100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late

Rule 1: You can choose which games to play, but not their rules

Most frustration and unhappiness in your life will come from disrespecting the rules of whatever “game” you are a participant of – be it love, business, health, or social life.

Paraphrasing Paulo Coelho, failures are life’s way of teaching us its rules. In particular, those we do not want to learn.

Pain, sadness, and frustration result from not having learned the rules by which the world works or having chosen to disrespect them.

Prioritize your growth

Rule 2: The very important never feels urgent

The most common regret people have on their deathbed is to have spent their life chasing the urgent, neglecting to do what was actually important. Family meals, drinks with friends, learning, and taking care of our health are all very important activities. And yet, we often skip them to attend meetings and other urgent errands. Because the very important does not have a deadline, we have the impression that we can delay it for a few days. It is a huge mistake. Delaying something once opens the door to delaying it forever. If you think about it, the very important never feels urgent. Instead, most of what feels urgent is important for someone else, not for you.

ACTION: You do not have to wait for your life to near its end. Make the very important urgent, now. Incorporate it within your schedule. Treat your family time, friends time, learning time, and workout time as if they were meetings with clients. Give them slots in your calendar and be inflexible about them. After all, your schedule is where your real priorities show up.

Rule 3: Problems grow to the size they need for you to acknowledge them

There are many reasons for which problems appear. However, there is a single reason for which they grow: if we ignore them. By acknowledging a problem and its consequences, the risks of letting it grow become clear and, therefore, urgent. You will be compelled to act immediately. Acknowledging problems is the first step toward solving them and regaining mental peace. Instead, if you ignore your problems, you deprive yourself of the very fuel you need to act. The simple act of taking a pen and writing down the list of problems affecting you and the ways they negatively impact your life will often be all you need. If this is too much, choose a single issue and write about that one only. But do write about it. Simply thinking about it will not be enough. Your unconscious mind needs material proof that you acknowledged the problem and its consequences.

ACTION: Do it right now. Put down the book, take a pen, and write. What problems are you facing? How will your life be affected if you do not address them immediately? You do not need to write about how you will solve the problem. Just write about the problem itself.

Rule 4: Problems are not solved by addressing their symptoms, but by addressing their root cause

ACTION: Think about a recurring problem of yours. What have you done so far to solve it? Will it prevent any further occurrence of such a problem? If not, you need to stop doing what you are currently doing to address that problem and do something else instead. Write down, NOW, what you will do to ensure that the problem will never show up again. If acting on what you wrote down would take less than half an hour, do it immediately. Put this book down and do it. Otherwise, take your calendar (do it now!) and schedule the action.

Rule 5: Make a not-to-do list

ACTION: Implement a not-to-do list for yourself:

Make a list of the top 25 actions you should take during the next months.
Order the list items from the most impactful to the least impactful.
Then, select the top 5 items: these are your to-do list.
Finally, select the bottom 20 items: these are your not-to-do list.

Once you’re done, pin both lists (the to-do one and the not-to-do one) somewhere you can regularly check them. If you find yourself transgressing (by working on some of the not-to-do items before having finished the to-do ones), ask yourself: what should I tweak, in my environment or in my way of working, so that I will not transgress again?

Rule 6: Do your activities make your life better?

ACTION: What activity do you regularly engage with, even if it does not improve your life? Any chance you can substitute it with something more likely to improve your life? Do not focus on stopping the former. Focus on substituting it with the latter. Which emotions do you regularly engage with, even though they worsen your life? Is there any activity you are undertaking that summons them (e.g., looking at your ex’s social media feed)?

Rule 7: Most mistakes are forms of clinging to the past

ACTION: What would you do if you didn’t feel obligated to act like the person you’ve been?

Rule 8: The most important question “If you keep doing what you are currently doing, how will your life be in 10 years?”

ACTION: Answer the question above. Honestly. Then, if you are not satisfied with the contents of your answer, make the necessary adjustments to how you spend your days.

Shape yourself so that your world reshapes upon you in a way you like.

ACTION: Look for an area of your life in which you feel some frustration. Then, ask yourself: what is it that the world keeps shouting, yet I am ignoring? Which implicit rule about how the world works are you failing to acknowledge? Which implicit rule do you wish were different? Failing to acknowledge the implicit rules of this world will always be your largest obstacle.

Move forward

Rule 9: What got you here won’t get you there

Life is made of stages. What works in one stage often doesn’t work in the next one. People plateau when they abandon learning new things and instead focus on doing the old ones harder. What produced improvements in the past probably won’t keep delivering them indefinitely. To get “promoted” to the next stage in life, do not do what got you to the current stage. Instead, do what people at the next stage do.

ACTION: What is one habit or behavior of yours that proved beneficial in the past but is near useless for future growth? BONUS: If you work at a company and regularly work overtime, consider stopping at 5 PM sharp. Then, use the freed-up time to dedicate to your professional advancement – learn a new skill, shadow a senior employee, start a work-related side-project, and so on. Similarly, try to refuse projects and assignments which are “too much of the same of what you are already doing.” Instead, ask for responsibilities that would bring you in contact with that which people at the next stage of your career do. In general: strive to put an artificial limit to “your current stage’s work” and free up time to do “the next stage’s work.”

Rule 10: Get better at spotting busywork

Writing an extra email update to your boss just to show that you’ve been working hard is a form of busywork – work that doesn’t add value. You probably know this already. But there is a subtler form of busywork: work that you do because you think it adds value (but doesn’t).

ACTION: Pick an area of your life where you feel stuck. Then, ask yourself the following two questions.

What you’re doing right now, is it helping?
Is it something done by people who achieved your goals or merely by people who aspire to them?

Rule 11: Other people’s expectations aren’t your problem

Take responsibility for your problems, and let other people take responsibility for theirs.

ACTION: Every time you feel someone’s expectations of you, think about the lines above. Then, remind yourself that their expectations are their problem, not yours.

Rule 12: use negative emotions as a trigger

Stress signals a problem you lack plans for. Chronic fatigue hints at a problem with your habits or environment. Jealousy signals that you’re engaging in zero-sum games. It is tempting to react to negative emotions with avoidance or denial. Yet, doing so won’t help you. Instead, use them as a signal of the need for change.

ACTION: When was the last time you felt any of the emotions described above? Does it indicate an underlying problem in your life? If so, what can you do to address it?

Rule 13: Taking responsibility will make you grow, not the other way around

In adulthood, opportunities follow taking responsibility. Take ownership of the problems you face. Opportunities will follow. This is not limited to your career. Once you take responsibility for your life, partners, friendships, and opportunities will appear.

ACTION: If you were a friend of yours responsible for helping yourself grow professionally, what would you advise yourself to do?

Do not seek perfection

Rule 14: Do not seek the absence of fear

ACTION: What’s an action you would like to take but are too afraid to take? Is your fear rational? If not, acknowledge that there won’t be a perfect moment in which you will not feel it. Accept that the fear is here to stay – the only question is whether you will act through it. Will you?

Rule 15: Do not seek perfect efficiency

ACTION: What are actions that seem wasteful today but are invaluable for your long-term success? Here are some common ideas of “wasteful” activities that are actually great investments: taking breaks, learning, looking for new ideas, trying something that might fail, building personal bonds, and having fun. Should any of these go into your schedule or to-do list?

Rule 16: Do not seek control

ACTION: Try to imagine what it would mean to you to be successful. Avoid details. Instead, distill the values of yours that would feel realized. Then, base your choices upon them. Take actions both to materialize your vision and to materialize your values (what’s important for you). But if you have to choose between the two, choose the latter. The former will adapt. For example, “I want to have written a bestseller sci-fi book” might become “I want to be read by millions of people.” The latter is better because it does not fixate you on a specific genre or a specific medium. As another example, “I want to marry a partner with [checklist of traits]” becomes “I want to have a fulfilling relationship with a partner that makes me happy.” This prevents you from missing some great people who might cross your life just because they lack one item on a long checklist of “needs” you think you know.

Rule 17: Seek momentum, not perfection

Passionate people are ambitious in their growth rate but not in their absolute results. This ensures that they derive a constant flow of motivation from their practice. In each session, they spot improvement, and that feels good. The positive emotional association brings motivation and focus. Do not worry about perfection and effectiveness before having built motivation and momentum. Until then, only focus on starting, consistency, and making it a rewarding experience. Finally, perfection requires iteration – trial and error. Too often, amateurs think that achieving perfection is about refining one’s technique. Instead, it might be more about refining one’s taste. If you are an artist, do you really know what people want? More in general, do you really know what you want? The only way to know is to get started and see.

ACTION: Is there any goal of yours with which you feel stuck? Plan an action – no matter how small – that will get you started towards it. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking, “this is not enough,” and don’t make elaborate plans. Instead, aim for “doable.”

Rule 18: Everything can be a step forward

ACTION: Think about the last mistake that caused you anxiety. Can you learn anything from it? If so, did you become a stronger or more skillful person as a result? If you did learn something and are now a more effective person as a result, do you still think making the mistake was bad for your future and something you needed to worry about?

Know what you want and what its costs are, then pay them

Rule 19: Acknowledge what is important for you

One of our most painful feelings is regret. It originates from not having understood, in the past, how something would have been important to us in the present (and thus not having done what needed to be done to obtain it). To avoid regret in the future, you need to understand now what it is that will be important to you. Unfortunately, most people are terrible at knowing what their future selves will value in 10 years. The key is honesty. With yourself. Listening to your desires without judging them.

ACTION: Make a list of the things you desire for your life. Use a 10-year horizon. Let your current self speak freely. Do not be afraid of betraying your past self. Then, add the things that you imagine an average 80-years old (not your 80-years-old self) would tell you they enjoyed in their life. This ensures that you consider your current wishes and those of your future self – because you aren’t your future self yet, you might not know him or her as well as you think. The final version of this list will be used for the action item of the following rule.

Rule 20: Know the costs of what you want

ACTION: Choose one of the items in your list from the previous rule. It should represent something you want to achieve in the next 1-5 years. Write out all the costs you will have to pay for your goal to become your reality. Make sure to include:

The skills you will have to acquire.
The work sessions you will have to participate in.
The relationships you will have to cultivate.
The conversations you will have to have.
The things you will have to give up.

In particular, focus on listing the actions that will have to happen on a daily or weekly basis, rather than “one-offs.” For example, “learning to write marketing copy” becomes “read one book on marketing a month and write one page every Tuesday evening for six months.” After you write the list of costs, ask yourself: if you complete all of the items, will your goal certainly be realized? If not, what is missing? Do the exercise now. Pick one goal you want to achieve and list its costs. The list will be used for the action point of the following rule.

Bonus Rule: Look at what accomplished people do not do

ACTION: Is there anything you’re currently doing on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that you will have to give up to achieve your goals? Is it worth giving this activity up to achieve your goals? Both a “yes!” and a “no!” are valid answers. But make sure you don’t postpone the decision and proceed to the next page with an “I’ll think about it later” attitude.

Rule 21: Once you decide what you want, work on paying its costs

ACTION: Immediately schedule on your calendar some “working sessions” in which you will pay at least some of the costs you listed in the previous rule’s action point. Then, take your phone and add a reminder to review your performance in one week’s time. During your review, ask yourself, “did I pay the costs I said I would pay this week?” If not, what adjustments need to be made to your schedule and environment? Finally, set a new reminder for your review in a week. Do not underestimate the importance of this weekly reminder. It is what will ensure that, eventually, you will take effective action. It is the difference between a broken new year’s resolution and an actual habit.

Rule 22: Distinguish between the necessary and the sufficient

If an action is sufficient to succeed at your goal, it should be your sole focus. If it is necessary but not sufficient, it should be one objective of many. And if it is a byproduct of success, it should be on your not-to-do list.

ACTION: Pick a goal of yours, and list the actions that, if completed, will achieve that goal. Then, ask yourself: if you lived in ten parallel worlds identical to this one, and in all ten worlds you completed the actions on the list, would you achieve that goal all ten times? Or is there any other bottleneck or external circumstance you need to address?

Start

Rule 23: Action is the trick to break vicious circles

ACTION: What is one vicious circle in which you are seemingly stuck? List the 2-3 factors that are blocking you. For example, if you are a freelancer who just started your own business, it could be not having clients and not having a portfolio. Then, assume that one of those factors was gone. What action would you take? (See the example below.) Add it to your to-do list. Have faith that if you do it, you will have transformed, if only a little bit, the vicious circle into a virtuous one. For example: Mark is a freelancer without a portfolio and without a client (he just started). If he had a portfolio, he would begin to contact clients and tell them what he could do for them. Therefore, the solution is to go out there and start contacting clients anyway. That’s how he can break the vicious circle.

Rule 24: If you cannot take a big step, take a smaller one

ACTION: Pick a goal of yours – running three times a week, perhaps. Then, schedule in your calendar what you will do in the next week to accomplish it – for example, running 2km on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Finally, schedule a reminder for Sunday to review whether you took action. If you did act, great! You can schedule the same for next week or even raise the bar. For example, increase the distance to be run. Instead, if you couldn’t complete the action, no matter the reason, lower your bar. For example, go from running three times a week for 2km to running twice a week for 2km. Find a step small enough so that you maximize the chances of executing it. If you are still stuck, choose a smaller step. Even if it seems insignificant, like running 500 meters once a week. Once you gain momentum by taking that small step, you will be able to increase your habit to something more significant. Keep this virtuous circle going and soon, you will hit your original, desired goal. Without the momentum of a virtuous circle, thinking about effectiveness will get you nowhere. Momentum before impact; momentum to build impact.

Rule 25: Stress comes from unaddressed problems

ACTION: Pick one problem that is causing you stress. Develop a roadmap with a set of tasks that, if completed, will lead to the problem being solved. Attach dates to these tasks. If you still feel stressed at the end of the exercise, it means that you do not believe that the tasks are achievable or that, if completed, they would be enough to solve the problem. In this case, revisit the roadmap until the stress disappears. That will be the sign that you have an effective roadmap. Then, of course, work on its execution.

Rule 26: Play stupid games, win stupid prizes

ACTION: List all the games you participate in. It could be proper games, societal games (who has the largest car?), professional ones (the corporate ladder), or in general, any competition where there’s a winner. Then, visualize what it would take to win (time, energy, or money – all things you could use elsewhere). Is the prize still worth it? Perhaps the answer is yes. Ultimately, you decide what’s worth doing. But make sure it’s a deliberate decision.

Rule 27: Choose objectives you can influence

ACTION: Pick a goal of yours. Is it something you can influence? Now, deconstruct it into a set of actions and milestones. Which ones can you control? Which ones can you influence? And which ones you cannot control nor influence? About the latter – can you substitute them with actions and milestones that you can control or at least influence?

Rule 28: Pick ambitious goals

ACTION: Is there any objective of yours for which you are having trouble getting enough support? If so, consider being more ambitious with the ultimate impact you wish to have. Of course, do not lie or promise the impossible. It’s not, “I think I can achieve X, so I’ll tell others I am aiming for ten times X.” Instead, it’s “With my current plan, I can achieve X. How should I change my plan to achieve 10X?”

Rule 29: If it hasn’t been written down, it hasn’t been planned

ACTION: Pick a project of yours and write down a plan. It should include a clear description of what success looks like and what actions you will take to ensure it gets realized. Then, write down a detailed list of actions you will take over the next two weeks and their desired outcome. Finally, set a reminder in two weeks to check your plan and see if any adjustments are needed. If you do write down the plan, you’ll be setting yourself up for success. If you do not write the plan down, you won’t have any excuse if your goals do not materialize.

Make yourself a compass

Rule 30: Self-respect is the compass for change that matters

ACTION: Practice the advice. Strive to do at least one thing per day that will increase your self-respect. If one day you fail, do a post-mortem: think about what prevented you from taking the action; then, address that problem so that you’ll never face it again. Slowly but steadily, your actions will compound.

Rule 31: Bad decisions in life arise from having optimized for the wrong variable

ACTION: Prioritization is the art of spotting proxies and excluding them from our to-do list. Proxies are fought with not-to-do lists (rule #5). Some heuristics on how to spot proxies and get rid of them:

Everything which causes addiction is a proxy.
Any metric which is not weighted by the impact it generates is a proxy. (And any metric whose correlation/impact to your ultimate goal is approximated to be static in time, is a proxy.)
If a proxy is chosen because it is easier to improve rather than easier to measure, don’t choose it.
If a process describes what it is rather than what it is for, it has been optimized for a proxy.
If it won’t be important in five years, it is a proxy.
If it wasn’t important for people one thousand years ago, it is a proxy.
Doubt everyone whose core competency is a proxy (students whose competency is to pass exams, which are a proxy for knowledge; teachers whose competency is to get papers published, which are a proxy for teacher quality; financial advisors whose competency is looking trustworthy; speakers whose competency is to use words rather than choosing them; and so on)

These heuristics won’t always be accurate, but you’ll be better off acting as if they are (that’s the point of heuristics).

Learn to learn

Rule 32: Metapractice

ACTION: The next time you practice a skill – playing basketball, cooking, selling a product, filing a report, publishing a blog post, whatever – think about how you can modify your practice to get more feedback out of it.

When playing basketball, after each shot, try noticing where the ball hits the rim. Or observe the position of your feet as you jump. In general, focus on specific aspects of the task at hand and see how they influence outcomes.
When cooking, try applying a variation to the recipe (perhaps a new spice? Higher oven temperature?) and see how it changes the taste.
When publishing a blog, try focusing on a different aspect of each post. For example, for one post, focus on being interesting. For the next one, focus on being crystal clear. And for the one after that, focus on writing as your favorite author would.

More importantly, internalize the habit of asking yourself, after each session, “How could the practice have been better?”. Should you prepare a written plan (one or two bullet points) of what to focus on before each practice? Should you record yourself? Should you look for a mentor? Should you take more breaks, using them to absorb what you just learned? Should you take notes? Finally, should you ever skip a practice session, get into the habit of asking yourself: what is the root cause that made me miss the session? How should I address it? What should I change, in my habits or my environment, to ensure that I will never skip a practice session for the same reason again? Improve your practice, and you’ll improve yourself.

Rule 33: Learn by doing

ACTION: Avoid reading two nonfiction books in a row. Instead, read one and immediately apply its learnings in practice. It has to be something whose output is a physical product or a physical interaction. Only afterward, read a second book. Then, again, use your newly acquired knowledge to produce something. Keep going. The same applies to YouTube videos, online courses, and so on. Never take one “theoretical learning course” right after another. Always put to practice what you’ve learned before taking the next course.

Rule 34: Maximize feedback loops

ACTION: What is the smallest bit you can divide your work into? Collect feedback on each such small piece of output of yours. Feedback does not have to be formal (e.g., people filling out feedback forms). You can observe the reaction of people – are they clapping? Are they sharing your work? Which pieces of your work do they applaud, and which are they indifferent to? Why? The more variations you try and the more feedback you receive, the more you will learn. Some people are reluctant to receive feedback. They might be afraid of what it will say about them or their work. Or they might be afraid to share something which isn’t perfect yet. You can avoid being like them by internalizing that feedback is a necessary piece of success. Every time you receive feedback, focus on the fact that you are receiving a part of your future success. Likewise, every time you openly engage with someone and share a piece of your work with them, visualize the fact that you just completed one of the necessary steps towards achieving your dreams. This will help you keep motivated and absorb feedback better.

Rule 35: Attribute feedback to the specific

When you receive a piece of negative feedback, never perceive it as directed to you (broad); instead, redirect it to a specific mental pattern of yours (specific).

ACTION: Try to remember the last piece of negative feedback you received. Which mental pattern of yours was it directed to? Now, try to remember the last time you felt bored or frustrated with an activity meant to improve you. Towards which particular aspects of that activity was the feeling directed?

Rule 36: Only the practice that is deliberate matters

ACTION: The next time you practice a skill of yours, try something new – something whose outcome you do not know. Before you try, make a hypothesis about what will happen. Then, try it. Did what you expected happen? Why or why not? Make a new hypothesis and test it again. This is how learning happens.

Rule 37: Learning is about seeing. If you cannot understand something, ask what is there to see

Learning is about making connections. We can only learn connections between pieces of information that we have already learned. This might seem obvious, so let’s look at the non-obvious implication: In learning and in teaching, the focus should be on supplying the right pieces of information given what the student already knows rather than providing pieces of information regardless of whether they are understandable. In the case of self-learning, you are your own teacher. Focus on looking for the right pieces of information given what you already know. A way-too-common mistake is consuming educational content above your current level. Or observing interactions in an environment whose fundamental rules you do not know.

ACTION: Pick one area for which you consumed educational content over the last year but failed to make visible improvements. It could be a sport, a hobby, cooking (you read some recipes or watched some videos), investing, a new task at work, a self-help book, and so on. Then, find someone who is an expert in that area. It could be a coach, a friend, a colleague, or a teacher. If you do not know any such expert, email or call one you do not know (I will explain how in the chapter on “getting help”). Once you find such an expert, tell him what you are trying to understand or learn and ask him, “what is the pattern or principle that I can’t see but that you, as an expert, do see?” Use precisely those words. He will understand, and he will help you. He will likely recommend you read a classic book on the matter. Your first reaction might be, “I already know that,” “It is too boring,” or “I can do better.” In this case, be humble, remember who the expert is, and follow his instructions. It will be worth it.

Rule 38: Find out the implicit rules

ACTION: Schedule on your calendar some actions whose results would help you discover the implicit rules of the career you chose. This could include reading books, meeting senior colleagues, etc. Then, take those actions as you scheduled them. And if you find the implicit rules still elude you, consider asking a mentor – someone who has played that game before.

Rule 39: You will regret not sharing more than sharing

ACTION: Whatever your craft, find something that can be shared and valuable to others. It could be something you could write on your blog, an email you could send to your friends, customers, or colleagues, something you could draw, paint, or cook, something you could teach face-to-face… Then, set yourself a regular schedule to perform the sharing activity – at least once a month, better, once a week. Do not worry about your craft being perfect before sharing it. Even for masters, their craft never exceeds 90% perfection, at least in their eyes. Even if they work one more week on it, it will still only be 90% perfect. There is no such thing as 100% perfect. Perfect is like the horizon. As you move towards it, it moves further away. You never get there. Finally, stick to your schedule. The first time will be both terrifying and terrific. But it will be worth it, just for the feeling of liberation that you will feel the day after having done that. If you can stick to your schedule for at least four sharing sessions, I guarantee your craft will improve.

Get help

Rule 40: Build a reputation for not wasting time

Here are the four rules of asking for help:

If you ask someone to help you achieve some result, and they do help you, make damn sure that you achieve that result. You do not want them to feel like their advice was useless.
Never ask a person for a second bit of help before having shown you made use of the first bit. Demonstrate you’re not wasting their time.
Ask people for help that only they can provide. People like to feel important and give a unique contribution. They hate being asked to do someone else’s job. If you really must ask for a form of help that anyone can provide, at least have the courtesy of making clear that their contribution would feel unique to you. Also, never ask anything you could have googled.
If you ask someone for advice, be prepared to follow it. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you should follow anyone’s advice. It means that, before asking for advice, you should vet the person you’re asking for advice to ensure that they will provide advice that is actually good for you.

ACTION: Who can you ask for help? What can you ask them?

Rule 41: Get good at sending cold emails

Here are some characteristics of a good cold email:

It is personal. Your email wouldn’t make sense if you copied/pasted the text and sent it to someone else just by changing the recipient’s name.
It goes to the point without wasting the recipient’s time.
It is actionable. If the recipient wants to help, the next step is evident and frictionless.
It is risk-free. If the recipient wants to help, they can do so with no risk.
It is impactful. If the recipient wants to help, something good will happen – either to them or to those that your project will impact positively.
It is well written. You should spend at least 15 minutes, probably 30, researching the recipient, ensuring that they are the right person to help you, writing the email, ensuring it covers the points above, proofreading it, editing it for brevity, and sending it. Never copy/paste text.

ACTION: Pick a goal of yours, preferably one that, if successful, will have a positive impact on others. Then, ask yourself if there’s any form of external help that could help you achieve that goal faster or impact more people – for example, an introduction, a personal connection, a piece of advice, etc. Afterward, think about who could be uniquely positioned to give you that piece of help. Then, research them and validate that they are a good fit. Finally, write them an email covering all the points described on the previous page. If they help you, great! If they decline respectfully, also great! It probably means that your email was crafted well enough to deserve a reply – they just could not help you, perhaps for a reason that doesn’t have anything to do with you. Just ask someone else. But if they do not even reply, you should revisit how you’re writing cold emails. Perhaps yours was too long? Too impersonal? Too cumbersome to act upon? Research another person worth asking for help, craft a better email, and send it out.

Rule 42: Listen without projecting your worldview

ACTION: The next time you find yourself listening to someone, withhold judgment. Assume they are right, and you lack some context. If you ask questions, never phrase them as “explain to me why you are not wrong”; instead, “explain to me how you feel (and why).” If you manage to do this genuinely, you will instantly become one of the top listeners they have ever met. Your interlocutor will likely mention how “few people listened to them this way.” Enjoy the moment and enjoy your friend’s thoughts. They might be just as beautiful as yours.

Rule 43: Listen to the old

ACTION: What is one piece of advice that someone older than you gave that you dismissed? What are the assumptions under which he gave you that advice? Could such assumptions become true for you one day?

Rule 44: Do not trust anyone who insists on being part of the solution

ACTION: The next time someone proposes a solution that would benefit them, consider acknowledging the solution but proposing that someone else execute it. For example, if they are doctors recommending a surgery, thank them for the advice and mention that you will get the surgery at another hospital. Then, observe their reaction. Do they insist on being the ones operating you? If so, you might want to consider what their real incentives are.

Rule 45: Trust incentives rather than people

ACTION: Think about a person you interacted with recently whose incentives are opposite yours. The next time you interact with them, think: is there a way to align their risks with yours? For example, if they try to sell you some product or service, can you ask for a written warranty? If they do not want to do that, what does it tell you about them?

Rule 46: Trust actions rather than words

The old adage goes, “do not trust people’s words but their actions.” This is sound advice, and most people know to apply it to others. But few apply it to themselves. Instead, we should treat our unconscious as we do with other people: trust its actions, not its words.

ACTION: Imagine that in your skull, instead of our brain, there were two people. One is you, the conscious you that is reading these lines in his mind. You are the one thinking, planning, and strategizing. The other one – your unconscious – controls the levers that activate your muscles and cannot speak. The only way to know what it thinks is to observe its actions. What do you think its character is? What does it long for? What is it afraid of doing? Is there any way in which you can help your unconscious instead of asking it for help as usual?

Lead

Rule 47: Lead with action, not words

ACTION: Think about one time you tried to convince others to take action but failed. Were you practicing your own advice? If so, did they see you practicing your own advice? If they didn’t, that’s your bottleneck. Start with visible action.

Rule 48: Communicate your values by embracing their inconveniences

ACTION: The next time you want to teach someone a value, do not focus too much on giving a great speech. Instead, find ways to take a costly action that shows your belief that acting accordingly to values is a long-term investment – and that you expect others to make that investment too. Do not manufacture opportunities to show this; simply wait for them to happen, and when they do, act accordingly.

Rule 49: Delegate results, not methods

ACTION: The next time you delegate a task, delegate the result, not the method. Focus on being crystal clear. Use visual descriptions. Describe how you want the final product to make the observer feel. Validate understanding by asking them to repeat the result to achieve in their own words. What if your employee is new to the task? Shouldn’t you also explain to them how to perform the task? Yes, you probably should. But be very clear: their work will still be judged on the final result, not on whether they followed the method you suggested.

Rule 50: The 20% rule for providing feedback

Bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith formulated the 20% rule for giving ideas, which I would summarize as follows: “Unless you have a suggestion that brings at least a 20% improvement, shut up.” If you follow this rule, not only your colleagues and friends will like you much more, but you will also have more successful and motivated associates.

ACTION: Think about the last time someone gave you a suggestion you didn’t ask for. How did you feel? Now, think about the last time you gave someone a suggestion they didn’t ask for. How do you think they felt?

Rule 51: Leading requires doing things that do not scale

ACTION: Who do you want to lead? How can you spend more time with them in the environment you want to lead them? Example: spending your Tuesday mornings at their workplace.

Adopt a long-term perspective

Rule 52: Avoid shortcuts

By refusing to take shortcuts, you leave yourself with no option but to tackle the root problem. Great lives are made of tackled problems.

ACTION: Take a sheet of paper and trace a horizontal line, dividing it into two halves. In the bottom half, write down a list of shortcuts or “quick fixes” you took so far. Done? Now, in the top half, write down the following words in big characters: “The list of shortcuts I pledge never to take again.” Finally, pin the list somewhere where you will read it frequently. (If you have no such physical space, take a picture of it with your phone; then, download a to-do list app and add a weekly reminder to look at the list). Inevitably, you will eventually relapse into taking a shortcut. When it happens, don’t be disappointed with yourself. Instead, think: “How should I modify my habits, environment, and incentives so that I will never relapse again?” Remember: the first step to growth is to realize that there is no shortcut.

Rule 53: Solving the root causes of your problems does not cost you time; it gives you time

ACTION: Pick a problem you face at least weekly, which takes time and energy away from other activities. What is its root cause? To find out, ask yourself, “If I solve this, could the problem resurface? Why?” Keep asking it until you find a cause for which you are confident that, once you take care of it, the problem won’t come back ever again. That’s the root cause. Then, write down what you will do to solve it.

Rule 54: If it’s not sustainable, it didn’t happen

ACTION: Is there some accomplishment of yours you still talk about, even though it wasn’t sustainable? Is there any way to make it sustainable? Did you know, at the time, whether it could have been sustainable? What does this tell you about your motivations?

Rule 55: Put your ego into your future self

If our ego is invested in our present self, we will make short-term decisions, which will ephemerally fulfill our present self but also prevent the development of a solid foundation for our future self. Instead, if our ego is invested in our future self, we make long-term decisions. Moreover, we will not suffer from present outcomes, for they are not final; we will only care about our long-term growth. Investing our ego in our future self is the way out of addictions (towards things, people, and identities). Investing our ego in our future self is the way to ensure our long-term development and happiness.

ACTION: Write down a vision for your future self. What does it do? What does it look like? What does it feel like? What does a day in its life look like? Every day, read your vision for your future self. Then, talk to other people about it. Invest some ego into it. Be careful not to invest your ego into the things your future ego will possess or the specific people it will spend time around – if you do, you will make decisions that benefit those things, not your future self. Instead, invest your ego into the skills and capacities your future ego will possess. No one can take those away from you, and the chances are that they will benefit you no matter what. If you manage to do the above, you will naturally begin to make better, more fulfilling decisions.

Rule 56: Work on your internal karma

Internal karma is the concept that our behavior conditions our mind’s future actions. For example, smoking a cigarette brings us bad karma because it makes it more likely that we will smoke a second cigarette, and then a third, until thirty years down the road, we end up hospitalized. Similarly, cheating on a high school exam brings us bad karma because it makes us more likely to cheat in future situations, thereby preventing us from doing the hard work that develops our skills (see Rule #52). Too many people make decisions based on how their actions will change the world. Too few people make decisions based on how their actions will change them.

ACTION: When you make a decision, do not (only) think about how it will change things for you. Think about how it will change you.

Rule 57: Never misstep twice in a row

ACTION: Every time you skip a workout, do everything in your power – and then some more – to ensure that you won’t skip the next practice. Every time you arrive late at a meeting, every time you fail to complete a to-do item on your agenda that was supposed to be completed today, every time you fail someone’s trust, prevent it from happening again. This involves taking immediate action to change your environment and incentives. Promising that the next time you won’t misstep is not enough. You need to take material action that ensures that you won’t. Do whatever it takes to ensure you won’t misstep twice in a row.

Rule 58: Do not chase success; instead, become the kind of person that attracts success

ACTION: Imagine that, for the next year, you could not reap any reward from your success. You cannot extract any profit, any fame, nothing. That would be a great time to build some solid foundations for your success. For example, developing some skills, spending your time on personal practice, collecting honest feedback, and reflecting on what you really want. What would you be working on?

Rule 59: Play the long game

ACTION: Which roles do you expect to cover for at least a decade in your personal or professional life? Pick one. Then, list down the skills that would provide a significant advantage in that role or make you unique (because you would be one of the few individuals possessing a special combination of skills relevant to that role). Later, ask yourself which of those skills wouldn’t make sense to practice with a two-year time horizon but would make sense with a twenty-year time horizon. Finally, consider finding ways to develop that skill, preferably through practice.

Work on your habits

Rule 60: The standards you have today determine the life you will have in a few years

ACTION: Pick one area of your life in which you would like to improve. It could be your romantic life, your social life, your career, your health – any area that interests you. Now, write down your standards for it. Remember: standards aren’t your goals. Instead, they are the levels below which you take action. For example, if you say that your standard for being healthy is “going to the gym three times per week,” but actually, over the last year, you only went three times per month, then your actual standard is “three times per month.” Now, take a post-it (or another form of reminder). Next, write down a more rigorous version of your standard (for example, if your standard was “going to the gym three times per month,” it becomes “going to the gym twice per week”). And finally, stick it somewhere visible, for example, on the mirror in your bathroom. Do everything you have to do to hold yourself to your new standard. And if you fall below it, use the standard as a trigger to rebound higher.

Rule 61: Discipline is freedom

School teaches students that discipline is coercion. However, discipline only involves coercion when it is needed to serve someone whose interests are not aligned with yours. Instead, when discipline originates from your objectives, it leads to freedom. It is what prevents you from being coerced by others.

ACTION: Right now, on your to-do list of choice (it could also be a post-it on your fridge), write the following:

A first task which you will undertake daily. It could be to do 20 pushups, to write 1000 words for your blog/book, to call two prospective customers, anything related to one of your long-term goals.
Immediately below the first task, write the following task, which you will also undertake daily: “make the necessary adjustments to ensure that the first task is done daily.”

This second task will ensure that you will persist at the first one long enough for it to show its benefits and thus become a habit. When you perform the first task, especially if it feels effortful, focus on visualizing its benefits. Performing this task isn’t a hurdle but an opportunity. Having to perform it isn’t coercion but how you save yourself.

Rule 62: Successful people, at some point in their life, committed to the hard choice

When faced with a problem, we can usually take the hard choice (address the cause of the problem) or the easy one (find a shortcut or circumvent the problem). The hard choice solves the problem and prevents it from reoccurring in the future, thus leading to an easier life.

ACTION: Think about one occurrence in which you made the hard choice. You feel good about that choice now, don’t you? Think about one circumstance in which you made the easy choice. Is it still possible to make the hard one?

Rule 63: Taking a course of action makes it easier to take it again. For better or for worse

Most personality traits are skills: they can be trained. Also, most personality traits are habits. For example, whether we are resilient, brave, kind, and honest largely depends on whether we acted resiliently, bravely, kindly, and honestly the last time we found ourselves in a similar situation. Our decisions shape us much more than we give them credit. Actually, we constantly shape ourselves with our decisions. We just do not notice because we usually repeat the same choices over and over.

ACTION: What is one thing which is bad for you in which you keep indulging? Try now to visualize how you will feel the next time you are tempted. Force yourself to contemplate how giving in would increase the chances of falling into a lifelong addiction. Visualize how your life would become if you would be doing that every day for the rest of your life. Imagine how you would feel. Focus on the disgust and regret. Then, visualize yourself renouncing that temptation. Contemplate how a life free from that bad habit would feel. Imagine all the things you would be able to do with the time, energy, and money saved. Visualize them. Imagine how you would feel. Focus on the joy and sense of self-respect. The next time you find yourself in temptation, remember the disgust. Remember the regret. Then, make a choice you will be proud of.

Rule 64: Willpower is useless, unless used for tweaking the environment

Willpower is best used to create a short burst of activity whose purpose is not to achieve a result but to create the conditions for sustainable results. This includes using willpower to change your environment and your incentives. For example, using willpower to power through a diet will only work for a week or two. Instead, using willpower to give away the sweets in your house and shop for healthy food is an action that is more likely to bring sustainable results.

ACTION: Pick one commitment you made to yourself but failed to sustain over time. What action, taken this week, would tweak your environment or your incentives so that you will be more likely to hold to your commitment in the future?

Avoid the toxic

Rule 65: Need is toxic

Drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes are toxic. They produce long-term damage to whoever consumes them and turn them into addicts. Some relationships are toxic, too. They damage the person having them, who in turn doesn’t abandon them as if they were addicted. The cause behind toxic relationships is always neediness.

ACTION: Is there any colleague, friend, or lover with whom you have a toxic relationship? If your best friend were in this relationship instead of you, would you advise them to quit it? BONUS: How would you behave if everyone would stay by your side? If their loyalty were unquestionable? If you didn’t have to care about what they think? The difference between your answer to the last question and your current behavior is approval-seeking.

Rule 66: Treat your addictions by getting options

If it’s bad for you and yet you keep doing it, then you are addicted to it. Do not focus on the medical definition of addiction. Do not focus on what is exact. Focus on what will help you. Acknowledging which habits of yours are making your life worse and treating them as if they were medical addictions is the way to get rid of them. The problem with addictions is that they take time, energy, and money that you could instead use for your personal development and growth. People who complain about not having time are usually addicted to some activity that is siphoning off their time from productive endeavors.

ACTION: Make a list of the activities and relationships with which you regularly engage, even though they have a negative impact on your life. Consider treating them as addictions. For each, ask yourself: how can I have something else going on that would provide a better option?

Rule 67: Life is about cultivating independence.

Being independent does not mean being alone. Instead, it means being comfortable with being alone, when it so happens that you are alone. The moment you are independent, you will be able to choose the people you allow into your life. If you discover that someone has a negative impact on your life, you will be able to say goodbye to them, because you do not need them.

ACTION: Does any relationship in your life drain more energy than it provides? If yes, it is time to consider terminating it or at least establishing some firm boundaries. If you find it challenging to do or even consider, you are not independent yet. Developing your independence should be your priority. If you do not have a way to sustain yourself or a place to live, invest as much effort as possible into acquiring them. Carry your own weight. The next step is developing options. Try to meet as many people as possible by participating in events in your city. Becoming confident in your capacity to attract friends and romantic partners is a prerequisite for being able to reject those who are not worth your time. Having options is the prerequisite for saying no to toxic relationships.

Rule 68: To win negotiations, build independence

ACTION: Think about a negotiation you might have to enter soon (are you about to buy a house or a car? Are you about to negotiate your salary?). If nothing comes to mind, think about a recent negotiation you’ve participated in. Do you have (or did you have) alternatives? If not, what could they be? What would you have to do now to get some for yourself? For example, before negotiating your salary, spend a few hours researching your value in the marketplace. If you decided to work for another company, would they hire you? For how much? In the unfortunate event that your analysis would reveal that no company would hire you, your next action point becomes to develop the competencies and proofs of competence that will make you a desirable hire.

Rule 69: Success isn’t being on top of a hierarchy, it is standing outside all hierarchies

ACTION: Think about a hierarchy you are a part of. Perhaps you’re at its top, or at its bottom, or in the middle. It doesn’t matter. How does being part of the hierarchy restrict your behavior and create obligations? How does it limit your life? How would your life change for the better if you didn’t depend on that hierarchy anymore? What options would become available to you?

Rule 70: Integrity is the highest form of loyalty

ACTION: Develop integrity. First, let people know what your principles are. Secondly, whenever you make a choice, base it on your principles. Because you did the first step, the second one will be easier. If you make clear to people that you are loyal to your principles more than to them, making a decision based on your principles will not feel like a betrayal – neither to you nor to them. If instead, you skip the first step and let people think that you are loyal to them unconditionally, you will think that they expect you to take your decision with them in mind (and you are probably correct in thinking so). Remember: whenever you feel uncomfortable acting on your principles, the chances are that it is because you haven’t been clear with the people around you about your principles. If you act with integrity, loyal to your principles, people will trust you more, not less.

Rule 71: Extraordinary people are extraordinarily selective

ACTION: Think about how you spent your time last week. What activity are you the least likely to be proud of in a few years? Remove it from your schedule. You often do not have to remove an activity completely, only its least useful parts. For example, having read a useless book doesn’t mean you should not read anymore, but that you should improve your book selection process. The same applies to the friends with whom you spend time. If you could only meet with 50% of your friends, which ones would you spend time with?

Rule 72: Do not despise what you need

ACTION: Think about a category of people you do not want to be associated with. Do they have something you desire? If yes, make a list of their behaviors that helped them achieve that. Then, examine each item in the list one by one. Is the behavior inherently unethical? Or are there ways to express that behavior ethically? If so, should you consider adopting it

Rule 73: The Silver Rule is better than the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule is as follows: “treat others as you wish others would treat you.” It seems a very nice code of conduct until you realize that people’s preferences might differ from yours. As much as you might think you know what others need, the truth is that you don’t. Moreover, what is good for one person might be harmful to another. Instead, the so-called Silver Rule is universal: “do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.” The Silver Rule recognizes the sovereignty of the individual. Moreover, it follows one of the most important principles, one doctors swear upon, the Hippocratic Oath: “First do no harm.”

ACTION: The next time you want to help someone, ask them first. Uncover their real needs. If you help them, ensure that you do not make them more dependent on external help. Help them for their sake, not yours. In a previous chapter of this book, we saw how people who insist on being part of the solution should not be trusted. Do not insist on being part of the solution.

Make yourself antifragile

Rule 74: Trigger overcompensation

ACTION: The next time you feel weak, hit the gym. The next time you find yourself tired, do some exercise. The next time you feel confused, learn that you need to learn. Then, observe the reaction the day after. Notice how you feel better. The next time you exercise or learn, try to remind yourself of the last time you did and how you felt much better the day after. Practice seeing the long-term in the short-term.

Rule 75: Secure survival before optimizing performance

ACTION: Train the hardest you can while avoiding major injuries. Work the hardest you can without burning out or sacrificing your personal life. Take risks with an upside without taking risks whose downside might represent a game over. Which other applications of this principle might apply to your life?

Rule 76: Hit the sweet spot

ACTION: What’s your sweet spot? For example, if you practice a sport, be playful with risks with high upside and low downside (for example, going 1% harder or trying a new move in a safe environment) but careful with high-downside risks (for example, going 10% harder or trying a dangerous move in an uncontrolled environment). As another example, as an investor, never go “all-in” on a single investment, no matter how high its expected returns are. You want to ensure that you won’t go bankrupt if it goes badly. That said, you probably do not want to keep all your money in the bank either. Instead, I would consider a portfolio of uncorrelated investments, some safe and some more aggressive.

Rule 77: Consider yourself a container

If you consider yourself an immutable ego, you won’t be able to learn from negative feedback. This is because your only options are to reject the feedback or let it destroy you. Instead, if you consider yourself a container of mental patterns (beliefs, scripts, reactions), you can redirect negative feedback to one of your mental patterns and let the feedback destroy the pattern in question without hurting you. The prerequisite for learning is considering yourself a container of mental patterns.

ACTION: In general, whenever you consider your identity monolithic, you also make it fragile. Feedback stops being an opportunity for improvement and becomes instead a threat to avoid. Instead, whenever you identify with a container of patterns, you become antifragile. Feedback helps you get rid of what was holding you back. To become antifragile, stop being monolithic.

Be fair

Rule 78: Above all, be fair

ACTION: First, pick a group of people that you commit to being fair. It could be your team, your colleagues, your customers, your spouse, your friends, etc. Then, think about previous times when they felt you treated them unfairly. Whether you did treat them unfairly doesn’t matter – what matters is whether they felt like you treated them unfairly. What could you have done differently to prevent them from feeling like that? Could you have been clearer before it’s too late? Could you have been more proactive in your communication? What else? Next, think about your current engagements with them (things you delegated to them, things they delegated to you, things you agreed to do together, promises you made to each other, and so on.) Is there any chance you and they have a different understanding of your agreement? If so, can you take action today to clarify the misunderstanding?

Rule 79: Too often, the real problem is not what happened but how it was communicated

ACTION: Think about the last time someone withheld information from you. Would you have been mad at them if they had communicated it to you proactively? Now think about the last time you were upset at someone for more than a few minutes. Was it about what they did or about how they communicated it to you?

Be effective

Rule 80: Working hard without checking assumptions is a form of laziness

Am I working hard to achieve an outcome or to avoid doing something else? Am I doing the most impactful work I can be doing? Or am I doing the hard work I am the most comfortable with? Often, we make choices that are physically exhausting but emotionally lazy. We just keep doing things the most acceptable or comfortable way. Other times, we work hard not because it will bring us closer to our objectives but because it allows us to signal sacrifice and commitment. We think it’s virtuous, but it is lazy.

ACTION: Work hard for a short burst. Then stop. Test your assumptions. Did they prove right? Is there a more effective way? What would it be? Then, work hard again for another burst. Then stop again. Question again. And so on.

Rule 81: Pareto prioritize

ACTION: Make a list of your friends and circle the 20% of names that produced the best memories. Then, add a few action items to your to-do list to reconnect with these important people and reduce interactions with your other friends (spend less time with them, agree to meet them less often, and so on). Finally, repeat the exercise with books on your to-read list, chores you must make at home, and so on.

Rule 82: Go via negativa

ACTION: Think about a chronic problem you have. Could the presence of something unnatural be its cause? (For example, an eating habit, a lifestyle habit, a new device, or some external pressure to act in a certain way.) Can you remove it?

Rule 83: Your problems aren’t different

ACTION: Is there any problem of yours that you think is unique to you? How would you advise someone else to solve that problem? Schedule some regular sessions in your calendar – at least once per week and at least for the next three months – in which you will try to apply the solution that works for everyone else. Until you do that, assume your problem isn’t different.

Rule 84: You are the source of most of your problems

ACTION: Think about a problem you have faced repeatedly over the past year. In other words, a problem you have failed to address so far. What beliefs of yours are preventing you from addressing the problem? Which mental patterns of yours are consuming the time and energy you could use to solve your problems? Write them down, both the bad mental patterns and their consequences. Alternatively, what are you scared would happen if you solved the problem? Could it be that you would not enjoy some consequences of being “the kind of person who solved this problem”? Could some beliefs of yours make you think that the problem is not worth solving? In this case, think about how your life would be in 10 years if that problem is left unaddressed. It’s worth solving it, isn’t it? Again, write down your conclusions. Unless you write them down, your mind won’t take them seriously. No, you’re not different. Your mind, too, needs to see yourself writing it down.

Rule 85: Pick your environment

ACTION: Are your current job, boss, or organization bottlenecks to your personal or professional ambitions? What about your town or country? Your clients? If you replied yes to any of the above, consider whether you are okay with it. Of course, there is nothing wrong with being okay with a bottleneck, but it must be a deliberate choice. And if you aren’t okay with it, schedule an action to explore other options.

Recondition yourself

Rule 86: There is a space between stimulus and response

By believing you do not have a choice, you end up having no choice. Forcing yourself to react differently to a given stimulus just once will show you that alternatives are possible. If you still find it impossible, then the chances are that your environment or your incentives are coercing you into a specific reaction. In this case, focus your energy and willpower on changing them. Once your environment and incentives support you in acting differently, and you do so, you will be able to witness on your own skin the benefits of a different, more positive reaction. Do this a couple of times, and it will be very difficult for you to go back to the old, negative reaction.

ACTION: Practice the above. The next time that a stimulus hits you, observe your reaction. Recognize that your response is only one of many possibilities. Try to change it. If it doesn’t work, observe others. Study their reactions and recognize that they are only possibilities. If you manage to see this in others, soon, you will be able to see it in yourself.

Rule 87: It is your responsibility to recondition yourself to the situations which evoke negative emotions in you

The first way to recondition yourself is to expose yourself, in a controlled manner, to the cues that trigger an undesirable emotional state.

The second way to recondition yourself is to stop direct exposure, spend some time working in a safe environment to build your skills and confidence, and only then expose yourself to whatever used to scare you.

ACTION: What is one situation in which you want to change how you react? Choose one of the two methods described above (usually, only one of them applies to any given context) and use it.

Rule 88: You will only change once you desire the actions that bring change

ACTION: Think about some changes you wish to achieve. How do you feel about the thought of yourself having achieved them? And how do you feel about the thought of doing the necessary actions to achieve that result? If you answered anything but “great!” to the second question, that is probably your bottleneck. To achieve your wishes, you will likely have to recondition how you feel about the actions that will get you there.

Rule 89: For change to happen, incentives have to be changed

ACTION: Is there any bad habit of yours that you are incentivized to keep? In this case, can you remove the incentive? Or can you add a negative incentive, such as a “punishment” that happens to you if you practice the bad habit? Is there any good habit you want to introduce in your life? Can you add some positive incentive to it? For example, good coffee to be drunk after completing a task you do not like doing. Note that the incentive could be something already in your routine – you just need to link it to the task you do not like doing and then deny yourself the incentive if you do not complete the task. For example, you might already drink coffee every morning. But you can tell yourself, “I will drink the coffee only after having completed 50 pushups,” if that is the daily habit you want to introduce in your life.

ADVANCED ACTION: Make a list of your personality traits. Then, for each, ask yourself: have I ever found myself in a situation where I acted in accordance with my trait even when it would have been more beneficial to me not to do so? In other words, is there any personality trait that has been costly? Doubt of any traits for which the answer to the question above is negative. (If you perform this exercise honestly and earnestly, you might find yourself calling into question most of your personality traits. It’s normal.)

Rule 90: Where incentives are encoded matters

ACTION: If you don’t feel compelled to act upon an incentive, you probably didn’t experience its outcomes yet. In this case, focus on engineering an experience in which you will get first-hand exposure to the incentive so that you feel it. How can you get to experience as soon as possible a taste of the rewards of achieving your goals?

Learn to be happy

Rule 91: Happiness is a direction

Happiness is not a place we can reach and rest in. Instead, happiness is a direction we can walk along. If we progress toward something which increases our self-respect, we are happy. If we don’t, we feel sadness or anxiety. We shouldn’t wish for a permanent state of happiness that would relieve us from having to take action. Instead, we should wish for the opportunity to continuously take actions that make us happy. There is no way that we can be both happy for long and rest. Sustained happiness requires constant action. Embracing this will make the walk easier.

ACTION: If you truly believed that sustained happiness requires constant action, what actions would you take today?

Rule 92: Happiness is self-respect

ACTION: For the next week, get yourself to take at least one action per day that increases your self-respect. That could be to do a few pushups and crunches just after waking up, to refuse to eat that unhealthy snack, or whatever activity you think would be the appropriate choice for this exercise. After one week, think back about the actions you took. How do you feel about them now? And how do you feel about yourself?

Know yourself

Rule 93: Know and accept your rules

ACTION: We all have personal rules that dictate our reactions. What are yours? Any that wish didn’t exist? Would it be better if you accepted them and acted accordingly.

Rule 94: Do not overcompensate

ACTION: Pick an area of your life, for example, your career or your romantic life. What are your strengths and weaknesses? Of your strengths, which are you using to overcompensate for your weaknesses? Of your overcompensated weaknesses, which have you not tried to improve for years? Which actions could you schedule now to strengthen them? Note that you do not have to bring your weaknesses from an “F” to an “A.” It’s okay to develop them just enough so that they won’t hamper your long-term potential.

Main principles

Rule 95: Ruthlessly prioritize

ACTION: Proactively look for bottlenecks, points of leverage, and Pareto distributions. Then, write down actions that directly address them. These go into your to-do list. Any other action goes into your not-to-do list.

Rule 96: Maximize compounding loops

ACTION: Pick an area of your life you would like to improve. Is there any part of it that compounds? If so, act towards it. The earlier you do, the more its benefits will compound. An example: I want to publish a book. What compounds? Two things come to mind. First, my writing skills. The more I write, the better I write, and the better I write, the more I write – a virtuous circle. Second, my audience. The more people read me, the more people talk about my writings, and the more people will read me in the future. Hence, I should begin working on my writing skills and building an audience as soon as possible, without worrying if my writing isn’t great yet or if the absolute improvement is little at the beginning. With time and action, they’re bound to improve – first slowly, then fast.

Rule 97: Iterate

ACTIONS:

Try as many new things as possible. This doesn’t necessarily mean trying very different things, such as working one year as a baker and another as an office employee. It could also mean spending a career as a baker while trying every day some variation on your recipes or on how you sell your products.
Make sure that you can survive your mistakes. Never go all in. This doesn’t mean avoiding risks. Instead, it means to hit the sweet spot represented by risks with low downside and high upside, risks you can recover from. It means setting some boundaries to protect your health and personal life so that you can give it all within the limits you have set.
Make sure you learn as much as possible as fast as possible. Set frequent feedback loops. Practice your practice. Ask yourself after each session, “What should I do to get more feedback from what I am doing?”
Ensure you are not mindlessly doing “more of the same.” Remember, what got you here won’t get you there. And working hard without checking your assumptions is a form of laziness. Get better at spotting busywork and use your negative emotions (such as frustration) as a signal that a change is due.
Do not seek perfection, maximum efficiency, and full control. Their maximum sustainable level is lower than 100%. Instead of perfection, seek progression.
Iterate on what you think you want, what you think its costs are, and how you can better pay them.
Use trial and error to find out what is necessary.
Focus on momentum before impact. You’re attempting too big of a first step if you cannot achieve momentum. Iterate until you find a step small enough to get you moving forward.
Use trial and error to calibrate your compasses (your objectives and values). Embrace iteration.

Rule 98: Life is about resisting erosion

ACTION: Prevent your body from getting eroded. Exercise. Use your time to resist time. Shape your environment (your desk, your schedule) so that your body emerges stronger, not weaker, from being immersed in it. Prevent your personality from getting eroded. Use the knowledge you acquired through this book to identify which mental patterns of yours are a disadvantage, and you should therefore smoothen, and which are an advantage, and you should therefore harden. Shape your dreams instead of allowing others to shape them.

Rule 99: Life is about becoming someone we respect

ACTION: The next time you need to make a choice, use self-respect as a compass. Take the choice that would result in you respecting yourself more. If you manage to do so consistently, you’ll open the doors to a life of independence and happiness.

Rule 100: You own your own life

It’s your life. You are responsible for it, even if you let someone else choose for you. Even when you do not make a decision. Remember, “bad decisions in life arise from having optimized for the wrong variable.” Do not optimize your life for other people. Do not optimize it for comfort. Do not optimize it for status. Do not optimize it for success. Do not optimize it for your current self. Instead, optimize your life for long-term self-respect. Life is too long to be lived for the short term. Life is too unique to be lived as others would.

100 Truths You Will Learn Too Late - by Luca Dellanna