
Learning “how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what
you think. It can be easy to spend our entire lives accepting our natural default ways of thinking
rather than choosing to look differently at life. The only thing that is capital-T True is that you get
to decide how you’re going to try to see life and how you construct meaning from experience.
● The meaning we construct out of life is a matter of personal, intentional choice. It’s a
conscious decision.
● So often, we hold beliefs so tightly we don’t even realize they can be
questioned—arrogance, blind certainty, a closed-mindedness that’s like an imprisonment
so complete that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked up.
● A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out,
totally wrong and deluded.
● Our natural setting is to be deeply and literally self-centered. There’s no experience
you’ve had that you were not at the absolute center of. We see the whole world through
this lens.
● People who can adjust away from this natural, self-centered setting are often described
as “well-adjusted.”
● It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the
constant monologue inside your head.
● Learning “how to think” really means learning how to exercise some control over how
and what you think.
● You have to choose what you pay attention to and choose how you construct meaning
from experience.
● It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms nearly
always shoot themselves in the head.
● The natural default setting is to think I am at the center of the world and my immediate
needs and feelings are what should determine the world’s priorities.
● Most days, if you’re aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look
differently at life. If you’ve really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will
know you have other options.
● The only thing that is capital-T True in life is that you get to decide how you’re going to
try to see it. This is the freedom of real education, of learning how to be well-adjusted:
You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t.
● Everybody worships. We just get to choose what to worship.
● The trick is to keep truth up front in daily consciousness.
● The insidious thing about these forms of worship (money, power, fame, beauty, etc.) is
not that they’re evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings.
They’re the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and
more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully
aware that that’s what you’re doing.
● The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline,
and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over
and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. That is
being taught how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the
“rat race” — the constant, gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.
● The biggest of questions is not about life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life
before death. It is about making it to thirty, or maybe even fifty, without wanting to shoot
yourself in the head.
● The real value of education has nothing to do with grades or degrees and everything to
do with simple awareness—awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in
plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves of it over and over.
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
by Marshall Goldsmith

Behavioral problems, not technical skills, are what separate the great from the near great.
Incredible results can come from practicing basic behaviors like saying thank you, listening well,
thinking before you speak, and apologizing for your mistakes. The first step to change is
wanting to change.
● The higher you go in an organization, the more your suggestions become interpreted as
orders.
● Getting praise can be dangerous because it becomes easy to delude yourself when all
you hear are positive things.
● Delusional self-confidence causes you to resist change.
● You can't control the outcome, but why wouldn't you want to try to control what you can?
Even if the cards are stacked against you in life your best bet is to try your hardest.
● Successful people believe they are in control. They don't see themselves as victims of
the world.
● Lottery ticket players: serious lottery players think success is random. Successful people
think success is within their control and thus don't play the lottery. Both mindsets are
delusional in their own way, but the successful approach seems to work better overall.
● People will only do something and change when it is in their own best interest and aligns
with our values.
● The four drivers of self-interest: money, power, status, popularity.
● Smart people know what to do. They need to know what to stop.
● Create a To-Stop list rather than a To-Do list.
● Not all behavior is good or bad. Some behaviors are simply neutral.
● The fallacy of adding too much value is that by adding value you kill the ownership of
other peoples ideas. When you add to the idea it no longer feels like it is their idea.
● When getting feedback of any type, positive or negative, accept it from a neutral place
and say, “Thank you.” If you don't reply with a judgmental comment, you can't get into an
argument.
● The question to ask yourself when making a destructive or critical comment about
someone is not, “Is it true?” But, “Is it worth it?”
● Don't tell people how smart you are. Nobody gives a damn.
● Withholding information is a problem for me when I don't communicate well. If you don't
communicate what is going on it feels like you're keeping people in the dark. That
annoys people.
● Create a list of people you should give recognition to and then review that list each week
to see if you should send someone praise.
● Give away ALL the credit.
● Clinging to the past: “Many people enjoy living in the past, especially if going back there
lets them blame someone else for anything that's gone wrong in their lives. That's when
clinging to the past becomes an interpersonal problem… When we make excuses, we
are blaming someone or something beyond our control as the reason for our failure.
Anyone but ourselves.” When we talk about the past it is NOT about change. It is about
understanding. And often about blaming others.
● Just say “Thank You” to more comments rather than making a bigger fuss about things.
We often have issues with accepting compliments.
● Hearing people out does not make you dumber. So listen and say thank you.
● Gratitude is not a limited resource. Express your thanks more often.
● People who think they can do no wrong usually can't admit they are ever wrong. Which,
paradoxically, makes you more wrong. Owning up to your mistakes is essential.
● Your personality is not fixed and improvement does not require you to become a
radically different person. You don't have to change your whole life, just improve one tiny
trait.
● Goal obsession is the blindness of goal pursuit at the expense of more important things.
● You should feel no shame if your pursuit of a difficult goal fails.
● Goal obsession is not a flaw, it is a creator of flaws.
● Princeton theology students research study and the story of the Good Samaritan. Goal
obessions: we are so focus on shortsighted goals and the task in front of us that we miss
the bigger point. Use this as a jumping off point for talking about goals in life. Is working
really the point?
● Main lesson: you can do a lot worse than questioning your flaws. We often get so
defensive about these things, but what do we really have to lose? Usually, very little.
● Forgiveness means letting go of the hope for a better past.
● The higher you go the more your problems are behavioral. Interpersonal behavior is the
difference between being great and near great.
● Knowing the answer to, “How do you feel about me?” does not matter when it comes to
getting better. What matters is, “How can I get better?”
● Apologize, apologize, apologize. Just step up and make the apologies you need to
make.
● When you make an apology say, “I'm sorry. I'll try to do better.” And then shut up. Don't
try to justify it.
● Frances Hesselbein, CEO of the Girl Scouts. Claimed to be greatest executive by Peter
Drucker.
● When you listen to someone make them feel like they are the only person in the room.
Devote your attention to them.
● We can't change for the long-run without following up. Follow up shows your colleagues
that you care about getting better and that you're taking the process seriously.
 When Breath Becomes Air by Paul
Kalanithi

The memoir of Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon at Stanford University, who is diagnosed with
terminal lung cancer in his mid-thirties. Kalanithi uses the pages in this book to not only tell his
story, but also share his ideas on how to approach death with grace and what it means to be
fully alive.
● On the suffering that often accompanies death: “With what strife and pains we come into
the world we know not, but ’tis commonly no easy matter to get out of it.” -Sir Thomas
Browne, Religio Medici
● I realized that the questions intersecting life, death, and meaning, questions that all
people face at some point, usually arise in a medical context.
● Because the brain mediates our experience of the world, any neurosurgical problem
forces a patient and family, ideally with a doctor as a guide, to answer this question:
What makes life meaningful enough to go on living?
● Learning to judge whose lives could be saved, whose couldn’t be, and whose shouldn’t
be requires an unattainable prognostic ability. I made mistakes. Rushing a patient to the
OR to save only enough brain that his heart beats but he can never speak, he eats
through a tube, and he is condemned to an existence he would never want… I came to
see this as a more egregious failure than the patient dying.
● As a resident, my highest ideal was not saving lives—everyone dies eventually—but
guiding a patient or family to an understanding of death or illness.
● One of the earliest meanings of the word “patient” is “one who endures hardship without
complaint.”
● When you take up another’s cross, you must be willing to sometimes get crushed by its
weight.
● “Boredom is the awareness of time passing.” -Heidegger
● The pain of failure had led me to understand that in neurosurgery technical excellence
was a moral requirement. Good intentions were not enough, not when so much
depended on my skills, when the difference between tragedy and triumph was defined
by one or two millimeters.
● Death comes for all of us. It is our fate as living, breathing, metabolizing organisms.
● Dealing with the fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.
● Can we become comfortable with the most uncomfortable thing in the world—death? If
the weight of mortality does not grow lighter, does it at least grow more familiar?
● As a doctor, I was an object, a cause. As a patient, I was merely something to which
things happened.
● Life isn’t about avoiding suffering. The defining characteristic of an organism is striving.
● “Even if I’m dying, until I actually die, I’m still living.”
● The tricky thing about terminal illness (and life, probably) is your values are constantly
changing. You try to figure out what matters to you and then you keep figuring it out.
● How do you decide what to do with your life when you’re not sure how much life you
have left? Maybe in the absence of certainty we should just assume we’re going to live a
long time. Maybe that’s the only way forward.
● If you believe that science provides no basis for God, then you are almost obligated to
conclude that science provides no basis for meaning and, therefore, life itself doesn’t
have any.
● No system of thought can contain the fullness of human experience.
● Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we
create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.
● “I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the work, and you
are sharing the fruits of their labor.” -The Bible
● Graham Greene once said that life was lived in the first twenty years and the rest was
just reflection.
● Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past.
● What happened to Paul was tragic, but he was not a tragedy.
 Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer
Johnson
Letting go of what we know is hard, but essential for growth and improvement. The quicker you
let go of old things, the sooner you can learn new skills and create a better future. When you
change what you believe, you can change what you do.
● “What would I do if I wasn't afraid?”
● “Taking action is key. Moving in a new direction can free you.”
● Moving past fear is freeing.
● Quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese.
● When you change what you believe, you change what you do.
● Continue to explore and grow! Even when things are good.
 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing by
Gary Provost

1. A writer’s most important vocabulary is the one he or she already has.

2. A lead should have energy, excitement, an implicit promise that something is going to
happen or that some interesting information will be revealed.
3. When writing a beginning, remove every sentence until you come to one you cannot do
without.
4. Style is form, not content.
5. To write is to create music.

100 Ways to Improve Your Writing

I. Nine Ways to Improve Your Writing When You’re Not Writing
1. Get Some Reference Books
2. Expand Your Vocabulary
3. Improve Your Spelling
4. Read
5. Take a Class
6. Eavesdrop
7. Research
8. Write in Your Head
9. Choose a Time and Place
II. Nine Ways to Overcome Writer’s Block
1. Copy Something
2. Keep a Journal
3. Talk About What You’re Writing
4. Touch Your Toes
5. Do Writing Exercises
6. Organize Your Material
7. Make a List
8. Picture a Reader
 9. Ask Yourself Why You Are Writing
III. Five Ways to Write a Strong Beginning
1. Find a Slant
2. Write a Strong Lead
3. Don’t Make Promises You Can’t Keep
4. Set a Tone and Maintain It
5. Begin at the Beginning
IV. Nine Ways to Save Time and Energy
1. Use Pyramid Construction
2. Use Topic Sentences
3. Write Short Paragraphs
4. Use Transitional Phrases
5. Don’t Explain When You Don’t Have To
6. Use Bridge Words
7. Avoid Wordiness
8. Steal
9. Stop Writing When You Get to the End
V. Ten Ways to Develop Style
1. Think About Style
2. Listen to What You Write
3. Mimic Spoken Language
4. Vary Sentence Length
5. Vary Sentence Construction
6. Write Complete Sentences
7. Show, Don’t Tell
8. Keep Related Words Together
9. Use Parallel Construction
10. 10. Don’t Force a Personal Style
VI. Twelve Ways to Give Your Words Power
1. Use Short Words
2. Use Dense Words
3. Use Familiar Words
4. Use Active Verbs
5. Use Strong Verbs
 6. Use Specific Nouns
7. Use the Active Voice . . . Most of the Time
8. Say Things in a Positive Way . . . Most of the Time
9. Be Specific
10. Use Statistics
11. Provide Facts
12. Put Emphatic Words at the End
VII. Eleven Ways to Make People Like What You Write
1. Make Yourself Likable
2. Write About People
3. Show Your Opinion
4. Obey Your Own Rules
5. Use Anecdotes
6. Use Examples
7. Name Your Sources
8. Provide Useful Information
9. Use Quotations
10. Use Quotes
11. Create a Strong Title
VIII. Ten Ways to Avoid Grammatical Errors
1. Respect the Rules of Grammar
2. Do Not Change Tenses
3. Know How to Use the Possessive Case
4. Make Verbs Agree with Their Subjects
5. Fix Dangling Modifiers
6. Avoid Shifts in Pronoun Forms
7. Do Not Split Infinitives
8. Beware These Common Mistakes
9. Be Sensitive to Changes in the Language
10. Prefer Good Writing to Good Grammar
IX. Six Ways to Avoid Punctuation Errors
1. Use Orthodox Punctuation
2. Know When to Use a Comma
3. Know When to Use a Semicolon
 4. Know When to Use a Colon
5. Use Exclamation Points Only When Exclaiming and Question Marks Only When Asking
Questions
6. Know How to Use Quotation Marks
X. Twelve Ways to Avoid Making Your Reader Hate You
1. Avoid Jargon
2. Avoid Clichés
3. Avoid Parentheses
4. Avoid Footnotes
5. Don’t Use Transitions to Conceal Information
6. Don’t Acknowledge When You Should Explain
7. Don’t Hide Behind Your Words
8. Don’t Intrude
9. Don’t Play Word Games
10. Don’t Play the Tom Wolfe Game
11. Don’t Play the Mystery Game
12. Don’t Cheat
XI. Seven Ways to Edit Yourself
1. Read Your Work Out Loud
2. Cut Unnecessary Words
3. Think About What You Have Written
4. Ask Yourself These Questions
5. Follow These Rules of Form for Titles
6. Prepare a Perfect Manuscript
7. Use Common Sense
 Show Your Work by Austin Kleon

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Let others into your process—then let them steal from you.
2. You can’t find your voice if you don’t use it.
3. Share without oversharing (think work; not workouts).

The Five Big Ideas

1. Almost all of the people Austin looks up to and tries to steal from today, regardless of
their profession, have built sharing into their routine.
2. “Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.”
3. “The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you
want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.”
4. If your work isn’t online, it doesn’t exist.
5. Become a documentarian of what you do.

Show Your Work Summary

● “You don’t really find an audience for your work; they find you.”
● Almost all of the people Austin looks up to and tries to steal from today, regardless of
their profession, have built sharing into their routine.
● Instead of wasting their time “networking,” most people Austin know are taking
advantage of the network. By generously sharing their ideas and their knowledge, they
often gain an audience that they can then leverage when they need it—for fellowship,
feedback, or patronage.
● “Being a valuable part of a scenius is not necessarily about how smart or talented you
are, but about what you have to contribute—the ideas you share, the quality of the
connections you make, and the conversations you start.”
● “Because they have little to lose, amateurs are willing to try anything and share the
results.” (Sam: Austin’s definition of the amateur is different to Steven Pressfield’s
definition in The War of Art. Austin defines the amateur as the beginner.)
● “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki.
“In the expert’s mind, there are few.”
● Clay Shirky on creativity: “On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the
mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can
move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and
doing something.”
● “Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.” (Sam:
This is similar to Dan Norris’s philosophy in Create or Hate.)
● “Raw enthusiasm is contagious.”
● Amateurs will use whatever tools they can get their hands on to try to get their ideas into
the world.
● “The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you
want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.”
● “Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.”
● The only way to find your voice is to use it. It’s hardwired, built into you. Talk about the
things you love. Your voice will follow.
● “It sounds a little extreme, but in this day and age, if your work isn’t online, it doesn’t
exist. We all have the opportunity to use our voices, to have our say, but so many of us
are wasting it. If you want people to know about what you do and the things you care
about, you have to share.”
● “Start reading the obituaries every morning. Take inspiration from the people who
muddled through life before you—they all started out as amateurs, and they got where
they were going by making do with what they were given, and having the guts to put
themselves out there. Follow their example.”
● “Whatever the nature of your work, there is an art to what you do, and there are people
who would be interested in that art, if only you presented it to them in the right way.”
● “Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal: Write your thoughts
down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot
of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you
working. This isn’t about making art, it’s about simply keeping track of what’s going on
around you. Take advantage of all the cheap, easy tools at your disposal—these days,
most of us carry a fully functional multimedia studio around in our smartphones.”
● “Overnight success is a myth. Dig into almost every overnight success story and you’ll
find about a decade’s worth of hard work and perseverance. Building a substantial body
 of work takes a long time—a lifetime, really—but thankfully, you don’t need that time all
in one big chunk. So forget about decades, forget about years, and forget about months.
Focus on days.”
● “Don’t show your lunch or your latte; show your work.”
● “Don’t worry about everything you post being perfect. Science fiction writer Theodore
Sturgeon once said that 90 percent of everything is crap.”
● “The act of sharing is one of generosity—you’re putting something out there because
you think it might be helpful or entertaining to someone on the other side of the screen.”
● Austin had a professor in college who returned her class’s graded essays, walked up to
the chalkboard, and wrote in huge letters: “SO WHAT?” She threw the piece of chalk
down and said, “Ask yourself that every time you turn in a piece of writing.”
● “Small things, over time, can get big.”
● “Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention
machine.”
● “Over the years, you will be tempted to abandon [your website] for the newest, shiniest
social network. Don’t give in. Don’t let it fall into neglect. Think about it in the long term.
Stick with it, maintain it, and let it change with you over time.”
● William Burroughs’s advice to Patti Smith: “Build a good name. Keep your name clean.
Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being
successful. Be concerned with doing good work … and if you can build a good name,
eventually that name will be its own currency.”
● “We all carry around the weird and wonderful things we’ve come across while doing our
work and living our lives. These mental scrapbooks form our tastes, and our tastes
influence our work.”
● “Your influences are all worth sharing because they clue people into who you are and
what you do—sometimes even more than your own work.”
● “All it takes to uncover hidden gems is a clear eye, an open mind, and a willingness to
search for inspiration in places other people aren’t willing or able to go.”
● “You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with
respect and care.”
● “Don’t share things you can’t properly credit. Find the right credit, or don’t share.”
● “Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who
made them. The stories you tell about the work you do have a huge effect on how
 people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what
they understand about your work affects how they value it.”
● “If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to
become a better storyteller. You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.”
● “The minute you learn something, turn around and teach it to others. Share your reading
list. Point to helpful reference materials. Create some tutorials and post them online.”
● “Teaching people doesn’t subtract value from what you do, it actually adds to it.”
● “If you want to be a writer, you have to be a reader first.”
● “If you want fans, you have to be a fan first. If you want to be accepted by a community,
you have to first be a good citizen of that community.”
● “If you’re only pointing to your own stuff online, you’re doing it wrong.”
● “Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that
kind of stuff. It’s that simple.”
● “You have to remember that your work is something you do, not who you are.”
● “Put a little virtual tip jar or a donate now button on your website. These links do well with
a little bit of human copy, such as ‘Like this? Buy me a coffee.’”
● “Whether you ask for donations, crowdfund, or sell your products or services, asking for
money in return for your work is a leap you want to take only when you feel confident
that you’re putting work out into the world that you think is truly worth something. Don’t
be afraid to charge for your work, but put a price on it that you think is fair.”
● “Even if you don’t have anything to sell right now, you should always be collecting email
addresses from people who come across your work and want to stay in touch.”
● “You just have to be as generous as you can, but selfish enough to get your work done.”
● “The people who get what they’re after are very often the ones who just stick around
long enough.” (Sam: In other words, they’re able to endure The Dip)
● “If you look to artists who’ve managed to achieve lifelong careers, you detect the same
pattern: They all have been able to persevere, regardless of success or failure.”
● “When you feel like you’ve learned whatever there is to learn from what you’re doing, it’s
time to change course and find something new to learn so that you can move forward.”
● “You have to have the courage to get rid of work and rethink things completely.”
 You Are a Writer by Jeff Goins

he Book in Three Sentences

1. You find your dream not by searching for it, but by submitting to what you had always
hoped was true.
2. The amateur ships her work when she feels inspired; the professional ships her work
regardless of her mood.
3. If you have something worth saying, you want people to listen because it matters to
them.

The Five Big Ideas

1. “I found my dream not by searching for it, but by submitting to what I had always hoped
was true: I was, in fact, a writer. All I had to do was write”.
2. “Believe you already are what you want to be. And then start acting like it”.
3. “Before others will believe what is true about you, you’ll have to believe it yourself”.
4. “Multitasking is a myth. You can either create or react. But you can’t do both. Choose
wisely”.
5. “A brand is who you are. But it’s more than that. It’s your truest self. The part people
remember”.

You Are a Writer Summary

● “I found my dream not by searching for it, but by submitting to what I had always hoped
was true: I was, in fact, a writer. All I had to do was write”.
● “Believe you already are what you want to be. And then start acting like it”.
● “Embracing your identity as a writer is mostly a mind game. It’s about tricking yourself
into becoming who you are. If you do this long enough, you begin to believe it. And
pretty soon, you start acting like it too”.
● “Before others will believe what is true about you, you’ll have to believe it yourself”.
● “I wasn’t doing. I wasn’t creating. I was only dreaming. This is dangerous territory, when
your creativity hijacks your productivity”.
● “There is no wrong thing. Just begin”.
● “It happened subtly, as all things well-practiced do. It didn’t happen by thinking about it or
talking about it. Not through wasting time with meaningless goals or silly, fruitless plans.
No, it happened from doing the work—creating habits and building momentum”.
● “Multitasking is a myth. You can either create or react. But you can’t do both. Choose
wisely”.
● “You have to be yourself, to speak in a way that is true to you. This is the next step to
claiming your life as a writer—taking yourself seriously so your audience will too”.
● “Good writers practice. They take time to write, crafting and editing a piece until it’s just
right. They spend hours and days just revising”.
● “The professional shows up every day, ready to do the work”.
● “Do a document search for all uses of “that” and “very”—kill as many of them as
possible. These words are rarely needed”.
● “Reread the piece. Cut as many adverbs as possible. These are words that typically end
in -ly (like ‘typically’). This is especially important when writing dialogue, he said intently”.
● “Look for complex sentences using lots of ‘ands’ and ‘buts’—try simplifying some of
them. Reread them and see if the meaning is more clear”.
● “Destroy weak phrases like ‘I think’ or ‘in my opinion’ that corrupt your argument. Say
what needs to be said, or don’t say it at all. When you do use such a phrase, make it
count”.
● “The fear of something is always scarier than the thing itself. Yes, there is pain and
rejection. But the greatest failure is to never risk at all”.
● “I found that when you stop seeking public approval, something interesting happens:
People will be deeply attracted to your work. They won’t be able to help it”.
● “If you have something worth saying, you want people to listen because it matters to
them”.
● “A brand is who you are. But it’s more than that. It’s your truest self. The part people
remember”.
 On Writing by Stephen King

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Most people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and that those talents
can be strengthened and sharpened with practice.
2. The writer’s original perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the
reader’s.
3. Stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard, either emotionally or imaginatively, is a
bad idea.

The Five Big Ideas

1. “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
2. “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.”
3. “Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself
why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system for art. It’s the other way
around.”
4. “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary,
looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.”
5. “Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your
mind, if it is appropriate and colorful.”

On Writing Summary
● Stephan believes most people have at least some talent as writers and storytellers, and
that those talents can be strengthened and sharpened with practice.
● “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for
you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it
right—as right as you can, anyway—it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or
criticize it.”
● “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.
They don’t have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough.”
● The most important Stephen learned from Carrie White is that the writer’s original
perception of a character or characters may be as erroneous as the reader’s. Running a
close second was the realization that stopping a piece of work just because it’s hard,
either emotionally or imaginatively, is a bad idea. Sometimes you have to go on when
you don’t feel like it, and sometimes you’re doing good work when it feels like all you’re
managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.
● “[Writing] starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there
to write, remind yourself why it isn’t in the middle of the room. Life isn’t a support-system
for art. It’s the other way around.”
● “One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary,
looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.
This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes.”
● “The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated
cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”
● “Remember that the basic rule of vocabulary is use the first word that comes to your
mind, if it is appropriate and colorful.”
● “If you hesitate and cogitate, you will come up with another word – of course you will,
there’s always another word – but it probably won’t be as good as your first one, or as
close to what you really mean.”
● “Nouns and verbs are the two indispensable parts of writing. Without one of each, no
group of words can be a sentence, since a sentence is, by definition, a group of words
containing a subject (noun) and a predicate (verb); these strings of words begin with a
capital letter, end with a period, and combine to make a complete thought which starts in
the writer’s head and then leaps to the reader’s.”
● “Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks
explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float.”
● “The simplicity of noun-verb construction is useful – at the very least it can provide a
safety net for your writing.”
● “Verbs come in two types, active and passive. With an active verb, the subject of the
sentence is doing something. With a passive verb, something is being done to the
subject of the sentence. The subject is just letting it happen. You should avoid the
passive tense.”
● “The adverb is not your friend.”
● “Adverbs, you will remember from your own version of Business English, are words that
modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.”
● “I insist that you use the adverb in dialogue attribution only in the rarest and most special
of occasions … and not even then, if you can avoid it.”
● “The best form of dialogue attribution is said, as in he said, she said, Bill said, Monica
said.”
● “You always add ’s, even when the word you’re modifying ends in s – always write
Thomas’s bike and never Thomas’ bike.”
● “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a
lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.”
● “Every book you pick up has its own lesson or lessons, and quite often the bad books
have more to teach than the good ones.”
● “Once I start work on a project, I don’t stop and I don’t slow down unless I absolutely
have to. If I don’t write every day, the characters begin to stale off in my mind – they
begin to seem like characters instead of real people.”
● “What you need to remember is that there’s a difference between lecturing about what
you know and using it to enrich the story. The latter is good. The former is not.”
● “In my view, stories and novels consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story
from point A to point B and finally to point Z; description, which creates a sensory reality
for the reader; and dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.”
● “Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”
● “One of the cardinal rules of good fiction is never tell us a thing if you can show us.”
● “Everything I’ve said about dialogue applies to building characters in fiction. The job boils
down to two things: paying attention to how the real people around you behave and then
telling the truth about what you see.”
● “Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins
with theme and progresses to story.”
● “The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a
history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are, and don’t get
carried away with the rest.”
● “You don’t need writing classes or seminars any more than you need this or any other
book on writing.”
● “You learn best by reading a lot and writing a lot, and the most valuable lessons of all are
the ones you teach yourself.”
● “Writing isn’t about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making
friends. In the end, it’s about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and
enriching your own life, as well. It’s about getting up, getting well, and getting over.
Getting happy, okay? Getting happy.”
An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by
Chris Hadfield

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Things are never as bad (or as good) as they seem at the time.
2. Success is feeling good about the work you do throughout the long, unheralded journey.
3. Fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have any control over
what’s about to happen. When you feel helpless, you’re far more afraid than you would
be if you knew the facts. If you’re not sure what to be alarmed about, everything is
alarming.

The Five Big Ideas

1. In order to stay calm in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, all you really need is
knowledge.
2. Feeling ready to do something doesn’t mean feeling certain you’ll succeed. Truly being
ready means understanding what could go wrong—and having a plan to deal with it.
3. Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of
worrying: it’s productive.
4. Optimism and confidence comes not from visualizing victory, but from visualizing defeat
and figuring out how to prevent it.
5. If you’re striving for excellence—whether it’s in playing the guitar or flying a jet—there’s
no such thing as over-preparation. It’s your best chance of improving your odds.

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth Summary

● “What I do each day determines the kind of person I’ll become”.
● “My attitude was more, ‘It’s probably not going to happen, but I should do things that
keep me moving in the right direction, just in case—and I should be sure those things
interest me, so that whatever happens, I’m happy’.”
● “As I have discovered again and again, things are never as bad (or as good) as they
seem at the time”.
● “An astronaut is someone who’s able to make good decisions quickly, with incomplete
information, when the consequences really matter”.
● “It sounds strange, probably, but having a pessimistic view of my own prospects helped
me love my job”.
● “However, success, to me, never was and still isn’t about lifting off in a rocket (though
that sure felt like a great achievement). Success is feeling good about the work you do
throughout the long, unheralded journey that may or may not wind up at the launch pad”.
● “Ultimately, I don’t determine whether I arrive at the desired professional destination. Too
many variables are out of my control. There’s really just one thing I can control: my
attitude during the journey, which is what keeps me feeling steady and stable, and what
keeps me headed in the right direction. So I consciously monitor and correct, if
necessary, because losing attitude would be far worse than not achieving my goal”.
● “‘Be ready. Work. Hard. Enjoy it!’ It fits every situation”.
● “I never stopped getting ready. Just in case”.
● “In my experience, fear comes from not knowing what to expect and not feeling you have
any control over what’s about to happen. When you feel helpless, you’re far more afraid
than you would be if you knew the facts. If you’re not sure what to be alarmed about,
everything is alarming”.
● “Knowledge and experience have made it possible for me to be relatively comfortable
with heights, whether I’m flying a biplane or doing a spacewalk or jumping into a
mountain of corn. In each case, I fully understand the challenge, the physics, the
mechanics, and I know from personal experience that I’m not helpless. I do have some
control”.
● “But in order to stay calm in a high-stress, high-stakes situation, all you really need is
knowledge”.
● “Feeling ready to do something doesn’t mean feeling certain you’ll succeed, though of
course that’s what you’re hoping to do. Truly being ready means understanding what
could go wrong—and having a plan to deal with it”.
● “‘Working the problem’ is NASA-speak for descending one decision tree after another,
methodically looking for a solution until you run out of oxygen”.
● “No one was moving in a leisurely fashion, but the response was one of focused
curiosity, as though we were dealing with an abstract puzzle rather than an imminent
threat to our survival”.
● “Each time you manage to do that your comfort zone expands a little, so if you ever face
that particular problem in real life, you’re able to think clearly”.
● “To drive that message home, we have what we euphemistically refer to as “contingency
sims”—death sims, actually—which force us to think through our own demise in granular
detail: not only how we’d die, but what would happen afterward to our families,
colleagues and the space program itself”.
● “Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills
to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling”.
● “Anticipating problems and figuring out how to solve them is actually the opposite of
worrying: it’s productive”.
● “My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I’m luckier than other mortals, and
they sure don’t come from visualizing victory. They’re the result of a lifetime spent
visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it”.
● “Like most astronauts, I’m pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because
I’ve thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That’s the power of
negative thinking”.
● “I couldn’t afford to be unprepared in any situation where I was going to be evaluated,
formally or not. I had to be ready, always”.
● “But if you’re striving for excellence—whether it’s in playing the guitar or flying a
jet—there’s no such thing as over-preparation. It’s your best chance of improving your
odds”.
● “In any field, it’s a plus if you view criticism as potentially helpful advice rather than as a
personal attack”.
● “During a sim, the flight director or lead astronaut makes notes on major events, and
afterward, kicks off the debrief by reviewing the highlights: what went well, what new
things were learned, what was already known but needs to be re-emphasized. Then it’s
a free-for-all. Everyone else dives right in, system by system, to dissect what went wrong
or was handled poorly”.
● “It’s not a public flogging: the goal is to build up collective wisdom”.
● “That’s one good thing about habitually sweating the small stuff: you learn to be very,
very patient”.
● “This is why, individually and organizationally, we have the patience to sweat the small
stuff even when—actually, especially when—pursuing major goals. We’ve learned the
hardest way possible just how much little things matter”.
● “Good leadership means leading the way, not hectoring other people to do things your
way”.
● “Whining is the antithesis of expeditionary behavior, which is all about rallying the troops
around a common goal”.
● “When you have some skills but don’t fully understand your environment, there is no way
you can be a plus one”.
● “If you start thinking that only your biggest and shiniest moments count, you’re setting
yourself up to feel like a failure most of the time”.
● “Life is just a lot better if you feel you’re having 10 wins a day rather than a win every 10
years or so”.
 Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

The Book in One Sentence

● Can’t Hurt Me is about how David Goggins transformed himself into one of America’s
fittest athletes through self-discipline, mental toughness, and hard work.

The Five Big Ideas

1. The Accountability Mirror
2. The Governor
3. The 40% Rule
4. The Cookie Jar
5. Taking Souls

Can’t Hurt Me Summary

“By the time I graduated, I knew that the confidence I’d managed to develop didn’t come from a
perfect family or God-given talent. It came from personal accountability which brought me self
respect, and self-respect will always light a way forward.”
“Very few people know how the bottom feels, but I do. It’s like quicksand. It grabs you, sucks
you under, and won’t let go. When life is like that it’s easy to drift and continue to make the
same comfortable choices that are killing you, over and over again.”
“You’re probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.”
“Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right
when he wrote about men on the battlefield. ‘Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten
shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to
have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…’”
“From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible
to find your greatness and become the One Warrior. But it is up to you to equip yourself for the
battle ahead.”
“Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with
accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.”
“Human beings change through study, habit, and stories. Through my story, you will learn what
the body and mind are capable of when they’re driven to maximum capacity, and how to get
there. Because when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism,
injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your
metamorphosis.”
“I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it
started snowing, my mind would say, Get your fu*king running shoes on. Sometimes I wussed
out and had to deal with it at the Accountability Mirror. But facing that mirror, facing myself,
motivated me to fight through uncomfortable experiences, and, as a result, I became tougher.
And being tough and resilient helped me meet my goals.”
“Everything in life is a mind game! Whenever we get swept under by life’s dramas, large and
small, we are forgetting that no matter how bad the pain gets, no matter how harrowing the
torture, all bad things end.”
Goggins’s Commanding Officer told him,
In a society where mediocrity is too often the standard and too often rewarded. There is an
intense fascination with men who detest mediocrity, who refuse to define themselves in
conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities. This
is exactly the type of person BUD/S is meant to find. The man who finds a way to complete
each and every task to the best of his ability. The man who will adapt and overcome any and all
obstacles.
Goggins began changing his life by speaking to himself in the mirror every night.
He writes,
I set goals, wrote them on Post-It notes, and tagged them to what I now call the Accountability
Mirror because each day I’d hold myself accountable to the goals I’d set. At first, my goals
involved shaping up my appearance and accomplishing all my chores without having to be
asked. […] [It] kept me on point from then on, and though I was still young when this strategy
came through me, since then I’ve found it useful for people at any stage in life.
According to Goggins, like a car with a governor that places a ceiling on the car’s performance,
we, too, have a governor that impedes us from reaching our true potential.
In his own words,
Our governor is buried deep in our minds, intertwined with our very identity. It knows what and
who we love and hate; it’s read our whole life story and forms the way we see ourselves and
how we’d like to be seen. It’s the software that delivers personalized feedback—in the form of
pain and exhaustion, but also fear and insecurity, and it uses all of that to encourage us to stop
before we risk it all. But, here’s the thing, it doesn’t have absolute control. Unlike the governor in
an engine, ours can’t stop us unless we buy into its bulls*t and agree to quit.
Goggins writes that many of us live at 40% of their true capability. Only when we callous our
mind through stepping out of our comfort zone on a regular basis can we move beyond it.
He writes,
Most of us give up when we’ve only given around 40 percent of our maximum effort. Even when
we feel like we’ve reached our absolute limit, we still have 60 percent more to give! […] Once
you know that to be true, it’s simply a matter of stretching your pain tolerance, letting go of your
identity and all your self-limiting stories, so you can get to 60 percent, then 80 percent and
beyond without giving up. I call this The 40% Rule, and the reason it’s so powerful is that if you
follow it, you will unlock your mind to new levels of performance and excellence in sports and in
life, and your rewards will run far deeper than mere material success.
Before eating a cookie as a child, Goggins always took the time to admire it first as a way of
practicing gratitude. Today, “The Cookie Jar” is a concept he employs whenever he needs a
reminder of who he is and what he’s capable of.
In his own words,
We all have a cookie jar inside us, because life, being what it is, has always tested us. Even if
you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two
when you overcame odds and tasted success. It doesn’t have to be a big victory either. It can be
something small.
On the toughest day of the hardest week in the world’s toughest training, Goggins tormented his
instructors by motivating his team to push themselves harder.
Goggins coined the term “Taking Souls” after motivating himself to push him and his team
harder as a means of getting inside his instructors’ heads.
He writes,
Taking Souls is a ticket to finding your own reserve power and riding a second wind. It’s the tool
you can call upon to win any competition or overcome every life obstacle. […] This is a tactic for
you to be your best when duty calls. It’s a mind game you’re playing on yourself. Taking
someone’s soul means you’ve gained a tactical advantage. Life is all about looking for tactical
advantages.
 Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In by Louis
Zamperini

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Forgive people who have hurt or upset you.
2. Acceptance leads to contentment.
3. Admit when you’re wrong.

The Five Big Ideas

1. “If you hate somebody you’re not hurting the person you hate, you’re hurting yourself.
Forgiveness is healing”.
2. “We all need a code of ethics to guide us, especially in tough times when everyone has
to do their part for the greater good, for the family or the group to survive”.
3. “Rather than try to take on the whole predicament at once, I broke it down to smaller
tasks that used the various survival skills I’d already learned: first aid, obtaining food,
knowing not to drink salt water, maintaining a positive attitude, and keeping my mind
active. I followed my training, a step at a time. I didn’t freak out”.
4. “You must have hope. It rejuvenates your whole being. You can’t allow negative thinking
– even if you know your chances are slim. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do, but the
ability to envision the road to successful completion is what keeps you alive”.
5. “Acceptance creates cheerfulness, which in turn creates contentment”.

Don’t Give Up, Don’t Give In Summary

● “The hardest thing in life is to forgive. But hate is self-destructive. If you hate somebody
you’re not hurting the person you hate, you’re hurting yourself. Forgiveness is healing”.
● “We all need a code of ethics to guide us, especially in tough times when everyone has
to do their part for the greater good, for the family or the group to survive”.
● “I didn’t know it then, but my persistence, perseverance, and unwillingness to accept
defeat when things looked all but hopeless were part of the very character traits I would
need to make it through World War II alive”.
● “Rather than try to take on the whole predicament at once, I broke it down to smaller
tasks that used the various survival skills I’d already learned: first aid, obtaining food,
knowing not to drink salt water, maintaining a positive attitude, and keeping my mind
active. I followed my training, a step at a time. I didn’t freak out”.
● “During the two-plus years I lived in Japanese prisoner-of-war camps, I noticed that the
soldiers who suffered the most were the ones who wouldn’t accept their situations”.
● “I decided to consider my incarceration as a challenge – like winning a race”.
● “If you cling to the axe you’re grinding, eventually you’ll only hurt yourself”.
● “You must have hope. It rejuvenates your whole being. You can’t allow negative thinking
– even if you know your chances are slim. I’m not saying that it’s easy to do, but the
ability to envision the road to successful completion is what keeps you alive”.
● “When the Apostle Paul was imprisoned, he said, ‘Whatever situation I find myself in, I
have learned thereby to be content’.”
● “Acceptance creates cheerfulness, which in turn creates contentment”.
● “Don’t leave the crucial details to someone you don’t know – especially when your life
may depend on it”.
● “Sometimes what we see as a loss turns out in the end to be a gain, and sometimes a
gain is a loss. I try not to be too swift to pass judgment on any situation, preferring
instead to be patient and take the long view because I believe that in the end all things
work together for good”.
● “It will be tough to amount to anything unless you commit to your goal and stay the
course. You can’t give in to doubt. You can’t give in to pain”.
● “Never give up. If you want to be a champion you have to go after what you want tooth
and nail”.
● “It’s a great responsibility, and a rough game. When times are tough you have to keep
the parties from jumping on each other”.
● “When you’re wrong, admit it. When you’re right, keep your mouth shut”.
 Mud, Sweat, and Tears: The
Autobiography by Bear Grylls

Mud, Sweat, and Tears Summary

“The gentleman is characterized by his sacrifice of self, and preference of others, in the little
daily occurrences of life.”
“Kindness is one of the most important things in life and can mean so much. Try never to hurt
those you love. We all make mistakes, and sometimes, terrible ones, but try not to hurt anyone
for the sake of your own selfishness.”
Bear learned two very strong lessons from his grandparents: the grass isn’t always greener
elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.
“Know your limits, don’t embark on any adventures without a solid backup plan, and don’t be
egged on by others when your instincts tell you something is a bad idea.”
“Listen to the quiet voice inside. Intuition is the noise of the mind.”
“As a kid, you can only cry so much before you run out of tears and learn to get tough.”
“Fear forces you to look tough on the outside, but makes you weak on the inside.”
“Eton College was only ever intolerant of two things: laziness and a lack of enthusiasm.”
“I haven’t always succeeded, and I haven’t always had the most talent, but I have always given
of myself with great enthusiasm—and that counts for a lot.”
“If people ask me today what I love about climbing mountains, the real answer isn’t adrenalin or
personal achievement. Mountains are all about experiencing a shared bond that is hard to find
in normal life.”
“To me, Christian faith is all about being held, comforted, forgiven, strengthened and loved—yet
somehow that message gets lost on most of us, and we tend only to remember the religious
nutters or the God of endless school assemblies.”
“Faith in Christ has been the great empowering presence in my life, helping me walk strong
when so often I feel so weak. It is no wonder I felt I had stumbled on something remarkable that
night up that tree.”
Eton showed Bear the value of a few close friends, and how those friendships really matter as
we walk through our days. It also taught him to understand that life is what you make of it. And
with that, there comes responsibility.”
Bear learnt from his mother that before you can get, you have to give, and that money is like a
river—if you try to block it up and dam it (i.e. cling on to it), then, like a dammed river, the water
will go stagnant and stale, and your life will fester. If you keep the stream moving, and keep
giving stuff and money away, wherever you can, then the river and the rewards will keep flowing
in.
A quote Bear’s mother once gave him: ‘When supply seems to have dried up, look around you
quickly for something to give away.’”
“I never minded risking failure because I was never punished for failing.”
Bear’s father would always say that what really matters in life is to ‘Follow your dreams and to
look after your friends and family along the way.’
“There are no prizes for taking either yourself or life too seriously, and that life should be lived
freely.”
“Dreams, though, are cheap, and the real task comes when you start putting in place the steps
needed to make those dreams a reality.”
Bear believes strongly in the powerful words: ‘I took the road less travelled, and that has made
all the difference.’
“Good things come through grit and hard work, and all things worthwhile have a cost.”
“Our achievements are generally limited only by the beliefs we impose on ourselves.”
“If we tell ourselves often enough that we don’t have what it takes, then that will inevitably
become our reality.”
“Ed Amies, one of my oldest and closest friends, told me simply that: ‘So often, God’s callings
have a birth, a death and then a resurrection.’”
“Life doesn’t often give us second chances. But if it does, be bloody grateful.”
“Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have
got to be able to light your own fire.”
“Life is all about getting up again, dusting yourself down again, learning from the lessons and
then pushing on.”
“I have always loved the quote from John F. Kennedy: ‘When written in Chinese, the word
“crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents
opportunity.’”
“Looking back on my life, I can see that I have never had a crisis that didn’t make me stronger.”
“The laws of physics dictate that if you keep moving up, however slowly that might be, you will
eventually reach the top.”
“The other thing the army had taught me was how, and when, to go that extra mile. And the time
to do it is when it is tough – when all around you are slowing and quitting and complaining.”
“It is about understanding that the moment to shine brightest is when all about you is dark.”
“Ultimately, if I had to pass on one message to my children it would be this: ‘fortune favours the
brave’.”
“Spontaneity has to be exercised every day, or we lose it.”
“My father always used to say that if you focus on doing your job well, then money will often
follow. But chase the money and it has a habit of slipping through your fingers.”
“‘Smile when it’s raining, and when you’re going through hell – keep going.’”
 My Unfinished Business by Dan
Kennedy

My Unfinished Business Summary

Throughout Dan’s adult life, he’s made a diligent effort to devote some time every day toward
working on positive steps towards goals, never just survival.
Dan on how he focuses on what matters,
I’m a very good compartmentalizer. In Psycho-Cybernetics language, I can ‘clear the calculator’
almost anytime, anywhere, lock whatever was getting my attention away, focus on whatever I
need or chose to focus on. I have little storage boxes in my head, and I can put even the most
dire things away in a box, close the lid, and then not think about it until I deliberately take that lid
back off that box.
There are many, many reasons to be poor in America, but there are really no good reasons to
stay poor.
No financial condition is permanent unless the individual accepts it as such.
Financial problems cannot be permanent without permission.
Give into momentary fear, get a lifetime of regrets.
Anytime you find yourself making a business decision based on fear, fear that decision more
than you fear whatever’s scaring you into making it.
Dan’s office is full of “psychological triggers”, including lots of clocks (for awareness of time), lots
of wealth and money symbols (for prosperity consciousness), Disney art and items (for
creativity), and many other items that have meaning for him, that reinforce the kind of thinking
he wants.
If you want to break in and get going in any field, somewhere there’s a big winner in that field
who’d let you work for nothing.
One of the most difficult tricks to a successful life is living a self-aware, conscious life, of being
honest with yourself.
The more successful we become, the more important it is to constantly question ourselves.
Dan’s first piece of business advice is to avoid anything that might lead you to a criminal
situation.
His second piece of advice is to prevent unhappy customers from complaining to anybody.
When it comes to information marketing, it’s all about the pitch, the proposition. When you have
a really terrific pitch and can present it with people who are authentic and believable, you don’t
need celebrities, beautiful settings, Hollywood production values, or other trappings.
Dan believes in the importance of having a “reading program” and budgets time to read. He
typically three to five books at a time, taking notes or, in some cases, tearing out pages to keep
and discarding the bulk. He reads business, marketing, and self-improvement books
predominately to extract fodder for his own writing, speaking, and coaching, as well as for
personal benefit.
There is no value in “things.” Rather, there is value in selling “things.”
Dan mentions the following books, Possibility Thinking by Robert Schuller, Magic of Believing by
Claude Bristol, and The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity by Catherine Ponder.
Dan recommends Earl Nightingale’s “Lead the Field” audio program.
Dan believes you should never let a dream die without extraordinary effort. Most people get
stopped too easily. Most people give up on their dreams without putting up much of a fight.
Dan on never giving up,
I believe you are never too old, never too young, never too poor, never too anything to be
required to give up on your dreams. Most people who make a lifelong practice of giving up on
their dreams, ideas and opportunities wind up mastering only one skill: excuse-making, so they
have a long, comforting list of reasons why they have not done more with life. I prefer
achievement.
Dan on the one thing that makes people successful,
If you would like to know what I’ve decided is THE single biggest difference between successful
people and ‘the mediocre majority,’ between leaders and followers, between those who enjoy
generally rewarding lives vs. those who lead mostly frustrating lives, here it is: how easily they
take ‘no’ for an answer. If you wanted to focus on the one single behavior that has more to do
with success than any other, this is it.
Goal-setting is fine and useful, but what good is it if you are willing to give up on or compromise
the goal you set? The real key to success is “adamant refusal”—what conditions or
circumstances or limits do you adamantly refuse to accept?
Jim Rohn once said that, if you’re broke, don’t start our by sticking up happy, positive
affirmations like “I am wealthy” all over the place. Not yet. First, put up a big sign next to your
mirror that says, “I’m 42 years old, I’ve got an education, a family to take care of, and I’m flat
broke and I ought to be damned embarrassed to be that way in this land of abundant
opportunity.”
“You can tell a lot about a person by what they refuse to accept or tolerate.”
Dan has a paperweight on his desk that reads: “It can be done.”
Dan believes that the big, big turning points or breakthroughs in life aren’t found in the seminar
room. Rather, they’re found in the hallway or the bathroom, places you wouldn’t expect. For
instance, Dan changed his entire business model when he heard Gary Halbert mention, as a
throwaway remark, that he charged a $15,000 fee plus a 5% royalty on the sales that come
from the client’s use of the copy.
In Dan’s words,
You have to be alert all the time, with your subconscious mind conditioned to run everything
heard against a master-list of everything going on in your businesses and lives, to ring a bell
when something’s said that might be used.
“Motion beats meditation”—Gary Halbert.
Dan on overcoming setbacks:
I have outright failed at first, at just about everything I’ve wound up doing successfully. In some
instances, I’ve left an endeavor to return years later, and be successful at it. In most cases, I’ve
started over right after a meltdown, the ashes still swirling around me. Generally, my viewpoint
is not one of ‘success’ and ‘failure’, but rather of ‘unfinished business.’
Following are three business secrets Dan wished he’d discovered twenty years sooner.
1. Price elasticity. There is no restriction on what people will pay; there is only
self-imposed limits, both psychologically and practical in nature. Most people
undervalue themselves, their services, their products, poorly package and
present those things, and underestimate what the market will pay. It is vital to
grasp that we set our own prices.
1. Transaction size. It requires fewer $5,000 sales than $500 sales or $50 sales to
get to each million dollar benchmark. But it is not proportionately difficult to create
and sell a $5,000 think that to create and sale a $50 thing.
1. Continuity. Everybody ought to try to strive and fight and work to find ways to create
continuity income streams in their business, and if they can’t, to get involved in a
business where they can.
Study and emulate people who are great successes. Why? For verification and validation.
Modeling is almost as useful as the discovery of a new or better way of doing something.
It’s easier to impress people that inspire them.
Dan recommends people read Grow Rich with Peace of Mind over Napoleon Hill’s other book,
Think and Grow Rich.
“Renegade Millionaires” are entrepreneurs that make money on their terms, have some clear,
strong ideas about how they want to live their lives.
Earl Nightingale once said that if you don’t have a successful model to follow, you could just
observe what everybody else was doing and do the opposite.
Dan on excuse-making,
[It] is a destructive cancer that destroys your reputation with others as well as your own
self-respect and self-esteem. Excuse-making is a sickness, a type of mental illness, a delusional
distancing from rational thought and reality. Excuse-making robs you of opportunity, squanders
talent and ability. Excuse-making is a sad statement of lack of character and integrity, a warning
to others that you are not to be trusted.
Dan’s thoughts on excuse-making and raising your standards echoes Jack Canfield’s advice in
The Success Principles and Tony Robbins advice in Awaken the Giant Within.
 The Checklist Manifesto by Atul
Gawande

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Checklists protect us against failure.
2. Checklists establish a higher standard of baseline performance.
3. In the end, a checklist is only an aid. If it doesn’t aid, it’s not right.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Checklists are required for success.
2. When doctors and nurses in the ICU create their own checklists for what they think
should be done each day, the consistency of care improves to the point where the
average length of patient stay in intensive care dropped by half.
3. The three different kinds of problem in the world are the simple, the complicated, and the
complex.
4. Checklists can either be DO-CONFIRM or READ-DO (see below for a description) and
must be kept between 5-9 items.
5. The wording of should be simple and exact and fit on one page.

The Checklist Manifesto Summary

● “The volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to
deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and
burdened us.”
● “Whether running to the store to buy ingredients for a cake, preparing an airplane for
takeoff, or evaluating a sick person in the hospital, if you miss just one key thing, you
might as well not have made the effort at all.”
● “A further difficulty, just as insidious, is that people can lull themselves into skipping
steps even when they remember them.
● “Checklists seem to provide protection against such failures. They remind us of the
minimum necessary steps and make them explicit. They not only offer the possibility of
verification but also instill a kind of discipline of higher performance.”
● “The researchers found that simply having the doctors and nurses in the ICU create their
own checklists for what they thought should be done each day improved the consistency
of care to the point that the average length of patient stay in intensive care dropped by
half.”
● Pronovost found checklists established a higher standard of baseline performance.
● “Checklists seem able to defend anyone, even the experienced, against failure in many
more tasks than we realized.”
● “Three different kinds of problems in the world: the simple, the complicated, and the
complex.”
● “The philosophy is that you push the power of decision-making out to the periphery and
away from the center. You give people the room to adapt, based on their experience and
expertise. All you ask is that they talk to one another and take responsibility. That is what
works.”
● “Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for
success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided—and even
enhanced—by procedure.”
● “The investigators at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere had also observed that when nurses
were given a chance to say their names and mention concerns at the beginning of a
case, they were more likely to note problems and offer solutions. The researchers called
it an ‘activation phenomenon.’ Giving people a chance to say something at the start
seemed to activate their sense of participation and responsibility and their willingness to
speak up.”
● “When you’re making a checklist, Boorman explained, you have a number of key
decisions. You must define a clear pause point at which the checklist is supposed to be
used (unless the moment is obvious, like when a warning light goes on or an engine
fails). You must decide whether you want a DO-CONFIRM checklist or a READ-DO
checklist. With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, he said, team members perform their jobs
from memory and experience, often separately. But then they stop. They pause to run
the checklist and confirm that everything that was supposed to be done was done. With
a READ-DO checklist, on the other hand, people carry out the tasks as they check them
 off—it’s more like a recipe. So for any new checklist created from scratch, you have to
pick the type that makes the most sense for the situation.”
● “The checklist cannot be lengthy. A rule of thumb some use is to keep it to between five
and nine items, which is the limit of working memory.”
● “The wording should be simple and exact, Boorman went on, and use the familiar
language of the profession. Even the look of the checklist matters. Ideally, it should fit on
one page. It should be free of clutter and unnecessary colors. It should use both
uppercase and lowercase text for ease of reading. (He went so far as to recommend
using a sans serif type like Helvetica.)”
● “It is common to misconceive how checklists function in complex lines of work. They are
not comprehensive how-to guides, whether for building a skyscraper or getting a plane
out of trouble. They are quick and simple tools aimed to buttress the skills of expert
professionals.”
● “Just ticking boxes is not the ultimate goal here. Embracing a culture of teamwork and
discipline is.”
● “In the end, a checklist is only an aid. If it doesn’t aid, it’s not right. But if it does, we must
be ready to embrace the possibility.”
 Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Stoicism is as relevant today as it was when it was first recorded.
2. Serenity and ethical certainty come from within.
3. Detach from the things that are beyond your control and focus on your own will and
perception.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
2. You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find
strength.
3. Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
4. It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.
5. Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons
of reason which today arm you against the present.

Meditations Summary
● “When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be
meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because
they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of
evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own—not of the
same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so
none of them can hurt me.”
● “Stop allowing your mind to be a slave, to be jerked about by selfish impulses, to kick
against fate and the present, and to mistrust the future.”
● “At some point you have to recognize what world it is that you belong to; what power
rules it and from what source you spring; that there is a limit to the time assigned you,
and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return.”
● “Concentrate every minute like a Roman—like a man—on doing what’s in front of you
with precise and genuine seriousness, tenderly, willingly, with justice. And on freeing
 yourself from all other distractions. Yes, you can—if you do everything as if it were the
last thing you were doing in your life, and stop being aimless, stop letting your emotions
override what your mind tells you, stop being hypocritical, self-centered, irritable.”
● “Do external things distract you? Then make time for yourself to learn something
worthwhile; stop letting yourself be pulled in all directions.”
● “People who labor all their lives but have no purpose to direct every thought and impulse
toward are wasting their time—even when hard at work.”
● “Don’t ever forget these things: The nature of the world. My nature. How I relate to the
world. What proportion of it I make up. That you are part of nature, and no one can
prevent you from speaking and acting in harmony with it, always.”
● “In comparing sins (the way people do) Theophrastus says that the ones committed out
of desire are worse than the ones committed out of anger: which is good philosophy.”
● “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
● “Nothing is more pathetic than people who run around in circles, ‘elving into the things
that lie beneath’ and conducting investigations into the souls of the people around them,
never realizing that all you have to do is to be attentive to the power inside you and
worship it sincerely.”
● “You cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now, or live another one than the
one you’re losing.”
● “You can’t lose either the past or the future; how could you lose what you don’t have?”
● “The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not
have, you cannot lose.”
● “Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the
common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You’ll be too preoccupied with
what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they’re saying, and what they’re thinking,
and what they’re up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from
focusing on your own mind.”
● “We should listen only to those whose lives conform to nature.”
● “Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or lose your
sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire
for things best done behind closed doors.”
● “Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is
impossible to see.”
● “Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate
analysis of everything that happens to us.”
● “If you do [a] job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep
yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might
have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or
expectation—can find fulfilment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in
superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy. No
one can prevent that.”
● “Nowhere you can go is more peaceful—more free of interruptions—than your own
soul.”
● “The world is nothing but change. Our life is only perception.”
● “Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you
haven’t been.”
● “Every event is the right one. Look closely and you’ll see.”
● “See not what your enemy sees and hopes that you will, but what’s really there.”
● “Your conversion should always rest on a conviction that it’s right, or benefits
others—nothing else.”
● “Most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more
time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”
● “Don’t give the small things more time than they deserve.”
● “What happens to everyone—bad and good alike—is neither good nor bad.”
● “Suppose that a god announced that you were going to die tomorrow ‘or the day after.’
Unless you were a complete coward you wouldn’t kick up a fuss about which day it
was—what difference could it make? Now recognize that the difference between years
from now and tomorrow is just as small.”
● “It’s unfortunate that this has happened. No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and
I’ve remained unharmed by it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It
could have happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.
Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate?”
● “Remember this principle when something threatens to cause you pain: the thing itself
was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is great good fortune.”
● “The things you think about determine the quality of your mind. Your soul takes on the
color of your thoughts.”
● “If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen to me, then they
were good decisions. Why would they expend their energies on causing me harm? What
good would it do them—or the world, which is their primary concern?”
● “Whatever happens to you is for the good of the world.”
● “When you need encouragement, think of the qualities the people around you have: this
one’s energy, that one’s modesty, another’s generosity, and so on. Nothing is as
encouraging as when virtues are visibly embodied in the people around us, when we’re
practically showered with them. It’s good to keep this in mind.”
● “Remember that our efforts are subject to circumstances; you weren’t aiming to do the
impossible. Aiming to do what, then? To try. And you succeeded. What you set out to do
is accomplished.”
● “Don’t be ashamed to need help. Like a soldier storming a wall, you have a mission to
accomplish. And if you’ve been wounded and you need a comrade to pull you up? So
what?”
● “It doesn’t hurt me unless I interpret its happening as harmful to me. I can choose not
to.”
● “When people injure you, ask yourself what good or harm they thought would come of it.
If you understand that, you’ll feel sympathy rather than outrage or anger. Your sense of
good and evil may be the same as theirs, or near it, in which case you have to excuse
them.”
● “Treat what you don’t have as non-existent. Look at what you have, the things you value
most, and think of how much you’d crave them if you didn’t have them. But be careful.
Don’t feel such satisfaction that you start to overvalue them—that it would upset you to
lose them.”
● “Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option: to accept this event with humility to
treat this person as he should be treated to approach this thought with care, so that
nothing irrational creeps in.”
● “Pain is neither unbearable nor unending, as long as you keep in mind its limits and don’t
magnify them in your imagination.”
● “You don’t need much to live happily. And just because you’ve abandoned your hopes of
becoming a great thinker or scientist, don’t give up on attaining freedom, achieving
humility, serving others, obeying God.”
● “For every action, ask: How does it affect me? Could I change my mind about it?”
 ● “If [an outcome] is in your control, why do you do it? If it’s in someone else’s, then who
are you blaming? Atoms? The gods? Stupid either way.”
● “Blame no one. Set people straight, if you can. If not, just repair the damage.”
Three relationships:
1. With the body you inhabit
2. With the divine, the cause of everything in all things
3. With the people around you
● “Don’t let your imagination be crushed by life as a whole. Don’t try to picture everything
bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand, and ask, ‘Why is this so
unbearable? Why can’t I endure it?’ You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”
● “External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them. Which you can erase
right now.”
● “If the problem is something in your own character, who’s stopping you from setting your
mind straight? And if it’s that you’re not doing something you think you should be, why
not just do it?”
● “The existence of evil does not harm the world. And an individual act of evil does not
harm the victim. Only one person is harmed by it—and he can stop being harmed as
soon as he decides to.”
● “Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop
complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its
end as well. Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable,
by treating it as in your interest to do so. In your interest, or in your nature.”
● “If they’ve made a mistake, correct them gently and show them where they went wrong.
If you can’t do that, then the blame lies with you. Or no one.”
● “Characteristics of the rational soul: Self-perception, self-examination, and the power to
make of itself whatever it wants.”
Four habits of thought to watch for, and erase from your mind when you catch them.
1. Tell yourself: This thought is unnecessary
2. This one is destructive to the people around you
3. This wouldn’t be what you really think (to say what you don’t think—the definition of
absurdity)
4. And the fourth reason for self-reproach: that the more divine part of you has been beaten
and subdued by the degraded mortal part—the body and its stupid self-indulgence
● “Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right
now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of
the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide the present toward reverence and
justice.”
● “Don’t let anything deter you: other people’s misbehavior, your own mis-perceptions,
What People Will Say, or the feelings of the body that covers you (let the affected part
take care of those). And if, when it’s time to depart, you shunt everything aside except
your mind and the divinity within … if it isn’t ceasing to live that you’re afraid of but never
beginning to live properly … then you’ll be worthy of the world that made you.”
 The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Stoicism is a ‘tool’ for living a good life.
2. The Stoics asserted virtue (self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom) is happiness.
3. It is our perception of things that cause most of our trouble.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Stoicism is founded on three critical disciplines: (1) the discipline of perception, (2) the
discipline of action, and (3) the discipline of will.
2. “The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what
we can change and what we can’t.”
3. The Seven Clear Functions of The Mind: (1) Choice (2) Refusal (3) Yearning (4)
Repulsion (5) Preparation (6) Purpose (7) Assent
4. Before making a decision, stay poised and remember the purpose and principles you
value most.
5. The Four Habits of The Stoic Mind: (1) accept only what is true (2) work for the common
good (2) match our needs and wants with what is in our control (4) embrace what nature
has in store for us.

The Daily Stoic Summary

The Stoics framed their work around a series of exercises in three critical disciplines:
1. The Discipline of Perception. How we see and perceive the world around us
2. The Discipline of Action. The decisions and actions we take—and to what end
3. The Discipline of Will. How we deal with the things we cannot change, attain clear and
convincing judgment, and come to a true understanding of our place in the world
● “The Stoics were pioneers of the morning and nightly rituals: preparation in the morning,
reflection in the evening.”
● “The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what
we can change and what we can’t.”
 ● “Education—reading and meditating on the wisdom of great minds—is not to be done for
its own sake. It has a purpose.”
● “Knowledge—self-knowledge in particular—is freedom.”
● “One of the hardest things to do in life is to say ‘No.’”
● “The more you say no to the things that don’t matter, the more you can say yes to the
things that do.”
● “The following little reminder sums up the three most essential parts of Stoic philosophy
worth carrying with you every day, into every decision: Control your perceptions. Direct
your actions properly. Willingly accept what’s outside your control.”
● “Having an end in mind is no guarantee that you’ll reach it—no Stoic would tolerate that
assumption—but not having an end in mind is a guarantee you won’t.”
● “Have you taken the time to get clarity about who you are and what you stand for?”
Seven Clear Functions of The Mind:
1. Choice—to do and think right
2. Refusal—of temptation
3. Yearning—to be better
4. Repulsion—of negativity, of bad influences, of what isn’t true
5. Preparation—for what lies ahead or whatever may happen
6. Purpose—our guiding principle and highest priority
7. Assent—to be free of deception about what’s inside and outside our control (and be
ready to accept the latter)
● “You must reclaim the ability to abstain because within it is your clarity and self-control.”
● “You don’t control the situation, but you control what you think about it.”
● “All we have is our own mind.”
● “If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.”
● “Serenity and stability are results of your choices and judgment, not your environment.”
● “This morning, remind yourself of what is in your control and what’s not in your control.
Before lunch, remind yourself that the only thing you truly possess is your ability to make
choices (and to use reason and judgment when doing so). In the afternoon, remind
yourself that aside from the choices you make, your fate is not entirely up to you. In the
evening, remind yourself again how much is outside of your control and where your
choices begin and end. As you lie in bed, remember that sleep is a form of surrender
and trust and how easily it comes.”
● “A wise person knows what’s inside their circle of control and what is outside of it.”
● “According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND.”
● “Philosophy is simply asking us to pay careful attention and to strive to be more than a
pawn.”
● “Find what you do out of rote memory or routine. Ask yourself: Is this really the best way
to do it? Know why you do what you do—do it for the right reasons.”
● “There is clarity (and joy) in seeing what others can’t see, in finding grace and harmony
in places others overlook.”
● “Whoever we are, wherever we are—what matters is our choices. What are they? How
will we evaluate them? How will we make the most of them? Those are the questions life
asks us, regardless of our station.”
● “What happened yesterday—what happened five minutes ago—is the past. We can
reignite and restart whenever we like.”
● Ask yourself, “What bad habit did I curb today? How am I better? Were my actions just?
How can I improve?”
● “The more things we desire and the more we have to do to earn or attain those
achievements, the less we actually enjoy our lives—and the less free we are.”
● “Try to remember that when you find yourself getting mad. Anger is not impressive or
tough—it’s a mistake. It’s weakness. Depending on what you’re doing, it might even be a
trap that someone laid for you.”
● “Today, when you find yourself getting anxious, ask yourself: Why are my insides twisted
into knots? Am I in control here or is my anxiety? And most important: Is my anxiety
doing me any good?”
● “The next time you are afraid of some supposedly disastrous outcome, remember that if
you don’t control your impulses, if you lose your self-control, you may be the very source
of the disaster you so fear.”
● “The next time you find yourself in the middle of a freakout, or moaning and groaning
with flu-like symptoms, or crying tears of regret, just ask: Is this actually making me feel
better? Is this actually relieving any of the symptoms I wish were gone?”
● “Practice the ability of having absolutely no thoughts about something—act as if you had
no idea it ever occurred. Or that you’ve never heard of it before. Let it become irrelevant
or nonexistent to you. It’ll be a lot less powerful this way.”
● “Locate that yearning for more, better, someday and see it for what it is: the enemy of
your contentment.”
● “Ask yourself: Is [my vice] really worth it? Is it really that pleasurable? Consider that
when you crave something or contemplate indulging in a ‘harmless’ vice.”
● “What we desire makes us vulnerable.”
● “Whether it’s an opportunity to travel the world or to be the president or for five minutes
of peace and quiet, when we pine for something, when we hope against hope, we set
ourselves up for disappointment. Because fate can always intervene and then we’ll likely
lose our self-control in response.”
● “When it comes to your goals and the things you strive for, ask yourself: Am I in control
of them or they in control of me?”
● “It’s easy to act—to just dive in. It’s harder to stop, to pause, to think: No, I’m not sure I
need to do that yet. I’m not sure I am ready.”
● “We should enjoy this brief time we have on earth—not be enslaved to emotions that
make us miserable and dissatisfied.”
● “Focus. Prioritize. Train your mind to ask: Do I need this thing? What will happen if I do
not get it? Can I make do without it? The answers to these questions will help you relax,
help you cut out all the needless things that make you busy—too busy to be balanced or
happy.”
● “One becomes a philosopher when they begin to exercise their guiding reason and start
to question the emotions and beliefs and even language that others take for granted.”
● “Don’t fear self-assessment because you’re worried you might have to admit some
things about yourself.”
● “We underestimate our capabilities just as much and just as dangerously as we
overestimate other abilities.”
● “Cultivate the ability to judge yourself accurately and honestly. Look inward to discern
what you’re capable of and what it will take to unlock that potential.”
● “As you walk past your possessions today, ask yourself: Do I need this? Is it
superfluous? What’s this actually worth? What is it costing me?”
● “Ego and self-deception are the enemies of the things we wish to have because we
delude ourselves into believing that we already possess them.”
● “When we experience success, we must make sure that it doesn’t change us—that we
continue to maintain our character despite the temptation not to.”
● “We lose very little by taking a beat to consider our own thoughts. Is this really so bad?
What do I really know about this person? Why do I have such strong feelings here? Is
anxiety really adding much to the situation? What’s so special about __________?”
 ● On fighting biases and preconceptions: “Ask yourself: “What haven’t I considered? Why
is this thing the way it is? Am I part of the problem here or the solution? Could I be
wrong here? Be doubly careful to honor what you do not know, and then set that against
the knowledge you actually have.”
● “Your attention is one of your most critical resources. Don’t squander it!”
● “To be rational today, we have to do just three things: First, we must look inward. Next,
we must examine ourselves critically. Finally, we must make our own
decisions—uninhibited by biases or popular notions.”
● “When someone points out a legitimate flaw in your belief or in your actions, they’re not
criticizing you. They’re presenting a better alternative.”
● “When you catch an elbow or an unfair blow today, shake off the pain and remind
yourself: I’m learning. My sparring partner is learning too. This is practice for both of
us—that’s all. I know a bit more about him or her, and from my reaction, they’re going to
learn a little bit more about me too.”
● “When someone asks you what you did yesterday, do you really want the answer to be
‘nothing’?”
● “How you handle today is how you’ll handle every day. How you handle this minute is
how you’ll handle every minute.”
● “What if, when it came to your reading and learning, you prioritized quality over quantity?
What if you read the few great books deeply instead of briefly skimming all the new
books?”
● “Today, not tomorrow, is the day that we can start to be good.”
● “Don’t spend much time thinking about what other people think. Think about what you
think. Think instead about the results, about the impact, about whether it is the right thing
to do.”
● “Choose the right way, and watch as all these little things add up toward transformation.”
The First Two Things Before Acting:
● “First, don’t get upset—because that will color your decision negatively and make it
harder than it needs to be. Second, remember the purpose and principles you value
most. Running potential actions through this filter will eliminate the bad choices and
highlight the right ones.”
● “Evaluate what you are doing, why you are doing it, and where accomplishing it will take
you. If you don’t have a good answer, then stop.”
● “Today, give yourself the most simple and doable of tasks: just don’t make stuff worse.”
● “Whatever happens, don’t add angry or negative emotions to the equation. Don’t react
for the sake of reacting. Leave it as it is. Stop digging. Then plan your way out.”
● “You can ask anyone for help. You don’t have to face everything on your own.”
● “The next time you face a political dispute or a personal disagreement, ask yourself: Is
there any reason to fight about this? Is arguing going to help solve anything?”
● “How you handle even minor adversity might seem like nothing, but, in fact, it reveals
everything.”
● “Every impediment can advance action in some form or another.”
● “Today, don’t try to impose your will on the world. Instead see yourself as fortunate to
receive and respond to the will in the world.”
● Stoic joy is joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty.
● “No matter what happens today, no matter where you find yourself, shift to what lies
within your reasoned choices.”
● “Silence is a way to build strength and self-sufficiency.”
● “Our pursuits should be aimed at progress, however little that it’s possible for us to
make.”
● “Even one minute without playing the blame game is progress in the art of living.”
● “If you give things more time and energy than they deserve, they’re no longer lesser
things. You’ve made them important by the life you’ve spent on them.”
● “There is no rule that says financial success must mean that you live beyond your
means.”
● “If you start something and right away feel yourself getting lazy and irritated, first ask
yourself: Why am I doing this? If it really is a necessity, ask yourself: What’s behind my
reluctance? Fear? Spite? Fatigue?”
● “Your hidden power is your ability to use reason and make choices, however limited or
small.”
● “The Stoic does two things when encountering hatred or ill opinion in others. They ask:
Is this opinion inside my control? If there is a chance for influence or change, they take
it. But if there isn’t, they accept this person as they are (and never hate a hater).”
● “The next time you make a donation to charity, don’t just think about the good turn you’re
doing, but take a moment to consider that one day you may need to receive charity
yourself.”
● “Make yourself invulnerable to your dependency on comfort and convenience, or one
day your vulnerability might bring you to your knees.”
 ● “When we become successful, we forget how strong we used to be.”
● “Remember today that you’d be OK if things suddenly went wrong.”
● “No matter what’s happening to your body, no matter what the outside world inflicts on
you, your mind can remain philosophical.”
● “Self-awareness and wrongdoing rarely go together.”
● “We go through our days responding and reacting, but it’s rare to really pause and ask:
Is this thing I’m about to do consistent with what I believe? Or, better: Is this the kind of
thing the person I would like to be should do?”
● “When a bad habit reveals itself, counteract it with a commitment to a contrary virtue.”
● “Goodness isn’t something that’s going to be delivered by mail. You have to dig it up
inside your own soul. You find it within your own thoughts, and you make it with your own
actions.”
● On saying no to distractions: “Ask yourself: What is it that only I can do?”
● “What is the best use of my limited time on this planet? Try to do the right thing when the
situation calls for it. Treat other people the way you would hope to be treated. And
understand that every small choice and tiny matter is an opportunity to practice these
larger principles.”
● “When you seek to advance your own position in life, character is the best
lever—perhaps not in the short term, but certainly over the long term.”
● “Instead of simply accepting what happens, [the Stoics] urge us to actually enjoy what
has happened—whatever it is. Nietzsche, many centuries later, coined the perfect
expression to capture this idea: amor fati (a love of fate). It’s not just accepting, it’s loving
everything that happens.”
● “No matter how much preparation, no matter how skilled or smart we are, the ultimate
outcome is in the lap of the gods.”
● “Acceptance isn’t passive. It’s the first step in an active process toward
self-improvement.”
● “To resent change is to wrongly assume that you have a choice in the matter.”
The Four Habits of The Stoic Mind:
1. Accept only what is true
2. Work for the common good
3. Match our needs and wants with what is in our control
4. Embrace what nature has in store for us
● “Pretend that each event—whether desired or unexpected—was willed to happen, willed
specifically for you.”
● “Having [happiness] for a moment is the same as having it forever.”
 The Good Life Handbook by Epictetus

The Book in Three Sentences

1. There are things over which we have complete control and things over which we have
no control at all.
2. If you think you can control things over which you have no control, then you will be
hindered and disturbed.
3. If you desire and avoid only those things that are under your control, then you will not
feel victimized by things you dislike.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Focus on the things over which you have control.
2. Welcome everything that happens in life.
3. You have all the resources you need to overcome challenges.
4. You cannot lose anything you don’t own, to begin with.
5. Always conduct yourself as though you are at a formal dinner.

The Good Life Handbook Summary

To achieve freedom and happiness, you need to understand that some things in life are under
your control, and others are not.
What things are under your total control? What you believe, what you desire or hate, and what
you are attracted to or avoid.
If you think you can control things over which you have no control, then you will be hindered and
disturbed.
If you desire and avoid only those things that are under your control, then you will not feel
victimized by things you dislike. But if you resent unavoidable things like illness, misfortune, or
death, that are not under your control, you are headed for disappointment.
Select carefully what you want to choose and what you want to refuse. Be disciplined and
detached while making the choice.
When you kiss your spouse or child, remind yourself that it is a mortal that you are kissing. Then
you won’t be too distraught should they be taken from you.
When you blame others for your negative feelings, you are being ignorant. When you blame
yourself for your negative feelings, you are making progress. You are being wise when you stop
blaming yourself or others.
Don’t wish for things to happen the way you would like them to. Rather, welcome whatever
happens. This is the path to peace, freedom, and happiness.
If you practice attributing the correct source to problems you face, whatever happens, you will
soon find that nothing that happens outside of you pertains to you.
Remember that for every challenge you face, you have the resources within you to cope with
that challenge.
You cannot really lose anything because you don’t own anything in the first place.
Think of all the things you have as things entrusted to you and you are free to enjoy them for a
while.
What you lose is what you pay for your peace of mind.
To make progress, you should be able to accept being seen as ignorant or naïve.
You cannot be in agreement with nature and, at the same time, care about things outside your
control.
Always conduct yourself as though you are at a formal dinner.
Like an accomplished actor, you need to perform the role assigned to you in life skillfully.
People with more prestige, power, or some other distinction are not necessarily happier
because of what they have.
When someone provokes you, if you respond with anger or some other negative emotion, your
mind is tricked into believing you are being harmed. So it is essential not to respond to
impressions impulsively. Take some time before reacting. You will see you are in better control.
Whenever you face difficult situations in life, remember the prospect of death and other major
tragedies that can and do happen to people. You will see that, compared to death, none of the
things you face in life is important enough to worry about.
If you decide to live by lofty principles, be prepared to be laughed at by others.
You compromise your integrity when you seek outside approval.
We need to accept what happens to us in the same spirit as we expect others to accept their lot.
Remember how wisely you understand when others face unfortunate situations. Apply the same
wisdom when something unfortunate happens to you. Learn to accept whatever happens.
If your body was turned over to someone else, you would be ashamed and outraged. Should
you not be equally ashamed when you turn over your mind to others so they can control it?
When you are about to undertake a project, consider not only what is involved now but what it
would involve later.
No one can hurt you unless you let them. You are hurt the moment you believe you are.
The labels good and bad apply only to things under your control. If you consider anything
beyond your control as good or bad, you will fail to get what you want and get what you don’t
want.
When something looks pleasurable, don’t get carried away by that impression. Take a minute
and let it sink in. Then consider its effect at the time you experience pleasure and later. Will you
still be happy or will you regret having indulged in something that’s not good for you? Think
about how good you would feel if you controlled yourself instead of being swayed by your first
impression.
Take extra care to make sure you are not pushed around by the seductiveness of impressions.
Think about how much better you will feel if you exercise self-control.
When you decide to do something you believe to be right, don’t let others stop you, even if a
majority of people disapprove of it.
Don’t undertake to do things that are beyond your means.
As you are careful not to step on a sharp object or sprain your ankle, so you should take care
not to do any injury to your character. If you exercise caution when you act, you are less likely to
damage your character.
While you should take care of your body, you should spend most of your time taking care of
your mind.
When someone criticizes you, they do so because they believe they are right. They can only go
by their views, not yours. If their views are wrong, it is they who will suffer the consequences.
Keeping this in mind, treat your critics with compassion. When you are tempted to get back at
them, remind yourself, “They did what seemed to them to be the right thing to do.”
Unless you know their reasons for their actions how can you be sure of your negative judgment
of them? Not judging others too quickly will save you from misperceiving their actions.
If you have chosen a simple life, don’t make a show of it. If you want to practice simplicity, do so
quietly and for yourself, not for others.
Once you undertake to do something, stick with it and treat it as something that should be
carried through. Don’t pay attention to what people say. It should not influence you in any way.
Decide that you are an adult, and you are going to devote the rest of your life to making
progress. Stick closely to what is best. If you are distracted by pleasure or pain, glory or
disrepute, realize that the time is now. The game has started and waiting any further is not an
option. Win or lose will be decided today. Use reason to meet every challenge.
A Guide to The Good Life by William B. Irvine

The Book in Three Sentences

1. The insight and advice of the Stoic philosophy is still, remarkably applicable today.
2. The Stoics had psychological techniques for attaining tranquility, minimizing worry and
more.
3. Contentedness comes from appreciating what we already have.

The Five Big Ideas

1. If you lack a grand goal in living, you lack a coherent philosophy in life. Without one,
there is a danger you will mislive and you will end up living a bad life.
2. While enjoying the companionship of loved ones, then, we should periodically stop to
reflect on the possibility that this enjoyment will come to an end. By consciously thinking
about the loss of what we have, we can regain our appreciation of it, and with this
regained appreciation we can revitalize our capacity for joy.
3. Our most important choices in life, according to Epictetus, is whether to concern
ourselves with things external to us or things internal.
4. Suppose you find out that someone has been saying bad things about you. Epictetus
advises you to respond not by behaving defensively but by questioning his competence
as an insulter.
5. To help us advance our practice of Stoicism, Seneca advises that we periodically
meditate on the events of daily living, how we responded to these events, and how, in
accordance with Stoic principles, we should have responded to them.

A Guide to The Good Life Summary

● If you lack a grand goal in living, you lack a coherent philosophy of life.
● Tranquility is a state marked by the absence of negative emotions such as anger, grief,
anxiety, and fear, and the presence of positive emotions—in particular, joy.
● “Pay attention to your enemies, for they are the first to discover your
mistakes.”—Antisthenes
● The Stoics enjoyed whatever “good things” happened to be available, but even as they
did so, they prepared themselves to give up the things in question.
● For the Stoics, a person’s virtue does not depend, for example, on her sexual history.
Instead, it depends on her excellence as a human being—on how well she performs the
function for which humans were designed.
● To be virtuous is to live as we were designed to live; it is to live, as Zeno put it, in
accordance with nature.
● Stoic tranquility was a psychological state marked by the absence of negative emotions,
such as grief, anger, and anxiety, and the presence of positive emotions, such as joy.
● “Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference,
ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness—all of them due to the
offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”— Marcus Aurelius
● “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming
beforehand.”—Seneca
● Irvine on hedonic adaptation: “We humans are unhappy in large part because we are
insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object
of our desire. Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this
boredom, we go on to form new, even grander desires.”
● “One key to happiness is to forestall the [hedonic] adaptation process: We need to take
steps to prevent ourselves from taking for granted, once we get them, the things we
worked so hard to get.”
● “The easiest way for us to gain happiness is to learn how to want the things we already
have.”
● “The Stoics recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we
value—that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job.”
● “We should love all of our dear ones …, but always with the thought that we have no
promise that we may keep them forever—nay, no promise even that we may keep them
for long.”—Seneca
● While enjoying the companionship of loved ones, we should periodically stop to reflect
on the possibility that this enjoyment will come to an end. If nothing else, our own death
will end it.
● “We should live as if this very moment were our last.”
● As we go about our day, we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will
not live forever and therefore that this day could be our last.
● “When the Stoics counsel us to live each day as if it were our last, their goal is not to
change our activities but to change our state of mind as we carry out those activities.”
● Besides contemplating the loss of our life, we should contemplate the loss of our
possessions.
● “After expressing his appreciation that his glass is half full rather than being completely
empty, [a Stoic] will go on to express his delight in even having a glass: It could, after all,
have been broken or stolen.”
● “Hedonic adaptation has the power to extinguish our enjoyment of the world. Because of
adaptation, we take our life and what we have for granted rather than delighting in them.”
● Negative visualization is a powerful antidote to hedonic adaptation. By consciously
thinking about the loss of what we have, we can regain our appreciation of it, and with
this regained appreciation we can revitalize our capacity for joy.
● The negative visualization technique can also be used in reverse: Besides imagining that
the bad things that happened to others happen to us, we can imagine that the bad things
that happen to us happened instead to others.
● “If we were at someone’s house and his servant broke a cup, we would be unlikely to get
angry; indeed, we might try to calm our host by saying ‘It’s just a cup; these things
happen.’”
● A few times each day or a few times each week a Stoic will pause in his enjoyment of life
to think about how all this, all these things he enjoys, could be taken from him.
● “Negative visualization teaches us to embrace whatever life we happen to be living and
to extract every bit of delight we can from it. But it simultaneously teaches us to prepare
ourselves for changes that will deprive us of the things that delight us. It teaches us, in
other words, to enjoy what we have without clinging to it.”
● “By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to
recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this
recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would
otherwise be absent.”
● “Our most important choice in life, according to Epictetus, is whether to concern
ourselves with things external to us or things internal.”
● A good strategy for getting what you want is to make your goal to want only those things
that are easy to obtain—and ideally to want only those things that you can be certain of
obtaining.
● “While most people seek to gain contentment by changing the world around them,
Epictetus advises us to gain contentment by changing ourselves—more precisely, by
changing our desires.”
● “Your primary desire, says Epictetus, should be your desire not to be frustrated by
forming desires you won’t be able to fulfill.”
● “There are things over which we have complete control, things over which we have no
control at all, and things over which we have some but not complete control.”
● “One way to preserve our tranquility, the Stoics thought, is to take a fatalistic attitude
toward the things that happen to us.”
● “According to Epictetus, we should keep firmly in mind that we are merely actors in a
play written by someone else—more precisely, the Fates.”
● “We must learn to welcome whatever falls to our lot and persuade ourselves that
whatever happens to us is for the best.”
● “We sometimes should think about the past to learn lessons that can help us in our
efforts to shape the future.”
● “Instead of thinking about how our situation could be worse, we refuse to think about
how it could be better.”
● “Besides contemplating bad things happening, we should sometimes live as if they had
happened.”
● Irvine on voluntary discomfort: “By exposing ourselves to a small amount of a weakened
virus now, we create in ourselves an immunity that will protect us from a debilitating
illness in the future.”
● “Besides periodically engaging in acts of voluntary discomfort, we should, say the Stoics,
periodically forgo opportunities to experience pleasure.”
● The Stoics discovered that willpower is like muscle power: The more they exercised their
muscles, the stronger they got, and the more they exercised their will, the stronger it got.
Indeed, by practicing Stoic self-denial techniques over a long period, Stoics can
transform themselves into individuals remarkable for their courage and self-control.
● The Stoics discovered that exercising self-control has certain benefits that might not be
obvious. In particular, as strange as it may seem, consciously abstaining from pleasure
can itself be pleasant.
● “To help us advance our practice of Stoicism, Seneca advises that we periodically
meditate on the events of daily living, how we responded to these events, and how, in
accordance with Stoic principles, we should have responded to them.”
● “When contemplating whether to criticize someone, he should consider not only whether
the criticism is valid but also whether the person can stand to be criticized.”
● “If you are going to publish, you must be willing to tolerate criticism.”
● Epictetus suggests that as we go about our daily business, we should simultaneously
play the roles of participant and spectator.
● “Throughout the millennia and across cultures, those who have thought carefully about
desire have drawn the conclusion that spending our days working to get whatever it is
we find ourselves wanting is unlikely to bring us either happiness or tranquility.”
● “The Stoics recommend that we prepare for our dealings with other people before we
have to deal with them.”
● “Spend time with an unclean person, and we will become unclean as well.”
● “Marcus recommends that when we interact with an annoying person, we keep in mind
that there are doubtless people who find us to be annoying.”
● “When we find ourselves irritated by someone’s shortcomings, we should pause to
reflect on our own shortcomings. Doing this will help us become more empathetic to this
individual’s faults and therefore become more tolerant of him.”
● “When dealing with an annoying person, it also helps to keep in mind that our
annoyance at what he does will almost invariably be more detrimental to us than
whatever it is he is doing.”
● “A good Stoic, Marcus says, will not think about what other people are thinking except
when he must do so in order to serve the public interest.”
● Irvine on social fatalism: “In our dealings with others, we should operate on the
assumption that they are fated to behave in a certain way.”
● “One of their sting-elimination strategies is to pause, when insulted, to consider whether
what the insulter said is true.”
● “Another sting-elimination strategy, suggested by Epictetus, is to pause to consider how
well-informed the insulter is.”
● “One particularly powerful sting-elimination strategy is to consider the source of an
insult.”
● “Under such circumstances, rather than feeling hurt by his insults, I should feel relieved:
If he disapproves of what I am doing, then what I am doing is doubtless the right thing to
do.”
● “When a dog barks, we might make a mental note that the dog in question appears to
dislike us, but we would be utter fools to allow ourselves to become upset by this fact, to
go through the rest of the day thinking, ‘Oh, dear! That dog doesn’t like me!’”
● “One other important sting-elimination strategy, say the Stoics, is to keep in mind, when
insulted, that we ourselves are the source of any sting that accompanies the insult.”
● “Remember,” says Epictetus, “that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or
hits you, but the judgment about them that they are insulting.”
● Counter insults with humor.
● “Epictetus advises you to respond not by behaving defensively but by questioning his
competence as an insulter; for example, you can comment that if the insulter knew you
well enough to criticize you competently, he wouldn’t have pointed to the particular
failings that he did but would instead have mentioned other, much worse failings.”
● The Stoics advocated a second way to respond to insults: with no response at all.
● “Refusing to respond to an insult is, paradoxically, one of the most effective responses
possible.”
● “Notice, too, that by not responding to an insulter, we are showing him and anyone who
is watching that we simply don’t have time for the childish behavior of this person.”
● “If in the course of trying to train a horse, we punish him, it should be because we want
him to obey us in the future, not because we are angry about his failure to obey us in the
past.”
● “The best way to deal with insults directed at the disadvantaged, Epictetus would argue,
is not to punish those who insult them but to teach members of disadvantaged groups
techniques of insult self-defense.”
● “The Stoics primary grief-prevention strategy was to engage in negative visualization.”
● “In normal, prospective negative visualization, we imagine losing something we currently
possess; in retrospective negative visualization, we imagine never having had something
that we have lost.”
● “Epictetus also offers advice on grief management. He advises us, in particular, to take
care not to “catch” the grief of others.”
● “When angry, says Seneca, we should take steps to ‘turn all [anger’s] indications into
their opposites.’ We should force ourselves to relax our face, soften our voice, and slow
our pace of walking. If we do this, our internal state will soon come to resemble our
external state, and our anger, says Seneca, will have dissipated.”
● Stoics value their freedom, and they are therefore reluctant to do anything that will give
others power over them.
● “If we wish to retain our freedom, says Epictetus, we must be careful, while dealing with
other people, to be indifferent to what they think of us.”
● “Marcus agrees with Epictetus that it is foolish for us to worry about what other people
think of us and particularly foolish for us to seek the approval of people whose values we
reject.”
You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney

The Book in Three Sentences

1. We have no clue why you act the way we do, choose the things we choose or think the
thoughts we think
2. Our errors in thinking are caused by cognitive biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies
3. We can better deal with these biases once we understand them

The Five Big Ideas

1. We think we know how the world works, but we really don’t
2. We narratives to explain why we do what we do
3. Cognitive biases are predictable patterns of thought and behavior that lead us to draw
incorrect conclusions
4. Heuristics are mental shortcuts we use to solve common problems
5. Logical fallacies are like maths problems involving language, in which you skip a step or
get turned around without realizing it

You Are Not So Smart Summary

● “There is a growing body of work coming out of psychology and cognitive science that
says you have no clue why you act the way you do, choose the things you choose or
think the thoughts you think.”
● “From the greatest scientist to the most humble artisan, every brain within every body is
infested with preconceived notions and patterns of thought that lead it astray without the
brain knowing it.”
● “You are naturally hindered into thinking in certain ways and not others, and the world
around you is the product of dealing with these biases, not overcoming them.”
● “Cognitive biases are predictable patterns of thought and behavior that lead you to draw
incorrect conclusions.”
● “Heuristics are mental shortcuts you use to solve common problems. They speed up
processing in the brain, but sometimes make you think so fast you miss what is
important.”
 ● “Logical fallacies are like maths problems involving language, in which you skip a step or
get turned around without realizing it … They are arguments in your mind where you
reach a conclusion without all the facts because you don’t care to hear them or have no
idea how limited your information is.”
● “Logical fallacies can also be the result of wishful thinking.”
1. Priming
● Priming is when a stimulus in the past affects the way you behave and think or the way
you perceive another stimulus later on. (Sam: Dan Ariely discusses priming at length in
his book, Predictably Irrational.)
● “Priming works best when you are on autopilot when you aren’t trying to consciously
introspect before choosing how to behave.”
● “You can’t self-prime, not directly. Priming has to be unconscious; more specifically, it
has to happen within what psychologists refer to as the adaptive unconscious—a place
largely inaccessible.”
● Often, we are unaware of how unaware we are.
● “Priming works only if you aren’t aware of it, and those who depend on priming to put
food on the table work very hard to keep their influence hidden.”
● “You are most open to suggestion when your mental cruise control is on or when you
find yourself in unfamiliar circumstances.”
2. Confabulation
● Confabulation describes our tendency to ignore our motivations and create fictional
narratives to explain our decisions, emotions, and history without realizing it.
3. Confirmation Bias
● “When the frequency illusion goes from a passive phenomenon to an active pursuit,
that’s when you start to experience confirmation bias.”
● Confirmation bias occurs when you perceive the world through a filter, thinking
selectively.
● Put simply, you want to be right about how you see the world, so you seek out
information that confirms your beliefs and avoid contradictory evidence and opinions.
● “People like to be told what they already know.”
4. Hindsight Bias
● We often look back on the things we’ve just learned and assume we knew them or
believed them all along. This is known as hindsight bias.
 ● “You are always looking back at the person you used to be, always reconstructing the
story of your life to better match the person you are today.”
● “Hindsight bias is a close relative of the availability heuristic.”
● “The availability heuristic shows you make decisions and think thoughts based on the
information you have at hand while ignoring all the other information that might be out
there.”
● “You do the same thing with Hindsight Bias, by thinking thoughts and making decisions
based on what you know now, not what you used to know.”
5. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy
● “Picking out clusters of coincidence is a predictable malfunction of normal human logic.”
● “If hindsight bias and confirmation bias had a baby, it would be the Texas sharpshooter
fallacy.”
● “Anywhere people are searching for meaning, you will see the Texas sharpshooter
fallacy.”
● “You commit the Texas sharpshooter fallacy when you need a pattern to provide
meaning, to console you, to lay blame.”
6. Procrastination
● “Procrastination is all about choosing want over should because you don’t have a plan
for those times when you can expect to be tempted.”
● “Faced with two possible rewards, you are more likely to take the one that you can enjoy
now over one you will enjoy later—even if the later reward is far greater.”
● “One of the best ways to see how bad you are at coping with procrastination is to notice
how you deal with deadlines.”
● “If you fail to believe you will procrastinate or become idealistic about how awesome you
are at working hard and managing your time, you never develop a strategy for
outmaneuvering your own weakness.”
● “You must be adept at thinking about thinking to defeat yourself at procrastination.”
● The trick to overcoming procrastination is to accept that the now-you will not be the
person facing those choices, it will be the future-you—a person who can’t be trusted.
Future-you will give in, and then you’ll go back to being now-you and feel weak and
ashamed. Now-you must trick future-you into doing what is right for both parties.
7. Normalcy Bias
● “No matter what you encounter in life, your first analysis of any situation is to see it in the
context of what is normal for you and then compare and contrast the new information
 against what you know usually happens … Because of this, you have a tendency to
interpret strange and alarming situations as if they were just part of business as usual.”
● “In any perilous event, like a sinking ship or a towering inferno, a shooting rampage or a
tornado, there is a chance you will become so overwhelmed by the perilous overflow of
ambiguous information that you will do nothing at all.”
● “Normalcy bias is stalling during a crisis and pretending everything will continue to be as
fine and predictable as it was before.”
8. Introspection
● The origin of certain emotional states is unavailable to you, and when pressed to explain
them, you will just make something up. This is called the introspection illusion.
9. The Availability Heuristic
● The availability heuristic describes our tendency to react more rapidly and to a greater
degree when considering information you are familiar with.
● “The old adage ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ is the availability heuristic at work.”’
● “It’s simply easier to believe something if you are presented with examples than it is to
accept something presented in numbers or abstract facts.”
10. The Bystander Effect
● The more people who witness a person in distress, the less likely it is that any one
person will help. This is known as the bystander effect.
● “Whether it is to donate blood, assist someone in changing a tire, drop money into a
performer’s coffers, or stop a fight—people rush to help once they see another person
leading by example.”
11. The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Here’s how McRaney describes the Dunning-Kruger Effect
The more skilled you are, the more practice you’ve put in, the more experience you have, the
better you can compare yourself to others. As you strive to improve, you begin to better
understand where you need work. You start to see the complexity and nuance; you discover
masters of your craft and compare yourself to them and see where you are lacking. On the
other hand, the less skilled you are, the less practice you’ve put in, and the fewer experiences
you have, the worse you are at comparing yourself to others on certain tasks. Your peers don’t
call you out because they know as little as you do, or they don’t want to hurt your feelings.
“If you want to be great at something, you have to practice, and then you have to sample the
work of people who have been doing it for their whole lives.”
12. Apophenia
 ● “Coincidences are a routine part of life, even the seemingly miraculous ones. Any
meaning applied to them comes from your mind. This is known a apophenia.”
13. Brand Loyalty
● “You prefer the things you own because you rationalize your past choices to protect your
sense of self. This is called brand loyalty.”
14. The Argument from Authority
● “When you see the opinions of some people as better than others on the merit of their
status or training alone, you are arguing from authority.”
15. The Argument from Ignorance
● The argument from ignorance is when you decide something is true or false because
you can’t find evidence to the contrary.
● “You don’t know what the truth is, so you assume any explanation is as good as
another.”
16. The Straw Man Fallacy
● “When you get into an argument about either something personal or something more
public and abstract, you sometimes resort to constructing a character who you find
easier to refute, argue, and disagree with, or you create a position the other person isn’t
even suggesting or defending.”
● “Any time someone begins an attack with ‘So you’re saying we should all just . . .’ or
‘Everyone knows . . . ,’ you can bet a straw man is coming.”
17. The Ad Hominem Fallacy
● “When you assume someone is incorrect based on who that person is or what group he
or she belongs to, you have committed the ad hominem fallacy.”
18. The Just-World Fallacy
● “When you hear about a situation you hope never happens to you, you tend to blame the
victim, not because you are a terrible person but because you want to believe you are
smart enough to avoid the same fate.”
● “It is common in fiction for the bad guys to lose and the good guys to win. This is how
you would like to see the world—just and fair. In psychology, the tendency to believe that
this is how the real world works is called the just-world fallacy.”
● “You want the world to be fair, so you pretend it is.”
19. The Public Goods Game
● “The public goods game suggests regulation through punishment discourages slackers.”
20. The Ultimatum Game
 ● “When it comes to making a deal, you base your decision on your status.”
21. Subjective Validation
● “You are prone to believing vague statements and predications are true, especially if
they are positive and address you personally.”
● “The tendency to believe vague statements designed to appeal to just about anyone is
called the Forer effect, and psychologists point to this phenomenon to explain why
people fall for pseudoscience like biorhythms, iridology, and phrenology, or mysticism
like astrology, numerology, and tarot cards.”
● The Forer effect is part of a larger phenomenon psychologists refer to as subjective
validation, which is a fancy way of saying you are far more vulnerable to suggestion
when the subject of the conversation is you.
22. Cult Indoctrination
● “Cults are populated by people just like you.”
● “The research on cults suggests you don’t usually join for any particular reason; you just
sort of fall into them the way you fall into any social group.”
23. Groupthink
● “The desire to reach consensus and avoid confrontation hinders progress.”
● “For a group to make good decisions, they must allow dissent and convince everyone
they are free to speak their mind without risk of punishment.”
● “True groupthink depends on three conditions—a group of people who like one another,
isolation, and a deadline for a crucial decision.”
● “When groups get together to make a decision, an illusion of invulnerability can emerge
in which everyone feels secure in the cohesion. You begin to rationalize other people’s
ideas and don’t reconsider your own. You want to defend the group’s cohesion from all
harm, so you suppress doubts, you don’t argue, you don’t offer alternatives—and since
everyone is doing this, the leader of the group falsely assumes everyone is in
agreement.”
24. Supernormal Releasers
● A supernormal releaser is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an
existing response tendency, or any stimulus that elicits a response more strongly than
the stimulus for which it evolved.
25. The Affect Heuristic
● “The tendency to make poor decisions and ignore odds in favor of your gut feelings is
called the affect heuristic.”
 ● “The affect heuristic is one way you rapidly come to a conclusion about new
information.”
● “When first impressions linger and influence how you feel about second, third, and fourth
impressions, you are being befuddled by the affect heuristic.”
26. Dunbar’s Number
● “You can maintain relationships and keep up with only around 150 people at once.”
27. Selling Out
● “Both consumerism and capitalism are driven by competition among consumers for
status.”
● “Poor people compete with resources. The middle class competes with selection. The
wealthy compete with possessions.”
28. Self-Serving Bias
● “You excuse your failures and see yourself as more successful, more intelligent and
more skilled than you are.”
● “When things are going your way, you attribute everything to your amazing skills, but
once the tide turns, you look for external factors that prevented your genius from shining
through.”
● “You don’t believe you are an average person, but you do believe everyone else is. This
tendency, which springs from self-serving bias, is called the illusory superiority effect.”
29. The Spotlight Effect
● “People devote little attention to you unless prompted to.”
30. The Third Person
● “For every outlet of information, there are some who see it as dangerous not because it
affects them, but because it might affect the thoughts and opinions of an imaginary third
party. This sense of alarm about the impact of speech not on yourself but on others is
called the third person effect.”
● “The third person effect is a version of the self-serving bias. You excuse your failures
and see yourself as more successful, more intelligent, and more skilled than you are.”
31. Catharsis
● “Venting increases aggressive behavior over time”
● “If you think catharsis is good, you are more likely to seek it out when you get pissed.
When you vent, you stay angry and are more likely to keep doing aggressive things so
you can keep venting.”
32. The Misinformation Effect
 ● “Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently
available, which makes them highly permeable to influencers from the present.”
33. Conformity
● “It takes little more than an authority figure or social pressure to get you to obey,
because conformity is a survival instinct.”
34. Extinction Burst
● “Anytime you quit something cold turkey, your brain will make a last-ditch effort to return
you to your habit.”
● “Your brain didn’t evolve in an environment where there was an abundance of food, so
whenever you find a high-calorie, high-fat, high-sodium source, your natural inclination is
to eat a lot of it and then go back to it over and over again. If you take away a reward like
that, your brain throws a tantrum.”
● “There are two kinds of conditioning—classical and operant. In classical conditioning,
something that normally doesn’t have any influence becomes a trigger for a response.
Operant conditioning changes your desires. Your inclinations become greater through
reinforcement, or diminish through punishment.”
● “When you expect a reward or a punishment and nothing happens, your conditioned
response starts to fade away.”
35. Social Loafing
● “Once part of a group, you tend to put in less effort because you know your work will be
pulled together with others’.”
36. The Illusion of Transparency
● “You know what you are feeling and thinking, and you tend to believe those thoughts and
emotions are leaking out of your pores, visible to the world, perceivable to the outside.”
● “When your emotions take over, when your own mental state becomes the focus of your
attention, your ability to gauge what other people are experiencing gets muted.”
37. Learned Helplessness
● “If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever
situation you are in.”
● “If, over the course of your life, you have experienced crushing defeat or pummeling
abuse or loss of control, you convince yourself over time that there is no escape, and if
escape is offered, you will not act—you become a nihilist who trusts futility above
optimism.”
38. Embodied Cognition
“You translate your physical world into words, and then believe those words.”
39. The Anchoring Effect
● “Your first perception lingers in your mind, affecting later perceptions and decisions.”
● “You depend on anchoring every day to predict the outcome of events, to estimate how
much time something will take or how much money something will cost. When you need
to choose between options, or estimate a value, you need footing to stand on.”
40. Attention
● “Psychologists call missing information in plain sight inattentional blindness.”
● “Your attention is like a spotlight, and only the illuminated portions of the world appear in
your perception.”
● “Your perception is built out of what you attend to.”
● “The problem with inattentional blindness is not that it happens so often, it’s that you
don’t believe it happens.”
● “The fraternal twin of inattentional blindness is change blindness. The brain can’t keep
up with the total amount of information coming in from your eyes, and so your
experience from moment to moment is edited for simplicity.”
● “The more your attention is engaged, the less you expect something out of the ordinary
and the less prone you are to see it even when lives could be at stake.”
41. Self-Handicapping
● “You often creation conditions for failure ahead of time to protect your ego.”
● “Self-handicapping is a reality negotiation, an unconscious manipulation, of both your
perceptions and those of others, that you use to protect your ego.”
● “Self-handicapping behaviors are investments in a future reality in which you can blame
your failure on something other than your ability.”
● “Men use self-handicapping more than women to assuage their fears of failure.”
● “Whenever you venture into uncharted waters with failure as a distinct possibility, your
anxiety will be lowered every time you see a new way to blame possible failure on forces
beyond your control.”
42. Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
● “Just believing a future event will happen can cause it to happen if the event depends on
human behavior.”
● “The future is the result of actions, and actions are the result of behavior, and behavior is
the result of prediction. This is called the Thomas Theorem.”
● “What was once false becomes true, and in hindsight it seems as if it always was.”
 ● “When you fear you will confirm a negative stereotype, it can become a self-fulfilling
prophecy not because the stereotype is true, but because you can’t stop worrying that
you could become an example proving it.”
● “If you want a better job, a better marriage, a better teacher, a better friend—you have to
act as if the thing you want out of the other person is already headed your way.”
● “A negative outlook will lead to negative predictions, and you will start to unconsciously
manipulate your environment to deliver those predictions.”
43. The Moment
● “You are multiple selves, and happiness depends on satisfying all of them”
44. Consistency Bias
● “Unless you consciously keep tabs on your progress, you assume the way you feel now
is the way you have always felt.”
● “One of the stranger facets of consistency bias is how it can be evoked on the spot.”
● “Consistency bias is part of your overall desire to reduce the discomfort of cognitive
dissonance, the emotions you feel when noticing that you are of two minds on one
issue.”
45. The Representativeness Heuristic
● “You jump to conclusions based on how representative a person seems to be of a
preconceived character type.”
● “When it comes to strangers, your first instinct is to fit them into archetypes to quickly
determine their value or threat.”
● “The representativeness heuristic helps fuel several other cognitive missteps, like the
conjunction fallacy.”
● “The conjunction fallacy builds on your representativeness heuristic. The more things
you hear about which match your mental models, the more likely they seem.”
● “Representativeness heuristics are useful, but also dangerous. They can help you avoid
danger and seek help, but they can also lead to generalizations and prejudices.”
46. Expectation
● “Wine experts and consumers can be fooled by altering their expectations.”
47. The Illusion of Control
● “You often believe you have control over outcomes that are either random or too
complex to predict.”
48. The Fundamental Attribution Error
● “Other people’s behavior is more the result of the situation than their disposition.”
 ● “When you are at a restaurant, you have a hard time seeing through to the personality of
the server. You place blame and assume you are dealing with a slacker. Sometimes you
are right, but often you are committing the fundamental attribution error.”
● “When you don’t know much about a person, when you haven’t had a chance to get to
know him or her, you have a tendency to turn the person into a character. You lean on
archetypes and stereotypes culled from experience and fantasy. Even though you know
better, you still do it.”
● “According to psychologist Harold Kelly, when you conjure an attribution for someone
else’s actions, you consider consistency.”
● “When you can’t check for consistency, you blame people’s behavior on their
personality.”
● “You commit the fundamental attribution error by believing other people’s actions
burgeon from the sort of people they are and have nothing to do with the setting.”
● “When you interpret your loved one’s coldness as his or her indifference to your wants
and needs instead of as a reaction to stress at work or problems ricocheting in your
loved one’s own heart, you’ve committed the fundamental attribution error.”
● “The fundamental attribution error leads to labels and assumptions about who people
are, but remember first impressions are mostly incorrect.”

59 Seconds by Richard Wiseman

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Many people are interested in self-help because it offers quick and easy solutions to
various issues in their lives.
2. The problem is most self-help techniques are ineffective.
3. The most effective techniques come straight from the scientific community.

The Five Big Ideas

1. “When people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in
a significantly happier life”.
 2. “To encourage people to do more of something they enjoy, try presenting them with the
occasional small surprise reward after they have completed the activity, or praise the
fruits of their labour”.
3. “To increase the likelihood of someone liking you, get them to do you a favour”.
4. “Fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better but is unlikely to help
transform your dreams into reality”.
5. “Some research suggests that eating more slowly helps people eat less, perhaps
because it fools our brains into thinking that we’ve eaten more, and allows extra time for
the body to digest food”.

59 Seconds Summary
● “Happiness doesn’t just flow from success, it actually causes it”.
● “When people can afford the necessities in life, an increase in income does not result in
a significantly happier life”.
● “Materialism takes root in early childhood, and is mainly driven by low self-esteem”.
● “Want to buy happiness? Then spend your hard-earned cash on experiences”.
● “When it comes to happiness, remember that it is experiences that represent really good
value for money”.
● “If you want to cheer yourself up, behave like a happy person”.
● “To maximize happiness, choose intentional over circumstantial change”.
● “If you set children an activity they enjoy and reward them for doing it, the reward
reduces the enjoyment and demotivates them”.
● “To encourage people to do more of something they enjoy, try presenting them with the
occasional small surprise reward after they have completed the activity, or praise the
fruits of their labour”.
● “It seems that presenting weaknesses early is seen as a sign of openness”.
● “From assessing the effects of a bad-hair day to performing badly in a group discussion,
those who feel embarrassed are convinced that their mistakes are far more noticeable
than they actually are. Why? It seems we focus on our own looks and behaviour more
than others, and so are likely to overestimate their impact”.
● “If you want to increase your chances of making a good impression in a meeting, sit
towards the middle of the table”.
● “To increase the likelihood of someone liking you, get them to do you a favour”.
● “When you gossip about another person, listeners unconsciously associate you with the
characteristics you are describing, ultimately leading to those characteristics being
‘transferred’ to you”.
● “We like people who are like us, and find them far more persuasive than others”.
● “The more people who are around when a person is apparently in need of assistance,
the lower the likelihood of any one person actually helping”.
● “Favours have their strongest effect when they occur between people who don’t know
each other very well, and when they are small but thoughtful”.
● “Fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better but is unlikely to help
transform your dreams into reality”.
● “Some research suggests that eating more slowly helps people eat less, perhaps
because it fools our brains into thinking that we’ve eaten more, and allows extra time for
the body to digest food”.
● “If you want to reduce your drinking, stay away from short, wide glasses, and stick to tall,
narrow ones”.
● “Research shows that just placing food or drink out of sight or moving it a few metres
away can have a big effect on consumption”.
● “To cut intake, make sure that tempting foods are out of sight, and in a place that is
difficult to access, such as a top cupboard or basement”.
● “People eat significantly more when they are distracted at mealtimes and therefore not
paying attention to their food”.
● “Try cutting down on your eating by replacing your crockery and cutlery”.
● “Research conducted by the Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research suggests
that making a note of how much you eat can help you lose weight”.
● “Research conducted by Charles Abraham and Paschal Sheeran has shown that just a
few moments thinking about how much you will regret not going to the gym will help
motivate you to climb off the couch and onto an exercise bike”.
● “Christopher Peterson from the University of Michigan believes encouraging people to
consider how they would like to be remembered after their death has various
motivational benefits, including helping them to identify their long-term goals, and assess
the degree to which they are progressing towards making those goals a reality”.
● “To prime your mind into thinking creatively, spend a few moments describing a typical
musician or artist. List their behaviours, lifestyle and appearance”.
● “According to work conducted by psychologist Stephen Worchel from the University of
Hawaii at Hilo, biscuits taken from a jar that is almost empty taste significantly better
than identical cookies taken from a full jar”.
● “To help promote the chances of a successful date, choose an activity that is likely to get
the heart racing”.
● “The theory is that your date will attribute their racing heart to you, rather than the
activity, convincing themselves you have that special something”.
● “The results revealed that just a few minutes focusing on the benefits that flowed from
the seemingly hurtful experience helped participants deal with the anger and upset
caused by the situation. They felt significantly more forgiving towards those who had hurt
them, and were less likely to seek revenge or avoid them”.
● “Surrounding yourself with objects that remind you of your partner is good for your
relationship”.
● “People are far more likely to agree to a big request if they have already agreed to a
small one”.
● “When making straightforward decisions, stick with the conscious mind by thinking about
the pros and cons and assessing the situation in a rational, level-headed way. However,
for more complex choices, try giving your conscious mind a rest and letting your
unconscious work”.
● “Research shows that when most people look back on their lives, they tend to regret
things they didn’t do”.
● “To help spot possible shifts, try establishing what researchers have referred to as an
‘honest baseline’. Before asking questions that are likely to elicit deceptive answers,
start with those that are far more likely to make the person respond in an honest way.
During these initial answers, develop an understanding of how they behave when they
are telling the truth by looking at their body language and listening to the words they say.
Then, during the answers to the trickier questions, watch out for the behavioural shifts
outlined above”.
● “Research shows that people have a strong tendency to underestimate how long a
project will take, and that people working in groups are especially likely to have
unrealistic expectations”.
● “It seems that to get an accurate estimate of the time needed to complete a project, you
need to look at how long it took to finish broadly similar projects in the past”.
● “Those who carried out the mental unpacking produced estimates that proved far more
accurate than other participants”.
● “Research shows that people with surnames beginning with a letter towards the start of
the alphabet are more successful in life than those with names towards the end”.
 Bounce by Matthew Syed

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Talent is a result of thousand of hours of purposeful practice, not inate talent.
2. Expert knowledge comes from experience.
3. If you want to be world-class, you have to embrace failure.

The Five Big Ideas

1. “If we believe that attaining excellence hinges on talent, we are likely to give up if we
show insufficient early promise”.
2. “Speed in sport is not based on innate reaction speed, but derived from highly specific
practice”.
3. “[Talent] cannot be taught in a classroom; it is not something you are born with; it must
be lived and learned. To put it another way, it emerges through practice”.
4. “Child prodigies do not have unusual genes; they have unusual upbringings”.
5. “Purposeful practice is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it;
it is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and
again”.

Bounce Book Summary

● “If we believe that attaining excellence hinges on talent, we are likely to give up if we
show insufficient early promise”.
● The iceberg illusion: “When we witness extraordinary feats of memory (or of sporting or
artistic prowess) we are witnessing the end product of a process measured in years.
What is invisible to us – the submerged evidence, as it were – is the countless hours of
practice that have gone into the making of the virtuoso performance: the relentless drills,
the mastery of technique and form, the solitary concentration that have, literally, altered
the anatomical and neurological structures of the master performer. What we do not see
is what we might call the hidden logic of success”.
● “Speed in sport is not based on innate reaction speed, but derived from highly specific
practice”.
● “It is also worth noting that the development of motor expertise (skilled movement) is
inseparable from the development of perceptual expertise (chunking patterns)”.
● “The essential problem regarding the attainment of excellence is that expert knowledge
simply cannot be taught in the classroom over the course of a rainy afternoon, or indeed
a thousand rainy afternoons”.
● “Good decision-making is about compressing the informational load by decoding the
meaning of patterns derived from experience”.
● “[Talent] cannot be taught in a classroom; it is not something you are born with; it must
be lived and learned. To put it another way, it emerges through practice”.
● “[Complexity] describes those tasks characterized by combinatorial explosion; tasks
where success is determined, first and foremost, by superiority in software (pattern
recognition and sophisticated motor programmes) rather than hardware (simple speed or
strength)”.
● “Child prodigies do not have unusual genes; they have unusual upbringings”.
● “‘When most people practise, they focus on the things they can do effortlessly’, Ericsson
has said. ‘Expert practice is different. It entails considerable, specific, and sustained
efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all. Research across domains
shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you
want to become’.”
● “Every second of every minute of every hour, the goal [of purposeful practice] is to
extend one’s mind and body, to push oneself beyond the outer limits of one’s capacities,
to engage so deeply in the task that one leaves the training session, literally, a changed
person”.
● “Purposeful practice is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it;
it is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and
again”.
● “Progress is built, in effect, upon the foundations of necessary failure. That is the
essential paradox of expert performance”.
● “Futsal is a perfect example of how well-designed training can accelerate learning; how
the knowledge that mediates any complex skill can be expanded and deepened at
breathtaking speed with the right kind of practice”.
● “But scratch beneath the surface, and you will find that all the successful systems have
one thing in common: they institutionalize the principles of purposeful practice”.
● “Sometimes learning can be accelerated by something as simple as training with
superior players”.
● “The ten-thousand-hour rule, then, is inadequate as a predictor of excellence. What is
required is ten thousand hours of purposeful practice”.
● “Purposeful practice may not be easy, but it is breathtakingly effective”.
● “But careful study has shown that creative innovation follows a very precise pattern: like
excellence itself, it emerges from the rigours of purposeful practice. It is the
consequence of experts absorbing themselves for so long in their chosen field that they
become, as it were, pregnant with creative energy. To put it another way, eureka
moments are not lightning bolts from the blue, but tidal waves that erupt following deep
immersion in an area of expertise”.
● “In a study of sixty-six poets by N. Wishbow of Carnegie Mellon University, more than 80
per cent needed ten years or more of sustained preparation before they started writing
their most creative pieces”.
● “Feedback is, in effect, the rocket fuel that propels the acquisition of knowledge, and
without it no amount of practice is going to get you there”.
● “In order to become the greatest basketball player of all time, you have to embrace
failure”.
● “Excellence is about striving for what is just out of reach and not quite making it; it is
about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and again”.
● “Intelligence-based praise orientates its receivers towards the fixed mindset; it suggests
to them that intelligence is of primary importance rather than the effort through which
intelligence can be transformed; and it teaches them to pursue easy challenges at the
expense of real learning”.
● “The thing that often separates the best from the rest is a capacity to believe things that
are not true but which are incredibly effective”.
● “One of the most remarkable findings of modern psychology is the extraordinary capacity
of human beings to mould the evidence to fit their beliefs rather than the other way
around; it is our capacity to believe in spite of the evidence and sometimes in spite of our
other deeply held beliefs”.
● “Irrational beliefs can boost performance, provided they are held with sufficient
conviction”.
● “Choking, then, is a kind of neural glitch that occurs when the brain switches to a system
of explicit monitoring”.
 Grit by Angela Duckworth

The Book in Three Sentences

1. The secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but grit: a special blend of passion
and persistence.
2. Grit is about having passion and perseverance for long-term goals.
3. Gritty people are able to maintain their determination and motivation over long periods
despite experiences with failure and adversity.

The Five Big Ideas

1. Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time. (A top-level goal is
your ultimate concern, a compass that gives direction and meaning to all the goals below
it.)
2. Paragons of grit have four psychological assets: (1) interest (2) practice (3) purpose (4)
hope.
3. Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow.
4. For paragons of grit, the long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and
disappointments, and struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their
efforts pay dividends to other people.
5. Often, the critical gritty-or-not decisions we make are a matter of identity more than
anything else.

Grit Summary
Our potential is one thing. What we do with it is quite another.
Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts
are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical
resources.
The “naturalness bias” is a hidden prejudice against those who’ve achieved what they have
because they worked for it, and a hidden preference for those whom we think arrived at their
place in life because they’re naturally talented.
In Duckworth’s view, the biggest reason a preoccupation with talent can be harmful is simple: By
shining our spotlight on talent, we risk leaving everything else in the shadows. We inadvertently
send the message that these other factors—including grit—don’t matter as much as they really
do.
In a study of competitive swimmers titled, “The Mundanity of Excellence,” Dan Chambliss,
writes, “The most dazzling human achievements are, in fact, the aggregate of countless
individual elements, each of which is, in a sense, ordinary.”
Great things are accomplished by those “people whose thinking is active in one direction, who
employ everything as material, who always zealously observe their own inner life and that of
others, who perceive everywhere models and incentives, who never tire of combining together
the means available to them.”
Talent—how fast we improve in skill—absolutely matters. But effort factors into the calculations
twice, not once. Effort builds skill. At the very same time, effort makes skill productive.
Consistency of effort over the long run is everything.
Many of us, it seems, quit what we start far too early and far too often. Even more than the effort
a gritty person puts in on a single day, what matters is that they wake up the next day, and the
next, ready to get on that treadmill and keep going.
Grit is about working on something you care about so much that you’re willing to stay loyal to it.
It’s not about falling in love; it’s about staying in love.
Grit has two components: passion and perseverance.
Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.
Duckworth on passion:
What I mean by passion is not just that you have something you care about. What I mean is that
you care about that same ultimate goal in an abiding, loyal, steady way. You are not capricious.
Each day, you wake up thinking of the questions you fell asleep thinking about. You are, in a
sense, pointing in the same direction, ever eager to take even the smallest step forward than to
take a step to the side, toward some other destination. At the extreme, one might call your focus
obsessive. Most of your actions derive their significance from their allegiance to your ultimate
concern, your life philosophy. You have your priorities in order.
Grit is about holding the same top-level goal for a very long time. Furthermore, this “life
philosophy,” as Pete Carroll might put it, is so interesting and important that it organizes a great
deal of your waking activity. In very gritty people, most mid-level and low-level goals are, in
some way or another, related to that ultimate goal. In contrast, a lack of grit can come from
having less coherent goal structures.
When prioritizing goals, ask yourself, “To what extent do these goals serve a common
purpose?”
The more they’re part of the same goal hierarchy—important because they then serve the same
ultimate concern—the more focused your passion.
Don’t beat your head against the wall attempting to follow through on something that is, merely,
a means to a more important end.
Giving up on lower-level goals is not only forgivable, it’s sometimes absolutely necessary. You
should give up when one lower-level goal can be swapped for another that is more feasible.
(Note: to learn more about when to quit and when to stick, read The Dip by Seth Godin.)
As a species, we’re getting better and better at abstract reasoning.
Grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and
disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be
abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity.
Duckworth on “The Maturity Principle”:
Over time, we learn life lessons we don’t forget, and we adapt in response to the growing
demands of our circumstances. Eventually, new ways of thinking and acting become habitual.
There comes a day when we can hardly remember our immature former selves. We’ve adapted,
those adaptations have become durable, and, finally, our identity—the sort of person we see
ourselves to be—has evolved. We’ve matured.
Like every aspect of your psychological character, grit is more plastic than we might think.
If you’re not as gritty as you want to be, ask yourself why.
Any of the following four thoughts might go through your head right before you quit what you’re
doing: “I’m bored.” “The effort isn’t worth it.” “This isn’t important to me.” “I can’t do this, so I
might as well give up.”
Paragons of grit don’t swap compasses: when it comes to the one, singularly important aim that
guides almost everything else they do, the very gritty tend not to utter the statements above.
Paragons of grit have four psychological assets:
1. Interest
2. Practice
3. Purpose
4. Hope
From the very beginning to the very end, it is inestimably important to learn to keep going even
when things are difficult, even when we have doubts.
Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a
lifetime of deepening.
Interests are not discovered through introspection. Instead, interests are triggered by
interactions with the outside world.
What follows the initial discovery of an interest is a much lengthier and increasingly proactive
period of interest development.
Longitudinal studies tracking learners confirm that overbearing parents and teachers erode
intrinsic motivation. (Note: to learn more about motivation, read Drive by Dan Pink.)
Kids whose parents let them make their own choices about what they like are more likely to
develop interests later identified as a passion.
Duckworth on the motivational differences between expert and beginners:
At the start of an endeavor, we need encouragement and freedom to figure out what we enjoy.
We need small wins. We need applause. Yes, we can handle a tincture of criticism and
corrective feedback. Yes, we need to practice. But not too much and not too soon. Rush a
beginner and you’ll bludgeon their budding interest. It’s very, very hard to get that back once you
do.
The grittier an individual is, the fewer career changes they’re likely to make.
For the expert, novelty is nuance.
If you’d like to follow your passion but haven’t yet fostered one, you must begin at the beginning:
discovery.
Ask yourself:
● What do I like to think about?
● Where does my mind wander?
● What do I really care about?
● What matters most to me?
● How do I enjoy spending my time? And, in contrast, what do I find absolutely
unbearable?
To young graduates wringing their hands over what to do, Duckworth says, “Experiment! Try!
You’ll certainly learn more than if you don’t!”
The directive to follow your passion is not bad advice. But what may be even more useful is to
understand how passions are fostered in the first place.
Kaizen is Japanese for resisting the plateau of arrested development. (Note: To learn more
about kaizen, read One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer)
A crucial insight of Anders Ericsson’s research on excellence is not that experts log more hours
of practice. Rather, it’s that experts practice differently. Unlike most of us, experts are logging
thousands upon thousands of hours of what Ericsson calls deliberate practice.
Duckworth on how experts practice:
1. First, they set a stretch goal, zeroing in on just one narrow aspect of their overall
performance. Rather than focus on what they already do well, experts strive to improve
specific weaknesses. They intentionally seek out challenges they can’t yet meet.
2. Then, with undivided attention and great effort, experts strive to reach their stretch goal.
Interestingly, many choose to do so while nobody’s watching.
3. As soon as possible, experts hungrily seek feedback on how they did. Necessarily, much
of that feedback is negative. This means that experts are more interested in what they
did wrong—so they can fix it—than what they did right. The active processing of this
feedback is as essential as its immediacy. And after feedback, then what?
4. Then experts do it all over again, and again, and again. Until they have finally mastered
what they set out to do. Until what was a struggle before is now fluent and flawless. Until
conscious incompetence becomes unconscious competence.
5. Finally, experts start all over again with a new stretch goal. One by one, these subtle
refinements add up to dazzling mastery.
Gritty people do more deliberate practice and experience more flow. There’s no contradiction
here, for two reasons:
1. First, deliberate practice is a behavior, and flow is an experience. Anders Ericsson is
talking about what experts do; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is talking about how experts feel.
2. Second, you don’t have to be doing deliberate practice and experiencing flow at the
same time (Duckworth argues for most experts, they rarely go together.)
Deliberate practice is for preparation. Flow is for performance.
Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight
of what they’ve become.
Duckworth has three suggestions for getting the most out of deliberate practice:
1. Know the science
2. Make it a habit
3. Change the way you experience it.
Each of the basic requirements of deliberate practice is unremarkable:
1. A clearly defined stretch goal
2. Full concentration and effort
 3. Immediate and informative feedback
4. Repetition with reflection and refinement
For paragons of frit, the long days and evenings of toil, the setbacks and disappointments and
struggle, the sacrifice—all this is worth it because, ultimately, their efforts pay dividends to other
people.
In Duckworth’s “grit lexicon,” purpose means “the intention to contribute to the well-being of
others.”
Most gritty people see their ultimate aims as deeply connected to the world beyond themselves.
Three bricklayers are asked: “What are you doing?” The first says, “I am laying bricks.” The
second says, “I am building a church.” And the third says, “I am building the house of God.” The
first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling. Many of us would like
to be like the third bricklayer, but instead identify with the first or second.
Yale management professor Amy Wrzesniewski has found that people have no trouble at all
telling her which of the three bricklayers they identify with.
Not surprisingly, Wrzesniewski’s conclusion is that it’s not that some kinds of occupations are
necessarily jobs and others are careers and still others are callings. Instead, what matters is
whether the person doing the work believes that laying down the next brick is just something
that has to be done, or instead something that will lead to further personal success, or, finally,
work that connects the individual to something far greater than the self.
Adam’s research demonstrates that leaders and employees who keep both personal and
prosocial interests in mind do better in the long run than those who are 100 percent selfishly
motivated.
In order to develop a sense of purpose, David Yeager recommends reflecting on how the work
you’re already doing can make a positive contribution to society.
Amy Wrzesniewski recommends thinking about how, in small but meaningful ways, you can
change your current work to enhance its connection to your core values.
Bill Damon recommends finding inspiration in a purposeful role model.
The hope that gritty people have has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with getting up
again.
Optimists habitually search for temporary and specific causes of their suffering, whereas
pessimists assume permanent and pervasive causes are to blame. (Note: To learn more about
learned optimism, read The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor.)
When you keep searching for ways to change your situation for the better, you stand a chance
of finding them. When you stop searching, assuming they can’t be found, you guarantee they
won’t.
Duckworth has measured growth mindset and grit in both younger children and older adults,
and in every sample, she’s found that growth mindset and grit go together. (Note: to learn more
about growth mindset, read Mindset by Carol Dweck.)
Growth Mindset > Optimistic Self-Talk > Perseverance Over Adversity
Duckworth’s recommendation for teaching yourself hope is to take each step in the sequence
above and ask, “What can I do to boost this one?”
Duckworth’s three suggestion in that regard is to:
1. Update your beliefs about intelligence and talent
2. Practice optimistic self-talk
3. Ask for a helping hand
If you want to bring forth grit in your child, first ask how much passion and perseverance you
have for your own life goals. Then ask yourself how likely it is that your approach to parenting
encourages your child to emulate you. If the answer to the first question is “a great deal,” and
your answer to the second is “very likely,” you’re already parenting for grit.
As soon as your child is old enough, find something they might enjoy doing outside of class and
sign them up and require that they stick with at least one activity for more than a year.
Kids who spend more than a year in extracurriculars are significantly more likely to graduate
from college and, as young adults, to volunteer in their communities.
If you want to be grittier, find a gritty culture and join it. If you’re a leader, and you want the
people in your organization to be grittier, create a gritty culture.
Over time and under the right circumstances, the norms and values of the group to which we
belong become our own. We internalize them. We carry them with us. The way we do things
around here and why eventually becomes The way I do things and why.
Often, the critical gritty-or-not decisions we make are a matter of identity more than anything
else. Often, our passion and perseverance do not spring from a cold, calculating analysis of the
costs and benefits of alternatives. Rather, the source of our strength is the person we know
ourselves to be. (Note: This echoes James Clear’s idea of Identity-Based Habits.)
 The Happiness Advantage by Shawn
Achor

The Book in Three Sentences

1. We become more successful when we are happier and more positive, not the other way
around
2. Happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential
3. The Happiness Advantage is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the
realization that we can

The Five Big Ideas

1. Happiness is not just a mood—it’s a work ethic
2. We can use our brain to change how we process the world, and that in turn changes
how we react to it
3. Constantly scanning the world for the positive, allows us to experience happiness,
gratitude, and optimism
4. When we reframe failure as an opportunity for growth, we are all the more likely to
experience that growth (see: post-traumatic growth)
5. The most successful people, in work and in life, believe that their actions have a direct
effect on their outcomes

The Happiness Advantage Summary

● If you work hard, you will become successful, and once you become successful, then
you’ll be happy is a broken formula.
● “The typical approach to understanding human behavior has always been to look for the
average behavior or outcome.”
● The first mistake traditional psychology makes is looking for the average behavior or
outcome in order to understand human behavior. Tal Ben-Shahar calls this “the error of
the average.”
● “If we study merely what is average, we will remain merely average.”
● The second mistake traditional psychology makes is focusing on those who fall only on
one side of average—below it.
● “If all you strive for is diminishing the bad, you’ll only attain the average and you’ll miss
out entirely on the opportunity to exceed the average.”
● “Countless studies have found that social relationships are the best guarantee of
heightened well-being and lowered stress, both an antidote for depression and a
prescription for high performance.”
● “We become more successful when we are happier and more positive.”
● “It turns out that our brains are literally hardwired to perform at their best not when they
are negative or even neutral, but when they are positive.”
● Because positive brains have a biological advantage over brains that are neutral or
negative, The Happiness Advantage teaches us how to retrain our brains to capitalize on
positivity and improve our productivity and performance.
● How we experience the world, and our ability to succeed within it, constantly changes
based on our mindset. The Fulcrum and the Lever teach us how we can adjust our
mindset (our fulcrum) in a way that gives us the power (the lever) to be more fulfilled and
successful.
● When our brains get stuck in a pattern that focuses on stress, negativity, and failure, we
set ourselves up to fail. The Tetris Effect teaches us how to retrain our brains to spot
patterns of possibility, so we can see—and seize—opportunity wherever we look.
● In the midst of defeat, stress, and crisis, our brains map different paths to help us cope.
Falling Up is about finding the mental path that not only leads us up out of failure or
suffering but teaches us to be happier and more successful because of it.
● When challenges loom and we get overwhelmed, our rational brains can get hijacked by
emotions. The Zorro Circle teaches us how to regain control by focusing first on small,
manageable goals, and then gradually expanding our circle to achieve bigger and bigger
ones.
● Sustaining lasting change often feels impossible because our willpower is limited. And
when willpower fails, we fall back on our old habits and succumb to the path of least
resistance. The 20-Second Rule shows how, by making small energy adjustments, we
can reroute the path of least resistance and replace bad habits with good ones.
● In the midst of challenges and stress, some people choose to hunker down and retreat
within themselves. But the most successful people invest in their friends, peers, and
 family members to propel themselves forward. Social Investment teaches us how to
invest more in one of the greatest predictors of success and excellence—our social
support network.
● “Happiness is not the belief that we don’t need to change; it is the realization that we
can.”

Principle #1: The Happiness Advantage

● Martin Seligman, the pioneer in positive psychology, has broken happiness down into
three, measurable components: pleasure, engagement, and meaning.
● For Shawn Achor, happiness is the joy we feel striving after our potential.
● “Instead of narrowing our actions down to fight or flight as negative emotions do, positive
ones broaden the amount of possibilities we process, making us more thoughtful,
creative, and open to new ideas.”
● “Positive emotions flood our brains with dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that not only
make us feel good but dial up the learning centers of our brains to higher levels. They
help us organize new information, keep that information in the brain longer, and retrieve
it faster later on. And they enable us to make and sustain more neural connections,
which allows us to think more quickly and creatively, become more skilled at complex
analysis and problem solving, and see and invent new ways of doing things.”
● “People who put their heads down and wait for work to bring eventual happiness put
themselves at a huge disadvantage, while those who capitalize on positivity every
chance they get come out ahead.”
● “Even the smallest shots of positivity can give someone a serious competitive edge.”
● “Happiness is not just a mood—it’s a work ethic.”
How to Improve Your Mood and Raise Your Happiness Throughout the Day
1. Meditate
● “Neuroscientists have found that monks who spend years meditating actually grow their
left prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most responsible for feeling happy.”
● “Studies show that in the minutes right after meditating, we experience feelings of calm
and contentment, as well as heightened awareness and empathy. And, research even
shows that regular meditation can permanently rewire the brain to raise levels of
happiness, lower stress, even improve immune function.”
2. Find Something to Look Forward To
 ● “One study found people who just thought about watching their favorite movie actually
raised their endorphin levels by 27 percent.”
● “Anticipating future rewards can actually light up the pleasure centers in your brain much
as the actual reward will.”
3. Commit Conscious Acts of Kindness
● “A long line of empirical research, including one study of over 2,000 people, has shown
that acts of altruism—giving to friends and strangers alike—decrease stress and strongly
contribute to enhanced mental health.”
● “Pick one day a week and make a point of committing five acts of kindness.”
4. Infuse Positivity Into Your Surroundings
● “Our physical environment can have an enormous impact on our mindset and sense of
well-being.”
● “Studies have shown that the less negative TV we watch, specifically violent media, the
happier we are.”
5. Exercise
● “Physical activity can boost mood and enhance our work performance in a number of
other ways as well, by improving motivation and feelings of mastery, reducing stress and
anxiety, and helping us get into flow—that “locked in” feeling of total engagement that we
usually get when we’re at our most productive.”
6. Spend Money (but Not on Stuff)
● “In his book Luxury Fever, Robert Frank explains that while the positive feelings we get
from material objects are frustratingly fleeting, spending money on experiences,
especially ones with other people, produces positive emotions that are both more
meaningful and more lasting.”
● Spending money on other people is called ‘prosocial spending,’ and also boosts
happiness.
● “Draw two columns on a piece of paper (or take ten minutes at work to create a nifty
spreadsheet) and track your purchases over the next month. Are you spending more on
things or on experiences? At the end of the month, look back over each column and
think about the pleasure each purchase brought you, and for how long.”
7. Exercise a Signature Strength
● “Each time we use a skill, whatever it is, we experience a burst of positivity. If you find
yourself in need of a happiness booster, revisit a talent you haven’t used in a while.”
 ● “Even more fulfilling than using a skill, though, is exercising a strength of character, a
trait that is deeply embedded in who we are.”
● “Studies have shown that the more you use your signature strengths in daily life, the
happier you become.”

Principle #2: The Fulcrum and the Lever

● “While we, of course, can’t change reality through sheer force of will alone, we can use
our brain to change how we process the world, and that in turn changes how we react to
it.”
● “Happiness is not about lying to ourselves, or turning a blind eye to the negative, but
about adjusting our brain so that we see the ways to rise above our circumstances.”
● “Our power to maximize our potential is based on two important things: (1) the length of
our lever—how much potential power and possibility we believe we have, and (2) the
position of our fulcrum—the mindset with which we generate the power to change.”
● “By changing the fulcrum of our mindset and lengthening our lever of possibility, we
change what is possible.”
● “It’s not the weight of the world that determines what we can accomplish. It is our fulcrum
and lever.”
● “‘Reality’ is merely our brain’s relative understanding of the world based on where and
how we are observing it.”
● “So how exactly is it that our relative perception of what is happening, or what we think
will happen, can actually affect what does happen? One answer is that the brain is
organized to act on what we predict will happen next, something psychologists call
‘Expectancy Theory.’”
● “The expectation of an event causes the same complex set of neurons to fire as though
the event were actually taking place, triggering a cascade of events in the nervous
system that leads to a whole host of real physical consequences.”
● “The mental construction of our daily activities, more than the activity itself, defines our
reality.”
● “When we reconnect ourselves with the pleasure of the ‘means,’ as opposed to only
focusing on the ‘ends,’ we adopt a mindset more conducive not only to enjoyment but to
better results.”
● “When faced with a difficult task or challenge, give yourself an immediate competitive
advantage by focusing on all the reasons you will succeed, rather than fail. Remind
yourself of the relevant skills you have, rather than those you lack. Think of a time you
have been in a similar circumstance in the past and performed well.”
● “When we believe there will be a positive payoff for our effort, we work harder instead of
succumbing to helplessness.”
● “By changing the way we perceive ourselves and our work, we can dramatically improve
our results.”
● After many years and hundreds of interviews with workers in every conceivable
profession, Amy Wrzesniewski has found that employees have one of three “work
orientations,” or mindsets about our work.
● “We view our work as a Job, a Career, or a Calling. People with a ‘job’see work as a
chore and their paycheck as the reward. They work because they have to and constantly
look forward to the time they can spend away from their job. By contrast, people who
view their work as a career work not only out of necessity but also to advance and
succeed. They are invested in their work and want to do well. Finally, people with a
calling view work as an end in itself; their work is fulfilling not because of external
rewards but because they feel it contributes to the greater good, draws on their personal
strengths, and gives them meaning and purpose.”
● “People with a calling orientation not only find their work more rewarding but work harder
and longer because of it. And as a result, these are the people who are generally more
likely to get ahead.”
● “Wrzesniewski’s most interesting finding is not just that people see their work in one of
these three ways, but that it fundamentally doesn’t matter what type of job one has.”
● “A calling orientation can have just as much to do with mindset as it does with the actual
work being done.”
● “Unhappy employees can find ways to improve their work life that doesn’t involve
quitting, changing jobs or careers, or going off to find themselves. Organizational
psychologists call this ‘job crafting,’ but in essence, it involves simply adjusting one’s
mindset.”
● “if you can’t make actual changes to your daily work, ask yourself what potential
meaning and pleasure already exist in what you do.”
● “Researchers have found that even the smallest tasks can be imbued with greater
meaning when they are connected to personal goals and values.”
 ● “Turn a piece of paper horizontally, and on the left-hand side write down a task you’re
forced to perform at work that feels devoid of meaning. Then ask yourself: What is the
purpose of this task? What will it accomplish? Draw an arrow to the right and write this
answer down. If what you wrote still seems unimportant, ask yourself again: What does
this result lead to? Draw another arrow and write this down. Keep going until you get to a
result that is meaningful to you. In this way, you can connect every small thing you do to
the larger picture, to a goal that keeps you motivated and energized.”
● “You can have the best job in the world, but if you can’t find the meaning in it, you won’t
enjoy it, whether you are a movie maker or an NFL playmaker.”
● “What we expect from people (and from ourselves) manifests itself in the words we use,
and those words can have a powerful effect on end results.”
● “This phenomenon is called the Pygmalion Effect: when our belief in another person’s
potential brings that potential to life.”
● “The expectations we have about our children, co-workers, and spouses—whether or
not they are ever voiced—can make that expectation a reality.”
● “People act as we expect them to act, which means that a leader’s expectations about
what he thinks will motivate his employees often end up coming true.”
● “Every Monday, ask yourself these three questions: (1) Do I believe that the intelligence
and skills of my employees are not fixed, but can be improved with effort?; (2) Do I
believe that my employees want to make that effort, just as they want to find meaning
and fulfillment in their jobs?; and (3) How am I conveying these beliefs in my daily words
and actions?”

Principle #3: The Tetris Effect

● “Constantly scanning the world for the negative comes with a great cost. It undercuts our
creativity, raises our stress levels, and lowers our motivation and ability to accomplish
goals.”
● “Inattentional blindness”: our frequent inability to see what is often right in front of us if
we’re not focusing directly on it.
● “We tend to miss what we’re not looking for.”
● “When our brains constantly scan for and focus on the positive, we profit from three of
the most important tools available to us: happiness, gratitude, and optimism.”
 ● “Psychologists call this “predictive encoding”: Priming yourself to expect a favorable
outcome actually encodes your brain to recognize the outcome when it does in fact
arise.”
● “The best way to kick-start this is to start making a daily list of the good things in your
job, your career, and your life.”
● “When you write down a list of ‘three good things’ that happened that day, your brain will
be forced to scan the last 24 hours for potential positives—things that brought small or
large laughs, feelings of accomplishment at work, a strengthened connection with family,
a glimmer of hope for the future.”
● “A variation on the Three Good Things exercise is to write a short journal entry about a
positive experience.”
● “It’s not your age, or what you do for a living; it’s the training and consistency that count.”

Principle #4: Falling Up

● “On every mental map after crisis or adversity, there are three mental paths. One that
keeps circling around where you currently are (i.e., the negative event creates no
change; you end where you start). Another mental path leads you toward further
negative consequences (i.e., you are far worse off after the negative event; this path is
why we are afraid of conflict and challenge). And one, which I call the Third Path, that
leads us from failure or setback to a place where we are even stronger and more
capable than before the fall.”
● “Study after study shows that if we are able to conceive of a failure as an opportunity for
growth, we are all the more likely to experience that growth.”
● “By scanning our mental map for positive opportunities, and by rejecting the belief that
every down in life leads us only further downward, we give ourselves the greatest power
possible: the ability to move up not despite the setbacks, but because of them.”
● “People’s ability to find the path up rests largely on how they conceive of the cards they
have been dealt, so the strategies that most often lead to Adversarial Growth include
positive reinterpretation of the situation or event, optimism, acceptance, and coping
mechanisms that include focusing on the problem head-on (rather than trying to avoid or
deny it).”
● “The people who can most successfully get themselves up off the mat are those who
define themselves not by what has happened to them, but by what they can make out of
what has happened.”
● “Things do not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are able to make the
best out of things that happen.”—Tal Ben-Shahar
● “When people feel helpless in one area of life, they not only give up in that one area;
they often ‘overlearn’ the lesson and apply it to other situations. They become convinced
that one dead-end path must be proof that all possible paths are dead ends.”
● “A counterfact is an alternate scenario our brains create to help us evaluate and make
sense of what really happened.”
● Because counterfacts are invented, we actually have the power in any given situation to
consciously select a counterfact that makes us feel fortunate rather than helpless. And
choosing a positive counterfact, besides simply making us feel better, sets ourselves up
for the whole host of benefits to motivation and performance we now know accompanies
a positive mindset. On the other hand, choosing a counterfact that makes us more
fearful of the adversity actually makes it loom larger than it really is.
● “When we choose a counterfact that makes us feel worse, we are actually altering our
reality, allowing the obstacle to exert far greater influence over us than it otherwise
should.”
● “Decades of subsequent study have since shown that explanatory style—how we
choose to explain the nature of past events—has a crucial impact on our happiness and
future success.”
● “People with an optimistic explanatory style interpret adversity as being local and
temporary (i.e., ‘It’s not that bad, and it will get better.’) while those with a pessimistic
explanatory style see these events as more global and permanent (i.e., ‘It’s really bad,
and it’s never going to change.’).”
● “Virtually all avenues of success, we now know, are dictated by explanatory style.”
● “One way to help ourselves see the path from adversity to opportunity is to practice the
ABCD model of interpretation: Adversity, Belief, Consequence, and Disputation.”
● “Adversity is the event we can’t change; it is what it is. Belief is our reaction to the event;
why we thought it happened and what we think it means for the future. If we believe the
former—that is if we see the adversity as short-term or as an opportunity for growth or
appropriately confined to only part of our life—then we maximize the chance of a positive
Consequence. But if the Belief has led us down a more pessimistic path, helplessness
 and inaction can bring negative Consequences. Disputation involves first telling
ourselves that our belief is just that—a belief, not fact—and then challenging (or
disputing) it.”
● “Psychologists recommend that we externalize this voice (i.e., pretend it’s coming from
someone else), so it’s like we’re actually arguing with another person.”
● “When faced with a terrible prospect—for example, the end of a love affair or of a
job—we overestimate how unhappy it will make us and for how long.”
● “We fall victim to ‘immune neglect,’ which means we consistently forget how good our
psychological immune system is at helping us get over adversity.”
● “Adversities, no matter what they are, simply don’t hit us as hard as we think they will.”

Principle #5: The Zorro Circle

● One of the strongest drivers of both well-being and performance is feeling that we are in
control and that we are masters of our own fate at work and at home.
● “Psychologists have found that these kinds of gains in productivity, happiness, and
health have less to do with how much control we actually have and more with how much
control we think we have.”
● “The most successful people, in work and in life, are those who have what psychologists
call an ‘internal locus of control,’ the belief that their actions have a direct effect on their
outcomes.”
● “Experiments show that when people are primed to feel high levels of distress, the
quickest to recover are those who can identify how they are feeling and put those
feelings into words.”
● “By tackling one small challenge at a time—a narrow circle that slowly expands
outward—we can relearn that our actions do have a direct effect on our outcomes, that
we are largely the masters of our own fates.”
● “Small successes can add up to major achievements. All it takes is drawing that first
circle in the sand.”

Principle #6 The 20-Second Rule

● “Common sense is not common action.”
● William James called creating good habits “daily strokes of effort.”
 ● The reason so many of us have trouble sustaining change is because we try to rely on
willpower.
● The problem is, the more we use our willpower, the more worn-out it gets.
● “This invisible pull toward the path of least resistance can dictate more of our lives than
we realize, creating an impassible barrier to change and positive growth.”
● “Studies show that these activities are enjoyable and engaging for only about 30
minutes, then they start sapping our energy, creating what psychologists call “psychic
entropy”—that listless, apathetic feeling Cathy experienced.
● “In physics, activation energy is the initial spark needed to catalyze a reaction. The same
energy, both physical and mental, is needed of people to overcome inertia and kick-start
a positive habit.”
● “It’s not the sheer number and volume of distractions that gets us into trouble; it’s the
ease of access to them.”
● “Lower the activation energy for habits you want to adopt, and raise it for habits you want
to avoid. The more we can lower or even eliminate the activation energy for our desired
actions, the more we enhance our ability to jump-start positive change.”
● “By adding 20 seconds to my day, I gained back three hours.”
● “The key to reducing choice is setting and following a few simple rules. Psychologists
call these kinds of rules ‘second-order decisions,’ because they are essentially decisions
about when to make decisions, like deciding ahead of time when, where, and how I was
going to work out in the morning.”
● “Rules are especially helpful during the first few days of a behavior-changing venture
when it’s easier to stray off course. Gradually, as the desired action becomes more
habitual, we can become more flexible.”

Principle #7 Social Investment

● The more social support you have, the happier you are.
● “When over a thousand highly successful professional men and women were
interviewed as they approached retirement and asked what had motivated them the
most, throughout their careers, overwhelmingly they placed work friendships above both
financial gain and individual status.”
● “Organizational psychologists have found that even brief encounters can form
“high-quality connections,” which fuel openness, energy, and authenticity among
 coworkers, and in turn lead to a whole host of measurable, tangible gains in
performance.”
● “Shelly Gable, a leading psychologist at the University of California, has found that there
are four different types of responses we can give to someone’s good news, and only one
of them contributes positively to the relationship. The winning response is both active
and constructive; it offers enthusiastic support, as well as specific comments and
follow-up questions.”
● “Interestingly, her research shows passive responses to good news (‘That’s nice.’) can
be just as harmful to the relationship as blatantly negative ones (‘You got the promotion?
I’m surprised they didn’t give it to Sally, she seems more suited to the job.’).
● “Gable’s studies have shown that active-constructive responding enhances relationship
commitment and satisfaction, and fuels the degree to which people feel understood,
validated, and cared for during a discussion—all of which contribute to the Happiness
Advantage.”
 The Little Book of Yes by Noah
Goldstein

The Book in One Sentence

● The Little Book of Yes contains 21 short essays that outline a range of effective
persuasion strategies, each proven to increase the chances that someone will agree to
your requests.

The Little Book of Yes Summary

1. Giving
Big Idea:
Giving to others is the first step to getting what you want.
Next Actions:
Think about someone you want to persuade, or who you want something from. What could you
do or provide to help them first?
Think of ways to make your requests more personalized. Could you use handwritten notes, or
call someone, rather than using email?
Get into the habit of asking, “Who can I help?” rather than “Who can help me?”

2. Exchanging
Big Idea:
Exchanging is the process of giving and receiving between people in such a way that everyone
benefits.
Next Actions:
If you feel that people often take advantage of you, you may be saying things like “no problem”
too often. What could you say instead?
Listen out for when people say “thank you” to you. Keep a thank-you diary, taking care to notice
whether the balance of give and take in your life is equal.
Look for ways to pay favors forward. If a colleague appreciates your help, ask if they could pass
their help on to someone else in your team or network.

3. Gifting
Big Idea:
People are willing to give back to others when they have first received themselves.
Next Actions:
If you want to be known among your friends and family as a thoughtful and generous gift-giver
(while secretly remaining a thrifty one too), purchase high-value gifts from low-value product
categories (like the £45 scarf) rather than low-value gifts from high-value categories.

4. Cooperating
Big Idea:
Thinking “we” rather than “you vs. me” will bring people to your side in more ways than one.
Next Actions:
Next time you have a project or proposal you want to pitch, say to your boss, “I’d really love to
get your input on this.” Gaining their input creates a convergence of ideas and is a key step in
successful persuasion.
When dealing with stand-offish colleagues or neighbors, try to find out what you have in
common and highlight that before trying to persuade them. Do a quick search on LinkedIn or
Facebook before meeting someone for the first time and look for shared interests and common
experiences.
Asking for advice leads to a perception of partnership, teamwork, and, ultimately, cooperation.

5. Pausing
Big Idea:
Emotion affects all our interactions so take a moment to check in with yourself before attempting
to influence others
Before important meetings and interactions, ask yourself: “What state of mind am I in right
now?” If it is an unhelpful one, then pause to let those feelings subside.
Find ways to guard against strong emotions interrupting your meetings. Get some fresh air
beforehand. Talk a short walk. Be still for a moment. Try to create separation from an unhelpful
emotional state.
When asking someone for something, make sure that it’s a good time—if they seem upset,
angry or troubled, come back later.

Further Reading
To learn more about pausing, read my “Words Into Works 11 | Words Into Works 9 | Goodhart’s
Law and The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre.”

6. Compromising
Big Idea:
First requests can significantly influence the success of later ones—so start with a high demand
and then compromise.
Next Actions:
When it comes to agreeing to requests, people are often much more likely to say “Yes” to a
smaller request immediately after they have said “No” to a larger one.
Ask yourself: “What is my ideal goal, and what would I be prepared to accept as a
compromise?” Be prepared and know in advance what you want and what you’d settle with.
Your ideal goal should always be your opening proposal.
Avoid the temptation to reduce your opening request in the belief that it will be rejected. The
word “No” is your friend in situations like these. Be bold and make a second request.

7. Knowing
Big Idea:
Demonstrating your expertise and knowledge before you start speaking will make sure that
people listen.
Next Actions:
Wherever possible, arrange for someone else to introduce you.
If that isn’t possible, send your biography or profile in advance of any meeting.
Include qualifications and experience at the very top of your CV. Never hide them away at the
end.
8. Admitting
Big Idea:
By being upfront about the downsides in your ideas, you can increase your authenticity and your
persuasiveness.
Notes:
Wabi-sabi is the aesthetic world view of finding and appreciating the beauty in imperfection,
impermanence, and incompletion.
The Pratfall Effect describes how the attractiveness of a person increases after they admit a
mistake, but only if they are relatively competent in the first place.
Next Actions:
In order to embrace your small flaws, you need to be aware of them. Make a (short) list of yours.
If you find that hard or don’t think you possess any flaws, ask a friend or partner who may see
something that is invisible to you.
Don’t be afraid to admit to mistakes or small bad habits—but don’t begin confessing all your
guilty secrets.

9. Asking
Big Idea:
Asking for help can be an effective way of building bridges with people. And, ultimately,
persuading them to your side.
Next Actions:
Over a week, keep a record of the numbers of ‘Yeses’ and ‘Nos’ your direct requests
receive—you’ll soon notice the impact of asking.
Remember that a short sting of possible embarrassment is a small price to pay compared to the
lingering ache of “if only.”
Next time you want something—ask for it.

10. Conversing
Big Idea:
When it comes to successful influence, it’s good to talk.
Next Actions:
Next time you are on a plane, a bus or at a conference and the person next to you isn’t looking
down at their phone or otherwise occupied, try saying “hello.”
Practice “introducing yourself” in front of a mirror—remember eye contact and a genuine smile.
When dining with friends, encourage more conversation by agreeing to place mobile phones in
the center of the table.

11. Humanizing
Big Idea:
When it comes to persuading audiences, stories trump facts, and humanity beats statistics.
Next Actions:
When you are clear about your goal, find a story that will bring it to life, and make it desirable to
others.
Think about what makes a good story—find characters your audience can identify with, and
show their motivation and desires.
Wherever possible, use pictures of people as well as, or instead of, charts and spreadsheets in
order to convey your message.

12. Liking
Big Idea:
To get someone to agree with you, get them to like you first.
Next Actions:
The first step to getting someone to agree with you is, often, to make them like you. Increase
this possibility by identifying your commonalities.
Do your preparation. Seek out similarities, such as shared backgrounds, interests, and
experiences.
Be sure to highlight them before making your pitch or request.

13. Complementing
Big Idea:
It’s not enough for someone to like you—find genuine ways to show that you like your listener
and make them feel seen.
Next Actions:
Before asking someone for something, think of one good thing about them, and include a
compliment in your conversation. This doesn’t always have to be in the moment. Cultivate a
positive relationship and use compliments generally.
This can make people feel positive towards you so that when the time comes to ask a favor,
they may be more likely to say yes.

14. Labeling
Big Idea:
Labeling involves assigning a trait, attitude, belief, or another label to a person before making a
request of that person that’s consistent with that label.
Next Actions
Get into the habit of genuinely labeling people with the sort of traits that are consistent with the
request you are about to make.
Be careful with negative labels, though. Don’t be surprised if bemoaning your friend’s tardiness
makes her even later next time you go out together.
If possible, recall a time when you’ve been labeled positively by someone else (as hard-working,
say) and remind yourself of its beneficial effects.

15. Reasoning
Big Idea:
Always give the reason behind your request.
Next Actions:
Before you ask someone for something, make sure that you are clear why you are asking for it.
And then make sure that they know too.
To work out your reason, ask yourself: “What benefit will be gained as a result of my request?”
Make sure that you use the word “because” during your request to flag up your reasoning.

16. Committing
Big Idea:
To receive real commitment to your requests, emphasise quantifiable, public goal-setting.
Next Actions:
Next time you want someone to commit to something, give them a specific goal.
Bring up your commitments, or those of others, in public: at a bar, tell friends that your other
friend has promised to go on holiday with you that summer; talk about your commitment to run a
marathon on Facebook; promise that your team will deliver a project in a work meeting.
When setting goals for yourself, have in mind a range of outcomes that you’d be happy with,
rather than a single one.

17. Implementing
Big Idea:
To encourage others to honour their promises, ask them to create a concrete plan for where,
when and how they will do it.
Remember that when creating a goal it may not be enough to just write that goal down on a
to-do list.
Once you have identified a goal, create an implementation plan with specific steps about when,
where and how you will deliver it.
When persuading others, encourage them to do the same. If you manage a team or are
responsible for managing a project have regular implementation plan reviews.

Further Reading
To learn more about implementation intentions, read “Words Into Works 3 | The Teriss Effect.”

18. Comparing
Big Idea:
What you compare an idea or request to can be as important as the idea or request itself.
Next Actions:
All other things being equal, in a competitive situation with three or more candidates, try to
arrange to go last.
When preparing proposals or requests, always ensure that you think about a favourable
comparison.
Think about what or who your listeners will be comparing you with—and make sure you give
them a more favourable alternative.
19. Following
Big Idea:
People will follow others’ lead—so make sure that you highlight those whom you’ve already
persuaded.
Next Actions:
Be sure to show how people in a similar situation to those you want to influence have acted.
People follow those most similar to themselves. So rather than using the testimonial you are
most proud of, use the one that comes from someone most like your influence target.
Build ‘follows’ on your social networks by highlighting your increasing number of followers. If
your followers have risen from two hundred to four hundred you could tweet about the fact that
the number has doubled; on Instagram, offer an incentive for your followers to help you reach a
certain number.

20. Losing
Big Idea:
Because losses weigh more heavily than gains, highlight to your listener what they stand to
lose.
Next Actions:
Think about the things someone you want to persuade will gain if they say “Yes” to your request.
Now state those as things they could lose if they don’t carefully consider your offer.
Use competition to increase your persuasiveness. If people come to know that your availability
or services are in demand by others then these things become more attractive.
Value your time so that others will too. Don’t say “I’m free all day, you choose a time.” Instead
say: “I can meet on Saturday, either at four or seven.”

21. Ending
Big Idea:
If you want to have impact, and for people to remember you, make sure that you end on a high.
Next Actions:
Try to save the best news until last. It will have a much bigger impact on people.
When presenting, ask yourself ‘what do I want people to remember most?’ and offer that at the
end.
Make a point of reminding yourself and your team members of the good times. It is easy to
forget great times that have been shared—especially if some of them didn’t end so well.
 Mindset by Carol Dweck

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Skills can be cultivated through effort.
2. People with a growth mindset thrive on challenges.
3. The fixed mindset: “I can’t do it”. The growth mindset: “I can’t do it yet”.

The Five Big Ideas

1. The view you adopt for yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life.
2. “Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an
urgency to prove yourself over and over”.
3. “People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it”.
4. “The growth mindset does allow people to love what they’re doing—and to continue to
love it in the face of difficulties”.
5. “Those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and
improving. And this is exactly what we find in the champions”.

Mindset Summary
● “[Children with a growth mindset] knew that human qualities, such as intellectual skills,
could be cultivated through effort”.
● “Not only were [the children with a growth mindset]not discouraged by failure, they didn’t
even think they were failing. They thought they were learning”.
● “What are the consequences of thinking that your intelligence or personality is something
you can develop, as opposed to something that is a fixed, deep-seated trait?”
● “Robert Sternberg, the present-day guru of intelligence, writes that the major factor in
whether people achieve expertise ‘is not some fixed prior ability, but purposeful
engagement’.”
● “For twenty years, my research has shown that the view you adopt for yourself
profoundly affects the way you lead your life”.
● “Believing that your qualities are carved in stone—the fixed mindset—creates an
urgency to prove yourself over and over”.
● “This growth mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can
cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way—in their
initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments—everyone can change and grow
through application and experience”.
● “Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting
better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them?”
● “The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not
going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset”.
● “The fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you’ll be judged; the growth mindset
makes you concerned with improving”.
● “When you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world—the world of fixed
traits—success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the
other—the world of changing qualities—it’s about stretching yourself to learn something
new. Developing yourself”.
● “Benjamin Barber, an eminent sociologist, once said, ‘I don’t divide the world into the
weak and the strong, or the successes and the failures…. I divide the world into the
learners and non-learners’.”
● “People in a growth mindset don’t just seek challenge, they thrive on it”.
● “We gave fifth graders intriguing puzzles, which they all loved. But when we made them
harder, children with the fixed mindset showed a big plunge in enjoyment”.
● “For [people with a growth mindset] it’s not about immediate perfection. It’s about
learning something over time: confronting a challenge and making progress”.
● “‘Becoming is better than being’. The fixed mindset does not allow people the luxury of
becoming. They have to already be”.
● “People with the growth mindset know that it takes time for potential to flower”.
● “College students, after doing poorly on a test, were given a chance to look at tests of
other students. Those in the growth mindset looked at the tests of people who had done
far better than they had. As usual, they wanted to correct their deficiency. But students in
the fixed mindset chose to look at the tests of people who had done really poorly. That
was their way of feeling better about themselves”.
● “John Wooden, the legendary basketball coach, says you aren’t a failure until you start
to blame. What he means is that you can still be in the process of learning from your
mistakes until you deny them”.
● “French executive Pierre Chevalier says, ‘We are not a nation of effort. After all, if you
have savoir-faire [a mixture of know-how and cool], you do things effortlessly’.”
● “People with the growth mindset, however, believe something very different. For them,
even geniuses have to work hard for their achievements”.
● “They may appreciate endowment, but they admire effort, for no matter what your ability
is, effort is what ignites that ability and turns it into accomplishment”.
● “The growth mindset does allow people to love what they’re doing—and to continue to
love it in the face of difficulties”.
● “Those with the growth mindset found success in doing their best, in learning and
improving. And this is exactly what we find in the champions”.
● “Those with the growth mindset found setbacks motivating. They’re informative. They’re
a wake-up call”.
● “People with the growth mindset in sports (as in pre-med chemistry) took charge of the
processes that bring success—and that maintain it”.
 Peak: Secrets from the New Science of
Expertise by Anders Ericsson

The Book in Three Sentences

Anders Ericsson has made a career studying top performers.
We all have the seeds of excellence within us; it s just a question of nurturing them
properly.
In Peak, Ericsson shows you how to get better at the things you care about.

The Five Big Ideas

1. People aren’t born with fixed reserves of potential; instead, potential is an expandable
vessel, shaped by the various things we do throughout our lives.
2. The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to
improvement. Nothing else.
3. Once you reach a level of “acceptable” performance and automaticity, the additional
years of “practice” don’t lead to improvement.
4. The goal, with deliberate practice, is not just to reach your potential but to build it, to
make things possible that were not possible before.
5. Much of deliberate practice involves developing ever more efficient mental
representations that you can use in whatever activity you are practicing.

Table of Contents
1. Chapter 1: The Power of Purposeful Practice
2. Chapter 2: Harnessing Adaptability
3. Chapter 3: Mental Representations
4. Chapter 4: The Gold Standard
5. Chapter 5: Principles of Deliberate Practice on The Job
6. Chapter 6: Principles of Deliberate Practice in Everyday Life
 7. Chapter 7: The Road to Extraordinary
8. Chapter 8: But What About Natural Talent?
9. Chapter 9: Where Do We Go From Here?

Peak Summary
No matter what role innate genetic endowment may play in the achievements of “gifted” people,
the main gift that these people have is the same one we all have—the adaptability of the human
brain and body, which they have taken advantage of more than the rest of us.
People aren’t born with fixed reserves of potential; instead, potential is an expandable vessel,
shaped by the various things we do throughout our lives.
Learning isn’t a way of reaching one’s potential but rather a way of developing it. We can create
our own potential.
The right sort of practice carried out over a sufficient period of time leads to improvement.
Nothing else.

Chapter 1: The Power of Purposeful Practice

The following are the basic types of practice—the sorts of practice that most people have
already experienced in one way or another.
1. The Usual Approach (A.K.A. “Naive Practice”)
Once you reach a satisfactory skill level and automate your performance, you stop improving.
According to Ericsson, once a person reaches a level of “acceptable” performance and
automaticity, the additional years of “practice” don’t lead to improvement. If anything, people
who have been at it for twenty years are likely to be a bit worse than the one who’s been doing it
for only five. Why? Because automated abilities gradually deteriorate in the absence of
deliberate efforts to improve.
2. Purposeful Practice
Purposeful practice has several characteristics that set it apart from what we might call “naive
practice,” which is essentially just doing something repeatedly, and expecting that the repetition
alone will improve your performance.
Purposeful practice is, as the term implies, much more purposeful, thoughtful, and focused than
naive practice. In particular, it has the following characteristics:
● Purposeful practice has well-defined, specific goals
 ● Purposeful practice is all about putting a bunch of baby steps together to reach a
longer-term goal
● Purposeful practice is focused
● You seldom improve much without giving the task your full attention
● Purposeful practice involves feedback
● You have to know whether you are doing something right and, if not, how you’re going
wrong.
Generally speaking, no matter what you’re trying to do, you need feedback to identify exactly
where and how you are falling short. Without feedback—either from yourself or from outside
observers—you can’t figure out what you need to improve on or how close you are to achieving
your goals.
Purposeful practice requires getting out of one’s comfort zone. Why? Because if you never push
yourself beyond your comfort zone, you will never improve. To get out of your comfort zone, you
need to try something you couldn’t do before.
Often, the goal isn’t to “try harder”; it’s to “try differently.”
The best way to get past any barrier is to come at it from a different direction, which is one
reason it is useful to work with a teacher or coach. Someone who is already familiar with the
sorts of obstacles you’re likely to encounter can suggest ways to overcome them.
Sometimes it turns out that a barrier is more psychological than anything else.
Whenever you’re trying to improve at something, you will run into such obstacles—points at
which it seems impossible to progress, or at least where you have no idea what you should do
in order to improve. This is natural. What is not natural is a true dead-stop obstacle, one that is
impossible to get around, over, or through.
In all of his years of research, Ericsson has found it is surprisingly rare to get clear evidence in
any field that a person has reached some immutable limit on performance. Instead, he’s found
that people more often just give up and stop trying to improve.
While it is always possible to keep going and keep improving, it is not always easy. Maintaining
the focus and the effort required by purposeful practice is hard work, and it is generally not fun.
Meaningful positive feedback is one of the crucial factors in maintaining motivation. It can be
internal feedback, such as the satisfaction of seeing yourself improve at something, or external
feedback provided by others, but it makes a huge difference in whether a person will be able to
maintain the consistent effort necessary to improve through purposeful practice.
Purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with
clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Finally, figure
out a way to maintain your motivation.
Although it is generally possible to improve to a certain degree with focused practice and
staying out of your comfort zone, that’s not all there is to it. Trying hard isn’t enough. Pushing
yourself to your limits isn’t enough. There are other, equally important aspects of practice and
training that are often overlooked.

Chapter 2: Harnessing Adaptability

There is a growing body of evidence that both the structure and the function of the brain change
in response to various sorts of mental training, in much the same way as your muscles and
cardiovascular system respond to physical training.
The hippocampus is the horse-shaped part of our brain that is involved in the development of
memory.
In one study, Ellenor McGuire, a neuroscientist at University College London, studied a group of
people training to become licensed taxi drivers in London.
McGuire found that the volume of the posterior hippocampi had gotten significantly larger in the
group of trainees who had continued their training and had become licensed taxi drivers. By
contrast, there was no change in the size of the posterior hippocampi among the prospective
taxi drivers who had failed to become licensed (either because they simply stopped training or
because they could not pass the tests) or among the subjects who had never had anything to do
with the taxi training program.
You need to continually push to keep the body’s compensatory changes coming, but if you push
too far outside your comfort zone, you risk injuring yourself and actually setting yourself back.
Recent studies have shown that learning a new skill is much more effective at triggering
structural changes in the brain than simply continuing to practice a skill that one has already
learned.
Musical training modifies the structure and function of the brain in various ways that result in an
increased capacity for playing music.
The most effective forms of practice do more than help you learn to play a musical instrument;
they actually increase your ability to play.
Long-term training results in changes in those parts of the brain that are relevant to the
particular skill being developed.
Regular training leads to changes in the parts of the brain that are challenged by the training.
The brain adapts to these challenges by rewiring itself in ways that increase its ability to carry
out the functions required by the challenges.
The effects of training on the brain can vary with age in several ways. The most important way
is that younger brains—those of children and adolescents — are more adaptable than adult
brains are, so training can have larger effects on younger people. Because the young brain is
developing in various ways, training at early ages can actually shape the course of later
development, leading to significant changes.
“The Bent-Twig Effect”: If you push a small twig slightly away from its normal pattern of growth,
you can cause a major change in the ultimate location of the branch that grows from that twig;
pushing on a branch that is already developed has much less effect.
In many cases people who, have developed one skill or ability to an extraordinary degree seem
to have regressed in another area.
The cognitive and physical changes caused by training require upkeep. Stop training, and they
start to go away.
When Maguire studied a group of retired London taxi drivers, she found that they had less gray
matter in their posterior hippocampi than did active taxi drivers, although they still had more than
retired subjects who had never been taxi drivers.
The reason that most people don’t possess these extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t
because they don’t have the capacity for them, but rather because they’re satisfied to live in the
comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it. They live
in the world of “good enough.”
The traditional approach to learning is not designed to challenge homeostasis. It assumes,
consciously or not, that learning is all about fulfilling your innate potential and that you can
develop a particular skill or ability without getting too far out of your comfort zone. In this view,
all that you are doing with practice—indeed, all that you can do—is to reach a fixed potential.
The goal, with deliberate practice, is not just to reach your potential but to build it, to make
things possible that were not possible before. This requires challenging homeostasis—getting
out of your comfort zone—and forcing your brain or your body to adapt. But once you do this,
learning is no longer just a way of fulfilling some genetic destiny; it becomes a way of taking
control of your destiny and shaping your potential in ways that you choose.
Chapter 3: Mental Representations
Research has shown that the amount of time spent analyzing positions—not the amount of time
spent playing chess with others—is the single most important predictor of a chess player’s
ability. It generally takes about ten years of this sort of practice to reach the level of
grandmaster.
A mental representation is a mental structure that corresponds to an object, an idea, a collection
of information, or anything else, concrete or abstract, that the brain is thinking about.
Much of deliberate practice involves developing ever more efficient mental representations that
you can use in whatever activity you are practicing.
The thing all mental representations have in common is that they make it possible to process
large amounts of information quickly, despite the limitations of short-term memory.
What sets expert performers apart from everyone else is the quality and quantity of their mental
representations. Through years of practice, they develop highly complex and sophisticated
representations of the various situations they are likely to encounter in their fields. These
representations allow them to make faster, more accurate decisions and respond more quickly
and effectively in a given situation.
The main thing that sets experts apart from the rest of us is that their years of practice have
changed the neural circuitry in their brains to produce highly specialized mental representations,
which in turn make possible the incredible memory, pattern recognition, problem-solving, and
other sorts of advanced abilities needed to excel in their particular specialties.
The best way to understand exactly what these mental representations are and how they work
is to develop a good mental representation of the concept mental representation.
The more you study a subject, the more detailed your mental representations of it become, and
the better you get at assimilating new information.
To write well, for example, develop a mental representation ahead of time to guide your efforts.
Then monitor and evaluate your efforts and modify that representation as necessary.
The more skilled you become, the better your mental representations are, and the better your
mental representations are, the more effectively you can practice honing your skill.
As you push yourself to do something new—to develop a new skill or sharpen an old one—you
are also expanding and sharpening your mental representations, which will, in turn, make it
possible for you to do more than you could before.
Chapter 4: The Gold Standard
In one study, Ericsson interviewed violin students from Berlin University of The Arts. One of his
most significant findings was that most factors the students had identified as being important to
improvement were also seen as labor-intensive and not much fun; the only exceptions were
listening to music and sleeping.
Everyone from the very top students to the future music teachers agreed: improvement was
hard, and they didn’t enjoy the work they did to improve. In short, there were no students who
just loved to practice and thus needed less motivation than the others. These students were
motivated to practice intensely and with full concentration because they saw such practice as
essential to improving their performance.
First, to become an excellent violinist requires several thousand hours of practice. Ericsson
found no shortcuts and no “prodigies” who reached an expert level with relatively little practice.
And, second, even among these gifted musicians—all of whom had been admitted to the best
music academy in Germany—the violinists who had spent significantly more hours practicing
their craft were on average more accomplished than those who had spent less time practicing.
Nobody develops extraordinary abilities without putting in tremendous amounts of practice.
Deliberate practice is different from other sorts of purposeful practice in two important ways:
First, it requires a field that is already reasonably well developed—that is, a field in which the
best performers have attained a level of performance that clearly sets them apart from people
who are just entering the field.
Second, deliberate practice requires a teacher who can provide practice activities designed to
help a student improve his or her performance.
Deliberate practice is informed and guided by the best performers’ accomplishments and by an
understanding of what these expert performers do to excel. Deliberate practice is purposeful
practice that knows where it is going and how to get there.
Deliberate practice is characterized by the following traits:
● Deliberate practice develops skills that other people have already figured out how to do
and for which effective training techniques have been established. The practice regimen
should be designed and overseen by a teacher or coach who is familiar with the abilities
of expert performers and with how those abilities can best be developed.
● Deliberate practice takes place outside one’s comfort zone and requires a student to
constantly try things that are just beyond his or her current abilities. Thus it demands
near-maximal effort, which is generally not enjoyable.
 ● Deliberate practice involves well-defined, specific goals and often involves improving
some aspect of the target performance; it is not aimed at some vague overall
improvement. Once an overall goal has been set, a teacher or coach will develop a plan
for making a series of small changes that will add up to the desired larger change.
Improving some aspect of the target performance allows a performer to see that his or
her performance has been improved by the training.
● Deliberate practice is deliberate, that is, it requires a person’s full attention and
conscious actions. It isn’t enough to simply follow a teacher’s or coach’s directions. The
student must concentrate on the specific goal for his or her practice activity so that
adjustments can be made to control practice.
● Deliberate practice involves feedback and modification of efforts in response to that
feedback. Early in the training process much of the feedback will come from the teacher
or coach, who will monitor progress, point out problems, and offer ways to address those
problems. With time and experience, students must learn to monitor themselves, spot
mistakes, and adjust accordingly.
● Deliberate practice both produces and depends on effective mental representations.
Improving performance goes hand in hand with improving mental representations; as
one’s performance improves, the representations become more detailed and effective, in
turn making it possible to improve even more. Mental representations make it possible to
monitor how one is doing, both in practice and in actual performance. They show the
right way to do something and allow one to notice when doing something wrong to
correct it.
● Deliberate practice nearly always involves building or modifying previously acquired
skills by focusing on particular aspects of those skills and working to improve them
specifically; over time this step-by-step improvement will eventually lead to expert
performance. Because of the way that new skills are built on top of existing skills, it is
important for teachers to provide beginners with the correct fundamental skills in order to
minimize the chances that the student will have to relearn those fundamental skills later
when at a more advanced level.
Research has shown that the “experts” in many fields don’t perform reliably better than other,
less highly regarded members of the profession—or sometimes even than people who have had
no training at all.
Be careful when identifying expert performers. Ideally you want some objective measure of
performance with which to compare people’s abilities. If no such measures exist, get as close as
you can.
Another method is to seek out the persons that professionals themselves seek out when they
need help with a particularly difficult situation. Talk to the people about who they think are the
best performers in their field, but be certain that you ask them what type of experience and
knowledge they have to be able to judge one professional as being better than another.
If you find that something works, keep doing it; if it doesn’t work, stop. The better you are able to
tailor your training to mirror the best performers in your field, the more effective your training is
likely to be.

Chapter 5: Principles of Deliberate Practice on the Job

The first step to enhancing performance in an organization is realizing that improvement is
possible only if participants abandon business-as-usual practice. Doing so requires recognizing
and rejecting three prevailing myths:
1. The belief that one’s abilities are limited by one’s genetically prescribed characteristics.
2. If you do something for long enough, you’re bound to get better at it.
3. All it takes to improve is effort. If you just try hard enough, you’ll get better.
The deliberate-practice mindset offers the following view: anyone can improve, but it requires
the right approach. If you are not improving, it’s not because you lack innate talent; it’s because
you’re not practicing the right way. Once you understand this, improvement becomes a matter of
figuring out what the “right way” is.
When you look at how people are trained in the professional and business worlds, you find a
tendency to focus on knowledge at the expense of skills. The main reasons are tradition and
convenience: it is much easier to present knowledge to a large group of people than it is to set
up conditions under which individuals can develop skills through practice.

Chapter 6 Principles of Deliberate Practice in Everyday Life

One of the most important things a teacher can do is to help you develop your own mental
representations so that you can monitor and correct your own performance.
You may need to change teachers as you yourself change.
If you find yourself at a point where you are no longer improving quickly or at all, don’t be afraid
to look for a new instructor. The most important thing is to keep moving forward.
If your mind is wandering or you’re relaxed and just having fun, you probably won’t improve.
Focus and concentration are crucial. Shorter training sessions with clearer goals are the best
way to develop new skills faster.
To effectively practice a skill without a teacher, it helps to keep in mind three Fs: Focus.
Feedback. Fix it. Break the skill down into components that you can do repeatedly and analyze
effectively, determine your weaknesses, and figure out ways to address them.
When you first start learning something new, it is normal to see rapid — or at least
steady—improvement, and when that improvement stops, it is natural to believe you’ve hit some
sort of implacable limit. So you stop trying to move forward, and you settle down to life on that
plateau. This is the major reason that people in every area stop improving.
The best way to move beyond it is to challenge your brain or your body in a new way.
Any reasonably complex skill will involve a variety of components, some of which you will be
better at than others. Thus, when you reach a point at which you are having difficulty getting
better, it will be just one or two of the components of that skill, not all of them, that are holding
you back. To figure out which one, you need to find a way to push yourself a little—not a
lot—harder than usual. This will often help you figure out where your sticking points are.
First, figure out exactly what is holding you back. What mistakes are you making, and when?
Push yourself well outside of your comfort zone and see what breaks down first. Then design a
practice technique aimed at improving that particular weakness. Once you’ve figured out what
the problem is, you may be able to fix it yourself, or you may need to go to an experienced
coach or teacher for suggestions. Either way, pay attention to what happens when you practice;
if you are not improving, you will need to try something else.
Anyone who hopes to improve skill in a particular area should devote an hour or more each day
to practice that can be done with full concentration.
Maintaining the motivation that enables the above regimen has two parts: reasons to keep going
and reasons to stop. When you quit something that you had initially wanted to do, it’s because
the reasons to stop eventually came to outweigh the reasons to continue. Thus, to maintain your
motivation you can either strengthen the reasons to keep going or weaken the reasons to quit.
Good planning can help you avoid many of the things that might lead you to spend less time on
practice than you wanted.
More generally, look for anything that might interfere with your training and find ways to
minimize its influence.
Chapter 7: The Road to Extraordinary
In the first stage, children are introduced in a playful way to what will eventually become their
field of interest.
In the beginning, a child’s parents play with their child at the child’s level, but gradually they turn
the play toward the real purpose of the “toy.”
At this stage, the parents of children who are to become experts play a crucial role in the child’s
development. For one thing, the parents give their children a great deal of time, attention, and
encouragement. For another, the parents tend to be very achievement-oriented and teach their
children such values as self-discipline, hard work, responsibility, and spending one’s time
constructively.
One excellent supplement, particularly with smaller children, is praise. Another motivation is the
satisfaction of having developed a certain skill, particularly if that achievement is acknowledged
by a parent.
A child who sees an older sibling performing an activity and getting attention and praise from a
parent will naturally want to join in and garner some attention and praise as well. For some
children, competition with the sibling may itself be motivating, too.
In many of the cases that have been studied, children with talented siblings also had one or
both parents encouraging them as well.
Once a future expert performer becomes interested and shows some promise in an area, the
typical next step is to take lessons from a coach or teacher.
Helping children develop mental representations can also increase motivation by increasing
their ability to appreciate the skill they are learning.
Finally, as the students continued to improve, they started to seek out better-qualified teachers
and coaches who would take them to the next level.
Generally, when they’re in their early or mid teens, the future experts make a major commitment
to becoming the best that they can be. This commitment is the third stage.
During this stage, the motivation lies solely with the student, but the family may still play an
important support role.
This is the fourth stage of expert performance, where some people move beyond the existing
knowledge in their field and make unique creative contributions.
Researchers who study how the creative geniuses in any field—science, art, music, sports, and
so on—come up with their innovations have found that it is always a long, slow, iterative
process.
Research on the most successful creative people in various fields, particularly science, finds
that creativity goes hand in hand with the ability to work hard and maintain focus over long
stretches of time—exactly the ingredients of deliberate practice that produced their expert
abilities in the first place.
Even if the Pathfinder doesn’t share the particular technique, simply knowing that something is
possible drives others to figure it out.
In short, in most cases—and this is especially true in any well-developed area—we must rely on
the experts to move us forward.

Chapter 8: But What About Natural Talent?

Expert performers develop their extraordinary abilities through years and years of dedicated
practice, improving step by step in a long, laborious process.
One of the major reasons that people believe in the power of innate talent is the apparent
existence of natural prodigies,.
Ericsson has made it a hobby to investigate the stories of prodigies, and he reports with
confidence that he has never found a convincing case for anyone developing extraordinary
abilities without intense, extended practice.
Ericsson’s basic approach to understanding prodigies is the same as it is for understanding any
expert performer. He asks two simple questions: What is the exact nature of the ability? and,
What sorts of training made it possible? In thirty years of looking, he has never found an ability
that could not be explained by answering these two questions.
People do not stop learning and improving because they have reached some innate limits on
their performance; they stop learning and improving because, for whatever reasons, they
stopped practicing—or never started.
In the long run, it is the ones who practice more who prevail, not the ones who had some initial
advantage in intelligence or some other talent.

Chapter 9: Where Do We Go from Here?

When teaching a skill, break the lesson into a series of steps that the student can master one at
a time, building from one to the next to reach the ultimate objective.
The redesigned physics class at the University of British Columbia offers a road map for
redesigning instruction according to deliberate-practice principles:
Begin by identifying what students should learn how to do. The objectives should be skills, not
knowledge.
In figuring out the particular way students should learn a skill, examine how the experts do it. In
particular, understand as much as possible about the mental representations that experts use,
and teach the skill so as to help students develop similar mental representations. This will
involve teaching the skill step by step, with each step designed to keep students out of their
comfort zone but not so far out that they cannot master that step.
Then give plenty of repetition and feedback; the regular cycle of try, fail, get feedback, try again,
and so on is how the students will build their mental representations.
 Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Many of our behaviors are misguided.
2. But they’re not random; they’re systematic and predictable.
3. By recognizing our irrational patterns, we can make better decisions in life and business.

The Five Big Ideas

1. We tend to focus on what we may lose, rather than what we may gain.
2. With everything you do, you should train yourself to question your repeated behaviors.
3. We assume other people will see monetary transactions from the same perspective as
we do.
4. People will work more for a cause than for cash.
5. Giving up on our long-term goals for immediate gratification is procrastination.

Predictably Irrational Summary

● “Humans rarely choose things in absolute terms.”
● We tend to focus on the relative advantage of one thing over another, and estimate
value accordingly.
● “Most people don’t know what they want unless they see it in context.”
● Gregg Rapp, a restaurant consultant, discovered high-priced entrées on the menu boost
revenue for the restaurant—even if no one buys them. Why? Because even though
people generally won’t buy the most expensive dish on the menu, they will order the
second most expensive dish.
● “We are always looking at the things around us in relation to others.”
● “We not only tend to compare things with one another but also tend to focus on
comparing things that are easily comparable—and avoid comparing things that cannot
be compared easily.”
 ● “The more we have, the more we want. And the only cure is to break the cycle of
relativity.”
● “Once we buy a new product at a particular price, we become anchored to that price.”
● “The basic idea of arbitrary coherence is this: although initial prices are ‘arbitrary,’ once
those prices are established in our minds they will shape not only present prices but also
future prices (this makes them ‘coherent’).”
● “Initial prices are largely ‘arbitrary’ and can be influenced by responses to random
questions; but once those prices are established in our minds, they shape not only what
we are willing to pay for an item, but also how much we are willing to pay for related
products (this makes them coherent).”
● Price tags become anchors when we contemplate buying a product or service at that
particular price.
● “The first anchor influences not only the immediate buying decision but many others that
follow.”
● Herding happens when we assume that something is good (or bad) on the basis of other
people’s previous behavior, and our own actions follow suit.
● Self-herding happens when we believe something is good (or bad) on the basis of our
own previous behavior.
● To improve an irrational behavior, ask yourself, “How did it begin? Second, ask yourself,
“What amount of pleasure will I be getting out of it. Is the pleasure as much as I thought I
would get?”
● With everything you do, you should train yourself to question your repeated behaviors.
Ariely on decision-making:
We should also pay particular attention to the first decision we make in what is going to be a
long stream of decisions (about clothing, food, etc.). When we face such a decision, it might
seem to us that this is just one decision, without large consequences; but in fact the power of
the first decision can have such a long-lasting effect that it will percolate into our future
decisions for years to come. Given this effect, the first decision is crucial, and we should give it
an appropriate amount of attention.
● “The sensitivity we show to price changes might in fact be largely a result of our memory
for the prices we have paid in the past and our desire for coherence with our past
decisions—not at all a reflection of our true preferences or our level of demand.”
● According to Margaret Clark, Judson Mills, and Alan Fiske, we live simultaneously in two
different worlds—one where social norms prevail, and the other where market norms
make the rules.
● People will work more for a cause than for cash.
● “No one is offended by a small gift, because even small gifts keep us in the social
exchange world and away from market norms.”
● “When a social norm collides with a market norm, the social norm goes away for a long
time.”
● “To make informed decisions we need to somehow experience and understand the
emotional state we will be in at the other side of the experience. Learning how to bridge
this gap is essential to making some of the important decisions of our lives.”
● Giving up on our long-term goals for immediate gratification is procrastination.
● When Ariely offered his students a tool by which they could pre commit to deadlines,
they achieved better grades.
● A good course of action is to give people an opportunity to commit upfront to their
preferred path of action.
● The endowment effect is our tendency to value what we own more than other people do.
● Our aversion to loss is a strong emotion and one that sometimes causes us to make bad
decisions.
● We assume other people will see monetary transactions from the same perspective as
we do.
● The more work you put into something, the more ownership you begin to feel for it.
● We can begin to feel ownership even before we own something (this applies to points of
view, too).
● Given a simple setup and a clear goal, all of us are quite adept at pursuing the source of
our satisfaction.
● “Research on stereotypes shows not only that we react differently when we have a
stereotype of a certain group of people, but also that stereotyped people themselves
react differently when they are aware of the label that they are forced to wear (in
psychological parlance, they are “primed” with this label).”
● “Since people engage in a cost-benefit analysis with regard to honesty, they can also
engage in a cost-benefit analysis to be dishonest.”
● “When we are removed from any benchmarks of ethical thought, we tend to stray into
dishonesty. But if we are reminded of morality at the moment we are tempted, then we
are much more likely to be honest.”
● “Cheating is a lot easier when it’s a step removed from money.”
● “People are sometimes willing to sacrifice the pleasure they get from a particular
consumption experience in order to project a certain image to others.”
 Spark by Dr. Jeremy Dean

The Book in Three Sentences

1. Thinking back to one single previous bout of exercise motivates people to raise their
exercise levels in the future.
2. “One of the best ways of getting going is to set yourself some ‘If…then’’ statements.”
3. “People generate higher intrinsic motivation when they ask themselves questions.”

The Five Big Ideas

1. “Try to imagine some of the consequences of not trying hard to complete your project.
How will you feel if you give up? What will it mean to other people? How much will you
regret it in the future?”
2. “Psychologists have found that people will go to quite incredible lengths to protect their
own self-esteem.”
3. “Identity changes are not just the result of increased motivation, they can also feed your
motivation.”
4. “One important key to imagining your future self is to think of the process as a journey.”
5. “Monitoring progress consistently emerges from studies as key to making progress
towards a goal.”

Spark Summary
1. Step 1. Identify your starting point
2. Step 2. Discover the change you want
3. Step 3. Identify powerful internal and external motivations
4. Step 4. Modelling
5. Step 5. Getting Started
6. Step 6. Self-affirmation
7. Step 7. The backup plan
8. Step 8. Engage other people (or not)
 9. Step 9. Self-compassion
10. Step 10. A good mood
11. Step 11. Envy
12. Step 12. Fear
13. Step 13. Anger
14. Step 14. Avoid self-handicapping
15. Step 15. Finding your individual motivation
16. Step 16. Journey towards a new identity
17. Step 17. The review
One popular model of change used by psychologists has five different phrases:
1. Pre-contemplation. You are not even considering making any changes.
2. Contemplation. You are at least considering a change.
3. Determination. Your plans for action are coming along but you haven’t put them into
action yet.
4. Action. You are already part way through making a change.
5. Maintenance. You are trying to make the change permanent.
Ask yourself: “What would be the advantages and disadvantages of making this change?”
At the heart of intrinsic motivation lie three factors, according to Professors Richard Ryan and
Edward Deci, the theory’s authors:
1. Competence. We want to be good at something—but it needs to be something we find
just hard enough. Things that are too easy don’t give us a sense of competence.
2. Autonomy. We want to be free and dislike being controlled. When people have some
freedom—even within certain non-negotiable boundaries—they are more likely to thrive.
3. Relatedness. As social animals, we want to feel connected to other people.
● “When we see someone take a particular series of action and achieve the desired goal,
it gives us hope we can do the same.” (Matthew Syed also touches upon “motivation by
association” in Bounce)
● “Modeling can give us hope that we can learn, as long as we choose someone who is
similar enough to ourselves.”
● “Studies have shown that just thinking back to one single previous bout of exercise
motivates people to raise their exercise levels in the future.”
● “One of the best ways of getting going is to set yourself some ‘If…then’ statements.”
● “Turning a self-affirmation into a question is better than simply using a statement,
research reveals.” (This study is also referenced in To Sell Is Human by Dan H. Pink.)
 ● “People generate higher intrinsic motivation when they ask themselves questions.” (See:
“Quality Questions” in Awaken the Giant Within by Anthony Robbins.)
● “Backup plans can actually help feed our motivation for our main plan.”
● “What feeds our motivation is knowing that we have a good chance of achieving the
goal.”
● “Under experimental conditions, it is the people with backup plans that have more
motivation for their task.”
● “The experiments do reveal one twist in the tail, though. As people get close to their
goal, creating backup plans starts to demotivate them.”
● “One study of joining online social networks has even found that these can be beneficial
in pumping up motivation ”
Here are three psychological strategies you might use to deal with despair:
1. Self-esteem boost. Think about positive aspects of the self to boost confidence.
2. Positive distraction. Think back to nice memories from the problem.
3. Self-compassion. Think about the self with kindness and compassion, seeing the period
of low self-confidence in context, without evaluating or judging it.
People who practice self-compassion find it easier to:
1. See the possibilities for change
2. Increase the motivation to change
3. Take steps towards making a change
4. Compare themselves with those doing better, to help motivate their change
● “When we are actually doing something we care a lot more about how it feels than when
we are not doing it.”
● “One of the most useful aspects of a positive mood is it tends to make us feel more
confident in our own abilities.”
● “There are at least two types of envy: malicious envy and benign envy.”
● “When another’s success feels served to us, we tend to feel a benign envy: one that is
not destructive.”
● “What need cultivating is a kind of benign fear of what might happen if you fail to at least
try and achieve your goal or complete your project.” (See: “Pain/Pleasure” in Awaken the
Giant Within by Anthony Robbins)
● “Try to imagine some of the consequences of not trying hard to complete your project.
How will you feel if you give up? What will it mean to other people? How much will you
regret it in the future?”
 ● “Research has shown that anger can make us push on towards our goals in the face of
problems and barriers.”
● “Studies find that anger makes people more motivated for rewards.”
● “Whatever the source of the anger, it needs to be channeled in a positive and
constructive way.”
● “Psychologists have found that people will go to quite incredible lengths to protect their
own self-esteem.”
● “The first step in avoiding self-handicapping is noticing and cutting out the most obvious
self-defeating behaviors, like not trying very hard.”
Think of a setback that you’ve experienced and ask yourself these two questions:
1. Can I take responsibility for the setback (rather than blaming someone else)?
2. Can I accept a poor outcome for what it is rather than trying to rationalize it away? This
may hurt now but will produce greater motivation to change in the future.
● “It may not be until you make some progress towards your goal that your real
motivations become clear.”
● “If we make steady progress, then slowly, almost imperceptibly, our self-image starts to
change.”
● “Identity changes are not just the result of increased motivation, they can also feed your
motivation.”
● “Research suggests that thinking about who you want to be in the future can increase
optimism and motivation.”
● “One important key to imagining your future self is to think of the process as a journey.”
● “Monitoring progress consistently emerges from studies as key to making progress
towards a goal.”
Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and
Lauren McCann

The Book in One Sentence

● Super Thinking is about the frameworks and shortcuts top performers rely on the cut
through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones.

Favorite Quote
● “When you don’t use mental models, strategic thinking is like using addition when
multiplication is available to you.”

Super Thinking Summary

1. Being Wrong Less

Carl Jacobi once said, “Invert, always invert.” What Jacobi meant by that, was thinking about a
problem from an inverse perspective can unlock new solutions and strategies.
“The central mental model to help you become a chef with your thinking is arguing from first
principles. It’s the practical starting point to being wrong less, and it means thinking from the
bottom up, using basic building blocks of what you think is true to build sound (and sometimes
new) conclusions. First principles are the group of self-evident assumptions that make up the
foundation on which your conclusions rest—the ingredients in a recipe or the mathematical
axioms that underpin a formula.”
“When arguing from first principles, you are deliberately starting from scratch. You are explicitly
avoiding the potential trap of conventional wisdom, which could turn out to be wrong. Even if
you end up in agreement with conventional wisdom, by taking the first-principles approach, you
will gain a much deeper understanding of the subject at hand.”
“To be wrong less, you need to test your assumptions in the real world, a process known as
de-risking. There is risk that one or more of your assumptions are untrue, and so the
conclusions you reach could also be false. Once you identify the critical assumptions to de-risk,
the next step is actually going out and testing these assumptions, proving or disproving them,
and then adjusting your strategy appropriately.”
“Ockham’s razor advises that the simplest explanation is most likely to be true. Look at your
explanation of a situation, break it down into its constituent assumptions, and for each one, ask
yourself: Does this assumption really need to be here? What evidence do I have that it should
remain? Is it a false dependency?”
“Overfitting occurs when you use an overly complicated explanation when a simpler one will do.
It’s what happens when you don’t heed Ockham’s razor, when you get sucked into the
conjunction fallacy or make a similar unforced error. It can occur in any situation where an
explanation introduces unnecessary assumptions.”
“One approach to fighting overfitting is to ask yourself: How much does my data really support
my conclusion versus other conclusions?”
“When crafting a solution to a problem, whether making a decision or explaining data, you want
to start with the simplest set of assumptions you can think of and de-risk them as simply as
possible.”
“If you’re trying to be as objective as possible when making a decision or solving a problem, you
always want to account for your frame of reference. A frame-of-reference mental trap is framing.
Framing refers to the way you present a situation or explanation. You will of course be
influenced by your perspective, but you don’t want to be unknowingly influenced. Therefore, if
you think you may not have the full understanding of a situation, then you must actively try to
get it by looking from a variety of different frames of reference. When someone presents a new
idea or decision to you, take a step back and consider other ways in which it could be framed.”
“A related trap/trick is nudging. You can be nudged in a direction by a subtle word choice or
other environmental cues.”
Another concept you will find useful when making purchasing decisions is anchoring, which
describes your tendency to rely too heavily on first impressions when making decisions.
The availability bias occurs when a bias, or distortion, creeps into your objective view of reality
thanks to information recently made available to you. Further, the availability bias stems from
overreliance on your recent experiences within your frame of reference, at the expense of the
big picture.
Consequently, to be wrong less when thinking about people, you must find ways to increase
your empathy, opening up a deeper understanding of what other people are really thinking.
In any conflict between two people, there are two sides of the story. Then there is the third story,
the story that a third, impartial observer would recount.
“Forcing yourself to think as an impartial observer can help you in any conflict situation,
including difficult business negotiations and personal disagreements.”
“If you can coherently articulate other points of view, even those directly in conflict with your
own, then you will be less likely to make biased or incorrect judgments.”
“Another tactical model that can help you empathize is the most respectful interpretation, or
MRI. In any situation, you can explain a person’s behavior in many ways. MRI asks you to
interpret the other parties’ actions in the most respectful way possible. It’s giving people the
benefit of the doubt.”
“Hanlon’s razor invites you to never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by
carelessness.”
“The third story, most respectful interpretation, and Hanlon’s razor are all attempts to overcome
what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error, where you frequently make errors by
attributing others’ behaviors to their internal, or fundamental, motivations rather than external
factors.”
“The veil of ignorance holds that when thinking about how society should be organized, we
should do so by imagining ourselves ignorant of our particular place in the world, as if there
were a veil preventing us from knowing who we are.”
“The human tendency to gather and interpret new information in a biased way to confirm
preexisting beliefs is called confirmation bias.”
“Confirmation bias is so hard to overcome that there is a related model called the backfire effect
that describes the phenomenon of digging in further on a position when faced with clear
evidence that disproves it. In other words, it often backfires when people try to change your
mind with facts and figures, having the opposite effect on you than it should; you become more
entrenched in the original, incorrect position, not less.”
“You may also succumb to holding on to incorrect beliefs because of disconfirmation bias, where
you impose a stronger burden of proof on the ideas you don’t want to believe.”
“The pernicious effects of confirmation bias and related models can be explained by cognitive
dissonance, the stress felt by holding two contradictory, dissonant, beliefs at once.”
“A real trick to being wrong less is to fight your instincts to dismiss new information and instead
to embrace new ways of thinking and new paradigms.”
“There are a couple of tactical mental models that can help you on an everyday basis to
overcome your ingrained confirmation bias and tribalism. First, consider thinking gray. You may
think about issues in terms of black and white, but the truth is somewhere in between, a shade
of gray. A truly effective leader, however, needs to be able to see the shades of gray inherent in
a situation in order to make wise decisions as to how to proceed.”
“A second mental model that can help you with confirmation bias is the Devil’s advocate
position. More broadly, playing the Devil’s advocate means taking up an opposing side of an
argument, even if it is one you don’t agree with. One approach is to force yourself literally to
write down different cases for a given decision or appoint different members in a group to do
so.”
“Another, more effective approach is to proactively include people in a decision-making process
who are known to hold opposing viewpoints. Doing so will help everyone involved more easily
see the strength in other perspectives and force you to craft a more compelling argument in
favor of what you believe.”
“Sometimes you may want something to be true so badly that you fool yourself into thinking it is
likely to be true. This feeling is known as optimistic probability bias, because you are too
optimistic about the probability of success.”

Key Takeaways
● To avoid mental traps, you must think more objectively. Try arguing from first principles,
getting to root causes, and seeking out the third story.
● Realize that your intuitive interpretations of the world can often be wrong due to
availability bias, fundamental attribution error, optimistic probability bias, and other
related mental models that explain common errors in thinking.
● Use Ockham’s razor and Hanlon’s razor to begin investigating the simplest objective
explanations. Then test your theories by de-risking your assumptions, avoiding
premature optimization.
● Attempt to think gray in an effort to consistently avoid confirmation bias.
● Actively seek out other perspectives by including the Devil’s advocate position and
bypassing the filter bubble. Consider the adage “You are what you eat.” You need to take
in a variety of foods to be a healthy person. Likewise, taking in a variety of perspectives
will help you become a super thinker.
2. Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will

Key Takeaways
● “In any situation where you can spot spillover effects (like a polluting factory), look for an
externality (like bad health effects) lurking nearby. Fixing it will require intervention either
by fiat (like government regulation) or by setting up a marketplace system according to
the Coase theorem (like cap and trade).”
● “Public goods (like education) are particularly susceptible to the tragedy of the commons
(like poor schools) via the free rider problem (like not paying taxes).”
● “Beware of situations with asymmetric information, as they can lead to principal-agent
problems.”
● “Be careful when basing rewards on measurable incentives, because you are likely to
cause unintended and undesirable behavior (Goodhart’s law).”
● “Short-termism can easily lead to the accumulation of technical debt and create
disadvantageous path dependence; to counteract it, think about preserving optionality
and keep in mind the precautionary principle.”
● “Internalize the distinction between irreversible and reversible decisions, and don’t let
yourself succumb to analysis paralysis for the latter.”
● “Heed Murphy’s law!”

3. Spend Your Time Wisely

Key Takeaways
● “Choose activities to work on based on their relevance to your north star.”
● “Focus your time on just one of these truly important activities at a time (no
multitasking!), making it the top idea on your mind.”
● “Select between options based on opportunity cost models.”
● “Use the Pareto principle to find the 80/20 in any activity and increase your leverage at
every turn.”
● “Recognize when you’ve hit diminishing returns and avoid negative returns.”
● “Use commitment and the default effect to avoid present bias, and periodic evaluations
to avoid loss aversion and the sunk-cost fallacy.”
 ● “Look for shortcuts via existing design patterns, tools, or clever algorithms. Consider
whether you can reframe the problem.”

4. Becoming One with Nature

Key Takeaways
● “Adopt an experimental mindset, looking for opportunities to run experiments and apply
the scientific method wherever possible.”
● “Respect inertia: create or join healthy flywheels; avoid strategy taxes and trying to enact
change in high-inertia situations unless you have a tactical advantage such as discovery
of a catalyst and a lot of potential energy.”
● “When enacting change, think deeply about how to reach critical mass and how you will
navigate the technology adoption life cycle.”
● “Use forcing functions to grease the wheels for change.”
● “Actively cultivate your luck surface area and put in work needed to not be subsumed by
entropy.”
● “When faced with what appears to be a zero-sum or black-and-white situation, look for
additional options and ultimately for a win-win.”

5. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Key Takeaways
● “Avoid succumbing to the gambler’s fallacy or the base rate fallacy.”
● “Anecdotal evidence and correlations you see in data are good hypothesis generators,
but correlation does not imply causation—you still need to rely on well-designed
experiments to draw strong conclusions.”
● “Look for tried-and-true experimental designs, such as randomized controlled
experiments or A/B testing, that show statistical significance.”
● “The normal distribution is particularly useful in experimental analysis due to the central
limit theorem. Recall that in a normal distribution, about 68 percent of values fall within
one standard deviation, and 95 percent within two.”
 ● “Any isolated experiment can result in a false positive or a false negative and can also
be biased by myriad factors, most commonly selection bias, response bias, and
survivorship bias.”
● “Replication increases confidence in results, so start by looking for a systematic review
and/or meta-analysis when researching an area.”
● “Always keep in mind that when dealing with uncertainty, the values you see reported or
calculate yourself are uncertain themselves, and that you should seek out and report
values with error bars!”

6. Decisions, Decisions

Key Takeaways
● “When tempted to use a pro-con list, consider upgrading to a cost-benefit analysis or
decision tree as appropriate.”
● “When making any quantitative assessment, run a sensitivity analysis across inputs to
uncover key drivers and appreciate where you may need to seek greater accuracy in
your assumptions. Pay close attention to any discount rate used.”
● “Beware of black swan events and unknown unknowns. Use systems thinking and
scenario analysis to more systematically uncover them and assess their impact.”
● “For really complex systems or decision spaces, consider simulations to help you better
assess what may happen under different scenarios.”
● “Watch out for blind spots that arise from groupthink. Consider divergent and lateral
thinking techniques when working with groups, including seeking more diverse points of
view.”
● “Strive to understand the global optimum in any system and look for decisions that move
you closer to it.”

7. Dealing with Conflict

Key Takeaways
● “Analyze conflict situations through a game-theory lens. Look to see if your situation is
analogous to common situations like the prisoner’s dilemma, ultimatum game, or war of
attrition.”
 ● “Consider how you can convince others to join your side by being more persuasive
through the use of influence models like reciprocity, commitment, liking, social proof,
scarcity, and authority. And watch out for how they are being used on you, especially
through dark patterns.”
● “Think about how a situation is being framed and whether there is a way to frame it that
better communicates your point of view, such as social norms versus market norms,
distributive justice versus procedural justice, or an appeal to emotion.”
● “Try to avoid direct conflict because it can have uncertain consequences. Remember
there are often alternatives that can lead to more productive outcomes. If diplomacy
fails, consider deterrence and containment strategies.”
● “If a conflict situation is not in your favor, try to change the game, possibly using guerrilla
warfare and punching-above-your-weight tactics.”
● “Be aware of how generals always fight the last war, and know your best exit strategy.”

8. Unlocking People’s Potential

Bill Bradley once said, “Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.”
It’s sometimes said, “Culture is what happens when managers aren’t in the room.”

Key Takeaways
● “People are not interchangeable. They come from a variety of backgrounds and with a
varied set of personalities, strengths, and goals. To be the best manager, you must
manage the person, accounting for each individual’s unique set of characteristics and
current challenges.”
● “Craft unique roles that amplify each individual’s strengths and motivations. Avoid the
Peter principle by promoting people only to roles in which they can succeed.”
● “Properly delineate roles and responsibilities using the model of DRI (directly responsible
individual).”
● “People need coaching to reach their full potential, especially at new roles. Deliberate
practice is the most effective way to help people scale new learning curves. Use the
consequence-conviction matrix to look for learning opportunities, and use radical candor
within one-on-ones to deliver constructive feedback.”
● “When trying new things, watch out for common psychological failure modes like
impostor syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger effect.”
 ● “Actively define group culture and consistently engage in winning hearts and minds
toward your desired culture and associated vision.”
● “If you can set people up for success in the right roles and well-defined culture, then you
can create the environment for 10x teams to emerge.”

9. Flex Your Market Power

Charlie Munger once said, “Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean.”

Key Takeaways
● “Find a secret and build your career or organization around it, searching via customer
development for product/market fit (or another “fit” relevant to the situation).”
● “Strive to be like a heat-seeking missile in your search for product/market fit, deftly
navigating the idea maze. Look for signs of hitting a resonant frequency for validation.”
● “If you can’t find any bright spots in what you’re doing after some time, critically evaluate
your position and consider a pivot.”
● “Build a moat around yourself and your organization to create sustainable competitive
advantage.”
● “Don’t get complacent; remember only the paranoid survive, and keep on the lookout for
disruptive innovations, particularly those with a high probability of crossing the chasm.”
 ● Book Summary: Yes! by Robert B.
Cialdini and Et Al.

The Book in One Sentence

● Yes! shows how small changes can make a big difference to your powers of
persuasion—both at work and at home.

Yes Summary
1. When people feel uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves
and to other people around them to guide what they do. Hotel guests were 26 percent more
likely to reuse their towels after learning that the majority of guests recycled their towels at least
once during their stay.
2. It’s usually beneficial for people to follow the behavioral norms associated with a particular
environment, situation or circumstances that most closely match their own. Hotel guests were
33 percent more likely to reuse their towels after learning that most of the people who had
previously stayed in their room recycled their towels at least once during their stay.
3. Conveying the idea that a behavior is common practice gives strong negative social proof for
engaging in that very behavior. Theft tripled when visitors saw a sign conveying the message
that many other Petrified Forrest National Park visitors had stolen wood.
4. People tend to change their behavior to align with the norm regardless of whether they were
previously behaving in a socially desirable or undesirable way. Homeowners increased their
energy consumption after learning that they had been using less energy than their neighbors.
5. Offering people more makes them want less. Employees were less likely to choose a
company-sponsored retirement plan when given more options.
6. Sometimes, all you need to do to influence a person’s behavior is to add an option to do
nothing. Adding an option to do nothing increased the likelihood that participants would do
something and invest extra time and energy in an activity by a big margin.
7. To increase the perceived value of a freebie—e.g. a free security program or gift with
purchase—inform or remind customers about the true value of the gift. People were willing to
pay around 35 percent less for a pearl bracelet when they saw it bundled with the target product
as an add-on than when they saw it as a stand-alone product.
8. To bypass a buyer’s “compromise choice”—a product that falls between what they need, at a
minimum, and what they could spend, at a maximum—introduce a third, more expensive
product. When Williams-Sonoma introduced a bread-making machine superior to their
bestseller, sales of their existing bestseller nearly doubled.
9. When you next find yourself in a competitive situation, arrange, if possible, to appear towards
the end of the selection process to place yourself at an increased advantage. In an analysis of
Eurovision Song Contests held from 1953 to 2003, artists who performed later in the
competition were typically awarded higher marks than those who performed earlier.
10. People generally prefer lists that use familiar numbers regardless of what is being rated.
When talking about your company’s rank internally, use the same ranking language as when
pitching customers.
11. When a fear-producing message describes danger but the recipients are not told of clear,
specific, effective means of reducing the danger, they may deal with the fear by “blocking out”
the message or denying that it applies to them. As a result, they may not take action at all.
Participants were more likely to get tetanus injection when they received a plan identifying the
specific actions they could take to secure it.
12. Reciprocity obligates people to repay others for what we have received from them. Iceland
granted American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer citizenship because “he put Iceland on the
international map,” to quote one Icelandic news reporter.
13. The more personalized a request, the more likely one will agree to it. People were more
likely to fill out and return a survey when it was accompanied by a handwritten sticky note
requesting its completion.
14. To make a gift or favor more persuasive and influential, give the recipient something
significant, unexpected, and personalized. Food servers increased their tips by 23 percent by
returning to their diners and placing a second mint on the table.
15. Negotiators who offer an early concession and then accompany their concession with a
request for a favor appear to place themselves at an advantage. Not only do they create a more
collaborative climate for a deal to take place, but they also increase the chances that a deal will
take place. Compared to the 40 percent of buyers who agreed to a deal as a result of a
straightforward price discount, the addition of a requested favor increased agreement to 62
percent.
16. When trying to solicit cooperation from other people, offer them help in a way that’s genuine
and unconditional. Hotel guests were 45 percent more likely to reuse their towels after learning
that the hotel had already donated to a charity on behalf of its guests.
17. To make a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program work, persuade decision-makers
that it’s worthwhile. Second, look for ways to publicize the charitable deeds that you practice
without bragging or appearing self-righteous. Participants who were told about a winery’s
support of a charity rated the wine as tasting much better than those who had not been given
the additional information.
18. If you do a favor for a colleague or an acquaintance, that favor is likely to have the most
impact on that person’s desire to reciprocate within a short period following the favor. If you’re
the recipient of a favor, however, you need to be aware of the tendency of people in your
position to downplay that favor as time goes by. Recipients of a favor perceived it as more
valuable immediately after it was performed but less valuable as time passed.
19. When people comply with a small request, they’re more likely to comply with a similar or
larger request, later, due to their need to be consistent. Homeowners agreed to have an
unsightly billboard placed on their lawn after agreeing, two weeks earlier, to have a small sign
placed in their window.
20. To influence or persuade others, label a trait, attitude, belief or label to a person and then
make a request of that person that’s consistent with that label. Potential voters were 15 percent
more likely to vote in an election when researchers labeled them as “above-average citizens.”
21. When people are asked to predict whether they’ll engage in a socially desirable behavior in
the future, they’ll feel compelled to say yes because that’s what wins social approval under
those circumstances. Further, after most (if not all) of these people have publicly stated that
they’ll perform the socially desirable behavior, they’ll be motivated to behave consistently with
the commitment they have just made. A restaurant owner reduced the percentage of no-shows
by having his receptionist change what she said from, “Please call if you have to cancel” to, “Will
you please call if you have to cancel?”
22. Commitments that are made actively—like writing down goals—have more staying power
than those that are made passively. When students completed a form stating they were willing
to volunteer, they were more likely to appear as scheduled.
23. To increase the likelihood that people will remember and carry out the commitments they
make, ensure that the request is accompanied with prompts that help people to create a
concrete plan for where, when and how they will go about accomplishing what they have agreed
to do. Voters were more likely to vote in an upcoming election when they were then asked how
they planned to travel to the polling station on election day.
24. To ensure that a marketing message is persuasive, you need to free people from their
previous commitment but also avoid framing their previous decision as a mistake. The most
productive way is to praise the previous decision and describe it as correct at the time they
made it. Pointing out that the previous choices they made were the right ones given the
evidence and information they had at the time can help to free them from their commitment and
allow them to focus on your proposal without the need for loss of face or inconsistency.
25. A person who has already performed a favor for another is more likely to do another favor
for the other than if they had received a favor from that person. Benjamin Franklin won over a
rival legislator by asking to borrow a rare book from his library.
26. Talk to people when commuting to increase your network. People instructed to proactively
make a connection with a stranger on public transport reported that they had had a significantly
more positive journey experience compared to those who were asked to actively seek solitude.
27. When you want assistance from others, simply pointing out that even a small offering on
their part would be acceptable and worthwhile to you is likely to be an effective strategy. People
were twice as likely to donate to a charitable cause when told, “Even a penny will help.”
28. If you are in the business of offering goods or services through any kind of competitive
bidding process, start the bidding at a fairly low price to enhance the final sale price. When the
initial price for an item is high, you’re likely to think it’s worth more than if the initial price were
lower.
29. When giving a presentation to people who don’t know you very well, prepare a short
biography of yourself. Or, arrange for someone else to introduce you to your audience.
Participants rated an author more favorably—especially likeability—when the author’s agent
sang his praises as compared to when the author read identical comments himself.
30. Lone decision-makers can’t match the diversity of knowledge and perspectives of a
multi-person unit that includes them. Further, the solution-seeker who goes it alone loses
another significant advantage—the power of parallel processing.
31. To avoid “captainitis”—a leader’s tendency to overlook the influence that their perceived
status and expertise has on those around them—invite others to give their inputs. Accident
investigators have repeatedly recorded disastrous instances of an obvious error made by an
airline captain that was not corrected by another crew member.
32. To improve group decision-making, promote criticism and skepticism of all viewpoints,
especially those favored by the group’s leader. Astute leaders should always ask for the
thoughts of others before they make their positions known, thereby ensuring that they have
access to a team’s actual thoughts, opinions, and insights rather than those that tell the leader
what he or she wants to hear.
33. By encouraging others to persuade us that we may be leaning in the wrong direction, we
place ourselves in a position where we gain a greater understanding from a genuine argument.
The best policy for leaders is to create and sustain a work environment in which co-workers and
subordinates are encouraged to openly disagree with the majority viewpoint.
34. To maximize influence on employee’s future behaviors, devote a sizable portion of their
training on how others have made errors in the past and how those errors could have been (and
can be) avoided. Firefighters’ judgment improved after undergoing error-based training.
35. Mentioning a small drawback of a product creates the perception that the company
advertising the product is honest and trustworthy. Avis, the world’s second-largest car rental
company, highlighted a weakness in their memorable motto “Avis. We’re #2, but we try harder.
(When you’re not #1, you have to.).”

36. To increase your trustworthiness in the eyes of others, be sure to follow your discussion of a
drawback with a virtue that’s related to, and neutralizes, the drawback. During the presidential
debate against opponent Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan acknowledged that he was old, but
stated, “I want you to know that also I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not
going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”
37. If you find yourself in a situation in which you’ve made a mistake, admit it, and follow up
immediately with an action plan demonstrating that you can take control of the situation and put
it right. When companies explained failures in their annual reports, those that pointed to internal
and controllable factors had higher stock prices one year later than those that pointed to
external and uncontrollable factors.
38. In cases where problems are due to technical glitches rather than human error, make all the
relevant people aware to signal that you have control over the situation. MBA students assigned
greater blame to the Office of Information Technology when they believed the disruption was
caused by human error rather than by technological error.
39. We tend to feel especially positive towards some subtle things that are associated with
ourselves, such as our names. Those who received the survey from someone with a
similar-sounding name were nearly twice as likely to fill out and return the package as those
who received the surveys from names that were not similar.
40. “Mirroring”—matching the behaviors of others—creates feelings of liking and strengthens
bonds between people. Food servers increased their tip size by nearly 70 percent by matching
their customer’s verbalization after receiving the order.
41. Experiencing “retail rejection” can increase our motivation to buy, wear or consume products
from the very people who are disrespectful to us. When people were rejected by fellow
university students, they were subsequently much more likely to buy a university wristband.
42. People can often distinguish between authentic and inauthentic smiles. Restaurant patrons
who perceived their food servers to be authentic in their positive displays were more satisfied
with their service.
43. Pointing out the fact that your products, services, time and help are limited places greater
value on them to the point where people appreciate them and you more. In October 2003,
thousands of people stopped their cars and blocked a major motorway just to see Concorde’s
final take-off—something that had been visible every single day for the previous thirty years or
so.
44. Framing a message by focusing on what the audience stands to lose is more persuasive
and influential than what they stand to gain. Homeowners were up to 300 percent more likely to
carry out recommended energy efficiency improvements in their home when they were told that
they would continue to lose an average of 50 cents a day than homeowners who were told they
could save 50 cents a day.
45. Always accompany your requests with a strong rationale, even when you think the reasons
might be fairly clear. People were more likely to let a stranger cut in line to use a photocopier
when they used the word because—even when followed by a completely meaningless reason
(“Because I have to make copies”).
46. Before asking your audience to generate multiple reasons in support of your position,
consider just how easily they’ll be able to do so. If the task seems like a relatively difficult one,
ask them instead to generate just a few reasons. Advertising copy that asked readers to name
ten reasons to choose a BMW led to lower evaluations of the BMW and higher evaluations of
Mercedes than the copy that asked the readers to name just one reason to choose a BMW.
47. Statements are often more persuasive than questions because we favor messages that are
clear and convey a sense of certainty. Participants who received products that were
accompanied by a statement preferred them and found them to be much more interesting than
when the same products were accompanied by a question.
48. To make your marketing messages lively, keep an element of novelty in the words you
choose while maintaining clarity. If, on the other hand, you are faced with the challenge of
persuading risk-averse people, then it is even more important to use easy-to-understand
language.
49. Rhyming phrases are characterized by greater fluency, meaning that they’re mentally
processed more easily and are therefore more persuasive. If you’re responsible for writing
slogans, mottoes, trademarks or jingles, consider using rhymes. They should increase not only
the likeability of the message but its perceived truthfulness as well.
50. What you experience first determines the perception of the next thing you experience. A
home improvement company was able to increase the sales of one of its top-of-the-range
backyard hot tubs by over 500 percent by (a) telling prospective customers that many buyers of
the top-of-the-range model reported that having it was like adding an extra room to the house
and then (b) asking them to consider how much it would cost to build another room on to the
side of their house.
51. People are more likely to stick to programs and tasks if you offer them evidence of how
they’ve already made progress toward completing them. People who were given a loyalty card
with two already affixed stamps were more likely to claim their bonus than those who did not
have a head start.
52. Naming influences consumer preferences. Ambiguous names, such as millennium orange,
prompt consumers to try to discover, in the absence of any meaningful information, what the
makers of the product are trying to convey with that name.
53. We tend to feel less satiated when we consume things slowly, especially when those things
are part of a wider variety. Our “recovery” from satiation can also be influenced if time is left
between consumption periods.
54. Memory aids ensure that marketing messages don’t fade. Any major advertising campaign
needs to integrate the essential images, characters or slogans of the ads into the in-store
product displays and product packaging the consumer sees when making a purchase decision.
55. Viewing ourselves in a mirror causes us to act in more socially desirable ways. Children took
fewer sweets from a confectionery bowl when they had to look at themselves in a mirror
beforehand.
56. Feeling sad affects our decision-making abilities. Sad buyers were willing to purchase the
item for around 30 percent more than were emotionally neutral buyers. And sad sellers were
willing to part with the item for around 33 percent less than were their emotionally neutral
counterparts.
57. People’s decision-making abilities can be impaired by events, not because they induce
negative feelings, but rather because it is an emotionally charged issue. Participants who had
earlier practiced thinking in an unemotional manner were willing to pay more for the set of ten
CDs than for the set of five.
58. We’re more susceptible to influence and persuasion if we’re distracted. People walking
around an outdoor baking sale were more likely to purchase a cupcake when the vendors
referred to them as “half-cakes” rather than “cupcakes,” but only when this was followed by,
“They’re delicious!”
59. Coffee makes us more receptive to influence and persuasion. Participants who had
consumed caffeinated beverages before reading controversial arguments were 35 percent more
favorably disposed towards that position than were those who drank an unadulterated drink.
60. Personalization boosts ad performance. The most effective kind of personalization is non
intrusive.