The most important lesson is probably to spend less than you earn.
To me, ‘busy’ implies that the person is out of control of their life.
When you sign up to run a marathon, you don’t want a taxi to take you to the finish line.
Just pay close attention to what excites you and what drains you. Pay close attention to when you’re being the real you and when you’re trying to impress an invisible jury.
Never forget why you’re really doing what you’re doing. Are you helping people? Are they happy? Are you happy? Are you profitable? Isn’t that enough?
Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate others, go with the flow, and follow paths without making their own. They spend decades in pursuit of something that someone convinced them they should want, without realizing that it won’t make them happy. Don’t.
Trust, but verify. Remember it when delegating. You have to do both.
I spent only $500 to start CD Baby. The first month, I earned back $300. But the second month I made $700, and it’s been profitable every month since.
Delegate but don’t abdicate.
If you find even the smallest way to make people smile, they’ll remember you more for that smile than for all your other fancy business-model stuff.
Make sure you know what makes you happy, and don’t forget it.
Busy is what happens when you’re at the mercy of someone else’s schedule.
Even if what you’re doing is slowing the growth of your business – if it makes you happy, that’s OK.
Learning without doing is wasted. If I don’t use what I learn, then it was pointless! How horrible to waste those hundreds of hours I spent learning, and not turn it into action.
If you set up your business like you don’t need the money, people are happier to pay you. When someone’s doing something for the money, people can sense it, like they sense a desperate lover. It’s a turnoff. When someone’s doing something for love, being generous instead of stingy, trusting instead of fearful, it triggers this law: We want to give to those who give.
Never forget that absolutely everything you do is for your customers. Make every decision – even decisions about whether to expand the business, raise money, or promote someone – according to what’s best for your customers. If you’re ever unsure what to prioritize, just ask your customers the open-ended question, “How can I best help you now?” Then focus on satisfying those requests.
We shouldn’t preserve our first opinions as if they reflect our pure, untarnished, true nature. They’re often just the result of inexperience or a temporary phase. Old opinions shouldn’t define who we are in the future.
Starting small puts 100 percent of your energy into actually solving real problems for real people.
We want to see the world clearly and know what’s what. But once we’re past the first stage of wisdom, the next stage involves adapting to new changes. We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.
A bad goal makes you say, “I want to do that some day.” A great goal makes you take action immediately.
It’s so important to separate the real goal from the old mental associations. We have old dreams. We have images we want to re-create. They’re hard to untangle from the result we really want. They become excuses, and reasons to procrastinate.