- Embrace the minimum viable action: Take the smallest action that feels doable to you in this exact moment. Motivation is not just the cause of action, it’s also the effect. - You only improve what you measure: But be careful with the metrics you choose; incentives are powerful, and it’s easy to game the system to meet your goals - Don’t fight your emotions. Leverage them: When you’re excited about your work, you’ll do more of it. Let passion be your North Star.

Scarcity dictates what’s meaningful. When you are alone, a relationship feels meaningful. When you’re in a relationship, time to yourself feels meaningful. When you are overworked, time off feels meaningful. When you have plenty of downtime, work feels meaningful. The scarcity never gets solved, it simply changes form.

The ultimate reason for setting goals is to entice you to become the person it takes to achieve them.

Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing? Love and attention? - Greta Gerwig

It is not your studies that will bear fruit but the intensity of your attention.

Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old. - Franz Kafka

The brain is designed to learn through constant repetition and active, hands-on involvement. Through such practice and persistence, any skill can be mastered. Pick a skill to acquire and begin to practice.

You can't outperform your attitude. What you believe about the work shows up in how you do the work, and how you do the work determines your results. Fix the attitude first. Everything else follows.

“If you’re in a place in life you don’t want to be, it’s up to you to make it better. To reframe it by focusing on the positive, and approaching it with enthusiasm. In the end, your positivity and enthusiasm will contribute to creating the outcome you’re after. Once you apply this mindset to all aspects of your life, you corner fear. Fear basically has nowhere to go.” TB12

GM I wanted to share my new favorite way to tie shoes (especially slip on shoes that have laces). It’s called the Berluti knot. This video is the best explainer on how to do it. The way I think about it is typical bunny ears method but you bring the end of the strings with it. The end product looks good and it’s pretty simple to do.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

In order to truly master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field and border on religious. In my experience, this passion helps keep you motivated to keep working at your craft.

Novelist Charles Kingsley on happiness: “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

A lot of success in life is just putting yourself in a position for good things to happen to you. + Be reliable + Avoid drama + Help other people win + Take care of your body + Take care of your mind + Live below your means + Treat your job as if it matters + Take care of your relationships Simple, but not easy.

Author Nassim Taleb on why earned knowledge and being in the details is superior: “The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us.”

It doesn’t matter what position you find yourself in right now. What matters is whether you improve your position today. Every ordinary moment is an opportunity to make the future easier or harder.

Be prepared, ask for help when you need it, and help others.