Slow down your consumption

Slow down your consumption, whether it’s food, movement, or even a simple moment, because enjoyment scales with attention. The more deliberately you attend to an experience, the more it expands; the less you do, the more it disappears. Some pleasures grab your attention automatically, but most require you to give them on purpose, so pick one or two ordinary moments, fully experience them, and move on.

Where do bad choices come from?

We all make them from time to time. You might not know what you need to know. This is where experience is created. You might have an identity that pushes you to make those choices. If you’re determined to act like the person you have assumed you are, the choices come with the role. Or, you might prioritize short-term benefits over the long-term costs of a bad choice. In this sense, the difference between a good choice and a bad one is simply which timeframe we’re considering.

Credibility is expensive

Credibility is expensive because the bills never stop. You pay it in conversations no one overhears, in deals where you leave money on the table, in credit you give away. You pay for it every time you say the hard thing instead of the easy one. The strange part is that you're paying for years before anyone notices, and you can lose it all in an afternoon.

Who sets your agenda?

It’s a question so rarely asked that it almost feels silly to ask it. Who decides what you will eat tonight, or what you will do after dinner? Who decides who you will call on, what you will learn next, which posts you’ll read (or write)? Who decides what tone the conversation will have, what your priorities are, and what you’ll worry about when you walk? There’s the agenda for the next five minutes as well as one for the next five days. And the process of getting to five years from now is so fraught or uncharted that we hesitate to even talk about it.

Action produces information

Action produces information. If you're unsure of what to do, just do anything, even if it's the wrong thing. This will give you information about what you should actually be doing. Sounds simple on the surface - the hard part is making it part of your everyday working process.

What we are naturally suited to do

When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play, and it is play that stimulates creativity.

A good position allows you to think clearly

A good position allows you to think clearly rather than be forced by circumstances into a decision. One reason the best in the world make consistently good decisions is that they rarely find themselves forced into a decision by circumstances. You don’t need to be smarter than others to outperform them if you can out-position them. Anyone looks like a genius when they’re in a good position, and even the smartest person looks like an idiot when they’re in a bad one.