The sooner you figure out what reality is and embrace it, the sooner you can start working on the problem rather than just thinking about it. Reality is undefeated, and embracing it allows for progress and prevents avoiding problems.
Make the decision to move out of blaming and criticizing, and into claiming responsibility or agency for your experience (not the external world). Blaming others or circumstances (victimhood) blunts your aliveness and vitality, while choosing agency brings a surge of energy back into the body.
Pay attention to and deliberately state your intentions, whether inwardly or outwardly, before activities like athletic games, business meetings, or educational endeavors. Intention is incredibly powerful, is the basis of karma (cause and effect), and steers everything, influencing consequences and shifting consciousness.
Regularly ask yourself, ‘Is there a feeling here that wants to be felt?’ and allow yourself to feel emotions simply and efficiently. Repressing and suppressing emotions takes immense energy, leading to exhaustion and diminished aliveness; feeling them allows life to appear in technicolor and brings life force back.
Strive to evolve to a level of ‘complete human being’ by knowing yourself and refining your emotional reactions. Emotions are crucial for good decision-making, and emotional refinement elevates your senses and allows for complexity of thought in complicated games.
Sublimate and channel your desire into evolution, innovation, and the creation of great works, while being aware that unchecked desire can lead to self-destruction. Desire, when channeled correctly, is a fundamental driver of human progress and the highest expressions of the human condition.
Recognize that you have the power to create your own life and control its trajectory, rather than letting life happen to you or ceding power to external events or past traumas. Your interpretation of events, not the events themselves, dictates your response, empowering you to move forward from self-sabotaging behaviors.
Understand the difference between predictable, cause-and-effect complicated systems (e.g., car engine) and dispositional, unpredictable complex systems (e.g., weather, culture). Applying complicated approaches (checklists, quarterly goals) to complex systems leads to struggle and failure.
In organizations, teams, and relationships, continuously steer dynamically based on the feedback you’re getting and what you value (principles, goals). Life itself requires constant feedback to operate, and without it, or with disconnected feedback, systems become problematic.
Cultivate a unique, unpredictable, and inimitable style or approach in your work, rather than striving to be ’the best.’ Being unique makes you harder to imitate by AI and gives you an advantage in the human and AI world.
Always demand a deadline for your work or projects. Deadlines weed out the extraneous and ordinary, prevent you from trying to make it perfect (which is an infinite task), and force you to be ingenious and ship something different.
For any project, recognize that perfecting it is a bottomless task; instead, control the amount of time you give to it and do your very best within that time. This approach, driven by deadlines, allows you to ship work rather than endlessly trying to make it perfect.
Engage in your creative or productive activities (e.g., podcasting, making art, writing) on a regular, consistent basis. Regular practice is the source of great stuff, gives you the freedom to fail without getting hung up on individual outcomes, and provides confidence for future attempts.
Address problems and issues early on, whether in personal life or work, rather than letting them compound until a breaking point. Early intervention is worth the attention, hassle, and time, as it allows you to gain ground and have a more productive future.
Continuously raise your standards for excellence in all aspects of your work, striving for beauty and craftsmanship from every angle, even in unseen details. This commitment to excellence drives innovation and superior results.
Avoid accumulating ‘withholds’ (things you’re not saying, thoughts, wants, judgments, beliefs) and instead be authentic and revealed. Withholding dampens aliveness and leads to withdrawal and projection in relationships, while revealing oneself immediately makes one feel more alive and fosters integrity.
Make clear agreements (who will do what by when) and keep them, or take responsibility if they are broken, rather than rationalizing or justifying. Unclear or broken agreements bleed off life energy, create drama in relationships, and diminish aliveness.
When interacting with others, especially children, listen in a way that makes them feel truly seen and heard, rather than ’listening to win’ or dismissing their feelings. Feeling truly seen and heard is one of the most extraordinary experiences, and deep listening is contagious.
When someone exhibits unhelpful behavior, create conditions for them to reflect on the impact of their actions by asking questions like, ‘When you did this, did it help you get what you wanted?’ This prompts self-correction and codifies learning.
Recognize that we often cannot see what we are doing, and therefore need company (people we trust) who will tell us things we can’t see in ourselves. This is one of the core conditions for being able to shift and change behavior.
As a leader, identify and act quickly to separate from individuals who are egregious violators of normal, acceptable behavior or who create abusive situations. Behavior is a choice, not a skill set, and tolerating bad behavior quickly damages your leadership brand and erodes trust.
Be more tolerant and give more time for individuals to improve on performance-related issues, but act with lightning speed on behavioral problems. Performance can be developed, but behavior is a fundamental fit with organizational culture.
Actively define and enforce the desired organizational culture, clearly stating ’this is who we are’ and ’this is who we want to be.’ If leaders don’t fill the cultural void, strong personalities or subcultures will, leading to a lack of shared purpose.
Understand that a business is more akin to a professional sports franchise, where people are assembled based on mission and contribution, rather than a family. Relationships are based on shared purpose and demanding contributions, allowing for removal of non-fits.
Cultivate the skill to recognize when to fold (walk away from something that won’t yield desired outcomes) and when to press an advantage (double down). This is crucial for sustainable success, as forcing results when you shouldn’t leads to mistakes.
Experience and learn from early failures. Failing early helps you recognize what a real opportunity looks like, and when such an opportunity presents itself, it provides fuel and relentless drive to make it happen.
When you are trailing or are the underdog, adopt a ’nothing to lose’ mindset, allowing you to be fearless and perform at your best. Having something to chase is a powerful psychological mechanism to get the best out of yourself.
Even when you are in the lead or are the favorite, benchmark your performance against historical greats or higher, unachieved standards. This creates a psychological state of ‘always chasing,’ preventing complacency and allowing you to continuously extend your lead.
Before pressing an advantage, evaluate the underlying reasons or ‘why’ behind that desire. Incorrectly pressing an advantage is often driven by impatience or frustration, which can lead to mistakes and low-probability decisions.
In competitive domains, find a way to map your advantages, know in the moment if you have one, and understand how much risk you are willing to take and what losses you are willing to tolerate. This analytical approach helps in making informed decisions and understanding your psychological limits.
For complicated games or life at the tail end of the curve, cultivate complexity of thought, but ultimately be decisive in your binary (yes/no) decisions. Simplistic thinking is insufficient for complex challenges, but clear, decisive action is still required.
Practice bringing mindful presence to everyday activities, such as shopping, by enjoying the moment, feeling your steps, and not trying to solve all your life’s problems. This allows you to be more fully where you are, doing things with a good spirit and fun rather than fear.
When you notice your mind reciting repetitive thoughts, acknowledge them (‘Thank you, I appreciate it, that’s what minds do’) and then tune into a deeper quality of being present. Thought is a great servant but not a good master; you want quality of presence and compassion to run your life.
When faced with circumstances where you feel like a victim, reframe the experience by telling a different narrative to yourself, focusing on survivorship and overcoming. This cognitive shift empowers you, highlights your strengths and abilities, and prevents you from dwelling in helplessness and powerlessness.
Instead of dwelling on past traumas or using them to explain self-sabotaging behavior, focus on who you are today and what you are capable of in the present. Going back to the past is not useful unless it informs the present, and dwelling on powerlessness sets a negative mindset.
When people are hesitant to take risks or are shadowed by negative experiences, ask them to recall times they took risks and it paid off, or times they overcame something incredible. This helps them understand what they’re capable of and prevents them from tossing aside good experiences.
Recognize that external events do not inherently make you feel or act a certain way; it’s how you interpret and think about those events that dictates your response. This understanding prevents you from ceding power to outside forces and empowers you to choose productive responses.
Be wary of companies or people who excessively expose or protest their values (e.g., posters, constant talk about integrity or happiness). This often indicates that something unhealthy is going on, as good change and culture are fluid and move effortlessly through modeling and storytelling.
When something doesn’t work or goes wrong, avoid immediately reacting with a new policy, procedure, or security protocol; instead, wait for patterns before systematizing. Overreacting to single incidents with rigid policies tends to sabotage organizations.
Be cautious of metrics that become incentives and drive mismanagement; do not optimize for proxies of reality instead of reality itself. When a metric becomes a goal, it ceases to be a good metric, leading to over-optimization on abstract goals.
Do not allow procedures to circumvent judgment, where individuals follow processes even if they know it will lead to the wrong outcome, absolving themselves of accountability. This leads to ‘compliance theater’ where people give away their right to think and be responsible, resulting in poor outcomes.
For young people exhibiting bad behavior, offer a chance for a ‘reboot’ or ‘reset,’ reminding them of their upbringing and personal principles, and encouraging them to do better. Sometimes, young individuals are led astray by their environment, and a reset can reground them.
Give language to unhelpful patterns (e.g., ’listening to win’) so that the phrase acts as an instant prompt or reminder when the behavior comes up. This helps to instantly notice the pattern and create a connection between the action and its impact, aiding in shifting the pattern.
Listen below the surface of the story, wondering what the other person means by each word or phrase, to discern what they are fused with (subject) versus what they can examine (object). This amps up curiosity and helps understand how values or beliefs invisibly shape their actions.
Quiet your mind and set a long-term intention or vow about what truly matters most to you and how you want to live (e.g., ‘I vow to be kind’). This intention becomes a touchstone that shines a light and gives new direction when you encounter struggle or conflict.
In moments of difficulty or conflict, take a pause and ask yourself, ‘What’s my best or highest intention?’ This question shifts your state of consciousness, moving you from proving yourself right to remembering your fundamental intention.
Actively seek out and correctly interpret market signals, customer feedback, and financial performance rather than getting caught up in personal beliefs or erroneous information. This helps founders and individuals see reality and avoid ‘reality distortion fields.’
Be intentional about how you want your life to look, what you’re willing to put up with, what kind of standards you’re holding for yourself, and how you value yourself. This self-valuation and intentionality are key to taking action and not waiting for things to reach a breaking point.
When trying to improve things, spend approximately two-thirds of your time optimizing things that already work (going deeper and better) and one-third of your time trying new, inefficient things (exploring). This ratio has been shown to be effective for both improving existing work and fostering innovation.