Your genes, your postcode, your intelligence, your willpower, and your environmental opportunities, believe it or not, are major factors in material success in your life.

Fundamentally there is almost nothing you can do about any of it.

Yes, if you have willpower and intelligence but a bad postcode and no opportunities, you may be able to change your postcode for a better quality of life and more opportunities.

But you may not.

Because of 100 other reasons (family obligations, not good enough skill set, lack of self-confidence…).

I’m convinced that intellectual tools are more important than money, more important than relationships, and more important than even intelligence.

Having a box of mental tools to turn to is essential because these tools make it possible to see the world more objectively and act sensibly in the long run.

For instance:

knowing how to separate our necessities from our desires and our expectations or how to focus on our input instead of output or how to realize if we are in a social arms race and get out of it or just the fact that focus can’t be divided or how to avoid problems instead of fixing problems or how feeling like a victim and self-pity will ruin your life or why your life isn’t a photo album or how to shift from external to internal validation or why you wouldn’t be happier in the Caribbean or why you need a secretary of state or why you didn’t earn your successes

Rolf Dobelli the compounding of subtle enlightenments makes a huge difference in life. It’s just timeless wisdom.

Happy reading! 📙

Notes on the next book, straight to you