3 IDEAS FROM ME
I.
“It costs nothing to ask a successful person how they succeeded, but it may deliver more value than 1,000 hours of hard work.
Others are under no obligation to tell you their secrets, but it is surprising how much you can learn from sincere, direct, and thoughtful questions.”
II.
“Don’t spend what you haven’t earned.
Avoid financial debt. Don’t spend money you haven’t earned.
Avoid social debt. Don’t spend goodwill you haven’t earned.
Avoid calendar debt. Don’t spend (free) time you haven’t earned.
The disciplined earner can be a guilt-free spender.”
III.
“It’s crazy how 1,000 people can compliment you and you’ll spend all day thinking about the one person who criticized you.”
2 QUOTES FROM OTHERS
I.
Morgan Housel on finding the sensible balance between optimism and pessimism:
“Optimism is usually defined as a belief that things will go well. But that’s incomplete. Sensible optimism is a belief that the odds are in your favor, and over time things will balance out to a good outcome even if what happens in between is filled with misery. And in fact you know it will be filled with misery. You can be optimistic that the long-term growth trajectory is up and to the right, but equally sure that the road between now and then is filled with landmines, and always will be. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
He also writes:
“Optimism and pessimism can coexist. If you look hard enough you’ll see them next to each other in virtually every successful company and successful career. They seem like opposites, but they work together to keep everything in balance.”
Source: The Psychology of Money
II.
Mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead on progress:
“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
Source: An Introduction to Mathematics
1 QUESTION FOR YOU
Is there a better way? Is there a kinder way?
Until next week,
James Clear
Author of the million-copy bestseller, Atomic Habits
Creator of the Habit Journal