Conserve energy now

At certain times in your life, there are going to be subtle, hidden, external forces conspiring against you—pulling you further away from your desired destination. In these moments, your instincts will tell you to fight back against those forces. You'll breathe faster, push harder, and strain against them. Perhaps the best course of action is to conserve energy now and deploy it more effectively later.

The time you spend comparing yourself

The time you spend comparing yourself to others is much better spent investing in yourself. The only comparison worth making is to you from yesterday.

Waiting for perfect conditions

Waiting for perfect conditions is how otherwise intelligent people keep themselves stuck. Two entrepreneurs spot the same opportunity. One builds elaborate plans; the other tests crude prototypes. The planner is still planning when the tester sells their company. While you wait for perfect conditions, others are creating them.

It’s probably too late to easily undo it

There’s a delay between the time something goes wrong and when we notice it. Sometimes, it can take years. It helps to acknowledge that by the time we notice something, it’s probably too late to easily undo it, and our work involves ameliorating the damage instead.

All of it, all at once

The smartphone is the most expensive device most people own, and the one they use the most. Here’s everything you can’t have, can’t afford and won’t get, right here. Here’s everyone you want to argue with, one click away. Here is every piece of bad news we can imagine, much of it imagined instead of real. Connection is powerful and magical. It’s also enervating, subject to manipulation and addictive.

Everything you are given is material for the next move

People can sometimes be held hostage by their expectations. They have a dream of something they would like to achieve or a path they intend to follow, but their mindset falls apart when things don't work out how they had hoped. The key is to reach for an extremely high bar but to be adaptable enough to reframe the failures, disappointments, and defeats into fuel for the next thing. Give your best effort, but no matter how it works out, trust that life will be good for you. Focus on how the world is working with you, not against you. Everything you are given is material for the next move. Everything.

When you get into a tight place

When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems you can't hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that's just the place and time that the tide'll turn.