Work is a battle. We face distraction and demotivation on all sides. When we encounter a block, the question arises...should I stop? Should I take a little break? Should I work on something else?

Business podcasters try to convince us to spend time with people who have more money than us. But if my wife and brothers and best friend aren’t millionaires, what am I supposed to do? Stop spending time with them?

I posted more than 100 short-form videos last year. And I’ll post 365 more videos this year. How am I so confident, even though my motivation is dwindling? It’s because I don’t rely on motivation. I rely on a system.

I don’t brush my teeth every day, but once a year I spend all day brushing them to remove all the plaque at once. Do you see how ridiculous this sounds? Yet we apply this strategy to many areas of our lives.

It was fascinating to see the impact that even a 15-minute delay to his nap schedule had on his ability to cope. Small changes in his diet and dinner schedule were detrimental to his ability to stave off a meltdown. It got me thinking that we aren’t so different.

As adults, we are told bedtime stories every single night.

I injured my foot during training and I had to get an x-ray. I was tired and hungry all the time for two and a half months. My hips locked up for a year afterward, and I had to take a special stretching class to regain mobility. I got 2,519th place with a time that doesn’t impress anybody.

When we take steps to improve our lives, the people around us can feel insecure about their lives. They might isolate themselves, they might lash out, or they might stop asking you to hang out.

“You get more out of reading one book that’s great five times, than [you do] out of reading five mediocre books.”
–Alex Hormozi

Is it your business? Is it your side hustle? Is it your health? Is it your relationships? Or your mindfulness?

I’ve had a pile of clean laundry sitting on my armchair for a week. I haven’t folded it. I hate folding laundry. This again? I have two weeks worth of underwear and a bunch of extra shirts that I hate wearing just so I don’t have to do laundry.

Sometimes you fall into a rut. Everything is annoying and nothing seems like it’s going to work and it feels like you’re stuck inside a black and white photograph, slowly deteriorating in a box in God’s attic.

Sustained greatness is so difficult to achieve. Great directors, authors, musicians, and even sports teams struggle to string together even just two or three top-tier performances in a row. Many of us are caught in the never-ending dryer spin of chasing accuracy.

I dropped somebody off and I pulled over to the side of the road and f**king bawled my eyes out. I was just like Why isn't this happening faster? Why am I not doing this creative stuff faster? Why is it that I'm still behind the wheel driving people?

What’s the big deal about habits? Why do all these ice-bath-taking meat-heads keep talking about building good habits? What’s the point? The one benefit that inspires me to build good habits is this: habits make things I hate doing much easier.

The economics of buying and reading a book are amazing. A $25 self-development book with even just one simple actionable insight can help the reader make 10x-1000x that amount in their lifetime.

In a world where everyone is fighting for attention, being a good listener gives you a disproportionate amount of leverage. Good listeners are uncommon, and scarcity brings value. Beyond this, good listeners hold an incredible amount of information—not just from what is said, but also from what is left unsaid, and how things are said.

If denial is a mental fallacy, then acceptance is a super power.

Switching between tabs and triangulating tasks is exhilarating. It feels like you’re in a space ship command center, shouting orders, shooting down bogeys, mapping a new course all at once. Except it’s a surefire strategy to burn out–quick.

Bad habits are the bi-product of our breakneck, capitalist culture. A truck spits out Co2. We spit out bad habits.