Don’t chase productivity, just learn how to focus. #OrangeBook…Walk good. 28all. Eya. *WH, PR, TS*

The Warm-Up: 

“Slow growth is solid growth. Solid growth leads to exponential growth. Don’t rush.” ~Orange Book

The Core: 

“To be normal is the ideal aim for the unsuccessful.” ~Carl Jung

“No predator alive can attack what it cannot see.” ~Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power

“The success formula: solve your own problems and freely share the solutions.” ~Naval Ravikant

“I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” ~Frederick Douglass, on taking action

“Empathy is more powerful than anything, because it transforms stress & difficulty & even suffering into joy, generosity & love.” ~Waylon Lewis 

“If one accomplishes some good though with toil, the toil passes, but the good remains. If one does something dishonorable with pleasure, the pleasure passes, but the dishonor remains.” ~Musonius Rufus

“A sign of success: you don’t envy the youth of younger people. A sign of maturity: you don’t envy the wealth of people who started earlier. A sign of intelligence: you are focused on your own life.” ~Orange Book

“How to build a career in 7 steps: 1. Do great work. 2. Share it publicly. 3. Cold email people 2 steps ahead of you. 4. Talk about your work and trade ideas. 5. Host events and meet in-person. 6. Become friends. 7. Rise together.” ~James Clear

“Nobody cares: what you almost did, what you want to do, what you say you’ll do, what you could have done, what you think you can do, what you did a long time ago. What matters: what you’re actually doing, right now.” ~@saveyoursons

“This week, the flight attendant on my flight said to passengers, ‘If you see something, say something.’ So I pushed the call button and whispered to her ‘a lack of diversity in board rooms & investing panels across the tech ecosystem.’” ~Arlan Hamilton

“But why should I dwell on the things I can’t change? / What if I’m the answer for things that I’ve prayed? / All I know is / If nothing changes before I’m gone / I got no one else I could blame it on / And we been waiting way too long / What if we’re the ones that we’re waiting on? (What you waitin’ for?)” ~Andy Mineo, Nobody’s Coming

“Benis and the family learned a valuable lesson from this experience. The people you help may one day be in a position to help you. When you choose to be generous, your generosity is sometimes repaid in more ways [than] you can anticipate. The family that helped Benis didn’t expect to get paid back. They probably believed it would end up costing them money. But in the end, everyone ended up ahead.” ~Rob Reffkin, No One Succeeds Alone

“But in fact, being what we call a ‘superconnector’ has nothing to do with supersizing your network. Rather, it’s about surrounding yourself with a carefully curated group of people who you admire and respect and with whom you share common beliefs and values — people who will set the tone for the foundation of your larger network filled with people who provide value to one another. And that core group should be a lot smaller than you think.” ~Scott Gerber, Why Your Inner Circle Should Stay Small, and How to Shrink

“[Steve Jobs] said, ‘If you focus on making profits, you’re going to cut corners, you’re going to do things. You’ll juice up your revenues, you’ll cut your costs a little bit. You’ll make a profit.’ But that way is a path to disaster. He said if you focus on making a really insanely good product, the profits are going to follow…We, biographers, don’t write how-to books. I didn’t write about Ben Franklin to say how to be a diplomat or a leader, or how to book with Steve Jobs saying how to run a company or for that matter. Jennifer Doudna is the latest hero of my books. These aren’t seven secrets to success or seven easy lessons for how to run a company.” ~Walter Isaacson: Curiosity Fuels Creativity Ep #121 of The Knowledge Projectw/ Shane Parrish

Last Set: 

“But as it often is, learning things the hard way turned out to be a great gift. I was forced to develop a first-principles understanding of what worked, what didn’t, and why. I began to see fundraising as a process that goes far beyond the transactions, and my investor base soon grew into some of my deepest relationships.” ~Ryan Breslow, Fundraising

Food For Thought:

“Ebenezer Scrooge played by the scoreboard that many of us play by. The one where points come from status, power, and money. But as he neared the end of his life, Scrooge realized none of these things matter.

The second we get money, status, or power we’re not satisfied. We just want more. We think these things mean something, but they don’t. Who hasn’t experienced this? I remember when I first started working in a large organization. I told myself that if I just got a promotion, I’d be happy. Well, promotions came and went and none of them made me happier. All of them only left me wanting more. While we tell ourselves that the next level is enough, it never is. The next zero in your bank account won’t satisfy you any more than you are now. The next promotion won’t change who you are. The fancy car won’t make you happier. The bigger house doesn’t solve your problems. Pay attention to what you are chasing because, in the end, you just might get it. And the cost of ‘success’ might be the things that really matter. ‘Never risk what you have and need,’ wrote Warren Buffett, ‘for what we don’t have and don’t need.’ In pursuit of our goals, we inevitably give up things that matter. We sleep less. We spend less time with our friends. We eat unhealthily. We skip workouts. We cancel dates. We miss dinner with the family. When it comes to living a meaningful life, the only scoreboard that matters is yours. Don’t let your ego get in the way of the person you really want to be or the life you really want to live.” ~Shane Parrish, Brain Food: Your Scoreboard [Tiny Thought]

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