My friend Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation, famously said: If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them.
Entrepreneurism is a means goal, not an end goal. The end goal is usually living a life of purpose, combined with the experiences that freedom and money can bring.
Law 8: Create a vision for your future. Extraordinary minds create a vision for their future that is decidedly their own and free from expectations of the culturescape. Their vision is focused on end goals that strike a direct chord with their happiness.
Know that whatever your culture trained you to believe, the vast majority of human beings probably do not believe. And you can choose to disbelieve, too.
Law 9: Be unfuckwithable. Extraordinary minds do not need to seek validation from outside opinion or through the attainment of goals. Instead, they are truly at peace with themselves and the world around them. They live fearlessly – immune to criticism or praise and fueled by their own inner happiness and self-love.
Law 10: Embrace your quest. Extraordinary minds are motivated by a quest or calling – a drive to create some positive change in the world. This drive propels them forward in life and helps them to gain meaning and make a meaningful contribution.
Sometimes, you have to destroy a part of your life that is merely good, to allow what is truly great to enter.
Words are powerful, as they influence how we see the world.
I constantly get out of my comfort zone. Once you push yourself into something new, a whole new world of opportunities opens up. But you might get hurt. But amazingly when you heal – you are somewhere you’ve never been.
When an old belief no longer serves you, you have every right to swap it out.
It’s all about finding and hiring people smarter than you, getting them to join your business and giving them good work, then getting out of the way and trusting them. You have to get out of the way so you can focus on the bigger vision. That’s important, but here is the main thing: You must make them see their work as a mission.
When a person experiences a transformation, they can’t go back to being the same as they were before. It’s a perspective shift that’s irreversible. In short, a person whose mind is expanded and stretched by transformation cannot revert back to their old beliefs.
We don’t have to choose between Buddha or badass. The idea is to be both. Indeed, sometimes the only way to be effective at one is to master the other.
If you can’t win, change the rules. If you can’t change the rules, ignore them. I.
Good leaders have vision and inspire others to help them turn vision into reality. Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own. – Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart.
A calm and humble life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.
The dips contain amazing learnings and wisdom that lead to sharper rises in the quality of life afterward.
2: Gratitude Science shows that gratitude increases energy, reduces anxiety, improves sleep, and creates feelings of social connection – that’s why several exercises in this book focus on it. In this phase, just think about three things you’re grateful for in your personal life, three things you’re grateful for in your career, and three things you’re grateful for about yourself. This last one is important. Often we look for love from others but fail to truly love ourselves.
Law 7: Live in Blissipline. Extraordinary minds understand that happiness comes from within. They begin with happiness in the now and use it as a fuel to drive all their other visions and intentions for themselves and the world.
One of the keys to being extraordinary is knowing what rules to follow and what rules to break. Outside the rules of physics and the rules of law, all other rules are open to questioning.
Safety is overrated; taking risks is much less likely to kill us than ever before, and that means that playing it safe is more likely just holding us back from the thrills of a life filled with meaning and discovery.