The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We’re like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. I always say, “If you want to become a billionaire, invent something that will allow people to indulge their own Resistance.” Somebody did invent it. It’s called the Internet. Social media. That wonderland where we can flit from one superficial, jerkoff distraction to another, always remaining on the surface, never.
I believe that the key to self-sufficiency is breaking free of the mindset that someone, somewhere, owes you something or will come to your rescue.
It’s always the hard part that creates value.
Have you outgrown your systems or beliefs? Is it time that you upgraded? Or, on a personal level, as Jerry Colonna, executive coach to some of the biggest tech stars in Silicon Valley, would ask: “How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?
There is just less competition for bigger goals.
Does history record any case in which the majority was right? – Robert Heinlein.
The means of learning are abundant – it’s the desire to learn that’s scarce.
Don’t pay any attention to what they write about you, just measure it in inches.” – Andy Warhol.
Things in Excess Become Their Opposite. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. In excess, most endeavors and possessions take on the characteristics of their opposite. Thus: Pacifists become militants. Freedom fighters become tyrants. Blessings become curses. Help becomes hindrance. More becomes less.4 Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.
The Purpose of Life Is a Life of Purpose.” This is Stan’s answer to “If you could put a billboard anywhere and write anything on it, what would it say?” It is a quote from Robert Byrne.
Named must your fear be before banish it you can. – YODA, from Star Wars:.
People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” –Steve Jobs.
The concept of lifestyle design as a replacement for multi-staged career planning is sound.
To quote the industrial statistician George Box: “Every model is wrong, but some are useful.
Being busy is a form of laziness – lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective – doing less – is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest.
Follow your intellectual curiosity over whatever is “hot” right now. If your curiosity ever leads you to a place where society eventually wants to go, you’ll get paid extremely well.
Aristotle had it right, but he was missing a number: “We are what we do repeatedly.
As Bruce Lee said, “Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.
Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know.
We want to pick big. Infinity is our friend. Infinity is safe. Infinity gives us a place to hide. So, I want to encourage people instead to look for the small. To be on one medium in a place where people can find you. To have one sort of interaction with one tribe, with one group where you don’t have a lot of lifeboats.