2021 has been informational for me in many ways.

2021 has been transformational for me in many ways. Here are 20 of my biggest reflections and affirmations:

Showing up is a skill Some will show up most days, very few show up every day. The resolve to keep showing up will set you apart. Remember, success happens slowly and then all at once.

You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

Imposter syndrome is simply the price of surrounding yourself with people chasing excellence.

That feeling means you’re keeping up with them. When doubt creeps in, embrace: “the tranquility that comes when you stop caring what *they* say. Or think, or do. Only what you do.”

Work-life balance is bullsh*t. Excellence in either endeavor requires an on-off switch. Too many people operate, instead, with a dimmer which just leads to mediocrity in both areas.

Judging others is easy because it distracts us from the responsibility of judging ourselves.

People will rise—or fall—to the level of your expectations. Be careful not to label them based on past failures or shortcomings. Do so, and they’ll often prove you right. Instead, set the bar just out of reach & lift them up with “I believe in you” It could change their life.

Success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.

What’s the world’s greatest lie? It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.

Be a gardener, not a dictator Ordering people is like fast-twitch muscle. It builds a debt. Form a partnership instead. Make deposits by educating. And, empower them to create the plan. Ask them to ask more of themselves - foster an environment that allows them to outgrow you!

Rejection is a sign of direction. Whenever you hear a ‘no’, that just means ‘yes’ to something else.

Be selfish Your growth requires it. Routinely take inventory on your ‘circle of five’ - if they’re not pushing you, keep it movin’. Pour into yourself and eventually the right people will catch up.

Run towards fear Lean in, build up your threshold incrementally, and find drive in your own fear and insecurities. Leverage fear as an accelerant to learning. The stress arousal can trigger a heightened flow state, and unlock superpowers you didn’t even know existed.

Just because your dream is delayed, doesn’t mean it’s denied.

Who you listen to, you’ll become People will always try to put *their* limitations on you. Don’t let them. They want you to be average to make themselves feel better. To be uncommon, you must be willing to do what others don’t, and go where others won’t.

Pleasure <—> Pain dynamic As you experience greater pleasures, you also open yourself up for equal levels of pain. Without one, you can’t have the other. Remember, everyone’s thoughts and opinions about you can’t matter.

3 keys to success in life: 1. Treat people right 2. Keep showing up 3. Return to step 1

Be purposeful. When you realize your value and know your direction, go for what you want. Be purposeful in how you move, the content you create, the opportunities you pursue, and the connections you make.

Closed Mouths Don’t Get Fed If you want something, say something! People are too busy worrying about themselves to read your mind. Be explicit about what you want and you might just get it. At a minimum, you‘ll open the door to co-create a path leading there.

If you want something bad enough, the whole universe conspires in your favor.

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10 sales tactics that work:

 10 sales tactics that work:

1/ Stage out the conversation 

One conversation is just that: another conversation.

Land a second, and now you’re being “evaluated”.

Don’t try to jam through everything in the first convo. 

Do just enough to pique their interest and land that second meeting.

2/ Do your homework

If you’re pitching a customer, use their product,

Read about the company and the person you’re talking to.

Ultimately, this proves that you will do the work to make their lives easier.

It’s so powerful yet so easily overlooked.

3/ Ask about the decision making process

Who is required to make a decision like this?

What would you need to see from me to be able to buy?

How long will it take to make a decision? 

These questions give you the roadmap on how to close the deal.

4/ Don’t always demo

Sometimes it’s habit to jump straight into a demo.

If someone wants to talk first, do that.

This could consume a whole first conversation.

Which gives you a great excuse for that second meeting: going thru the demo.

5/ Don’t stick to the script

If you’re going X direction in a conversation and the customer wants to go Y direction, embrace it.

If you’re using a deck, don’t be afraid to jump around.

This is a good thing; it means the conversation is unfolding organically.

Keep it fluid.

6/ Get commitment to a decision-making timeline

“Hey customer,

There are a number of reasons why timing matters, including ability to lock in best possible prices and integration resources.

Is there a reasonable timeframe in which we can mutually agree to come to a decision?”

7/ Conscious pricing

Pricing can be scary.

The best strategy I’ve found: complete transparency.

If the customer pushes back on pricing,

Explain why your company needs to price the way it does.

8/ Always quid pro quo

If someone wants something outside of the normal bounds,

Ie better pricing, new feature commitments, etc.

Ask for something in return!

Ie Ask the customer to pre-commit to serve as a reference or case study should things go well.

9/ Don’t be dissuaded by no

Persistence pays.

Especially in the early days, I’d often email a customer 5-10 times before receiving replies.

No customer would ever be marked as Lost.

Only “Paused, Try Again Later”

10/ Try turnarounds

After a customer says no, come back creatively:

New product offerings

New pricing scheme

New ROI calculator

Anything “new” is a great excuse to re-engage.

How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

 Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.

Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.

Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a pieace of a business - to gain your financial freedom.

You will get rich by giving society what it wants but does not yet know how to get. At scale.Pick an industry where you can play long term games with long term people.

The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers. Most  people haven't figured this out yet.

Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.

Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity.

Don't partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling.

Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.

Arm yourself with specific knowledge, accountability, and leverage.

Specific knowledge is knowledge that you cannot be trained for. If society can train you, it can train someone else, and replace you.

Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now.

Building specific knowledge will feel like play to you but will look like work to others.

When specific knowledge is taught, it’s through apprenticeships, not schools.

Specific knowledge is often highly technical or creative. It cannot be outsourced or automated.

Embrace accountability, and take business risks under your own name. 

Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.

The most accountable people have singular, public, and risky brands: Oprah, Trump, Kanye, Elon.

“Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” 

- Archimedes

Fortunes require leverage. Business leverage comes from capital, people, and products with no marginal cost of replication (code and media).

Capital means money. To raise money, apply your specific knowledge, with accountability, and show resulting good judgment.

Labor means people working for you. It's the oldest and most fought-over form of leverage. Labor leverage will impress your parents, but don’t waste your life chasing it.

Capital and labor are permissioned leverage. Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you. Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you.

Code and media are permissionless leverage. They're the leverage behind the newly rich. You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.

An army of robots is freely available - it's just packed in data centers for heat and space efficiency. Use it.

If you can't code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.

Leverage is a force multiplier for your judgement.

Judgement requires experience, but can be built faster by learning foundational skills.

There is no skill called “business.” Avoid business magazines and business classes.

NON SEXUAL ADVICE FOR YOUNGSTERS

 Do not spend too much time trying to be more physically attractive in order to just impress your crush rather than making yourself mentally attractive.

Educate yourself, address your recurring toxic thoughts, deal with insecurities and learn to be happy on your own. 

That's attractive.

Normalize saying "NO" without needing to over-explain yourself. If Someone is offended by your boundaries,that's their problem.

The best weight you will ever lose is the other people's opinion of you.

Before you get married, discuss bills, parenting styles, credit debt, how to deal with family, what belief will be instilled in your children,childhood traumas, sexual expectations, partner expectations, financial expectations,family,health history,bucket list, dream home, career, and education, political views and what ever else come in mind.

LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH

12 characteristics that made them wildly successful people

 Throughout my career, only about 5% of my coworkers were top performers. They crushed it both inside and outside of the office.

I took notes. I studied what they did. 

They all had the same 12 characteristics that made them wildly successful people.

1: Positive Successful people are relentlessly positive. They expect things to go right, and more times than not, they do. The Placebo Effect works.

2: Produce

Consumers spend money. Watch TV. Play video games. Producers make money. They write They create They build Success is attracted to those who produce.

3: Confident

They believe that they belong, even when they don't. They speak confidently and ignore the haters. Turn impostor syndrome on its head and you have a recipe for success.

4: Risk-tolerant Successful people take risks, period. Investments Businesses Inventions New paths Moving Playing it safe doesn't breed success.

5: Patient Unsuccessful people quit too early (and too often). But, "Never give up" is bad advice. Success lies somewhere in the middle. Successful people *know* when to quit. Patience is a virtue that makes success possible

6: Self-reliant Successful people rely on themselves to: Solve problems Acquire wisdom Build opportunities Your mind is your best resource. Use it.

7: Creative Creativity lets us try new things. To build things that are: Better Quicker Stronger Successful people don't just color between the lines.

8: Ethical They live and die by their code of ethics. Successful people: Sleep well at night, and Listen to their conscience

9: Exercise Regular exercise gives successful people: Strength Confidence Energy I've known very few highly successful people that don't lift or walk regularly.

10: Unafraid

Successful people are unafraid of failure. They aren't perfectionists, either. They understand nothing is perfect. Failure happens. All that matters is what you do after.

11: Honesty Liars don't get ahead - at least consistently. Honest people are successful because people: want to work with them implicitly trust them respect them Honesty WILL make you successful.

12: Prioritize

How successful people prioritize: They produce before they consume Their health is more important than money Their time is more precious than fame Successful people know what's important. They go after it, protect it, and nurture it.

Notice what is absent from this list? - cars - money - degrees - big homes - pricey suits - best cell phones Things in general. Things don't produce success

MIMETIC DESIRE

I read a book that blew my mind a little and I can’t stop telling people about it.

It explains why so many people dedicate their lives to achieving things that make them miserable. This might sound crazy, but an unseen force is pushing you towards empty and unfulfilling goals…

No, I didn't read Dianetics ;-)

The book is called ‘Wanting’, by an guy named Luke Burgis.

It’s about mimetic desire. An academic theory popularized by Peter Thiel.

At face value, it barely sounds worth mentioning:

When the people around you want something, we want it too…Let’s say you’re at a bar. You’re about to order a beer but your friend orders a martini.

“I’ll have one too actually” - you wanted a beer, but you were influenced to switch. Ok, so what? But now lets take it to the next level…

Let’s say your friend raises money for her startup. You start comparing.  You're happily bootstrapped.

“Why was she able to raise more?”

“How did she get Sequoia on board?”

"Wow that valuation..."

“I should really raise a round”

You don’t realize you start assigning value to raising money because of your friend. 

It pushes you to raise a round. You didn't even need the money. You not only want to copy her, but you want to do better than her. 

Suddenly, you’re locked in a mimetic competition.

Especially if ALL of the peers in your world are raising money.It quickly becomes a game of oneupsmanship...If you live in San Francisco, for example, raising money, valuation, who your investors are, number of employees.

These are the metrics by which your peer group collectively has defined success. But let’s say you lived in LA instead of San Francisco...Maybe you’d be competing on film credits. Awards. Which celebrities you know. Where you get restaurant reservations. Your car.Every peer group collectively wants and competes for the same things, it just depends on what bubble you're in.Hang out with comedians and you’ll want a Netflix special. 

Hang out with writers and you’ll want to get published in The New Yorker. 

Hang out with athletes and you’ll want Olympic medals. And so on, and so on. Of course, none of these desires relate in any way to your personal happiness or true desires. 

You don’t know realize it, but you want these things because other people want them.You might see this pattern in a group of friends. One person will buy a Tesla and it’s like a virus. A Model Y becomes the calling card of success. Gradually, everyone in the group slowly switches over to a Tesla. 

Sometimes rebellious members of the group will instead MIRROR these wants. 

They do the opposite to try to make themselves seem unique or special.If one friend buys a Tesla, the other buys a vintage car and talks up the rumble of the engine and how much they love working on it on weekends. 

Despite the attempt to differentiate, they are still a falling into the pattern, with their desire for a new car defined by the pack.These waves of wanting splash over all of us constantly. It’s almost impossible to remain unaffected by it, even if you know what to look for.  

The key is to determine your true, intrinsic THICK desires and separate them from your false, extrinsic THIN desires.

For example:A thin desire is extrinsic (coming from others):You wanting to buy an expensive watch because your friend showed you theirs, even though you’ve never had any interest in watches or fashion. 

A thick desire is intrinsic (coming from within):You love quietly gardening on weekends and do it because you enjoy it.

 You’d do it even if you could never tell anyone about it on social media. You do it for yourself.

So, the question is:

WHO is making you want the things you want?And more importantly:

Do you ACTUALLY want these things? 

Are they thin or thick desires?

Surround yourself with the wrong models you will be bound to artificial, unfulfilling goals. 

Here's an example:

There's a French chef named Sebastian Bras.Like any high level chef, his goal was to reach the pinnacle of cooking and be awarded a Michelin star.He got the star. But the victory was hollow.Instead of enjoying it, now he just wanted a second star.And once he got the second one, he just feared losing it.On top of that, he had to follow ridiculously strict rules about what it meant to be "in the club" and maintain the star.

He felt stifled by Michelin's rules, and he realized he had been competing for something he didn't want just because all his peers modelled it as important.

He ended up doing something pretty baller: he told Michelin to remove him from the guide and revoke his star—he opted out.So, how can you avoid Sebastian's fate of ending up spending your life pursuing something that doesn't actually make you happy?

First, you have to figure out who your models are.

A good trick to do this:

 think about who you DON'T want to succeed.

Not overtly. But who do you track? 

Who are you a bit jealous of?

 Who are you competing with?

It could be a peer, a friend, a co-worker—someone in your close orbit. 

Ask yourself: is the path that this person is leading me down (via competition) a path that leads to goals that align with my real, intrinsic, thick desires. 

Would I be truly happy if I became like them?

If you don't like what you see, then you need to prune who you're exposed to.

Primarily: who do you spend time with? 

Who do you listen to? 

Who do you read?

The goal is to spend time with models (peers who model desires to you) that share similar intrinsic desires to your own.One way to think about it is the old adage: "You are the sum of your five best friends"Choose carefully, and don't spend time with people whose lives/desires don't line up with your intrinsic desires.There's a lot more to it, but that's the gist. Read the book, it's great: 

How to be happy:

 How to be happy: 

Learn your true preferences. Life becomes much more pleasant once you stop chasing the preferences of others. 

Try new things, take what works, and throw away the rest. 

Treat your life as an adventure, not a competition. A good life is a story you're proud of. There's no score. 

Happiness is about getting in the flow. For most things, go with intensity over consistency. Balance your life at the macro level, not the micro. 

The purpose of work (after securing basic necessities) is to support your preferred lifestyle. If working hard is degrading your life, what's the point? 

The best things in life are free, and they're not worth sacrificing for the possibility of the getting the second best things. 

As soon as you can afford to, optimize your life for maximum enjoyment. The deferred lifestyle is too risky. 

As soon as you can afford to, only work on what gives you energy. Only intrinsic motivation lasts. 

Procrastination is information. Don't fight it, embrace it. 

Take risks, but don't put yourself at risk. Never risk anything you can't tolerate losing. 

Decouple your self-worth from anything you don't control. 

Understand that the only thing you truly control is how you react to things. Live with dignity. 

Do not play victim. Do not complain. 

Add beauty to your life. Aesthetics matter. 

Quit all the wrong things. The good things happen on their own. 

"If you're on the wrong train, every stop is the wrong stop." @GuruAnaerobic

No matter how much you've invested in your current path, you must be willing to jump off the wrong train, and write it all off. Otherwise you'll be stuck enduring an existence full of wrong stops. 

Add excitement to your life, not expectations. Happiness is governed by expectations, not outcomes. 

Realize that the physical world is sacred. We are built to roam the real world, to have physical ownership, to make physical objects, to meet people in person. This is the only real life, and there can never be a digital substitute. Digital is only a supplement.