- Cherish your Front Row People. Close your eyes and imagine you’re dead, and it’s your funeral. People are walking in, crying, and hugging each other. Everyone sits down. Who’s in the front row? Those are the people that really matter. What are you doing today to cherish them? Credit: Curiosity Chronicle by Sahil Bloom.
- One of the biggest enemies of contentment and happiness is comparison. Everything is fine until it is compared to another. Your salary looks reasonable until you hear how much your buddy will be paid in his new role. Your boss isn’t so bad until you hear that another team leader buys pizza for his guys twice a week, and he always asks about their welfare.
- We all need “break glass in case of emergency” people. If you were in trouble right now, who would you go to? Credit: Eric Weinstein.
- One of the fundamental things we get wrong as a species is people-treatment. Head out to a supermarket, the passport office, you name it; you see how people treat their children with sometimes mad-like reactions with faces like possessed entities while sometimes striking their kids violently, or making remarks which connote disgust corollary of facial expressions depicting momentary hatred. And we wonder why we have part-time/full-time terrible colleagues at work.
- If a thousand people say something stupid, it is still stupid. If a super-smart person says something dumb, it is still dumb.
- There’s a thrill to getting things done and pushing yourself further to the edge of burnout. If you feel this way, don’t let the balance-preachers guilt trip you into feeling there’s something wrong. It’s almost like being under the influence, riddled with obsession and the feeling is usually unmatched.
- Doing so little or working very hard to earn a lot should not be points for bragging rights. In whatever position you find yourself, in doing little or heavy lifting, give thanks to the Maker who causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
- Never be too quick to cast down others you think “dream small.” It’s unwise to think satisfaction and self-actualisation cannot come from seemingly small desires and successes.
- The people I read about are rarely the people I would ever want to trade lives with. Why? I may not be willing to pay the price of their success. It’s easy to read biographies and autobiographies, watch biopics, and save screenshots of affirmations. The simple question is: are you willing to pay the price of extreme success?
- I don’t believe that all leaders should and can be mentors simply because they are in positions of power. Does the leader have a proper head on their shoulders? Do they have people issues? Do they understand what it means to have people look up to them?
- You have to figure out what your aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your circle of competence. Credit: Charlie Munger.
- Sometimes, the only person who understands the object of your creativity is you. This is why it helps to create within a community. Do not be afraid of inviting people into your process. You need people to ask questions like, “I don’t know what this is all about…the article you just wrote, what are you trying to communicate?” Credit: Jackie Hill Perry.
- We spend more time saying what we stand against and less communicating what we stand for. This makes us more angry at and more troubled by the errors of other people than our own issues.
- Contrary to what many people say, I believe there are [very] stupid questions, and there are two types: the ones you ask and the ones you keep in your head and ponder. Wisdom is attained when you know the type of stupid question(s) to ask.
- Want to become numb to insults? Teach yourself to imagine that the person uttering them is a variant of a noisy ape with little personal control. It always works like a charm. Credit: Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
- On playing the victim: It takes a lot of reflection but it’s worth it to identify if you are really a victim in a given scenario. Are there other possibilities? Did an event occur simply because you were at the wrong place and at the wrong time, or even the right place at the right time? Did it really happen to you because of your ethnicity, race or gender? Would this have happened to anyone irrespective of their characteristics? Is there a slim chance that you are the a**hole in the story?
- I believe in cherry-picking verbal battles and discourses. Don’t wear yourself down trying to have an opinion on everything. Nobody ever died from saying “No comment,” “I don’t think I know enough to have an opinion on this matter” or “This isn’t a topic I’d lose sleep over.” When in doubt, remember you can always say “Hmm, fair enough,” “It is what it is” or even “I have a slightly different opinion, but I’ll pass.”
- In a world where the act of correction has been demonised with all sorts of names, sometimes even classified as micro-aggression, refuse to be poor in thinking. Be open to feedback which can help you learn and improve. Take off those baby diapers for Chrissake. People aren’t hating; they just want you to be better.
- You can learn to handle serpents, which is your best defence against serpents. Credit to Jordan Peterson.
- Never underestimate human depravity driven by desperation and lack of options.
- You can go to hell without moving an inch; focus on what you lack. You can taste heaven without leaving earth; rejoice in what you have. Credit: 3–2–1 Thursdays by James Clear.
- A simple question to ask yourself: Whose life do I admire that is secretly miserable? Credit to Morgan Housel.
