Prioritize making an impact in your life and work, as true sustained happiness is a trailing indicator of impact. Define what impact means personally for you.
Understand that the hardest single thing for an entrepreneur, and for any person, is finding yourself and knowing who you are, as this self-knowledge is crucial for building a company that is authentic and natural to you.
To achieve greatness, dedicate all your time and effort to one thing, becoming so obsessed that you are almost unaware of the rest of the world, especially in the early stages of a venture.
Shift your focus from rigid time management to energy management, understanding what gives you energy and what drains it, and scheduling your activities to align with your most productive times.
When choosing problems to solve, ensure you are passionate enough to dedicate at least a decade of your life to fixing them, as this long-term commitment is essential for significant impact.
Dedicate yourself to constantly improving your product or craft, believing that nothing is ever good enough and everything can always be made better through rapid and relentless iteration.
Instead of focusing on whether you are ‘good,’ recognize your unique differences and cultivate an ‘insane belief’ that you can become good at anything if you try hard enough and work really, really hard.
Understand that true learning is not merely memorizing information but actively changing your behavior based on new insights and knowledge, and applying what you learn at a high level.
Recognize that trust is one of the greatest economic forces in the world. Your job is to build a seamless web of deserved trust with great people, understanding that trust compounds over time but can be destroyed quickly.
Adopt the mindset that problems are not obstacles but ‘opportunities in work clothes,’ and solving them makes your company more valuable and improves others’ lives.
When attempting to copy or adopt practices from successful individuals, ensure they are truly innate to your personality and authentic to who you are, as inauthentic adoption will not yield the same impact.
Recognize that the primary challenge in life is not merely to play a game well, but to consciously figure out and choose what game you are playing, ensuring it aligns with your true self and desires.
As you gain experience, realize that ’less is more’ in many aspects of life, from friendships to communication, by focusing, distilling, and getting to the essence of things.
When approaching new ventures or challenges, focus intently on identifying and understanding the problem itself rather than immediately jumping to solutions, especially seeking out interesting problems with a high potential for societal impact.
Develop extreme patience, recognizing that significant achievements and solving complex problems (like building a company or a new product) often require years, even decades, of sustained effort.
Embrace the maxim that money comes naturally as a result of service; by making millions of people’s lives better and solving significant problems, financial success will follow.
View effective communication as a superpower that requires continuous work and development, essential for conveying your vision, gaining belief, and inspiring others to join your mission.
Maintain a mindset of intellectual humility, believing that there is always more to learn and that others are often smarter and more productive, enabling continuous learning and growth.
When seeking to learn from others, adopt a humble mindset, being willing to do whatever it takes (e.g., ‘get them their coffee’) to be present and absorb knowledge from world-class individuals, regardless of your own status.
To truly add value, go beyond just observing how users interact with your product; deeply understand their entire business, their holistic needs, and the broader problems they face.
Allow for and actively solicit as much feedback as humanly possible to improve judgment and develop taste, especially when your own feedback loop might be out of sync with customer needs.
Understand that taste is a combination of judgment and curiosity. Continuously extend your curiosity to improve your judgment, which in turn builds and refines your taste in product development or other creative endeavors.
Be open to receiving candid and uncomfortable feedback about your performance, even if your initial instinct is negative. Evaluate the feedback and be willing to delegate responsibilities to those who can add more value, allowing you to find new areas of contribution.
Engage in a continuous, lifelong learning journey to figure out who you are and what you are innately good at, as this understanding evolves and allows you to find new ways to add value.
Dedicate effort to protecting the nascent ‘first seed’ of new ideas, recognizing that finding and nurturing lighting-in-a-bottle innovations is a critical and often under-reported aspect of creation.
Understand innovation not as creating something entirely new, but as taking two or more existing, well-known concepts or things and combining them in a novel way to solve problems.
Prioritize individuals who can produce rare moments of profound brilliance or a single truly great idea, even if their overall output has high variance, over those who consistently deliver only decent or average ideas.
While perfection may not be attainable, cultivate the aspiration towards it as a remarkable and powerful drive for continuous improvement and dedication in your craft.
Combine a long-term mindset with relentless, daily obsession and effort, pushing against conventional odds and resisting distractions that can evaporate greatness.
Emulate highly successful people by practicing the discipline of saying ’no’ to almost everything that doesn’t directly align with your core mission, as distractions can evaporate greatness.
Recognize that your greatest ideas often emerge from unexpected places or during periods of rest and changed scenery, rather than from constant grinding. Allow for pauses and breaks to foster new insights.
Reject conformity to average schedules or routines (e.g., waking at 4 AM) and instead, figure out what uniquely works for you in terms of energy, productivity, and sleep, then do more of that to achieve excellence.
Approach investing as a means to learn about your own temperament and to choose strategies that are suited to your unique personality and circumstances, rather than just focusing on specific actions.
Observe that the most financially successful individuals often concentrate their assets into one or a few deeply understood ventures, rather than widely diversifying, believing in what they are doing and avoiding distractions.
Cultivate a fundamental love for solving problems, as this intrinsic motivation can drive your entrepreneurial journey and lead to building valuable companies.
Adopt the philosophy that the more you give away, the more you will ultimately receive back, applying this to relationships, knowledge, and impact.
Shift your focus to finding the greatest pride and satisfaction in the success, impact, and growth of the people you work with and mentor, rather than solely in your own accomplishments.
When coaching or advising others, focus on reflecting their situation back to them to help them see their own truths, rather than projecting your own opinions or what you think they should do.
When feeling like an outsider or facing unique circumstances, go back to first principles to find a principled answer and determine what truly works for you, rather than blindly following others’ paths.
Understand that drive and intensity are not entirely innate and can be taught or cultivated. This implies one can actively work on developing these traits.
Recognize that anything truly worth being proud of and sharing with future generations will not be easy; therefore, be willing to go into difficult areas and accept a high chance of failure.
Shift focus from glorifying consumption to being proud of what you produce and create, as making things that improve others’ lives offers infinite possibilities and opportunities.
Strive to become more comfortable and unapologetic about who you are, including your unique personality traits (e.g., being an introvert), as this self-acceptance reduces negative self-talk and allows for greater authenticity.
For entrepreneurs, it’s crucial to realize when to apply different tools and skills throughout the company’s journey, recognizing that different stages (e.g., zero to one, growth, optimization) require distinct approaches.
To truly understand how practices work and to internalize a company’s culture, immerse yourself by observing it firsthand, attending meetings, and interviewing executive teams.
Actively self-motivate to tackle hard challenges and problems, as overcoming significant adversities and solving problems no one else could has led to the greatest joys and true happiness upon reflection.
Actively commit to using AI to create better customer experiences and automate as many business processes as possible, especially in areas like finance, to free up time and energy for building great things.
When faced with opportunities like acquisition offers, evaluate them based on whether they genuinely further your mission and align with your core values, rather than solely on financial gain.
Actively seek out and even hire ‘paid critics’ or truth-tellers whose job is to attack deficiencies in your product or ideas, as you often cannot see your own blind spots. Value those who tell you the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Consciously choose to believe in and trust people, as this approach generally leads to a more fun, rich, and rewarding life, even if occasional betrayals occur.
Understand that high quality is never accidental; it is always the direct result of focused, intelligent, and consistent effort, requiring continuous improvement and distillation to the essence.
Use the latest technology to constantly create better experiences for your customers.