68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice¶
(Summary from this video by Kevin Kelly).
Learn how to learn from those who disagree with you or even offend you. See if you can find truth in what they believe.
Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.
Always demand a deadline, as deadlines weed out the extraneous and the ordinary, and that prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is much better.
Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid, because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same thing and is too embarrassed to ask it.
Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love, keep asking them, “Is there more?” until there is no more.
A worthy goal for years is to learn enough about a subject that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.
Gratitude will unlock all other virtues, and it is something you can get better at.
Treating a person to a meal never fails and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends, and it’s a great way to make new friends.
Don’t trust all-purpose glue.
Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kick-start their imaginations.
Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit or debt that’s acceptable is debt to acquire something whose value will increase over time, like a house. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them, so don’t be in debt to losers.
The pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be believed.
Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hang out with and learn from people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.
Rule of three in conversation: to get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they have just said, then again, and then once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.
Don’t be the best. Be the only one.
Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them. They want you to send them an email. They are waiting for you to ask them out. So go ahead.
Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are occupied and distracted, just like you. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.
The purpose of the habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it, you just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth to flossing.
Promptness is a sign of respect.
When you’re young, spend at least six months to one year living as poorly as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, and eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent to experience what your worst lifestyle may be. That way, when you have something in the future that you want that is at risk, you won’t be afraid of the worst-case scenario.
Believe me, there is no “them”!
The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they find you. So, to be interesting, be interested.
Optimize your generosity. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving away too much.
To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it, redo it, redo it. Making fine things is all about remaking them. The golden rule will never fail you. It is the foundation of all the other virtues.
If you’re looking for something in your house and then you finally find it, when you’re done with it, don’t put it back where you found it. Put it back where you first looked for it.
Saving money and investing money are good habits. Small amounts of money invested very regularly for many decades without deliberation are one path to wealth.
Making mistakes is human. To own your mistakes is divine. Nothing elevates a person higher than quickly admitting and taking personal responsibility for the mistakes that you make and then fairly fixing them. If you mess up, face up. It’s astounding how powerful this ownership is.
Never get involved in land wars in Asia.
You can obsess about serving your customers, clients, and audiences, or you can obsess about beating the competition. Both would work, but of the two, obsessing about your customers will take you much further.
Show up. Keep showing up. Somebody successful once said, “99% of success is just about showing up”.
Separate the process of creation from improving. You can’t write and edit, sculpt and polish, or make and analyse at the same time. If you do, the editor will halt the creator.While you invent, don’t select; while you sketch, don’t inspect; while you’re right there, don’t reflect. At the start, the creator must be unleashed from judgment.
If you’re not falling occasionally, you’re just coasting.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of the universe is that the more you give to others, the more you’ll get. Understanding that is the beginning of wisdom.
Friends are better than money. Almost anything that money can do, friends can do better. In so many ways, having a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.
This is true; it is hard to cheat an honest man.
When an object has been lost for 99 percent of the time, it is hiding within arm’s reach of where it was last seen, so search in all possible locations in that radius and you’ll find it.
You are what you do, not what you say, not what you believe, not how you vote, but what you spend your time on.
If you lose or forget to bring a cable and adapter, check with your hotel. Most hotels have a drawer full of cables, devices, and chargers that others have left behind and probably have the one that you want if you can claim it after you borrow it.
A hitch is a curse that does not affect the hated; it only affects the hater, so release a grudge as if it were poison.
There is no limit to getting better. The talent is unevenly distributed, but there is no limit to how much we can do with what we start with.
Be prepared when you are 90% done. Any large project, such as a house, a film, an event, or a nap—the rest of the countless details will take another 90% of the time to complete.
When you die, you take absolutely nothing with you except your reputation.
Before you are old, attend as many funerals as you can bear and listen. Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements; the only thing people mention is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.
For every dollar you spend purchasing something substantial, expect to pay $1 in repairs, maintenance, or disposal by the end of its life.
Anything real begins with the fiction of what it could be. Therefore, imagination is the most potent force in the universe and a skill you can get better at. It’s the one skill in life that benefits from ignoring what everybody else knows.
When crisis and disaster strike, don’t waste them. No problems, no progress.
On vacation, go to the most remote place on your itinerary, bypassing the cities. You’ll maximise the shock of the otherness of the remote, and then later, on the way back, you’ll welcome the familiar comforts of a city.
When you get an invitation to do something in the future, ask yourself, “Would I accept this if it was scheduled for tomorrow?” Mmm, not too many promises will pass that immediacy filter.
Don’t say anything about someone in an email that you would not be comfortable saying to them directly because eventually they will read it.
If you desperately need a job, you are just another problem for a boss, but if you can solve many of the problems the boss has right now, you are hired. To be hired, think like your boss.
Art is in what you leave out.
Acquiring things will rarely bring you deep satisfaction, but acquiring experiences will.
The Rule of Seven in Research: If you’re willing to go seven levels deep in your research, you can find out almost anything. If the first source you ask doesn’t know, then you ask them who you should ask next, and so on down the line. If you’re willing to do that to the seventh source, you will almost always get your answer.
How to apologise: quickly, specifically and sincerely.
Don’t ever respond to a solicitation or proposal over the phone. The urgency is a disguise.
When someone is nasty, rude, hateful, or mean to you, pretend they have a disease; this allows you to have empathy for them, which can often soften the conflict.
Eliminating clutter makes room for your true treasures.
You don’t really want to be famous, read the biography of any famous person.
Experience is overrated when hiring. Hire for aptitude and train for the most important skills. Really amazing or great things have been done by people doing them for the very first time.
A vacation plus a disaster equals an adventure.
Buying tools starts with buying the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones that you use a lot. If you wind up using something as a tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.
Learn how to take a 20-minute power nap without embarrassment.
Following your bliss is a recipe for paralysis if you don’t know what you are passionate about.
A better motto for most youth is to master something. Through mastery of one thing, you can drift towards extensions of that mastery that bring you more joy, and eventually you’ll discover where your bliss is.
I’m confident that in 100 years, much of what I believe to be true today will be proven to be incorrect, perhaps even embarrassingly incorrect, and I work hard to identify what I’m wrong about today.
Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists, and to be an optimist, you don’t have to ignore the many problems we create; you just have to imagine improving our capacity to solve those problems.
The universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success. This would be much easier to do if you embraced this paranoia.