It is important to remember that flexibility is just as important to your success as tenacity, if not more so #superthinking #thebigbookofmentalmodels…#Walk good. 28all. Eya. *JD*

The Warm-Up:

“You don’t get peace if you are scared of self-reflecting. You don’t get talent if you are scared of sacrifices. You don’t get love if you are scared of trusting. You don’t get growth if you are scared of failing.” ~Orange Book

The Core: 
“Surround yourself with people that celebrate growth.” ~Matthew Kobach

“Learn who you are. Unlearn who they told you to be.” ~Sylvester McNutt III

“ ‘What happens when people open their hearts?’ ‘They get better.’” ~Haruki Murakami

“Success is about staying disciplined every day for years when you don’t feel like it.” ~Orange Book

“To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.” ~James P. Carse

“Have enemies; but make sure that they think about you much, much more than you think about them.” ~Nassim Nicholas Taleb

“There has been a lot of talk about privilege lately. Although the concept is overused, there is something to it, and in particular to the idea that privilege makes you blind — that you can’t see things that are visible to someone whose life is very different from yours.” ~Paul Graham, Orthodox Privilege

“We chase what’s sexy and miss what matters. While excitement starts something, execution completes it. While speed makes a good story, velocity makes an outcome. While complexity makes you sound smart, focusing on the key basics matters more. While new commands our attention, nature offers insight.” ~Shane Parrish, Brain Food No. 379

“Going to the next level is not as easy as one may think. People think the only requirement is giving up all the bad habits. That’s the easy part. The difficult part about pursuing your dreams is that it often requires us to sacrifice some of the things we cherish. For instance, you may have to sever certain relationships, certain things, and certain places…” ~Dr. Eric Thomas

“The world is a complex place. I think that the challenge is to become a more nimble thinker, is to be able to move across these models. But at the same time, if you can’t, if that’s just not your style, that doesn’t mean there’s no place for you in the modern economy. To the contrary, it means that maybe you should be one of those people who goes deep.” ~Scott Page: Becoming a Model Thinker, The Knowledge Project Ep. #55

“First-principles thinking is one of the best ways to reverse-engineer complicated problems and unleash creative possibility. Sometimes called ‘reasoning from first principles,’ the idea is to break down complicated problems into basic elements and then reassemble them from the ground up. It’s one of the best ways to learn to think for yourself, unlock your creative potential, and move from linear to non-linear results.” ~Shane Parrish, First Principles: The Building Blocks of True Knowledge

“Because there’s a cost to using it on one thing instead of another. And because the person who invests money has choices, and often chooses the choice that works best for them. Most people would be happy with a hotel that generates a profit of a thousand dollars a day. But if the hotel cost $50,000,000 to build, you’re bust. Time costs money too. That’s not the same as saying ‘time is money,’ which it isn’t. Time is magnificent, hard to stockpile and impossible to recover. But it still costs. Which means that it’s worth considering whether something worthwhile comes back for your investment and your effort.” ~Seth Godin, Money costs money

Last Set: 

“Most people don’t grow up. It’s too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That’s the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don’t grow up. Not really. They get older. But to grow up costs the earth, the earth. It means you take responsibility for the time you take up, for the space you occupy. It’s serious business. And you find out what it costs us to love and to lose, to dare and to fail. And maybe even more, to succeed. What it costs, in truth. Not superficial costs, anybody can have that, I mean in truth.” ~Maya Angelou

Food for Thought: 

“My uncle ran a small business. He taught me 3 things as a teen that I’ve never forgotten.

1. Use money to create wealth: Trade money for things that make you money while you sleep. Arbitrage your time. Buy time from someone else if you can earn more. Most people trade money for things that make them feel good about themselves. That’s why they’re never wealthy.

2. Time has an opportunity cost. Price accordingly: You have to figure this one out for yourself. Here is how my uncle did it. He priced the first 75% of his time at 100% of his normal price. Then he added 5% for every 5% of time. So if you’re 110% booked, bill 140% of normal.

3. Honesty always wins in the long run: One night he was on the phone and he told a client, ‘This isn’t the thing we typically do. In order to do it right, I’d have to charge you 150% of what my competitors will charge you.’ He almost always got the contract.” ~Shane Parrish