The Hard part

Note

The hard part isn't knowing what to do; it's doing it daily, whether you feel like it or not.

The challenge isn't knowing you should work out; it's putting on your shoes and running in the cold when you'd rather sit at home under a warm blanket. The challenge isn't determining the most important project; it's sitting down and doing it when you'd rather browse social media.

If you're waiting for inspiration, you've already lost.

Farnam Streets

Slow is Fast

> "It's true that becoming an empathic listener takes time, but it doesn't take any-where near as much time as it takes to back up and correct misunderstandings when you're already miles down the road, to redo, and to live with unexpressed and unsolved problems."

Stephen Covey

Mental Junk

Note

Your body reflects what you eat. Your mind reflects what you consume.

For a healthy body, choose whole foods. For a sharp mind, choose lasting knowledge.

Before diving into the news or scrolling through feeds, ask: "Will this still matter next year?" If not, it's probably mental junk food. The sugar high will leave you craving even more.

Avoid mental junk food. Feed your mind substance. Your future self will thank you.

Farnam Streets

The Game of Life

Note

"In life the challenge is not so much to figure out how best to play the game; the challenge is to figure out what game you're playing."

Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah on knowing what matters

Step by step

Note

Champions obsess over fundamentals, not trophies.
While others chase revenue and fancy titles, outliers focus on what they can control today: reading one more book, making one more phone call, and reviewing that email one final time. They know that excellence comes from perfecting the basics.
Stop worrying about where the arrow lands. Master the art of drawing the bow.

FS Newsletter

Don’t fight

Note

All the energy you put into arguing with reality comes at the expense of improving your situation. The mountain doesn't care how much you yell at it, but you'll find a path around it if you stop and look.

FS Newsletter

Smart Error Handling

Note

It is important to admit your mistakes, and to do so before you are charged with them. Many clients are surrounded by buck-passers who make a fine art of blaming the agency for their own failures. I seize the earliest opportunity to assume the blame

David Ogilvy

Unforgiven Saga (metallica)

Find Gaps

Note

Don't curse the obstacle; find a way around it.
Elite special forces don't complain about defenses—they adapt their tactics or create new ones. When a primary route is compromised, they don't waste time lamenting. They quickly shift to another approach. Elite athletes don't complain about defenses—they find the gap or create one.
Face the obstacle. Find the gap. Or make one.

FS Newsletter

Don’t miss the doors

Note

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us

Alexander Graham Bell

The Force

> Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter

Yoda

Right and Wrong Positions

Note

Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one.

FS Newsletter (Clear Thinking)

About control

"It's not about food. It's about keeping those ants in line. They outnumber us 100 to 1, and if they ever figure that out, there goes our way of life."

Bugs life

Don’t Trust your own Cryptography

Note

The first rule of cryptography is if you roll your own, you can be 100% certain you screwed it up.

From a post on daily.dev (See NSA builds secret backdoors in the new encryption standards)

Stealers

Every stealer steals up to their possibilities

angelo greco avvocato

Faster Horses

Note

If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.

Henry Ford

Self pity is easier

Note

The hardest truth about happiness is that it's a choice.

Watch how people discuss their problems. They'll spend hours explaining why things are terrible, how unfair life is, and how others need to change. But suggest they might have the power to improve things and they suddenly have countless reasons why that's impossible.

Self-pity feels safer than responsibility.

Farnam Street

Energy and Imagination

Note

Persistence isn't just pushing harder—it's having energy that demands new ideas.

Think of a founder solving a problem. Someone with just determination keeps trying the same approach. But a truly persistent founder has a restless energy that demands new solutions. When one approach fails, their energy compels them to imagine new ones. This cycle—energy demanding imagination, imagination feeding energy—is rare.

Energy without imagination is force. Energy with imagination is persistence.

Farnam Street

Self Respect

Note

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves - there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect.

Joan Didion

Overthinking

Note

Overthinking is the biggest waste of human energy. Trust yourself, make a decision, and gain more experience. There is no such thing as perfect. You cannot think your way into perfection, just take action.

Sylvester McNutt III

The Art of Not Reading

Note

“The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of the general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. — A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

Schopenauer

Yelling

Note

Ten people who yell make more noise than ten thousand who keep silent.

Napoleon

What is a Stoic

Note

A Stoic is someone who “transforms fear into prudence, pain into information, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Courage is not Needed

Note

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice

Theodore Roosvelt

The Perfect Condition

Note

Waiting for perfect conditions is how otherwise intelligent people keep themselves stuck.

While you wait for perfect conditions, others are creating them.

An imperfect solution that exists outperforms a perfect one that doesn't.

Farnam Street

Don’t Fool Yourself

Note

if you’re trying to choose between two theories and one gives you an excuse for being lazy, the other one is probably right.

Paul Graham

Let me test you

Note

Don’t let the force of an impression when it first hits you knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.

Epictetus

What stands in the way becomes the way

Note

“The impediment to action, advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."

Marcus Aurelius

Adversity gives us more of ourselves

Note

Adversity costs us, sure, but it also gives us more of ourselves. It unlocks something in us that was not reachable in ordinary circumstances, that we didn’t know was there.

Daily Stoic Newsletter

Attention is Attraction

Note

You get more of whatever you give attention to.

Farnam’s Street Newsletter

On Advices

Note

When you counsel someone, you should appear to be reminding him of something he had forgotten, not of the light he was unable to see.

Baltasar Gracián