1. What you’re genuinely curious about comes through when you share your discoveries.
2. Make time for fun in business. It not only energizes you but often leads to the most inventive stuff.
3. A house with a beautiful view is the best investment because it offers well-being benefits that never wear off.
4. “Humor is a way to show you’re smart without bragging.” — Mark Twain
5. Belief drives action. And the bigger the belief the bigger the action. Seek out peers / articles / books / podcasts that increase your conviction for success.
6. The proof of your results matters far more than making a big promise. The most important question is whether you can back it up.
7. Extend your life by making choices that dilate time (change your scenery, run without headphones, live with the seasons, go on trips).
8. There are more left-handed men than women in the world (2% higher chance).
9. Instead of feeling alone in the arena, get help from others. Even professional photographer and YouTuber Peter McKinnon still texts tons of friends for feedback on his video titles and thumbnails.
10. Patience ends up being more efficient than trying to do everything possible to speed things up. Only flip the bacon once.
11. There are 1000X relationships in your life, so make sure to put the proper time into them! (Greg McKeown)
Many relationships are give-and-take, but others can have an enormous positive impact. Don’t miss out on those opportunities because you were too busy.
12. Give away value for free and you’ll get exponentially more return on your investment than when you do something for money (especially true when helping powerful people).
** You might also enjoy this 2023 post: What I learned this year — Top 50 Extraordinary Ideas **
13. “Don’t oversqueeze the dots.” (Ray Dalio) One data point can only offer so much information. Find more sources!
14. “Hack for getting good at anything: Do it 1,000 times before complaining that it’s hard.” — Alex Hormozi
15. Revisit your goals, mission statement, or directional document often because even an airplane is off-course 90% of the time.
16. 75% of people judge a brand based on their website (from Stanford research).
17. “You will never be criticized by someone more successful than you.” — Bonnie Christie
18. You can narrow the competitive field by only looking at other people who think they can win. Those are your only competitors.
19. Find a better solution by getting as close as possible to the problem and its details.
During WWII General Marshall had a request to write a big check for more armor for planes. When he sent someone to investigate it turned out mechanics weren’t installing the existing armor due to being distracted by bug bites. So he bought mosquito nets to solve the underlying problem (and saved a lot of money in the process).
20. Capture ideas with a pen and paper whenever possible because it maximizes the embodied energy with handwritten words.
“This is one of my favorite ideas: that art contains embodied energy that we can unlock, activate, and tap into with our attention. Our energies unlock the stored energy.” — Austin Kleon
21. “A tree that grows quickly rots quickly and therefore never has a chance to grow old.” — Peter Wohlleben
22. “The greatest impediment to creativity is your impatience, the almost inevitable desire to hurry up the process, express something, and make a splash.” — Robert Greene
23. Ray Dalio’s advice on hiring and keeping talent – (1) Look for people who have lots of great questions (2) Share the things that are hardest to share (3) Fail well.
24. Entrepreneurs need to be naively optimistic to start a business. “WE DO THIS NOT BECAUSE IT IS EASY, BUT BECAUSE WE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE EASY!”
