Rome wasn’t built in a day... but they were laying bricks every hour

Ricardo Semler - Maverick

• ... our Sultan for HR (Yes, we still love to mock titles)
• Our board meetings have two open seats for the first employees that sign up, and two more for any person in a leadership capacity that cares to show. And we still depate strategy openly schedule meetings on a volunteer basis, and have leaders intervieweg by their future subordinates.
• Instead of ont headquarter building, we distribute identical offices across town
• As I tell our people constantly: we've all learned how to answer email on Sundays, but none of us has learned to go to the movies on Monday afternoon Until we learn that, we are email slaves harnessed to the wicked ways of the Profit and Loss Master.
• all financial information at Semco is openly discussed. Indeed, our workers have unlimited access to our books
• For truly big decisions, such as buying another company, everyone at Semco gets a vote. A few years ago, when we wanted to relocate a factory, we closed down for a day and everyone poiled into buses to inspect three possible new sites.
• If we're afraid to let people decide in which section of the plane to sit, or how many stars their hotel should have, we shouldn't be sending them abroad to do business in our name, should we?
• Semco has a profit-sharing plan. At Semco, profit-sharing is democratic.
• Our workers knew that production would suffer if they didnt coordinate their schedules, so thats what they did
• Well, we dont have as many bosses as we used to. As workers began to excercise more control over their jobs and assume more voice in our polices, the need for supervisors diminished. We have also reduced our corporate staff, which provides legal, accounting, and marketing expertise to our manufacturing untis, by more than 75%.
• Before people are hired or promoted to leadership positions, they are interviewed and approved by all who will be working for them. And every sic months managers are evaluate by those who work under them. The results are posted for all to see. Does this mean workers can fire their bosses? I guess it does, since anyone who consistently gets bad grades usually leaves Semco, one way or another.
• We simply do not believe our employees have an interest in coming in late, leaving early and doing as little as possible for as much money as their union can wheedle out of us. After all, these same people raise children, join the PTA, elect mayors, governors, senators and presidents. They are adults. At Semco, we treat them as adults. We trust them. We dont make our employees ask permission to go to the bathroom, or have security guards search them as they leave for the day. We get out of their way and let them do their jobs.
• In business, effort is too often confused with results
• And we had so damn many numbers, inside so damn many folders, that almost no on e was looking at them. But no one would admit it.
• In either plan we try to think in zero-based terma. Budgets should always be based on rethinking the company; most of the time, though, they_re not much more than last years numbers projected forward, and are about as ood as warmed-up coffee at two in the morning
• we introduced a programme that requires each executive to make an educated guess about the revenues, expenses, and profits for his department at the end of each month. A few days later, the official report is distributed
• People were afraid to sign their name to anything.
• if our executives were ashamed of their salaries, it might be becuase they felt they weren't really earning them, for if they merited their pay they could easily prove their worth, whether it was based on specialized knowledge, experience, education, or the mastery of a large departmene with a big budget and staff. Executives should be proud of what they earn, and their salaries ought to provide everyone with an incentive to rise.
• profit-sharing doesnt create employee involvement, it requires it.
• Man is by nature restless. When left too long in one place he will inevitably grow bored, unmotivated, and unproductive. ... a minimum of two years and a maximum of five years in a job were ample.
• There are so many benefits from job rotation, borh for employees and employer, that is a wonder so few companies encourage it. It obliges people to learn new skills, which makes life interesting for them and makes them more valuable.
• That led us to draw up a form subordinates now use to evaluate their managers twice a year.
• Its always better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission
• Our advances in technologyhave far outstripped our advances in mentality.

Liar Liar - James Patterson

Really bad and boring book. But one quote:

"I have to keep going" ... "If I would have seen what Vada was doing, I could have-"
"If!", Tox spat. "If, if,if. You know how many miserable fucking losers have driven themselves into the ground trying to chase down ifs?"
Whitt shook his head.
"Let me tell you something, Whitt," Tox said. "You can hunt your fantasies about what should or shouldn't have happened in your life all the way back to your daddy knocking your mama up with a future rehab regular. But you know what? I've done you a favour. I've gone down that road already, and I can tell you there's nothing at the end of it."

Liar's Poker - Michael Lewis

• Analysts didnt analyze anything. They were slaves to a team of corporate financiers, the men who did the negotiations and paper work.
• The first thing you learn on the trading lfoor is that when large numbers of people are after the same commodity, the commodity quickly becomes overvalued.
• "Economics" satisfied the two most basic needs of investment bankers. First investment bankers wanted practical people, willing to subordinate their educations to their careers. Economics, which was becoming an ever more abstruse science, producing mathematical treatises with no obvious use, seemed almost designed as a sifting device.
• Studying economics was more a ritual sacrifice.
• Economics was practical. It got people jobs. And it did this because it demonstrated that they were among the most fervent believers in the primacy of economic life.
• what economics students were supposed to know served almost no function in an investment bank. The bankers used economics as a sort of standardized test of general intelligence.
• Many of my classmates had sacrificed the better part of their formal educations for Wall Street
• Set questions were posed to which set answers were expected. A successful undergraduate investment banking interview sounded like a monastic chant.
• For rich people, they didnt look very happy [the investment bankers]
• Warren Buffett is fond of saying that any player unaware of the fool in the market probably is the fool in the market.
• A bond was worth only as much as the person who valued it properly was willing to pay
• Good traders tend to do the unexpected
• They were the same as front-row people all over the world [in a classroom]
• I considered myself an exception of course [everyone does it. Majority thinks they are above average]
• A rule of thumb about information in the markets ...: "Those who say dont know, and those who know dont say
• The only thing history teaches us, a wise man once said, is that history doesnt teach us anything
• "I dont do favors. I accumulate debts."
• I spent much of my working life inventing logical lies like this. Most of the time when markets move, no one has any idea why.
• 
  

How to turn down a billion dollars - the snapchat story

• "While standing in line to register at Stanford, I met this guy who asked me what I was reading. I said "What am I reqadin? Classes haven't started." And he kind of rolles his eyes, like, "What kind of an idiot is this?" The new classmate then bought him a copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm. "And I just thought it was fantastic; There hasn't been a day since that I haven't been interested in learning something.
• "When everyone is tired and the night is over, who stays and helps out? Because those are your true friends. Those are the hard workers, the people that believe that working hard is the right thing to do."
• Before smartphones were ubiquous, Facebook had to work extremely hard to build a social graph on the web. But with smartphones, people had a computer in their pockets with a complete social graph - their address book. This allowed Snapchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others to quickly build enormously valuable services.
• Evan wanted his statement to be just three words: "Wecome, Facebook. Seriously." It was an homage to Steve Jobs and Apple taking out a full-page ad in "The Wall Street Journal" saying, "Welcome, IBM. Seriously," when the much larger computer giant started competing with Apple in the personal computer business.
• "The tension between experience for its own sake and experience we pursue just to put on facebook is reaching its breaking point."
• This traditional social media view of identity is actually quite radical: you are the sum of your published experience. Otherwise knows as: pics or it didnt happen
• or in the case of Instagram: beautiful pics or it didnt happen AND youre not cool
• Snapchat: We are who we are today, right now.
• We no longer have to capture the "real world" and recreate it online - we simply live and communicate at the same time.
• Engineers and data scientists can't do anything with "this makes people feel warm and fuzzy."
• The mobile phone as the remote control for life.
• Despite the wild changes in media formats over the past century, the amount of money spent on advertising has generally remained constant. ... made up about 1.3 percent of US GDP
• Evan told reporters he found it annoying when brand tried to act like people on SNapchat by creating an account.
• There's a weird obsession with the idea that data can solve anything. I really havent seen data deliver the results that I've seen a great editor deliver.
• Zuckerbergs "I'm CEO, Bitch"
• The internet is not a friendly place. Things that don't stay relevant don't even get the luxury of leaving ruins. They disappear.
• Dont be to proud to copy
• As young people, we are trying to find our voice. Trying out who we are, again and again, until something feels more accurate than the previous thing... We believe what we see. And we cant be what we cant see. We are so credulous when we assume that everyone else must be the version of themselves they portray in public, even if we are hardly the people we present ourselves as.

The secret

• Your whole life is a manifestation of the thoughts that go on in your head
• I am the master of my thoughts
• Your thoughts become things
• There is no greater power in the universe than the power of love. If you could wrap every thought in love, if you could love everything and everyone, your life would be transformed. (Also includes myself)
• To know what you are thinking, ask yourself how you are feeling (often worried - job, money, …)
• It is impossible to feel bad and at the same time have good thoughts
• (Do we need more love in our lives? Does a pet / a dog bring that into the life?)
• Asking the universe for what you want is your opportunity to get clear about what you want. As you get clear in your mind, you have asked
• Most people look at their current affairs and say, “this is who I am.” That’s Not who you are. That’s who you were.
• All that we are is a result of what we have thought (Buddha)
• Ou job is not to figure out the how. The how will show up out of a commitment and belief in the what
• (Don’t think Debt and expenses. Think wealth and prosperity. Set up an automated debt repayment program and then start to focus on prosperity)
• I grew up on “you have to work hard for money”. So I replaced that with, “money comes easily and frequently.”
• Make it your intention to look at everything you like and say to yourself, “I can afford that. I can buy that.” You will shift your thinking and begin to feel better about money.
• How can you ever expect anyone else to enjoy your company if you don’t enjoy your own company?
• There’s something so magnificent about you. I have been studying me for forty-four years. I wanna kiss myself sometimes.
• What you resist persists (we’re adding our energy to it (who knows if it’s good or bad)
• Mother Theresa was brilliant. She said, „I will never attend an anti-war rally. If you have a peace rally, invite me.“
• Instead of focusing on the worlds problems, give your attention and energy to trust, love, abundance, education, and peace.
• I mean that’s almost everyone’s story in some form or not. The real question is, what are you going to do now? What do you choose now? Because you can either keep focusing on that, or you can focus on what you want. And when people start focusing on what they want, what they don’t want falls away, and what they want expands, and the other part disappears 
• Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.
• Be aware. And be here now. - stop listening to the endless commentary and chatter of your mind. Instead, Bebe aware, and be here now (where are you - here - what time is it - now).

Be here now

• About a guru
• "dont think about the past. Just be here now"
• "Dont think about the future. Just be here now"
• "Emotions are like waves. Watch them dissapear in the distance on the vast calm ocean."
• He wasnt the least bit interested in all of the extraordinary dramas that I had collected.
• Once you realize God knows everything, youre free. ... I had managed to keep private places in my head. ... And suddenly I realized that he knew everything that was going on in my head, all the time, and taht he still loved me. Because wo we are is behind all that.
• So: I can do nothing for you but work on myself... You can do nothing for me but work on yourself
• Sadhana: youve got to be quiet inside to do that kind of photography. Its very easy to photograph inanimate objects - like other people. But: Turn the lens right in on the very stuff youre hiding in. Shoot the camera this way.
• Making it sacred - this (shopping wood and carrying water) is karma yoga ... the yoga of daily life. The way to do it is: so what you do but dedicate the fruits of the work to me.
• People often say to me: I would really like to do sadhana... I am a teacher now. If I could only finish being a teacher, i could so sadhana. BAloney! You're either doing sadhana or youre not. Sadhana is a full tim thing that you do because there is nothing else to do. You do it whether youre teaching, or sitting in a monastery, whether youre lying in bed, going to the toilet, making love, eating, everything is part of waking up.... its all dedicated ... its all sacred
• you meet another person and there are qualities in that personality which offend you, seduce you, repel you, sexually excite you,....... It's only when you can see through all that veil... through all your own desires ... that you can see beyond all that to where THE OTHER BEING IS. You will do that when youve gone inside to see where you are
• You are the guru. Thats whats so far out. You are your own guru. And thats what you finally know when you are hanging out with one of these guys. You hang out with yourself. 
• When you wake up at 3:47
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• When you get up at 9 a.m.
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• Try 4:32 three weeks from next Thursday
• What time is it? NOW
• Where am I? HERE
• By God - is it - there's no getting away from it - thats the way it is. Thats the eternal present. You finally figure out that its only the clock thats going around... Its doing it thing but you - youre sitting HERE - RIGHT NOW - ALWAYS
• Nobody is going anywhere
• Nobody is coming from anywhere
• We're all here
• We're all here
• In eternal time & space
• We're always going to be here
• Nothing to do - there is nowhere to go and there is nothing to do
• Just the process of calming, centering, centering, calming - extricating myself from the drama
• So long as one feeld that he is the doer he cannot escape from the wheel of births and deaths
• Drama is drama is drama is drama
• desire is drama
• thought is drama
• breathing is drama
• emotions are drama
• all form is drama
• It's all part of the drama
• Everywhere I look I see only my own desires
• Go to bed early and get up early
• Meditate for a few minutes before lying down to go to sleep
• Get out of the habit of "thinking about things" when you are going into sleep. Clear your mind
• Asanas are positions. Once you have gotten into the position and made the statement connected with that position you are there. You become a statue in each asana. The statue image is a useful one. No matter how unusual the position of the asana may seem to you, once you are in the position then you become totally centered in that position. It - your body - comes to be a position of rest... as if you were always in that position, as a statue.
• Your state of mind is of paramount importance in asanas. Dont identify with the ego who is doing the asanas. Merely watch the body move into the appropriate positions. Stay in a place inside yourself where nothing is happening at all.
• When the body has gotten into the asana as perfectly as it is able without forcing (just firm pressure)... then go into "neutral" with the body so that it becomes perfectly relaxed and stable in the position of the asanas.
• You can make up other mantras for other daily acts to bring to consciousness your center so that you break the identification with an ego who is performin the act.
• The witness
• You play many roles in the course of a day - and that WHO YOU ARE from moment to moment changes. There is the angry you, and the kind you, the lazy you, - hundreds of different yous. If, as we have seen, the work is to break these identifications, we can work effectively throughout each day by making each of these "you's" objects, i.e. by breaking the identification with each of them. 
• The witness
• It is a part of the rational mind. 
• The witness could be thought of as an eye. It is not an active thing. It just sees it all happening.
• The witness is not evaluative. It does not judge your actions. It merely notes them. Thus, if you perfom an act because of desire, such as eating something the witness would merely note a) he is eating such-and-such and b) he is putting himself down for eating such-and-such. Thus the witness has noted a "you" of desires and a super-ego you ... two "you's"
• At first the witness is adoped because of an intellectual understanding of the need to separate the Self from the Doer
• It is difficult to fully get lost in the subtle sensual gratifications of eating when you are witnessing yourself eat. "He is chewing...testing..savoring, etc. It all seems so dispassionate. And truly it is
• You will also note that as you break identification with more and more of your roles and begin to live more calmly in the witness, that you begin to be aware of much more.
• Meditation
• The human mind is like that monkey, incessantly active by its own nature, then it becomes drunk with the wine of desire, thus increasing its turbulence.
• All that you do is register thoughts, states, etc. in the present
• You dont think about your thoughts. You merely note them.
• At first let your mind wander and just watch it. Just note how your mind works. Dont think about the thoughts. Just note them. Do this for about thirty minutes a day for a week.
• Let all other thoughts drift by and keep your attention focused on this muscle. (breathing)
• Count - Om...2...Om...3...
• Your only task is to count that muscle going up and down. All other thoughts dont belong here. 
• Note the intruding thought, give it a label, and return to the task at hand.
• This simple technique of bare attention is very powerful.

be here now

"Wir wollen versuchen, uns nicht in Zerstreuungen, im Bedauern über die Vergangenheit oder in Sorgen über die Zukunft zu verlieren."

Kommunikation nach Friedemann Schulz von Thun

Jede Aussage hat vier Seiten:

1. Appel
2. Selbstoffenbarung
3. Sachinhalt
4. Beziehungsaussage

Das heißt:

1. Was ich von dir möchte
2. Was ich von mir mitteile
3. Worüber ich dich informiere
4. Wie ich zu dir stehe

habits

Habits that have a high rate of return in life:

- sleeping 8+ hours each day
- lifting weights 3x week
- going for a walk each day
- saving at least 10 percent of your income
- reading every day
- drinking more water and less of everything else
- leaving your phone in another room while you work

On focus and priority

“Focus is a force multiplier on work. Almost everyone I’ve ever met would be well-served by spending more time thinking about what to focus on. It is much more important to work on the right thing than it is to work many hours. Most people waste most of their time on stuff that doesn’t matter. 

Once you have figured out what to do, be unstoppable about getting your small handful of priorities accomplished quickly. I have yet to meet a slow-moving person who is very successful.”

About reading - from 1330

"It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and commune with someone from the past whom you have never met.”

From 1330!!!

You have to meditate for one hour a day. If you don't have the time - meditate two.

so true

Louis V. Gerstner jr. – Who says Elephants can’t dance?

Louis V. Gerstner jr. – Who says Elephants can’t dance?

• “It is not helpful to feel sorry for ourselves. I’m sure our employees don’t need any rah-rah speeches. We need leadership and a sense of direction and momentum, not just from me but from all of us. I don’t want to see a lot of prophets of doom around here. I want can-do people looking for short-term victories and long-term excitement.”
• I told them there was no time to focus on who created our problems. I had no interest in that. “We have little time to spend on problem definition. We must focus our efforts on solutions and actions.”
• Management principles
• I manage by principle, not procedure
• The market place dictates everything we do
• I look for people who work to solve problems and help colleagues. I sack politicians
• I am heavily involved in strategy; the rest is yours to implement. Just keep me informed in an informal way. Don’t hide bad information. Solve problems laterally; don’t keep bringing them up the line.
• Move fast. I f we make mistakes, let them be because we are too fast rather than too slow.
• Hierarchy means very little to me. Let’s put toether in meetings the people whi can help solve a problem.
• 5 ninety-day priorities upon start:
• Stop hemorrhaging cash
• Make sure we would be profitable in one years time
• Develop and implement a key customer strategy for year 1 and 2
• Finish right-sizing by the beginning of third quarter
• Develop an intermediate term business strategy
• Plus a thirty days assignment:
• Ten-page report from each BU leader
• I stepped to the table and, as politely as I could in front of his team, switched of the projector. After a long moment of awkward silence, I simply said, “Let’s just talk about your business”.
• I told the team that, effective immediately, the milking strategy was over and instructed them to get back to me with an aggressive price reduction plan
• When people realized that I really did read every one of the reports (from big clients problems to be solved from visiting them), there was quick improvement in action and responsiveness
• Turning around troubled companies, whatever hard or painful things you have to do, do them quickly and make sure everyone knows what you are doing and why.
• Sooner is better than perfect
• The real issue was going out and making things happen every day in the marketplace
• With an eye to the old management committee, I also announced what the CEO would not do: It would not accept delegation of problem solving. It would not sit through presentations or make decisions for the business units. Its focus would be solely on policy issues that cut across multiple units.
• No institutional transformation takes place, I believe, without a multi-year commitment by the CEO to put himself or herself constantly in front of employees and speak in plain, simple, compelling language
• This is about the bone-jarringly difficult task of forcing the organization to limit its ambition and focus on markets that made strategic and economic sense.
• I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game. An organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.
• My kind of executives dig into the details, work the problems day to day, and lead by example, not title.
• A good portion of our success was due to all of the deals we didn’t do
• People do what you inspect, not what you expect
• Companies don’t like to change because individuals don’t like to change
• I have always believed that it is better to underpromise and outperform than to overpromise and underperform

Charles Dickes – A tale of two cities

Charles Dickes – A tale of two cities

• From the foreword: Quoting from Charles Dickens memorandum book the outline for a character: “The man who is incapable of his own happiness. One who is always in pursuit of happiness”
• A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.
• “I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine – truly, I am not much else.”
• “A multitude of people, and yet a solitude”

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves and wise people so full of doubts.” – Bertrand Russell

How to get lots of sports done

I’d absorbed the running and training into my life so that was part of my life, nothing special. It wasn’t the center of anything, it was just one thing, connected to all the others.

If you follow you will follow

If you want to be in the top 1% of a particular domain, then you can’t take your cues from and follow the social norms of 99% of people.

This is harder than it sounds. We are wired to imitate. The further you want to climb, the more carefully you need to construct your tribe.

Comparison - only on little things and approaches - to learn

To improve, compare little things.
-marketing strategies
-exercise technique
-writing tactics

To be miserable, compare big things.
-career path
-marriage
-net worth

Comparison is the thief of joy when applied broadly, but the teacher of skills when applied narrowly.

“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner.” — Lao Tzu

"The days are long but the decades are short."

"The days are long but the decades are short."

On managing your life and time

"To do two things at once is to do neither." — Publilius Syrus

"Reading is a long-term investment I make in myself. I don’t have the time not to."

Good from beginning to end

https://medium.com/the-mission/wtf-i-just-spent-1-207-40-on-books-6e5639e1f7bc

• Books contain a vast amount of knowledge and knowing what most other people don’t know is how I make a living.
• Books are deeper. They go below the surface.
• You need to have different thoughts than other people. Remember the old adage: If you do what everyone else is doing, you shouldn’t be surprised to get the same results everyone else is getting.
• If you’re trying to get ahead, skip the bestseller displays at the front of the bookstore and head to the stacks at the back. Bestselling books, almost by definition, rarely help give you an edge
• Reading is a long-term investment I make in myself. I don’t have the time not to.

Show up - work hard - and listen

Tim Grover was the athletic trainer used by Michael Jordan (and many elite NBA players). Here he is describing the three things he asks of every player:

"I don't care how much you can lift, how fast you can run, how many pull-ups you can do, or whether you can hit a three while blindfolded. There are only three things I ask of every client... Show up, work hard, and listen. That's it. It requires no talent, no special genetics, or any skill whatsoever to show up, work hard, and listen."

He adds:

"When I train my athletes, it's a dictatorship with three rules: show up, work hard, and listen. If you can do those three things, I can help you. If you can't we have no use for each other. I will bust my ass for you every way possible, but I expect you to do the same for yourself. I'm not going to work harder than you do for your benefit. Show me you want it, and I'll give it to you.” 

Domestication of man

"

The domestication of man, while it's been great for civility, has not been kind to the biological need to function as a man," Shubin told VICE. "Society doesn't allow us to do what we might have done a million years ago. We cannot chase and take the sexual things that we may have done hundreds of thousands of years ago, and that's an awesome thing. But we still need to function as biological men."

Although he might have veered into questionable territory, he kept going: "The responsibility to do that is not on women. They're not on this planet to satisfy our sexual needs; responsible men do this themselves. And I know that if I don't manage my sexuality, I would find myself becoming angry with my wife because she wasn't as sexually active as I needed her to be. And I had to grow up and learn to function. She is not my escort; she is not my sexual tool. My sexual relation with my wife is based on two people being intimate and developing a life together. Any sexual needs I have beyond that are my responsibility to maintain.

"

success = Mental toughness

1. Define what mental toughness means for you.

• going one month without missing a workout
• going one week without eating processed or packaged food
• delivering your work ahead of schedule for two days in a row
• meditating every morning this week
• Whatever it is, be clear about what you’re going after. Mental toughness is an abstract quality, but in the real world it’s tied to concrete actions. You can’t magically think your way to becoming mentally tough, you prove it to yourself by doing something in real life.

2. Mental toughness is built through small physical wins. Choose to do the tenth rep when it would be easier to just do nine. Choose to create when it would be easier to consume. Choose to ask the extra question when it would be easier to accept. Prove to yourself — in a thousand tiny ways — that you have enough guts to get in the ring and do battle with life.

3. Mental toughness is about your habits, not your motivation.

It’s about building the daily habits that allow you to stick to a schedule and overcome challenges and distractions over and over and over again.

Mental toughness comes down to your habits. It’s about doing the things you know you’re supposed to do on a more consistent basis. It’s about your dedication to daily practice and your ability to stick to a schedule.

https://jamesclear.com/mental-toughness

“Madness is rare in individuals—but in groups, parties, nations and ages it is the rule.”

— Nietzche

Priority - this is a singular

• “The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. It stayed singular for the next five hundred years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality. Somehow we would now be able to have multiple “first” things. People and companies routinely try to do just that. One leader told me of this experience in a company that talked of “Pri-1, Pri-2, Pri-3, Pri-4, and Pri-5.” This gave the impression of  any things being the priority but actually meant nothing was.” –Greg McKeown, Essentialism
• What is impossible, however, is concentrating on two tasks at once.
• A 2003 study published in the International Journal of Information Management found that the typical person checks email once every five minutes and that, on average, it takes 64 seconds to resume the previous task after checking your email.
• One of the major improvements I've made recently is to assign one (and only one) priority to each work day. Although I plan to complete other tasks during the day, my priority task is the one non-negotiable thing that must get done.
• The people who do the most valuable work have a remarkable willingness to say no to distractions and focus on their one thing.

On development

Such a great phrasing. This is true for habits that we build, skills that we want to acquire, work that we learn,...

 

“When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as “rootless and stemless.” We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

When it first shoots up out of the earth, we don't condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; nor do we criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”

—Timothy Gallwey [1]

Arnold Schwarzeneggert - Growth Mindset - Use your time - Have a vision and do it

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWJVvNptHZ4

Incredible!

• If you don't have a vision you just stumble around and never end up anywhere
• You know how great it felt to know where you are going
• 74% of people hate their job
• How come you work out 5-6 hours a day - how come you are smiling? Others work the same but they always look sour. I knew why I did it. Every rep took me one stop closer to my vision. I couldn't wait for the next rep, posing, Situp, workout
• It was because I had a goal

• Visualizing a goal and going after it makes it fun
• You've got to have a purpose no matter what you do in life
• You've got to have a purpose

• Rule no 1:
• Have a vision
• Don't listen to the nay-sayers
• People say: "Thats impossible", "It cant be done"
• If people said: "No", I heard "Yes". If they say "Its impossible" I heard "it is possible",
• Nelson Mandela: "Everything is always impossible until someone does it"

• Rule no 3:
• Work your ass off
• It drives me crazy if people say they don't have enough time
• You sleep 6 hours a day, leaves you 18 hours a day
• But: I sleep 8 hours a day. - Well: Sleep faster!
• You see how much time there is available. If you organize your day!

• There was not a single minute that I wasted
• Mohammed Ali: How many situps do you do? I dont start counting before it hurts
• "Work like hell and advertise"
• Go to bed, early rise, you work your ass off - and then you let the world know about your work

• I hate Plan B
• We have so many doughters, the no-sayers
• When you start daughting yourself that dangerous
• "I have a falldown plan - my plan B"
• But this thought takes energy from Plan A
• We function better when we have no safety net - then people perform better
• That is what a Plan B is
• You are cutting yourself of from success when you take energy off Plan A
• Plan B shows you are afraid of failing
• But dont be
• Everyone fails
• From failure you learn
• Winners will fail and get up, fail and get up, fail and get up
• We all fail. Don't be afraid of failure. You get frozen, you don't relax

Be yourself - stop comparing to others

https://fs.blog/2019/06/comparing-yourself-others/

• There is one thing that you’re better at than other people: being you. This is the only game you can really win.
• When you start with this mindset the world starts to look better again. No longer are you focused on where you stand relative to others. Instead, your focus and energy is placed on what you’re capable of now and how you can improve yourself.
• Life becomes about being a better version of yourself. And when that happens, your effort and energy go toward upgrading your personal operating system every day, not worrying about what your coworkers are doing. You become happier, free from the shackles of false comparisons and focused on the present moment.
• When you stop comparing between people and focus internally, you start being better at what really matters: being you. It’s simple but not easy.

The incredible lightness of being - Milan Kundena

• There is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weights so heavy as the pain one feeld with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination
• In Terezas eyes, books were the emblems of a secret brotherhood
• Communism was merely another father, a father equally strict and limited, a father who forbade
• If you're looking for infinity, just close your eyes
• Indeed, the only truly serious questions are ones that even a child can formulate. Only the most narive of questions are truly serious. They are the questions with no answer
• Tereza suddenly recalled the first days of the invasion. People in every city and town had pulled down the street signs; sign posts had disappeared. Overnight, the country had become nameless. For seven days, Russian troops wandered the countryside, not knowing where they were. The officers searched for newspaper offices, for television and radio stations to occupy, but could not find them. Whenever they asked, they would get either a shrug of the shoulders or false names and directions.
• Insofar as it is possible to divide people into categories, the surest criterion is the deep-seated desires that orient them to one or another lifelong activity. Every Frenchman is different. But all actors the world over are similar... An actor is someone who in early chilfhood consents to exhibit himself for the rest of his life to an anonymous public. Without that basic consent, which has nothing to do with talent, which goes deeper than talent, no one can become an actor. Similarly, a doctor is someone who consents to spend his life involved with human bodies and all that they entail.
• Here he was, doing things he didnt care a damn about, and enjoying it. Now he understood what made people happy when they took a job without feeling the compulsion of an internal "Es muss sein!" and forgot it the moment they left for home every evening. This was the first time he had felt that blissful indifference. [...] The "Es muss sein" of his profession (a doctor) had been like a vampire sucking blood.
• And again he thought the thought we already know: Human life occurs only once, and the reason we cannot determine which of our decisions are good and which bad is that in a given situation we can make only one decisions: we are not granted a second, third or fouth life in which to compare various decisions.
• And not wonder: Political movements rest not so much on rational attitudes as on the fantasies, images, words, and archetypes that come together to make up this or that political kitsch.
• The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course, Genesis was written by a man, not a horse. There is no certainty that God actually did grant man dominion over other creatures. What seems more likely, in fact, is that man invented God to sanctify the dominion that he had usurped for himself over the cow and the horse.
• If Karenin had been a person instead of a dog, he would surely have long since said to Tereza, "Look, I'm sick and tired of carrying that roll in my mouth every day. Cant you come up with something different?" And tehrein lies the whole of mans plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.

Focus focus focus

Martin is the best-selling author of the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. The first book in the series, A Game of Thrones,  it has already sold more than 25 million copies.

What is most surprising isn't how good the books are, but how, exactly, Martin writes his best-selling works…

In total, Martin has written almost 2 million words for the series thus far…

That is a total of 1,770,000 words—an incredible effort. [4] And what does Martin use to churn out such an amazing quantity of work?

He writes the novels with a program that most people have never even heard of: WordStar 4.0. To give you an idea of just how ancient this program is, here's a picture of the typical WordStar screen…

Martin says, “I still do all my writing on an old DOS machine running WordStar 4.0, the Duesenberg of word processing software (very old, but unsurpassed).”

He goes on, “I am not on Facebook. I am not on Twitter. I will not be on the next new thing to come along, the one that makes Facebook and Twitter as obsolete as GEnie and CompuServe and The Source, those halcyon communities of yore.” [5]

Focus, Consistency, and Patience

One of the greatest lessons I've learned from weightlifting is that there are 3 simple things that you need for success.

1. Focus: You can't be good at everything and it's hard to be great at more than one thing, so pick the one thing you're going to become great at and focus on it.
2. Consistency: Focus is useless if you're only focused every now and then. It's showing up time after time that makes the difference.
3. Patience: If you're focused and consistent, then let time work for you. Results will come when they come. Focus on the system, not the goal.

George R.R. Martin's creative process employs all three of these methods.

Focus. He writes on a computer without the internet, without social media, without apps or distractions or graphics. But his computer can do one very important thing: type words. And typing words is his craft. That's what he needs to create. He is 100 percent focused on doing the work that matters and he has completely eliminated anything that impedes that goal.

Consistency. Martin was a working writer for twenty years  He's not just focused on writing when it's easy. He's focused on writing, plain and simple.

Patience. continued commitment to the process when you're not being rewarded for it yet. [6]

The Minimum You Need to Succeed

George “WordStar” Martin is selling more books than nearly anyone on the planet and his computer can't even send an email. Think about that for a moment.

So often we think that we need more to be successful. More outside funding for our startup. More software programs or productivity tools to handle our to-do list. More business contacts, a bigger network. More clothes or cars or credit cards.

But maybe what we really need is less. Maybe what we really need are fewer distractions and more focus. Maybe what we really need are a few carefully chosen constraints that narrow our energy onto what really matters rather than compiling a bunch of resources that pull us away from what we actually need to do.

The 10X rule - Grant Cardone

• Assume control for everything
• crybabies, whiners and vistims just dont do well at attracting or creating success.
• Success is not something that happens to you: It's something that happens because of you and because of the actions you take
• Successful people accept ery high levels of accountability for creating and having success for themselves - and even for failing to do so.
• Those who suffer from victim thinking
• Anyone who uses blame as the reason why something happened or did not happen will never accumulate real success in life and only further his status as a slave on this planet
• People who assume the position of victim will never be secure
• To get where you want to go in life, you must adopt the view that whatever is going on in your world - good, bad or nothing - is something caused by you
• a high-level. healthy sense of responsibility
• generate effective solutions
• Blaming wont change any of those conditions, and because success is my duty, obligation and responsibility, it is a bit hard for me now to turn that over to the state.
• What can I do to reduce my chances of something bad happening again - or even ensure that it doesnt happen again?
• Many people agree with the notion that you draw or attract into your life the things - and people - to which you pay the most attention.
• Once you start to approach every situation as someone who is acting - not being acted upon - you will start to have more control over your life.
• You are the source, the generator, the origin, and the reason for everything
• All because I was willing to take actions at massive levels, assume control, and take responsibility for every outcome.
• I may not always have a say in what happens to me, I always have a choice about how I respond to it

• Four degrees of action
• It was never retreat, no action, or even average amounts; it was constant, persistent, and immense attack on the target
• until you create problems, youre not truly operating at the fourth stage of action
• You will know you are stepping into the realm of massive action when you
• create new problems for yourself and
• start to receive criticism and warning from others
• The goal is to be seen, though of and considered - in one way or another
• In order for the endeavor youve chosen to work out for you, you have to make constant, relentless effort

• Competition is for Sissies
• "No one can keep up with me. Im not going away. I am not a competitor. I am the space."
• New of contraction should serve as an indicator for you to do the contrary. You never want to blindly follow the masses; they are almost always wrong.
• Expand, push, and take action.

• Fear is the great indicator
• FEAR stands for False Events Appearing Real
• For example, if youre afraid to call on a client, then its a sign that you should call that client. Fear of speaking with the boss is an indication that you should march into his office and ask for a moment of his time. Fear of requesting the clients business means that you must ask for the business - and then keep asking.
• Doing what other refuse to do
• Everyone experiences fear on some level
• the market will face fear in the same way that you and your peers do
• It must become your indicator to go
• I handle this dilemma myself by omitting time from the equation - since time is what drives fear. The more time you devote to the object of your apprehension, the stronger it becomes. So starve the fear of its favorite food by removing time from its menu
• Needs to take a deep breath, pick up the phone, and just make the call.
• Last-minute preparation is just another way to feed the fear.
• Fear tells you what to do and when to do it,... NOW. The time is always NOW!
• Theres simply no other choice than to act. Theres no need to prepare.
• Action!
• I refuse to feed my fear with time and allow it to get stronger. I opt instead to get things done quickly.

• The Myth of Time Management
• My daughter merely gave me another reason to create success - not an excuse to avoid working more. She is sheer motivation for me to do well because now Im doing it for her as well as for myself. You cannot blame your family for keeping you from creating the success you deserve. They should be the reason why you want to succeed!
• Get yourself and your family members on a schedule that allows you to do those things that are a priority for you. My solution was to add one hour to each of my days in order to spend time with my daughter.
• However, the point is that we are controlling our time, rather than just hapharzardly trying to manage it. Our decision to set priorities and commit to a solution lets us be the bosses of our own time
• Wake up! No one is going to save you. No one is going to take care of your family or your retirement. No one is going to "make things" work out for you. The only way to do so is to utilize every moment of every day at 10X levels.

• Criticism is a sign of success
• When you start taking the right amount of action and therefore creating success, criticism is often not far behind.
• I've found that it comes as a natural result of getting attention. This may be why some people avoid attention in the first place - as an attempt to dodge judgement.
• Yes, people will eye you and make it clear that they disapprove of what you're doing.
• No matter what choices you make in life, someone is going to criticize you somewhere along the way.
• When you start taking enough action, it wont be long before youre judged by people who arent taking any
• You need to expect and anticipate this as one of the signs of success
• Remember: Success is not a popularity contest. It is your duty, obligation, and responsibility.
• Weak and overwhelmed individuals respond to others success by attacking it.

• Excuses
• Excuses are never the reason for why you did or didnt do something. Theyre just a revision of the facts that you make up in order to help yourself feel better about what happened. Making excuses wont change your situation, only getting to the real reason behind it can do this. Excuses are for people who refuse to take responsibility for their life and how it turns our. Slaves and victims make excuses
• Excuses never improve your situation
• I dont have the money, I have kids, I dont have kids, I am married, I am not married. I have to find balance in my life, I am overworked, I am underworked, too many people work here, we dont have enough people, …. Bored yet? I know I am! Now ask yourself, will any of these excuses ever improve your condition? I doubt it.
• Successful people simply dont make excuses
• No excuse exists that can or will make you successful. Engaging in self-pity and excuse making are signs that someone has an extremely minimal degree of responsibility.

• Successful or Unsuccessful?
• Have a "Can Do" Attitude
• Believe that "I will figure it out"
• Focus on Opportunity
• Love challenges
• Seek to solve problems
• Persist until successful
• Take risks
• Be unreasonable
• successful people know they cannot afford to act in accordance with the agreed-upon realities. If they do, the supposed "impossible" can never become possible for them.
• Otherwise you will end up the same way everyone else does - forced to survive on successful peoples leftovers
• Be dangerous
• "Be careful" is the mantra that parents repeat to their children while buying products from entire industries
• Massive action demands that you throw caution to the wind, even if it puts you in the path of danger.
• Create Wealth
• Readily take action
• The highly successful take unbelievable amounts of action
• These people rarely do nothing - even when they are on vacation
• The unsuccessful talk about a plan for action but never quite get around to doing what they claim theyre going to do
• Massive action is the one thing I know I can depend on from myself, even when times are tough. Your ability to take action will be a major factor in determining your potential success - and is a discipline that you should spend time on daily. Its not a gift or trait.
• Its a habit that must be developed
• I dont think its right or acceptable for me to be lazy
• No one is born to sprint or run a marathon any more than some people are born to take more action than others. Action is neccessary in order to create success and can be the single defining quality that will enable you to make the list of successful people.
• Always say "Yes"
• You have to say yes to everything
• They eagerly engage in life and realize that the word "yes" has more life and possibilities in it - and is clearly so much more positive than "no"
• When given an option to do or not do something, always say yes! Life is to be lived - something that becomes impossible to do when youre constanstly saying no

• Habitually Commit
• The successful fully and consistently commit to activities
• Unsuccessful people rarely commit to anything entirely
• Commitment is actually one of the things of which there is a shortage
• Devoting yourself to something all the way means that theres no backing out
• I would prefer a person who is able to fully commit over onw who is completely educated any day. Commitment is a sign that someone is pledging him- or herself completely to a position, issue, or action.

• Go all the way
• You cant get sober if you are drinking - even a little bit
• Until an action is turned into a success, it is not done
• Commit to being completely unreasonable and going all the way. Dont accep any excuses! No settling allowed"

• Focus on "Now"
• The unsuccessful spend most of their time in the past
• "Now" is the period of time that successful people utilize most often to create the futures they desire in order to dominate their environments
• Taking massive action - while others think, plan, and procrastinate.
• Taking actions immediately allows the most successful to design the future they desire.
• You cannot allow even one second of worry or analysis to delay you in situations like these
• You will be amazed how much you can get done when you quit thinking, calculating, and procrastinating and just get on with it and make a habit of acting now.
• While others are trying to figure out how they will get something done, you will have already finished it.
• Discipline yourself to perform now - not later - and I assure you that the volume of endeavors you are undertaking will wuickly increase the quality of work - and propel you to move with enhanced convictino and certainty.

• Demonstrate courage
• Taking actino regardless of their fears
• successful people carry themselves with an air of confidence and conviction, a sense of comfort, and maybe even a touch of arrogance.
• They acquired these qualities as a result of taking action
• Courage comes to those who act, not to those who think, wait, and wonder. The only way to hone this trait is by taking action.
• Courage is only attained by doing - especially doing things that you fear.

• Embrace Change
• Successful people love change, whereas the unsuccessful do everything they can to keep things from changing.
• The successful keep an eye out for what is coming next.
• The successful look at how the world is shifting and apply this to how they might improve their operations and grow their advantage.
• They know that they must continue to adapt or they wont remain victorious.

• Determine and take the right approach
• Work "Smart" and handle the situation by finding and using the right approach until they succeed. The unsuccessful always find work to be difficult because they never take enough time to improve their approach and make it easier on themselves
• Successful people invest time, energy, and money in improving themselves.
• Focus on how rewarding the results are.

• Break traditional ideas
• Challenge traditional thinking
• Challenge traditions
• Create new ways of doing thing.
• Create traditions
• Do not be a prisoner of the thinking agreed upon by others.
• "Thought Leaders" design the future with forward thinking.
• Highly successful individuals are not concerned with the way thing "have always been done"; they're interested in finding new and better ways

• Be goal oriented
• Successful people are highly goal-oriented and always pay more attention to the target than the problem.

• Be on a Mission
• Consider their daily activities to be part of a more important mission that will change things significantly

• Have a high level of motivation
• Its based on what you do each day to stimulate yourself toward actions and inspire yourself to keep going. Highly successful people continually seek and uncover reasons to stay per4petually provoked to new levels of success
• Successful people are never satisfied
• They are constantly stimulated to higher levels of action and achievements.

• Be interested in results
• Successful people dont value effort or work or time spent on an activity; they value the results
• Lets face it: like it or not, the results are all that matter
• Quit patting yourself on the back for trying, and save your rewards and accolades for actual accomplishment

• Have big goals and dreams
• Create your own reality
• Be dedicated to continuous learning
• Be uncomfortable
• Most of it was uncomfortable for me until I got used to doing it.
• It feels good when things are familiar
• However successful people are willing to put themselves in new and unfamiliar situations
• Know that getting too comfortable, too relaxed, and too familiar causes a person to become soft and lose his or her creativity and hunger to stay out from

• "Reach up" in relationships
• The successful constantly talk about having people around them who are smarter, brighter, and more creative.
• Make a habit of "reaching up" in all of your relationships - toward people who are better connected, better educated, and even more successfull

• Be disciplined
• Discipline is what you use to complete any activity until the activity - regardless of how uncomfortable - becomes your normal operating procedure. You must determine which habits are constructive - and discipline both yourself and your group to do those things over and over again

• Getting Started with 10X
• Act now and then keep acting with the knowledge that enough actions taken now will create the future.
• Now means now - not a minute from now. Start with first things first
• Then, without overthinking it - start taking those actions.
• Take whatever actions you come up with - regardless of what they are or how you feel
• So, I continued with my commitment, dealt with the fear, became a fanatic about it, and continued to increase actions. So I went to work on what i could control.
• New problems - YEAH!