Ideas to Live By: Life, Wealth, Happiness and Freedom.
Mindset. Your happiness, health, and wealth all starts with how you think. Shifting from scarcity to abundance, jealousy to gratitude. Changing your thoughts will change your actions. Changing your actions will change your life. Your life is a direct result of your inner thoughts.
Gratitude and Giving. We spend too much time wanting whats next and too little time reflecting on the abundance we already have. Always be grateful and humble. Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment.
Visualizing. Is to create your life with the power of your mind. Create your own success. The mediocre have a very narrow perception of reality, and in return, their lives. They see things as they are, not how they can be.
Curiosity. It’s far more important than intelligence. I know so many intelligent people that sit on the couch and don’t apply themselves. Potential remains dormant without curiosity. Only restless curiosity drives action & only action drives meaningful change in your life.
Learn. Most of the successful people have one thing in common. They read a lot of books. I cannot remember the books I’ve read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me. The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Learn to love learning. The adventurous student will always study classics. Classic literature is the collection of the most nobel thoughts of man throughout history. Formal education makes a living, but self-education makes a fortune.
Consistency. Consistency is the name of the game. Automate everything. If you look closely, “overnight successes” were really often decades in the making. To be aquatinted with misery contributes to enjoyment of happiness. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Patience. Majority of people around you are playing short-term games. The quickest way to differentiate yourself is to seek areas you can compound in as early as you can & sit tight. In life, money, & relationships, consistency & patience will pay some of the highest dividends. Anything that provides instant gratification is probably bad for you and your wealth. Anything that provides delayed gratification is likely good for you. There’s no such thing as “get rich quick” or “overnight success”
Happiness. Is not something you inherent or choose. But instead a highly personal skill you can learn and develop, like fitness or nutrition. Material and social success mean nothing if internally you are not happy. All real success is internal.
Balance. Many think they can’t be fit, healthy, wealthy, happy, & have fulfilling relationships all at once. That you must sacrifice some to have the others. But that not true, you should prioritize all aspects important to you.
Health. All the money in the world means nothing if you don’t have your health to enjoy it. Learn how what you eat impacts your life.
Think for yourself. The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself. Tune out the noise. Don’t spend your one life living someone else’s. Trust your gut. Intuition is powerful. Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. Break away from the herd, and you’ll be heavily rewarded. On following the herd. The larger the herd, the lower the returns. This goes for both investing & entrepreneurship.The reality is, life is a single-player game. You’re born alone. You’re going to die alone. All of your interpretations are alone. All your memories are alone. When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.
Experiences. Spend on experiences over things. Buying material goods only satisfies for a brief moment, until the next new best thing comes around. Creating an endless loop. Experiences last a lifetime and can expose you to new things giving you a deeper understanding. Traveling is the best way to expand your horizons. Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money. All your things used to be money. All that money used to be your time. You can’t save time, you can only spend it. So spend it wisely.
Wealth. True wealth is having an abundance of free time. Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. We tend to judge wealth by what we see. But we can’t see people’s bank accounts or brokerage statements. So we rely on outward appearances to gauge financial success. Which isn’t always the case. Wealth, in fact, is what you don’t see. It’s the assets in the bank that hasn’t yet been converted into the stuff you see. Flashy things can be deceiving. Most people work so hard to earn wealth and to be successful, that by the time they finally get it. They realize they no longer have their health or time to truly do what makes them happy. You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity to gain your financial freedom. Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage. Don’t be afraid to take risks. Avoid status seeking. Status is a zero sum game. Seek wealth, not money or status.
Risks. Don’t minimize your risks — maximize your opportunities. Take asymmetric risks. The greatest asymmetric risk is investing in yourself. Most people aren’t willing to put in the work and take the risk. Sometimes the riskiest thing to do is to play it safe 100% of the time. Avoid the status-que. Living with fear stops us from taking risks, and if you don’t go out on the branch, you’re never going to get the best fruit.
Money. Money is just a tool. It won’t make you happy on its own, but it can buy you the time & freedom to figure out what does. Many think wealth is only about money. But there are many definitions of wealth. Financial (money) — Social (status) — Time (freedom) — Physical (health) — Spiritual (soul).
Discipline. The world runs on short-term gratification. But discipline eventually does lead to freedom. Short-term pain = long-term gain. Your net worth today isn’t due to what you’re doing today, it’s the product of what you did the past few years. Your net worth is a lagging indicator of your financial habits and discipline the past few years.
Humble. Avoid flashy material items. Learn the art of minimalism. Living below your means, nobody is as impressed with your possessions as you are. Seeking validation often comes at the expense of freedom. People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom. Cut expenses in areas you don’t care about so that you can spend extravagantly in areas you do.
Failure. Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. We learn the most when we struggle, we just don’t realize it at the time. Failure done correctly rewards those who get back up and learn from it. Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become. Character — like a photograph, develops in darkness. There is no failure, only feedback.
Environment. Careful what you expose yourself to. Much of your surrounding subconsciously impacts you. You don’t have to be the victim of your environment. You can also be the architect of it. Determine who it is you want to be and go put yourself into the environment a person like that would be in.
Persistence. Because much more often than you would think, sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure.
Accountability. The lowest performing people believe it’s never their fault. They are victims. Without accountability you cannot progress. Branding requires accountability. To build a great personal brand, you must take on the risk of being publicly wrong.
Spontaneity. Spontaneity helps keep you young. Embrace change. If the only constant in life is change, then be the force that causes the change. Embrace new ideas. Most growth comes from change.
Exponential thinking. Linear thinking is so much more intuitive than exponential thinking. Aim to compound in all aspects of your life. In relationships, self improvement, and money. While most people around you think in short term, being able to think in decades is a super power.
Invest. Invest early and often. Time in the market > timing the market. Learn to avoid lifestyle inflation. Align expenses with values. Invest in your greatest asset- You. Don’t be cheap when it comes to your self-improvement. There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. Wealth is made by owning equity, invest in people, businesses, and ideas.
Open-minded. Whether it’s the type of investments you make, what you do for work, or who you surround yourself with, stay flexible. Being wrong isn’t a big deal, staying wrong is. People who are right most of the time are people who change their minds often.
Systems. Build systems rather than goals. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Problem #1: Winners and losers have the same goals.
Habits. Habits are the compounding interest of self improvement. Simple habits repeated consistently compounds into long term success. A small change in direction can lead to a meaningful change in destination. All big things come from small beginnings. Success is the product of daily habits — not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. Good habits nearly always permeate other areas of your life. Focus on having balanced habits. The daily habit of waking up at 5am, working out, and listening to audible or podcast is a cheat code for exponential personal growth.
Change. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to constantly edit your beliefs and to upgrade and expand your identity. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Embrace conflicting opinions to understand the other side. Humility is key.
Creativity. A key to creativity is to pursue knowledge without a sense of whether it will be relevant in the future. Too often people assume that they can judge in advance what they need to understand and what they do not. Instead, creative people build up their knowledge base so that they will be ready for the opportunities that come later.
Simplify. Be ruthless with the things that don’t matter. The more you say no to the things that don’t actually matter to you, the more you can say yes to things that do. This applies to the things you spend money on, relationships, and how you spend your time. One cannot be free from the stresses of a speed-and size-obsessed culture until you are free from the materialistic addictions
Networking. Networking= Giving. Here’s what people get wrong… The currency of real networking is generosity, not greed. It’s about what you can give others. If you figure out a way to bring value to already valuable people, you’ll quickly unlock the number of opportunities available to you
Live in the present. There’s no truer time in life the the current moment, don’t waist it worrying over the past. That you can not change. Don’t waist it over the obsessing over the future, you’ll never be happy. If you’re miserable while building wealth, you’ll be miserable when wealthy. If money is all you think about, you’ll miss the present moment. I have realized that the past and future are both illusions, that they only exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.
Resiliency. One of the greatest traits of a successful human is resiliency. Most skilled entrepreneurs & investors only got to that point by failing, collecting feedback & bouncing back many times over. Real confidence is created coming out of the valleys, not at the top.
Be an optimist. The world tend to reward those who view it as something beautiful. Your mindset can take you so far. Pessimism only limits how far you can go. Believe in yourself and stay positive. Optimism requires creativity whereas pessimism make do with conformity. Aim for informed rational optimism. You attract people by projecting positivity.
Luck. Luck almost always requires you to be prepared and consistent in order to be positioned for it. The harder you work, the luckier you tend to get. I think luck falls on not just the brave but also the ones who believe they belong there. Build a unique character, brand, or mindset and luck will find you.
Time. Time is an asset. It’s our most irreplaceable asset and the only intrinsic benefit of money is giving you more control over it. Live in a way that you look forward to looking back. Don’t walk the it’s too late, it’s too soon tightrope until you die. Money’s greatest intrinsic value — and this can’t be overstated — is its ability to give you control over your time. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Self-love. Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for all other relationships. The promises you keep with yourself & your self-talk will bleed into other areas of life. External validation is like filling a cup with a hole in the bottom. Happiness is an inside job.
Perfectionism. Perfectionism is fear in disguise. Lead with imperfect, messy action to combat it. When you defer and delay, interest is accumulating. This bill still comes due & it will be even harder to afford then than it will be right now.
Nature. Staring daily at screens everyday, we have lost what a far horizon does to the spirit. Spend more time in nature feet on the ground, under the sun, it does wonders for the soul. You really do need less than you think, trust me. Get out in nature, and you’ll see.
Know yourself. To know ones self greatly facilitates the knowledge of mankind. To be acquainted with misery contributes to the enjoyment of happiness. I don’t know where we are going, but I know exactly how to get there.
Ideas, quotes, pictures used in this article have been collaborated across many sources. Most visuals thanks to @visualizevalue. Quotes and concepts saved from Twitter, books, podcast, audibles, experience.
