Capability makes your life simpler

Capability makes your life simpler. Tolerance, skills, knowledge, and health are always with you, wherever you go. They are assets but they take up no space. They are stored in your body. Some lack capability through no fault, but anyone can increase their ability. It’s an investment that pays dividends every day.

Working with problems

Situations have no solution, they’re not problems, they’re simply the way it is. Problems are distinguished by the fact that they have solutions. But that doesn’t mean that the solution is obvious, easy or convenient. If the problem is important enough, we should pick the best available solution, not turn it into a situation.

Situational spending

Money is a story. But money is also an exchangeable commodity, valued by different people in different ways. And time is the wildcard. Situational spending is a trap that seduces us into forgetting that time passes and debt (or assets) remain.

There will never be time

Your time is valuable so it gets put to good use. There will never be time to build something great, because it’s hard to do great work without giving it your undivided attention, and undividing your attention always has a cost. The trick is to become ok with that.

If your body is healthy

If your body is healthy, you can walk long distances, carry heavy things, and recover quickly from life’s little injuries without missing a beat. You don’t need to deal with medication, monitors, or support equipment. You can handle whatever the situation requires.

If you have knowledge

If you have knowledge, you can get around your city without needing a navigation device. You can speak other languages, reducing stress and confusion when you travel. You can move through the world with confidence.

If you can tolerate discomfort

If you can tolerate discomfort, then you can camp much lighter. Camping lighter means you spend less time and energy packing, setting up, tearing down, and unpacking. The same goes for travel. Fewer clothes and shoes mean less luggage to carry, manage, and lose.

Think of relationships like a garden

Think of relationships like a garden: some plants naturally thrive and help everything around them grow, while others struggle despite constant care. Every hour spent on a toxic connection is stolen from relationships with real potential. Stop trying to save what's dying. Find what's thriving and help it flourish.

Let others be wrong

Most people can’t resist correcting others when they hear something wrong. They jump in with “actually…” and kill the conversation dead. Those who command real attention let others be wrong sometimes. They know not every mistake needs fixing.

Say the uncomfortable thing

Look around you. Most people are playing it safe, saying what they should say. It’s becoming seemingly impossible because everyone’s terrified of being canceled. When you dare to say what everyone’s thinking but won’t say, people will swarm to you like gnats to a lantern on a porch.

The stories we tell ourselves

If it happened to us, our memory is a story, our record of it with us at the center. Even if it’s on video, even if other people were there, our narrative, the context, and the play-by-play belong to us. The useful question might be: “Is my story helpful?” And the follow-up could be: “Is there any other version of this story that might be more helpful?”

Drop the act

If you don’t know, be willing to say you don’t. People are far more likely to listen to a human than an ‘expert.’ You don’t lose if you admit your gaps. You attract twice as much.

Your first move doesn't need to be perfect

Start small and learn fast. Your first move doesn't need to be perfect; it just needs to teach you something. Focus more on the next small step that moves you closer to the goal. Motion creates momentum, and momentum reveals opportunities that standing still never could.

What do we do with our chance?

Everyone needs more chances, more benefit of the doubt, and more opportunity. But what turns a chance into a big break is what we do with it once the chance arrives.

Key to effective negotiation

One key to effective negotiation is having multiple options and being OK with them not working out. Even if you really need the thing, it’s never your only choice: reframe and create alternative options until you have multiple outcomes you’re okay with.

They’re rare but they exist

There are some people who, after you talk to them, you feel more energized and you want to conquer the world or climb a mountain or something. They’re rare but they exist. Go find them and make friends with them.

Write out a review of your year

Write out a review of your year every year, figuring out what was good and what was bad. Use this information to set goals for the next year.

Doing as much as you can

Always be high integrity, even when it costs you. The shortcuts aren’t worth it. Doing as much as you can daily is a life extension.

Wealth can be created

Wealth can be created, there is not a fixed amount of it in the world. Somebody doing well doesn’t always come at someone else’s expense.

The ultimate touchstone of friendship

No matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

Find the strongest critique

The most valuable feedback usually hurts a lot. Form opinions on things and then find the strongest critique of those opinions. Repeat.

Lean into changes

Don’t “slow down” as you get older, speed up. Lean into changes, and be curious about new things. Most people seem to go the other way.

Do things fast

Do things fast. Things don’t actually take much time (as measured by a stopwatch); resistance/procrastination does. “Slow is fake”. If no urgency exists, impose some.

Prepare for a NO

Once you are ok with people telling you ‘no’, you can ask for whatever you want. (Make reality say no to you instead of assuming.)

Use your phone as a tool, not a companion

Use your phone as a tool, not a companion. Keep it stationary at home and remove apps designed to exploit your attention for profit. Limit or eliminate social media. If you need it for work, access it only via a browser on your laptop/computer, and restrict usage to an hour a week. Seek better alternatives for news, entertainment, and connection.

What might you be undervaluing right now?

We undervalue health if we have not recently experienced illness. We undervalue wealth if we have not recently experienced poverty. We undervalue kindness if we have not recently experienced cruelty. What might you be undervaluing right now?

The problem with getting what you want

The problem with getting what you want is that now you have a hole, because you don’t want that thing anymore, you have it. We then are on a cycle, eager to find a new thing to want. Which means that the thing you used to want but now have fades in comparison. There’s a more resilient path: To commit to wanting what you have.

Decide to become an expert in a topic

Decide to become an expert in a topic. Absorb as much information on the topic as you can. Keep metabolizing information into leverageable knowledge. Let your knowledge become identity-defining expertise.

Accept that your ignorance is a choice

Accept that your ignorance is a choice, not a fate. It’s called a library. Go inside one. Touch some dead trees. There’s no grand conspiracy to keep your brain smooth that cannot be overcome with Gutenberg’s technology. Don’t brag that you don’t know things. That’s pathetic, and you earn no sympathy for it. There’s nothing noble about a persistent refusal to even attempt to understand the world around you.

Stop playing games you aren’t allowed to win

Stop playing games you aren’t allowed to win. Engage with people who see you as an entire human being to be valued and not a thing to be used. Let yourself be great without the permission of the pathetically insecure and their precarious and unfair positions of authority.

The dose makes the poison

The dose makes the poison and we are all so very bad at math and measurements. People are always gonna be people, no matter the app they’re on.