self-mastery, discipline & habits

deeply know who you are. deeply know what you want to do in this world. once you figured out those 2 things, just wake…

an idiot in motion goes further than a genius at rest

I still don’t know how. But I’ll figure it out. I’ll keep trying till I get it right. Even if I fail to find a way, by the end, I’ll know all the ways that won’t work. And that will be the insight that will guide my next move. Life goes on whether I do this or not.

“I’m a failure” is a verdict on you. “My strategy was flawed. My execution missed the mark.” is a note on the work. Same event. The first one you carry for years. The second you fix by Friday. Detach your identity from your craft, or every setback becomes an identity crisis.

“I’m a failure” is a verdict on you. “My strategy was flawed. My execution missed the mark.” is a note on the work. Same event. The first one you carry for years. The second you fix by Friday. Detach your identity from your craft, or every setback becomes an identity crisis.

Perfect your craft day in and day out. Dismantle the process, see where is the bottleneck and where it can be improved. If something is not working, it’s not you, it’s the product, it’s the process, it’s the craft that needs to be analyzed and adjusted.

"There is no peace for the man who has seen what he could become." - Epictetus Once you know who you could be, and you feel…

@drgurner choose hard, live easy.

@drgurner it’s a curse and maybe in some rare cases a blessing 😅 assuming you don’t get bitter after many trials and failures, before any signs of success.

when faced with an important but very hard problem that i’m not able to solve even after 3 months of trying, i noticed how my brain is trying to get out of the situation by nudging me to shift my focus to an easier challenge that looks more fun but not important.

@pmarca Humility is vastly overrated. And there is no “gentle” success. You need to crown yourself and force your ideas into the world. Don’t you agree?

“People are often reluctant to speak things into the world: to claim the place they see themselves holding.” -jg

all you see is success everywhere. success makes the noise. failure is silent. hidden. it’s the overwhelming majority. so don’t calibrate your odds on a rigged sample. but also know this: most don’t lose. they stop. leave. they quit before it gets quiet. so, stay.

To be successful at anything, you don't have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren't...consistent, determined, and willing to work for it. No shortcuts.

“protect your mental state the way a professional athlete protects their body. because it is, very literally, your most important performance asset.” -jg

“you need to have high self-esteem, high self-belief, and very little ego.” -jg

“Easy is the Path to Struggle, Everywhere”

“Self-denial is the act of restraining, curbing, or voluntarily giving up one’s own desires, pleasures, or comforts. It is often practiced to achieve a higher goal…” “What’s incredible is by denying the self…through not avoiding the hard things, not avoiding the unpleasant, frustrating things; not living high initially, not indulging themselves out of the gate in their lifestyle, not pursuing the “exciting things” but being okay with the boring things, and denying themselves the very things that may make them relatable, they end up getting everything they want.” -jg

“That’s self-denial…and you’ll find in the areas you apply this principle, lie your greatest successes.” -jg “If you are always optimizing for yourself, your life becomes unsuccessful on many, many fronts. You must be willing to be of service to the outcomes you want, not your comfort, whether in business or in life.”

“examine where you are ‘optimizing for easy’ vs the work you know you need to do that requires a bit of self-denial… and ask yourself this question: What are the things I’m avoiding in my work life that I know would make me more successful? Big and small. Things I need to do, be involved in, or move ahead to really knock it out of the park? Maybe there is a next level of things you need to be okay sacrificing for?” -jg

“you have to decide who you will become, and you have to believe it. you have to not fall into the traps of humility or smallness and you have to be bold and claim it, because truthfully no one else is going to claim it for you. they will pull you to the middle. 🧵 in fact many people are happy to drag you down. you have to be resilient and fight for what you want and hold your lines internally and sometimes externally and you have to see it with very clear eyes. and you have to be willing to push everyone else’s opinion aside. you have to know it in your bones and believe it regardless of what others may believe. dig deep and get in touch with your own instincts around who you truly know you are capable of becoming and stand in that. so what does this ‘crowning yourself’ even means? it’s not waiting for a coronation to happen in the world around you. it’s not waiting for anyone to tell you what you can and can’t accomplish, earn or become. it is only you. don’t allow anyone to tell you who you can be. plz, for goodness sake, crowd yourself.” -jg

deeply know who you are. deeply know what you want to do in this world. once you figured out those 2 things, just wake up every day and get after it. and stay in the game long enough to get lucky.

mute the world, and build your own.

@_zahraamiri_ به نظرم نشانه حواس پرتی زیاده. دو هفته واتس اپ و اینستاگرام و نتفلیکس و یوتیوب و بقیه ورودیهای بصری و شنوایی بی خاصیت رو قطع کنی، چیزی که حوصلش رو نداشتی ولی مهمه برات، آسون میشه انجامش.

Your only competition is who you were yesterday.

small steps over quantum leaps motion over motivation systems over goals habits over willpower one thing over many things feedback over praise questions over answers subtraction over addition truth over comfort listening over speaking consistency over intensity fundamentals over fads progress over perfection depth over hacks process over outcomes mastery over external validation focus over multitasking becoming over achieving calm over panic constraints over options today over someday action over theory bold over safe humility over ego response over impulse curiosity over ignorance conviction over consensus judgement over rules evidence over confidence craft over recognition clarity over cleverness proof over promises direction over speed ownership over blame signal over noise preparation over luck practice over performance service over self-promotion evidence over opinion reps over shortcuts pause over reaction patience over haste perseverance over talent determination over motivation honesty over flattery optimism over cynicism obsession over balance single-minded over scattered tiny edges over big swings

Scarce is valuable. Practice and acquire rare qualities: Focus. Consistency. Conviction. Patience. Curiosity. Honesty. Optimism. Perseverance. Determination.

Knowing more than you’ve done is the most common form of self-deception. Don’t be the person: - whose insights exceed his output - whose theories outnumber his trophies - whose ideas outweigh his evidence - who understands more than he’s accomplished I’m guilty of this.

it's the little details that make the big things come about. Napoleon said: All great events hang by a single thread. The clever man takes advantage of everything, neglects nothing that may give him some added opportunity. The less clever man, by neglecting one thing, sometimes misses everything.

Do the basics exceptionally well.

Have a sense of craft in details. How you do anything is how you do everything. Bill Walsh said the way you tuck your jersey into your pants was one of 10,000 details that depended on whether you won or not. Don’t focus on winning, focus on getting all the inputs perfect, and you get everything perfect, then you will win.

Just 8 minutes of walking increased creative output by 60%. Stuck on a problem? Go for a walk.

ACTION IS EVERYTHING. You can't light a fire without striking a match. You can't score a goal if you never take a shot. You…

@pmarca and to control what you think about all day, you need to control and engineer what you consume and don't consume all day: - news vs books - instagram vs claude/chatgpt - whatsapp vs only sms and calls - netflix vs claude-code/codex - youtube shorts vs essays/articles ..

More dreams are destroyed from distraction than incompetence.

The most Paleolithic (10,000+ years ago) thing a modern person can do is to walk ten kilometers (12-15k steps), eat a bowl of lentils and roots with family in the evening, and skip breakfast tomorrow.

Everything you want is on the other side of hard.

May your desires be greater than your obstacles.

More proof that introspection, journaling, and other faff is often more counter-productive than JUST DOING THE WORK

@tfadell noted: you fail when you don't try again.

do everything, ignore nothing.

Successful creators write 100 posts to find 10 that work. Unsuccessful ones write 10 posts and wonder why none work. Quant…

What I find hardest, and what would make the biggest difference, is the highest-impact habit I haven't cracked yet. It's simple to describe but very hard to execute: staying focused on a course of action for an extended period of time (say 24 months) without being distracted and losing momentum in the absence of feedback.

@saylor nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically.

It is 100% true that great men and women of the past were not sitting around moaning about their feelings. I regret nothing.

“Sweat goes a whole lot further than money, and brains and effort go a whole lot further than connections.” - Mark Cuban in…

i’m fearful, but i like it; because it makes me act.

strategy 🏎️ execution 🐌 the usual suspect: distractions the actual culprit: lack of immediate pain i feel no immediate consequence for not working today. distractions are just what fills the vacuum when urgency is missing. solution: rely on routine instead of will.

note to self: don’t need to be super pumped to act. just get sth done rather than nothing. no need to “seize the day”. just lay one break for the nth time.

@thisisgrantlee noted: 1% better daily × consistency × time = exponential >> frequent pivots

Here Is A Menu of Feelings and Actions To Build Your Mood “the most important decision to make is to be in a good mood.” — Voltaire I share how I make intentional decisions about my emotional state by creating a menu of productive feelings and specific actions to trigger them. Whether I need focus, confidence, energy, clarity, discipline, creativity, or connection, I've developed practical techniques, from cleaning my desk to taking walks to jumping in without delaying, that help me build the right mood for any situation. Rather than waiting for motivation, I choose the feeling I need and actively create it, which has transformed both my productivity and my leadership approach. #EmotionalIntelligence #Productivity #Leadership #Motivation #Focus #Clarity #Confidence #Creativity

@tailopez it’s getting harder to tell the distractions from the real work.

@AditiRajasthan hardest thing to do is to walk away from comfort. if you are in pain walking away is easy.

@daltonc in such situations i always get back to basics.

@readswithravi get better. never stop.

@StevenBartlett true. the hardest battle is against comfort. when you are in pain, it’s easy to take action and try to change your circumstances. but when you don’t feel the pain… changing feels like moving mountains.

Voltaire: “The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.” Here is a short guide on how to stay in control of your mood, your thoughts, and your strategy for getting what you want. Enjoy! #minset #attitude #energy

@AlexHormozi true. focus is constant noise elimination.

do everything and you’ll win.

@readswithravi true. it’s about getting something done rather than nothing.

depressed? 10,000 steps fat? 10,000 steps no friends? 10,000 steps tired? 10,000 steps stomach issues? 10,000 steps bor…

the world belongs to those who can keep doing without seeing the result of their doing.

One of the clearest signs of an intelligent person is how frequently they rethink their assumptions and revise their opin…

Live the Pareto Principle lifestyle: Relationships. Who are the few people that have the most positive impact on my life?…

to think, write.

37% done. 63% is more than enough if i don’t waste it.

i don’t need to be right. i just need to get it right. -james clear

you need to be casting votes for the type of person that you wish to become, building up evidence of that identity that you want. every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. -jc

things that changed my life in major ways: -getting familiar with self-development -studying at universities in big cities -learning english out of interest -taking personality tests as career guide -finding people i admire & wanna be like -starting two startups as my first jobs -learning to code, lead, and present -moving to a developed country & great city -seeking mentors/masters to learn from -working my way into a job position i enjoy -developing a reading & writing habit -challenging myself with public speakings -studying stock market, investing, bitcoin -saving & investing a big chunk of income -learning about stoicism and psychology -staying off instagram & news for years -designing & building products as hobby -going to gym multiple days a week for yrs -taking vitamins to help fight tiredness -taking melatonin to help me fall sleep -sleeping 7+ hrs at night for many years -investing in & maintaining relationships ———— things that i think will have major impact in my life going forward: -keeping the good habits i built: working out, reading, writing, learning new skills, saving, investing… -studying & practicing marketing: copywriting, storytelling, advertising -constantly removing noise & distractions: social media, news… -building a habit of getting 1% better daily in my health, skills, and products i build -engineering my input: what i consume

things that changed my life in major ways: -getting familiar with self-development -studying at universities in big cities -learning english out of interest -taking personality tests as career guide -finding people i admire & wanna-be-like -starting two startups as my first jobs -learning to code, lead, and present -moving to a developed country & a great city -seeking mentors/masters to learn from -working my way into a job position i enjoy -developing a reading & writing habit -challenging myself with public speakings -studying stock market, investing, bitcoin -saving & investing a big chunk of income -learning about stoicism and psychology -staying off instagram & news for years -designing & building products as hobby -going to gym multiple days a week for years -taking vitamins to help fight tiredness -taking melatonin to help me fall sleep -sleeping 7+ hrs at night for many years -investing in & maintaining relationships ———— things that i think will have major impact in my life going forward: -keeping the good habits i built: working out, reading, writing, learning new skills, saving, investing… -studying & practicing marketing: copywriting, storytelling, advertising -constantly removing noise & distractions: social media, news… -building a habit of getting 1% better daily in my health, skills, and products i build -engineering my input: what i consume

@Markmanson to get your mind in order you need to get your thoughts in order. to get your thoughts in order you need to get what you consume in order.

find out what’s worth reaching for and keep failing at it till you get it right.

noted: • expect people to be flawed. you won’t get upset, angry or offended. • control your reaction, control your life. • stress comes from your judgment of the events not from the events itself. • the obstacle is the way; the more obstacles you overcome, the less crowded, the better the odds of success.

all your thoughts are downstream of what you consume. be intentional of what you allow in as input. engineer the quality and scope of what you see & hear. inputs -> thoughts thoughts -> decisions decisions -> actions actions -> outcomes

signal is constant noise elimination.

trying a new sport is a good practice ground for getting comfortable with failing publicly. failing publicly trains your mind. it teaches you what matters most is not that you always win, but that you always keep reaching, that you always keep striving. the important question to ask then is not what can I succeed on or what can I achieve, but what is worth reaching for? and that's really what you want; to keep reaching; to keep striving for something worthwhile. -james clear

if you’re failing, ask have i trained for this enough?

mastery takes practice. practice takes repetition. being willing to be uncomfortable for an extended period of time.

1 experience point = 1 trial & error 1 experience point = 1 iteration 1 experience point = 1 experiment you may need hundreds or thousands of experience points to be able to level up.

impatient with input. patient with output. input is in your control. output is not.

almost every thought you have is downstream from what you consume: what you see and what you hear.

You don't need motivation. You need motion.

Don't think. Do the routine.

the ultimate power is deciding what you want to feel. energized: 30 minute workout, brisk walk, house music relaxed: get a massage, warm shower, read a book, jazz connected: call/meet friends, hug/kiss loved ones, share a meal motivated: review goals, measure progress, read/listen to inspiring stories focused: clean desk, single-task timer, noise cancellation, delete distractions, notifications off, do not disturb on confident: wear a sharp outfit, speak slower, learn a new skill clear-minded: brain-dump on paper, long walk brave: initiate a hard conversation, say what needs to be said, do what needs to be done, act despite fear, do the avoided task creative: read great ideas and remix them, reverse the question, change environment, break down the problem, add constraints disciplined: make your bed, clean your desk, shave, complete a tiny task, track your streak joyful: stand-up comedy, favorite sitcom, games with friends present: phone away, turn off inputs, focus on breath powerful: lift weights, finish something difficult, listen to and praise others, take a long pause and think before you react to a situation/statement, stay cheerful & constructive, guard your time, let go of what is outside your control grateful: list wins, remember past struggles you overcame, imagine your life if you lived before we invented agriculture, toilet paper, dentistry, medical glasses, antibiotic, printing press, cities, cars, trains, airplanes, electricity, lamp, washing machine, refrigerator, telephone, camera, music player, computer, internet, smartphone, youtube… @grok did I miss something?

true in case of overused bodies. but most bodies are underused. most potential remains unrealized. capacity not used, shrinks. energy not spent, is wasted. muscle not worked, atrophies. attention not directed, scatters. focus not protected, fragments. courage not tested, sleeps. discipline not practiced, erodes. strength not stressed, disappears. opportunity not seized, is lost. knowledge not actioned, is forgotten.

“I learned the very best, I learned the fundamentals, and then I hammered those fundamentals for multiple decades.” - David Ogilvy (The King of Madison Avenue)

choose consistency over intensity.

you’re going to do some of your best work and it’s not gonna succeed. and then you’re going to do things that you didn’t think were that great and they succeed. nobody knows what’s really going to work or not. there is an element of randomness and luck to it. so you have to tie your sense of self, your success of a given project or thing you’re working on, not on whether other people say it’s good or bad, but on whether it accomplished what you decided was important. did you do what you were trying to do? did you work hard on it? was it your best? epictetus says: if you want to win only run races where winning is up to you. so if you set the terms of what success is, you’re more resilient than someone who says success is number one, success is best salesman of the year, success is a michelin star… whether these externals come your way or not now determine whether you’re happy or not. and that’s a fragile place to come from. -ryan holiday

@kmr_dilip nicely put “tolerance for long stretches of irrelevance”. it’s one definition for determination.

if you don’t take the shot, who the hell else will?

i like to write an email to the future (there is a service called future me), there i reflect on what i have done/learned, some interesting moments i remember, set some general direction that i like to focus on more. sometimes i deviate from what i wish to do, but i don’t take it too seriously. i let my curiosity guide me.

there are people that things happen to and people who make things happen. and you need to land on which one you want to be. when you do that, when you decide what you want to feel, that is the true source of power. and when you get there, people will see what you want them to see on your face. most people never figure this out. the ones that do, they get to run the world. this person said this thing, but you’re the one that decided it was rude. you’re the one that decided that were harmed by it. you’re the one that decided it was aggressive or mean-spirited or sarcastic. you have the power to pause and decide what you want to feel about it.

@hamptonism i get this feeling daily when working on a new project. i ask myself what is the next step? if the next step is not clear, zoom out

anything great takes time.

determination is calm stubbornness.

@mbrandolph it’s really hard… rarely you find an individual with determination to be able to pull it off. someone who pursues a vision fanatically. i remind myself with this definition of determination when i feel resistance of the road:

naval: you can get almost anything you want out of life, as long as it's one thing and you want it far more than anything else. lesson: focus on one thing, move 1 inch towards it daily.

determination is continuity under resistance. it’s continuing when the path pushes back: obstacles, fatigue, doubt, failure, pain; and the hardest one, invisible progress. it’s not intensity or willpower. it’s doing the obvious next step when nothing feels obvious anymore. fixing small things. reducing scope instead of quitting. staying with a problem longer than others are willing to. determination is the ability to override our ancient wiring. the part of the brain that hates uncertainty, delayed rewards, and no feedback. the instinct that says: this is inefficient, stop. most people obey that signal. determined people don’t fight it; they outwait it. that’s why determination is calm stubbornness. not rage. not force. not obsession. but a quiet refusal to change direction just because progress went silent. calm enough to think clearly. stubborn enough to continue. that’s determination.

if you have consistency over a long period of time, that produces miracles. it will look like magic to other people. in 30 years since founding Apple, Jobs has remained remarkably consistent. the demand for excellence, the pursuit of great design, the instinct for marketing, the insistence on ease of use and compatibility, all have been there from the get-go.

kaizen = 1% better daily kaizen works because it instills: continuity over intensity. continuity creates determination. determination creates outcomes.

brick by brick. day by day. 1% better. wins long play.

1% better daily forever.

only obsess over the next step.

and show better thinking by taking massive action.

kaizen: 1% better daily.

obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, the more obstacles, the better. the obstacle is the way.

obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle, obstacle,obstacle,obstacle,obstacle… the more obstacles, the better. the obstacle is the way.

by endurance we conquer.

stack tiny edges. do all the little things that tilt the odds your way. collect micro-advantages until luck can’t ignore you. win by gathering every inch others leave lying around. do everything, ignore nothing. 1% better daily, for years.

every obstacle is an opportunity to get ahead. because someone, somewhere, is giving up because of that obstacle. will you rise and take advantage or fold?

i remind people on the assembly lines that they need not be in a hurry. speed is not important and neither are numbers. the only thing that is important is doing everything carefully, thoroughly and vigilantly. -james dyson

Focus your energy. Guard your time. Train your mind. Train your body. Think for yourself. Curate your friends. C…

determination consists of willfulness, balance with discipline, aim by ambition. at least two of these three qualities can be cultivated. you may be able to increase your strength of will somewhat. you can definitely learn self-discipline. and almost everyone is practically malnourished when it comes to ambition. -pg

it’s never just a single thing; everything is incremental, and you need to just keep going; you just keep doing lots and lots of these little things until you strike something.

24th of November diary: kaizen: 1% better daily ✅ ✅💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about chunking in ux design and how people love containers and neat boxes and process categories a lot better, faster and easier than items. almost getting to the end of the ux design cards. i will review all the principles by the end of this week and check to see which ones we are following and which ones we are not. — also listened to founders podcast and was reminded about the core concepts principle in advertising from steve jobs’s favorite design firm and james dyson’s ideas: don’t mix messages when creating an ad. people hardly can take one great idea at a time, let alone two or several. your goal is a single message; a single idea expressed clearly; one message per ad. ✅💻1% better product: delete/delight/story changed the circular progress bar to vertical progress bar on the left side of the actions page with removed wordings and initial progress. it looks and feels a lot better. dropped the animation on liquid glass action items to avoid the flickering background. fixed the excessive notifications for credit low warning to tier based warnings: now each plan will have different threshold for warnings. integrated the meta sdk for tracking installs and purchases and subscriptions and other actions. ✅ 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did a 45 min walk around the block. had no breakfast and a healthy lunch: macaroni + quark. took my vitamins and creatine. forgot to take my whey protein.

make yourself a big target for luck. how? be curious. try lots of things. read lots of books. meet lots of people. ask lots of questions. -paul graham

you either have your way with the world, or you let the world have its way with you.

22nd of November diary: kaizen: 1% better daily ✅🔥 ✅💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about ux design law: cognitive dissonance. it’s when you try to push a door that needs to be pulled to open. it’s when yur expectations are violated. it’s when a refrigerator is placed in the bathroom instead of kitchen. use user’s mental models. use consistent patterns. test and verify user’s expectations. — also listened to founders podcast about Napoleon. his principles: - keep your forces united. - be vulnerable at no point. - move with speed. a sure way to capture a single point? bring a sudden, unexpected concentration of artillery to bear upon a single point. you need a balance of intelligence and courage. intelligent people without courage won’t achieve much. courageous people with less intellect would take on tasks more than his ability which will lead to failure. war is composed of little accidents and a general should never lose sight of everything to enable him to profit from these accidents. study the life and campaigns of great masters. pay attention to everything, neglect nothing that gives you an small advantage. sometimes by neglecting one small thing, you lose everything. — also listened to an interview with Stewart Butterfield (@stewart) the founder of Slack on @lennysan podcast. he is a true product leader. reminded me of steve jobs. he talked about how creating small conveniences like no password for login, smart and configurable notifications, creating many defaults for users, and many small delights will create an emotional connection with users which then they will act as your advocates and sell the product for you. he also turned the “your margin is my opportunity” from jeff bezos to “your tilting umbrella is my opportunity” which means any small details that the competitors and other products fail to notice and take on will be our opportunity to add to the odds of our product success. very similar to what Napoleon was saying: pay attention to every little thing that adds to your advantage; neglect nothing. very similar to what Bill Walsh said: score takes care of itself if you intelligently and relentlessly do little things that increases your odds of success. very similar to kaizen: continuous small improvements over long periods of time: 1% better daily. very similar to Charlie Munger’s advice: try to go to bed at night a little wiser than you wake up in the morning. very similar to what you could see in steve jobs’s iPhone introduction demo: he showed so many small delights one after another that made the iPhone way superior compare to alternatives: no physical ugly keyboard, way bigger screen, music+internet+phone in one product, scrolling by finger, first smart phone google maps app, music app with great artist and album visuals, multi tasking on the phone: listening to music + writing emails + taking a conference call with multiple people, pinch to zoom on images… ✅💻1% better product: delete/delight/story implemented continuous processing for more than 1 batch. users now can click on process 1000 number of emails and the system should work. need to test it. ✅ 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal had a 77 minute workout in the gym. had a healthy dinner.

the public praises people for what they practice in private.

do not divide your attention; focusing on one thing yields increasing returns for each unit of effort. - peter thiel

a novice is easily spotted because they do too much. too many ingredients, too many movements, too much explanation. a master uses the fewest motions required to fulfill their intention.

intelligence or talent and character or courage. if a man’s courage is greater, he undertakes things beyond his ability. if on the contrary, his character or courage is less than his intelligence, he does not carry out any plans. he’s a smart but ineffectual person. your intelligence and talents have to be balanced in perfect harmony with your character or courage. if you're more courageous and smart, you're going to do dumb shit. but if you're smarter and you have no courage, then you're brilliant but ineffectual. you don't do anything. you need them all. -ds

repetition is the heart of instruction.

a successful day for a stoic is simple: whether or not you got better? 1% better health 1% better skill 1% better product

Arnold’s mindset was no less than Napoleon’s. “the meaning of life is not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer.”

my persian-speaking muscle has never been this weak. i started to feel bad: whenever i try to say something meaningful, i just can’t. you lose it if you don’t use it.

do what you said you’d do; keep your promises.

total focus has a high price tag. focus on one thing means neglect of others. friendships can go south. health can deteriorate. there is no “balance” in total focus. by definition total focus is not sustainable. you can’t have it all.

18th of November diary: kaizen: 1% better daily ❌🔻 many meetings = drained completely ✅ 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied i learned about some ux design idea in the morning which i can’t recall! watched a charlie munger speech and took many notes of his best ideas. here are a few i remember: - your biggest edge: continuous learning. go to bed a little wiser than you wake up in the morning. people with this behavior succeed more often than people with other traits. - provide something to the world that you would buy yourself if you were on the other side. - the best way to try and get what you want is to try and deserve what you want. - learn the big ideas in other disciplines and use them as mental models in your day to day work so you have multidisciplinary thinking model. - get the people with Plank knowledge and not chauffeur knowledge for the job. - have a lot of assiduity, which means sitting in your ass till you get it done. ❌ 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story i tried multiple times to complete the work about email credits and fix the ui issues after upgrade of iOS to 26.1, i didn’t manage to finish it due to super low energy. a lot of meetings since yesterday. i was and still am drained. even bought a pack of cigarettes to turn on some parts of the brain after not smoking for a month. didn’t change a thing. ☑️🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal super low energy after work was over. didn’t find the strength to move. it was weird. i even ordered some vitamins to see if that will solve my energy problem. no breakfast. had a big but mostly healthy lunch. and a healthy dinner. small snacks. bad movement day. good meal day.

16th of November diary: kaizen: 1% better daily ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about affinity mapping in ux design. putting all the clues from user data on sticky notes and then group and label them to find patterns. it’s about grouping messy qualitative data into more meaningful clusters so patterns can emerge. quotes, behaviors, pains, user moments, delights, fails, silences, pauses, screenshots, complaints. then once we grouped similar insights, we label them appropriately and turn them into design actions: theme: “confusion during onboarding” → add guided steps theme: “fear of losing progress” → autosave theme: “too much cognitive load” → reduce choices data becomes meaning; meaning becomes design. — Also listened to founder podcast about Napolean. He was all about making his destiny a reality. He wanted to leave his name known in the history. He was glorifying great individuals. He had a great appreciation for making the non-existent exist. — 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did a 60 minute workout in the gym. closed the health rings. 900 calories. 75 minutes of activity. had a healthy breakfast. Pizza for lunch. And a healthy persian dinner: Fesenjun. — 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story fixed inconsistent ui defects for secretary details modal, ai teach modal and subscription page and modal. fixed the non opening subscription modal on highlight page. updated the website with new app designs. updated the founder story on the website. customized design for instagram posts. created instagram and facebook page for the product. posted the app preview slides on instagram. posted the “we vacuum your inbox” creative as story. drafted an initial meta campaign.

hard lessons that you only learn by doing

do everything and you’ll win.

Napoleon: “to make use of every possible opportunity of increasing his chances of victory on the battlefield.” Bill Walsh: “intelligently & relentlessly do things that increase your chance of winning. do that, and the score takes care of itself.” Kaizen: “1% better daily for decades to build greatness”

Napoleon: “make use of every possible opportunity of increasing his chances of victory on the battlefield.” Bill Walsh: “intelligently & relentlessly do things that increase your chance of winning. do that, and the score takes care of itself.” Kaizen: “1% better daily for decades to build greatness”

Napoleon: “make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory on the battlefield.” Bill Walsh: “intelligently & relentlessly do things that increase your chance of winning. do that, and the score takes care of itself.” Kaizen: “1% better daily for decades to build greatness”

17th of November diary: kaizen: 1% better daily ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied Learned about ux design method: ux survey: it’s about finding patterns across many users by asking questions that reveal insights. we shouldn’t ask leading questions like “what problems you faced…” instead ask “how was your experience with…” you create a feedback loop that strengthens user trust; when they feel heard, they stay. — also listened to founders podcast and i heard the same maxim again from Napoleon: “make use of every possible opportunity of increasing your chances of victory on the battlefield.” it reminded me of the main strategy maxim of bill walsh: “intelligently and relentlessly do things that increase your chance of winning. do that, and score takes care or itself.” which then it increased my conviction in my daily execution strategy to build something great: “kaizen: 1% better daily, for decades, to build greatness” — 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did a 60 minute walk in the cold weather at night. had no breakfast. had a ham sandwich for lunch. had last night’s dinner: Fesenjun. Had a few small snacks. — 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story implemented the credit purchase for processing 10k or 20k emails. Not done yet. created a few creatives focused on noise cancellation theme for marketing.

the world is a very malleable place. it you know what you want and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world will often reconfigure itself around you much more quickly and easily than you would think. -marc andreessen

napoleon: all my life I've sacrificed everything, comfort, self-interest, happiness to my destiny. destiny must be fulfilled. that is my chief doctrine.

14th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about usability testing in ux design: sit back, shut up and watch users use your design and fail, so you don’t ship their frustrations to thousands. give users tasks, watch where they hesitate to act, find and fix the frustration points. don’t explain your design, let them figure out on their own. observe the pain. the goal is to catch blind spots, uncover friction, frustration, confusion; not validate the design. what feels “clear” in your head often collapses when user touches it. — also listened to more founders podcast about edwin land (third episode in a row) how he relentlessly kept experimenting from the age of 17 and was obsessed about physics of light and had no real breakthrough or big success before the age of 38. how he talked about his camera poetically in marketing materials and shareholder letters. how he spend almost a decade investing, researching and building a coppier machine and dropped the project after xerox launched their product first and got the market share fast with a good a product. his thinking was: we shouldn’t do what others can do. 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did 12k steps. 94 minutes of activity. closed all health rings. went for a 20 and 45 minute walk separately. did 40 minutes of indoor walk pad. really good movement day. had small breakfast. a ham sandwich for lunch. small snack. burgers and fries for dinner. porto wine for desert. not a healthy meal day. 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story improved the email view support for more types of emails, fixed forwarding formatting logic, fixed some email threads ui issues, better origin email under replay view, and now links open in separate browser. updated figma designs: intro slider and app store, and product hunt launch with better screenshots of the app and core features. created more creatives around other themes like cleaning up inbox. brainstormed more creative themes other than focus, leaders and secretaries, inbox cleaning.

writing a check separates conviction from conversation. -john d. rockefeller

Napoleon: stack tiny edges till victory. Kaizen: 1% better daily for decades till greatness is built. Bill Walsh: increase the odds, little by little, till score takes care of itself.

15th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about user interviews in ux design. learned it’s important to ask about user goals and struggles. ask questions that will nudge them to reveal more about the way they think, their mental models, their expectations, their tasks, their motivations, hidden habits, emotional peaks, and the language they use. users rarely hand you the truth on a plate. you have to uncover it layer by layer with good questions. users always hack solutions before products exist: dig for duck-tape workflows -> these inspire the most valuable features. — also learned from founders podcast that napoleon also used the idea of stacking tiny edges till victory and believing great events hang by a single thread and that clever man uses everything that gives added opportunity; and sometimes neglecting one small thing will cause the loss of everything. it reminded me of bill walsh: increase the odds, little by little, till score takes care of itself. these two ideas are aligned with the kaizen strategy: 1% better daily for decades. — 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did 10k steps. 60 minutes of weight training. almost 1.2k calories burned. 94 minutes of activity. ✅ very good movement day. had no breakfast. had tuna-cheese sandwich for lunch. canned tuna is not considered healthy right? had a huge hut pizza portion. not healthy. but I would do it again and again and again! had whey protein after gym + pre-workout drink. ❌ not a good meal day. 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story First marketing efforts, apart from the marketing content, website, visuals: - product hunt launched without an issue. - contacted tens of my LinkedIn network for supporting me with upvoting and comments. - posted about the product for the first time on LinkedIn. - wrote the post as an article on Substack and shared the article on X. - posted on “building in public” X community about the launch of the product. - replied to support comments on product hunt. - Moved from number 39 to number 20 with 14 upvotes and gained 15 followers myself and 28 followers for the app. - so far only one person created an account and used the app out of all these efforts. - tested the app from scratch with a new account and everything was very smooth. except found one but about non opening subscription modal for “upgrade to plus” - got multiple good feedback about the idea, my video and the app design, the visuals. It felt good!

my whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had. -edwin land

13tg of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied was reminded about the persona method in ux design. if you don’t have a persona in mind, you will build for everyone which means building for no one! persona is a fictional user based on real user. you should use language and words that your target users use. know their frustrations, their goals and how they think. persona is how we make empathy operational for a product. features should map to user’s goals, not other stakeholder’s wishes. copywriting should match how your persona talks. do they multitask? do they skim? do they go deep? reduce cognitive load for the “busy” and provide depth for the “expert”. one size fits all is the enemy of usability. — also listened to the founder podcast and learned more about edwin land. how he came up with the polaroid camera: his small daughter asking him why can’t i see the image now? how he cared about long concentration without distractions. how he presented his idea to the journalists with great demonstrations. how he started his career, dropping out from harvard and going to new york and spending tremendous time reading books on a single topic. how he motivated his employees to “save lives” by doing their work. how the whole company went to a different direction after his departure. the importance of a single individual in realizing revolutionary products. his vision for something like an iPhone that you can put into your pocket and carry around and take pictures of things instead of this giant polaroid camera. also learned more about steve job’s approach to innovation: no market research, his passion for building an enduring company that people can continue building great products. — 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did 8k steps. 60 minutes full body workout. all health rings closed. butter and jam for breakfast. ham sandwich for lunch. salmon steak with rice for dinner. one red bull. 30 grams of whey protein. B12 shot. small amount of wine. a few berries. verdict: i had one healthy meal and vitamin and fruit… habit checked — 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story Scheduled the product hunt launch for Saturday. Updated the screenshot graphics with new design for app store. Fixed a few ui defects: non appearing red dot on tabs after process + some padding issues

13th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied was reminded about the persona method in ux design. if you don’t have a persona in mind, you will build for everyone which means building for no one! persona is a fictional user based on real user. you should use language and words that your target users use. know their frustrations, their goals and how they think. persona is how we make empathy operational for a product. features should map to user’s goals, not other stakeholder’s wishes. copywriting should match how your persona talks. do they multitask? do they skim? do they go deep? reduce cognitive load for the “busy” and provide depth for the “expert”. one size fits all is the enemy of usability. — also listened to the founder podcast and learned more about edwin land. how he came up with the polaroid camera: his small daughter asking him why can’t i see the image now? how he cared about long concentration without distractions. how he presented his idea to the journalists with great demonstrations. how he started his career, dropping out from harvard and going to new york and spending tremendous time reading books on a single topic. how he motivated his employees to “save lives” by doing their work. how the whole company went to a different direction after his departure. the importance of a single individual in realizing revolutionary products. his vision for something like an iPhone that you can put into your pocket and carry around and take pictures of things instead of this giant polaroid camera. also learned more about steve job’s approach to innovation: no market research, his passion for building an enduring company that people can continue building great products. — 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did 8k steps. 60 minutes full body workout. all health rings closed. butter and jam for breakfast. ham sandwich for lunch. salmon steak with rice for dinner. one red bull. 30 grams of whey protein. B12 shot. small amount of wine. a few berries. verdict: i had one healthy meal and vitamin and fruit… habit checked — 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story Scheduled the product hunt launch for Saturday. Updated the screenshot graphics with new design for app store. Fixed a few ui defects: non appearing red dot on tabs after process + some padding issues

“If you dream of something worth doing, and then simply go to work on it… if you just think of detail by detail what you have to do next, it is a wonderful dream even though the end is a long way off. For there are about 5,000 steps to be taken before we realize it. Start taking the first 10 and stay making 20 after it. It is amazing how quickly you get through those first 5,000 steps. Rather, I should say, through the 4,990. The last 10 steps you never seem to work out, but you keep on coming nearer to giving the world something well worth having.” From Founders: #40 Insisting On The Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land and Instant: The Story of Polaroid

from this day forward until the day you are buried, you do two things each day. first, master an old difficult insight. second, add some new piece of knowledge to the world each day. -edwin land

“i just got up, we just got after it and stayed after it.” -sam walton on how he built walmart

just improve something a little bit every day and do that over a long period of time. kaizen: 1% better daily, for decades.

12th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: idea leaned/applied learned about journey mapping in ux design. it’s about mapping every user touchpoint, with their emotions (delight, frustration…) for accomplishing a goal in the product. after mapping, we need to find the friction and frustration points, and remove/alleviate them. the goal is to see the world through user’s eyes; from intention, to frustration, to relief. we need to map steps, emotions, and opportunities. every product tells a story. journey mapping helps you design a better one. — listened to the founders podcast about Edwin Land, the Steve Job’s hero. he was obsessed with building and giving the world something worth having. doing a 5000 step journey and focusing on the details of each step of the way and never quite reaching to the last step. learned that he was also against market research like steve. he wanted to make innovative products that people didn’t know they wanted until they were available. Also he was stubborn on his vision and a contrarian in many aspects like education system, marketing, hiring… i was also reminded of how doing small improvements daily for decades leads to great companies like walmart and it was sam walton’s idea to “go after it, and stay after it”. 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal did 12k steps: a midnight walk around the neighborhood for 60 minutes. A visit to EDEKA. A visit to the eyeglass shop to adjust the newly bought glasses a bit. had a good breakfast: peanut butter and hand made naranj jelly from Lisbon 🇵🇹 healthy lunch: greens, beens, tomatoes, lemon, rice, tuna, soya marinated chicken big persian dinner: khoresht gheime ba zereshk polo! 😋 a small amount of porto wine 👌🏻 a can of coke 😬(600k calories) 💻1% better product: delete/delight/story recorded a founder introduction story video about why, the concept, idea origin. added subtitles to it. https://t.co/qVCinD2ebO created a product hunt launch draft.

too much noise in communications. email, a huge source of such noise. i will change it for good. owe it to myself.

@theJayAlto for me the same: - delete my WhatsApp account - delete my Instagram account - hibernate my LinkedIn account - delete all three apps - disable most notifications - installed @mailoverai ai to read my emails as they arrive and filter the noise in gmail -> my gmail always 0 unread

greatness formula: get better; never stop. kaizen: 1% better daily, for decades.

necessity is the mother of invention. repetition is the father of skill.

11th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied learned about the “card sorting” method in ux design. it’s for finding out the target user group’s mental map for categorizing information by asking users to put different sections of app into groups and name the groups. very helpful for building navigation structure. users will show you how they expect info to be structured. it reveals user’s mental models. — also listened to the founders podcast. it was an episode about bill gates and his evolution. i learned bill gates was a very obsessive person. thinking he is more intelligent than anyone else: “i went to harvard to meet people smarter than me. i was very disappointed.” also he had a lot of autonomy since teenage years. a lot of confidence. very sharp thinker. read a lot of biographies of big figures like napoleon during teenage years. he always thought very highly of himself and wanted to become wealthy since early years. he was very conservative with money and microsoft always had money for 1 year in the bank. he started a company before microsoft. he made many decisions early on that set the trajectory of microsoft’s success and dominance in the software. he was hardcore. ambitious and never satisfied. he knew everything about the problems, inadequacies, and small details of the domain and the industry he was in more than anyone else. he thought even though microsoft was making so much money and was one of the biggest tech companies in the world, there was so much that was broken the industry: from the complicated user experiences to all the problems that are not solved yet. — 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did a 60 minute full-body workout. closed 3/3 health rings. no breakfast. healthy lunch. healthy dinner. almost no snack. good meal day. good movement day. — 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story improved the pricing page with more accurate prices and discounts. fixed the too many open db connections. fixed top fyis not being marked as seen. prepare a first draft for a social media ad about leaders and the fact that they don’t spend their time cleaning inboxes and reading emails. submitted the 1.6 version of the app to the App Store. Next step is … the first marketing campaign planning?! i think so!🔥

9th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did a 50 minute full body workout in the gym. had 3 healthy meals. 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story added dedicated containers for mailover server in the cloud with autoscaling. added more checks for usage limits before even syncing. added 300 tests. 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied learned more about the law of constraint. constraints are like rules of the game. without constraints there is no game. use constraints to guide users, like guardrails around a road that will stop you from making a mistake and guide you through the path. only show controls that are relevant at each time. disable actions to prevent making errors. design in way that is hard to make an error and people get it. make the right actions obvious and the wrong ones impossible. limit actions to create clarity. constraints are invisible guides.

7th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story fixed several ui defects for non-iOS26 users. 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did 14k steps. did some shopping at a mall in porto. visited an old super nine bookshop. got a nice picture from a Ukrainian girl photographer that would take shot with an vintage looking camera. and then print the image in an old newspaper template. 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied reminder about law of feedback. users need to know their actions have been seen, understood and completed. silence -> uncertainty -> frustration -> drop-off. feedback is the way of your design to say “i heard you”. without the nod, users feel like they’re shouting into the void. the fastest path to trust is acknowledgment. feedback is the ui’s body language. the faster and clearer the feedback, the higher the perceived system reliability. users feel in control only when they see a reaction to their input.

8th of November diary: 2/3 “1% better” habits checked ☑️ ❌🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal only 8k steps. sitting for 3 hours in the flight back to munich from porto. ate butter and jam for breakfast. bad. coffee and pastel in the airport. bad. several porto wine tasting. bad. ham sandwich for lunch. bad. tuna for dinner. bad meal day. bad movement day. ✅💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story added more limit boundaries and introduced the “plus” subscription plan. ✅💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied learned about the law of mapping in #uxdesign when design matches reality: trying to turn on the wrong stove burner? bad mapping. trying to push a door instead of pull? bad mapping. mapping is how controls lineup with what they actually control. when things are mapped well, your brain doesn’t need a manual. it just knows. if you need a label to explain it, your mapping is broken. if you need to teach your mapping failed. the best interfaces don’t explain; they just make sense. also read about #storytelling for 2.5 hours with some learnings: we seek status by design because we have value and we require our value to be seen, recognized and rewarded by others. a lot of successful advertising works by making a subconscious deal for status. to motivate employees: make them feel virtuous and competent. let them express their uniqueness, their “me in we”. make “helping others” the status signal.

10th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied learned about the law of “conceptual model” in #uxdesign which basically means users find a mental shortcut, an analogy, or a story of how the system works. if the design fits their story, it feels natural; when it breaks it, it feels wrong. mirror the user’s world: use familiar metaphors (trash, folders, home), make cause and effect visible, hide complexity behind simple interactions. like the gear shift in the car; you don’t see the engine and it’s complexity, but the gear handle gives you a simple model of control. the goal isn’t to teach users how it works; the goal is to make them feel they already knew. users build mental maps of how systems behave. the mismatch breaks their trust and flow. align the design behavior with familiar mental patterns. design for what feels obvious, not what’s accurate. — also listened to the founders podcast and learned about jeff bezos and how he likes to build a business: by trying many stuff, by practice, not by spending time on analyzing and precision. also noticed this is the same definition that peter drucker had for entrepreneurship: it’s not science nor art, it’s a practice. you achieve results through application. you spend leas time analyzing and theorizing. you build, test, validate, fail, learn, repeat. also learned that he hided the aws revenue for almost a decade to not trigger competition by revealing how profitable the cloud computing was. 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did 2 walks: first at noon to pick up my new gorgeous Tom Ford eyeglasses that i bought for myself on my birthday in october and then walked from karlsplatz to hauptbahnhof to eat my favorite asian dish (crispy chicken with thai curry on noodles) as lunch at my favorite asian restaurant. second: at night walked around the neighborhood for 45 minutes. did 9k steps in total, in 68 minutes. 2/3 health rings closed. had no breakfast, a healthy lunch and a healthy dinner. almost no snack. good movement day. good meal day. 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story -make multiple item selection consistent across secondary pages: trash, completed page -fix the plus plan bug not showing up

“a maniacal sense of urgency is our operating principle.” -elon musk

most people hate to admit they’re wrong. but it didn’t bother bill one bit. all he cared about was: “what was right” not “who was right” that is what makes bill very, very dangerous. he doesn’t really care where the idea comes from as long as he is the one who gets paid for it. most people are so in love with their own ideas that it confines their thinking. it creates boundaries and limits their ability to solve problems. bill, however, has this ability to manage his intellectual vanity and take ideas regardless of where they come from and put them to work for microsoft. he is smart enough to understand what ideas are good, what’s worth replicating, and he had the discipline and resources to get on with it and make it just a little bit better. that is very scary. add to that, bill’s ruthless perseverance and the fact that microsoft had more money than god, and you get a most formidable foe. the ultimate foe. the perfect enemy. we decided to pick a fight with the biggest, most dangerous bully in the school yard. the media loved this fight. we got a lot of press. it was great for oracle. -larry ellison on bill gates

this must be hanged to any founder’s wall. what else i think needs to go on the wall?🧵 “success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” -winston churchil “take a simple idea and take it seriously.” -charlie munger “give yourself a lot of shots to get lucky” -sam altman “95% of everything we do is the result of habit.” -aristotle “the person you’ll be in 5 years depends on the books you read and the people you surround yourself with.” - charlie jones “you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.” - james clear “kaizen: greatness is built by getting 1% better daily, for decades” “focus is relentless noise elimination from one’s attention”

to succeed, you need to have: a delusional sense of optimism a delusional sense of significance a delusional sense of deservingness

increase the surface area of luck by giving yourself many shots. hack probability by doing many little things that improve your odds of success.

6th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied tried to come up with a lot of different messaging based on my learnings from a meta speaker at entirely conference about creative diversification. noted down what i learned about the new state of social media #marketing and what matters: i needed to have a diversity of messaging in my creatives and worry less about “targeting” because according to a speaker from meta targeting is dead. the ai algorithm try many things and show your content to many different people to find the best target for your product and you need to be focusing on creative diversity (60%), impact measurement (30%). creative diversity means diversity in messaging: - motivators & barrier, emotional benefits, situational identification, functional benefits, product use/demo, deals - media formats: image, video, carousel, all with optimized aspect ratios: 1:1, 9:16, 4:5 - creative approach: Lo-fi -> creator-led, language of reels, UGC (user generated); High-fi -> product-focused, lifestyle-focused, illustration/animation - placement: feed, stories, reels, search, in-stream - best practices: highlight the brand early, start with a strong visual hook to draw people in, showcase how your product supports people in their lives, incorporate a strong CTA, keep your video short: 6-15 seconds, frame your content vertically and to more than one aspect ratio, use both static and video in your campaigns, design for sound-off, delight with sound-on 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story now you can process all your unread emails from multiple accounts in one button. marked the app for release. felt like Don Draper from Mad Men tonight because of all creatives for the marketing campaign i created. it felt really good. it was a very satisfying exercise of creativity in compact communication. i definitely like the creative part of marketing. 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did 13k steps. a lot of hill climbing in porto. didn’t have a healthy meal except for a protein shake, vitamin b12 shot and half of an orange if that counts. butter and jam for breakfast. bad. McDonalds burger and fries for lunch. bad. made a special ham sandwich for dinner. bad. coke, ice cream, apple pie, ice tea. bad. i know! horrible day in terms of food! but good movement. today went for a social underground lighting show about legends of porto. it felt like a time travel to ancient times to learn about portos tales and legends in a visual lighting format. loved it. then went for another lighting show in a church. my visual stimulus was running wild for 30 straight minutes. it was nice. walked around in charming hilly streets of city center and was amazed how beautiful this city is. will definitely come back soon. specially for the apartment building i’m staying in.

5th of November diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 🏋1% better health: a walk/workout/meal did 10k steps, 45 minutes workout in a small gym of a lovely apartment i’m staying in, at the heart of Porto. had a healthy dinner at a nice pan asian restaurant called Boa-Bao. today had a train ride from Aveiro to Porto. my initial impression was very positive so far. Porto looks like a beautiful city with hills and surrounded with water, green nature and charming streets and many diverse and top rated restaurants. strangely the place i’m staying in made me feel super happy somehow. never had this feeling before for a place. i entered the closed area of the apartment building which is called “bnapartments carregal” surrounded by very high walls and high bushes which reminded me of Saadabad Palace in Tehran. in the yard you could find a pool with some beach like chairs for relaxing and sun bathing in short green grass field next to the pool. the building felt like some NYC hotels of 90s you could see in the “Home Alone” movie with red carpet and very old style looking furniture and decorated Christmas trees with high ceilings and wooden floors. and then there is this very simple design of the single “Deluxe Studio” room which i fell in love with immediately and for 30 minutes was trying to figure out why! 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied #uxdesign today i was reminded of a ux law i learned first in the book “the design of everyday things” by don norman: affordances. it’s the possibility of an action or function in an interface based on user’s mental modal and expectations. for example door nobs afford turning; or blue underlined texts afford clicking. buttons should look like buttons. good design makes function obvious. bad design makes users guess. we should make interactivity look interactive. if users need instructions, affordances have failed. #storytelling i learned success is social. i learned gurus who say you mustn’t care about other people’s opinions are asking for a biological impossibility and are giving a foolish instruction. we are completely preoccupied by what others think of us. we thrive by getting approval and validation from our group or people-like-us. our sense of self-worth is almost entirely defined by how we evaluate ourselves relative to others. that’s why success is social. our accomplishments are only happen in the context of our life in the super-organism. it’s not enough that i believe my achievements to be a success; but rather it has to be recognized as successful by the group. our subconscious mind is constantly preoccupied with status: our relative standing in the hierarchy compared to others. one reason communism failed was because they tried to get rid of human hierarchies and deny the human need for status. we are hardwired for seeking status. it is core of our nature. we need praise and recognition from others about our work along the joy of the work itself. it matters to us, for good reasons. 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story I added delete functionality for drafts, inbox and sent items.

“when you're only halfway interested in something, you'll lose to someone obsessed. it won't even be close. it’s worth asking why. small advantages compound over time like interest in a bank account, so being 10% more committed doesn't give you 10% better results; it gives you 10x better results. think of it like studying: the genuinely curious person will remember and connect ideas in ways that the person just trying to pass will never. being all in doesn't just beat partially in; it crushes it.” -sp

greatness strategy: relentless hunger to learn about the thing you love for decades

@ZardalooFarangi without urgency, without a short deadline, you won’t make anything great. extreme success, demands extreme measures. you can’t have a balanced life and expect an extreme outcome.

@ZardalooFarangi if you don’t seek extreme outcomes, then there is no point in criticizing people who give advice on how to achieve it. not all advice is general and apply to everyone. if you like calm and quiet, why read and analyze anything about elon musk? 🙂

greatness is built one small improvement at a time; it’s 1% better daily, for decades.

4th of november diary: all “1% better” habits checked ✅🔥 🏋1% better health: walk/workout/meal dis 20k steps (twice as yesterday) around 6 kilometers, and more than one hour. walked to a boat ride meeting point in Aveiro, had a 45 minute ride with an old style boat in Aveiro’s canals. their traditional boats used for moving salt back in the days. bought a cool black mug with portugal and porto related signs on it. had a very healthy vegan lunch at a small local restaurant: Musgo, in the city center. did a horseback riding trip for an hour, and talked with the owner of the riding enter and learned how he started this business from scratch 6 years ago and how he co-created a SaaS that is for horse riding centers and how he is now selling the software to other similar businesses even in Brazil. a lot of inspiration! he mentioned something i learned from @paulg : “i built something that i needed and now I’m selling it to others who are in similar situation like me with the same problems.” then walked across the Atlantic Ocean coast near the biggest lighthouse in Portugal 🇵🇹 for 1-2 hours. lovely day! i didn’t have many of such days i must admit. 💻1% better app: delight/simplify/story Implemented draft saving, re-saving, and sending with attachments. Fixed ui defects and network reconnect problems. 💡1% better skill: 1 idea leaned, applied learned about the law of discoverability: it’s the ease of finding what’s possible within a product. - proper affordances, signifiers, hints like: “swipe to archive”, “hold to record” - animations showing interaction hints - reveal features at the right time when user needs it instead of long onboarding at the beginning - it’s teaching users about the features by showing and not explaining. - it’s inviting interaction. - using “new” badge. highlighting new sections. added discoverability features to the list of priorities. also learned about telling a story that makes users share with their friends to look cool, a story worth sharing. also was reminded of how mailover ai can subtly communicate higher status for users by making them feel like a boss, president, leader.

@IcyCortex true, sheer quantity and speed at some point can lead to a breakthrough.

no matter how right the vision is, it means nothing unless you’re willing to defend it. repeatedly. relentlessly.

reps. reps. reps. there is no magic formula. you just have to put in the reps.

time carries most of the weight. the 45 years old version of steve jobs could take 10 of the 25 years old version of steve jobs. people who are a learning machine and refuse to quit are incredibly hard to beat.

agency gives you power. determination gives you drive. discipline turns both into results. belief starts it. will fuels it. action finishes it.

a few interesting takeaways: - seeing things from different angles could unlock new insights, ideas - obsession with what fascinates you is the way - ego is needed in pursuit of grand visions - you will burn out if the work doesn’t interest or excite you

“so maybe you're not winning on some external scoreboard, but you always have your internal scoreboard to measure yourself and your team on. have patience.” you may already be a success, but it hasn’t showed up yet for others to see. keep compounding.

DEFINITIONS I THINK ABOUT OFTEN .direction is choosing the right path before running fast .consistency is choosing progress over perfection, daily .focus is identifying and eliminating noise, constantly 🧵 .urgency is acting now, because the opportunity is fading .obsession is thinking about it most of the day .determination is refusing to quit when it makes sense .vision is painting a future worth sacrificing for .mission is waking up with purpose, not obligation .leadership is showing the way in the frontline .curiosity is questioning the obvious until it breaks .clarity is seeing the essence beneath the noise .conviction is belief without needing anyone's approval

focus is relentless noise elimination

if you didn’t get better today, you got worse. 1% worse health: - no long walk/workout - more sugar: cake, ice cream 1% worse product: - no bug fix: bad experience for users 1% worse skills: - you forget a little of what you learned

direction. consistency. focus. am i headed in the right direction? am i consistently getting 1% better? am i constantly eliminating noise? urgency. obsession. determination. do i remind myself daily that the opportunity window is closing soon? do i think about this most of the day? do i persevere through obstacles i face? story. mission. leadership. am i telling a story people identify with? do i have a mission worth waking up for? do i lead where the industry goes next? vision. conviction. clarity. do i pursue the vision fanatically? do i passionately believe this is the way? do i know what matters the most? design. engineering. copy. is the design insanely great? is the system engineered for resiliency? is the brand copy inspiring?

take a simple idea and take it seriously. greatness can be achieved by: - direction: following your curiosity - consistency: 1% better daily - focus: relentless noise elimination

swarm your greatest opportunity https://t.co/9taVwl3JEE

intensity exhausts. consistency compounds. - do less: identify 20 in your 80/20. cut the rest. - do 1% better: improve 20 you identified, 1% daily. - track progress: note down list of improvements. - focus energy: identify noise, delete. narrow the input.

you are the input you take in the most

kaizen: 1% better daily. progress so small it’s invisible, until it’s undeniable. greatness is built by a thousand quiet, tiny, compounding steps. - first, define what better means. - then, improve your skills, health and product 1% every day. - make it a routine. learn one good idea, implement it. do a walk/workout. eat a healthy meal. delete, delight, simplify. tell a better story. by year’s end, you’ve already won.

kaizen: 1% better daily. greatness is built by a thousand quiet, tiny, compounding steps. progress so small it’s invisible, until it’s undeniable. - first, define what better means. - then, improve your skills, health and product 1% every day. - make it a routine. learn one good idea, implement it. do a walk/workout. eat a healthy meal. delete, delight, simplify. tell a better story. by year’s end, you’ve already won.

underestimation is like rocket fuel.

action expresses priority.

it takes about 231 days of 1% daily improvement to make something 10× better. that’s around 8 months. but what counts as an improvement? anything that increases the quality. but you need a clear definition of quality first before you can increase it.

kaizen: 1% better daily. improve your skills 1% everyday. improve your health 1% everyday. improve your product 1% everyday. learn one good idea. implement it. do a walk/workout. eat a healthy meal. delete, delight, simplify. tell a better story. https://t.co/BtvMW7waPR

intelligently and relentlessly do things that increase your chance of winning. do that, and the score takes care of itself. this is from bill walsh. it’s the same concept as: kaizen: 1% better daily. this is the essence of process over outcome thinking. both reject chasing results directly. instead, they focus on small, consistent, and iterative improvement of systems, on what you can control.

there is no guarantee and ultimate formula for success, what it comes down to is intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. when you do that, the score will take care of itself. -bw

the prime directive was not victory. the prime directive, the fundamental goal, was the full and total implementation throughout the organization of actions and attitudes of standards of performance. i directed our focus less to the prize of victory than to the process of improving. obsessing about the quality of our execution and content of our thinking. -bw

winners act like winners before they are winners. have a winning standard of performance before you are winner. the culture precedes positive results. great standards, thinking and attitude comes first, then great results.

i was contemplating whether i should offer my resignation. most debilitating of all, devastating, was a fear that I didn’t have what it takes to be an NFL head coach. i needed to stand and fight or it’s all over. i had to force myself to start looking ahead, to start focusing on the next step. -bw

focus comes from removing noise. noise is anything that tries to set your agenda without you asking: tv. news. games. drinking. streaming. email inbox. notifications. entertainment. any social media. any app with feed. any messaging app.

how many people are willing to go through a decade of failure without quitting? build the capacity to take pain.

the list of qualities that beat iq is long: agency, determination, urgency, curiosity, optimism, tenacity, stubbornness…

be strict about what you allow in as an input to reach your brain cells. you can control few things in life, the input…

abundance destroys motivation. limitless disincentivize creativity. ease shrinks growth. scarcity fuels desire. constraint breeds creativity. friction shapes behavior. input determines output. control the input. engineer scarcity. design constraints. introduce friction.

engineer your inputs. what goes through your eyes. what goes through your ears. every second of it. your control the scope of your thoughts by controlling what gets your attention, your inputs. the scope of your thoughts determines the scope of your actions. the scope of your actions determines who you are and therefore what you can achieve.

engineer your inputs. what goes through your eyes. what goes through your ears. every second of it. you control the scope of your thoughts by controlling what gets your attention, your inputs. the scope of your thoughts determines the scope of your actions. the scope of your actions determines who you are and therefore what you can achieve.

the more connected & accessible you are the less focused you are. the less focused you are, the less you realize the potential of your work. if you: get notified, read the news, browse social media, get contacted by others, your the agenda for what to think about for the rest of the day will be set by others. or at least it will cheap away from your attention your focused will end up getting killed by a thousand small cuts.

the bigger the gap between what you say and what you do, the bigger the gap between what you want and what you get

get obsessed with the next step. repeat.

fanatic, worried, obsessed: bill gates

there is a big difference between myself and a lot of other people who fade away: they are just not as interested in what the next stage requires and fitting into the role it requires. -bg

writing a page per day doesn’t sound like much, but if you do it everyday, you write a book a year. that’s the key: consistency. people who do great things don’t get a lot done every day. they get something done rather than nothing. and if you do work that compounds you get exponential growth. the trouble with exponential growth is that the curve looks flat in the beginning. it isn’t. it is still a wonderful exponential curve but we can’t grasp that intuitively. so we underrate exponential growth in early stages. something that grows exponentially can become so valuable that it’s worth making an extraordinary effort to get started. -pg

when you let your mind wonder, it wonders to whatever you care about most at the moment. so avoid the kind of distractions that pushes your work out of the top spot. or you will waste this valuable type of thinking on the distraction itself.

consciously cultivate your taste in the work done in your field until you know which is best and what makes it so you don’t know what you’re aiming for. having taste and maintaining taste can be a moat.

the key to do great work is to be earnest. earnest means showing sincere and intense conviction. the core of being earnest is being intellectually honest. you are trying to see more truth than others have seen so far. how can you have a sharp eye for truth if you are intellectually dishonest.

there is a theme that runs through many great founders and it’s the fact that: they believe their opinion of what they are working on, is greater that every other person’s opinion around them.

repeat to myself nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. it takes raw courage. it takes iron discipline. it takes deep conviction. it takes serious obsession. it takes relentless execution. it takes dogged determination. it takes restless stubbornness.

aim not to be clever. but to be dogged. to be determined. a clever person doesn’t spend 14 years building 5127 prototypes of the world’s first cyclonic vacuum cleaner. a determined person does. determination over the long term is the foundation that progress and innovation are built upon. there is no such thing as a quantum leap. there is only dogged persistence. and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap. the edisonian way of product development is the iterative way it is the progress by stages it is that persistent trial and error that allows you to wake up one morning after many many mornings with a world beating product. when an idea comes don’t sit down and process it through pages of calculation don’t argue it with anyone just try to build it the root principle is to do things your way it doesn’t matter how others did it it doesn’t matter if it can be done better as long as it works and it’s exciting people will follow you. ——— great stuff, right?!

a lot of successful people have described after falling in love with their chosen field, they had to put in a period of hard focused work. it’s the time in which raw interest is transformed into real skill.

bill gates had the radio ripped out of his car while building microsoft. he was worried he might turn it on during his 7 minute commute & stop thinking about microsoft. this is not extreme. this is engineering your input. this is controlling your scope of thoughts. brilliant.

nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically. -tg

@FoundersPodcast bill gates had the radio ripped out of his car while building microsoft. he was worried he might turn it on during his 7 minute commute & stop thinking about microsoft. this is not extreme. this is engineering your input. this is controlling your scope of thoughts. brilliant.

he starts with little, but an idea and an intense drive to bring that idea to fruition

i thought i could do everything he was doing, and a lot more. was i a little full of myself in 19? sure i was. i think you have to be, to do anything important. -md

everyone has creative potential, but only the arrogants are self-confident to press their ideas to others. -bw

don’t let anyone tell you a big ego is a bad thing. a big ego is: pride self-confidence self-steam self-assurance ego is a powerful and productive engine. you need a healthy dose of it. -bw

to get anything done to make any kind of progress don't do massive heroic bursts instead, take it slow and steady take it bird by bird

obsession determines who plays and who changes the game. if you want to be the best, you're competing against someone who can't stop thinking about it. while you're at dinner or grabbing a drink, they're solving the problem. while you're sleeping, they're dreaming about it. when progress stops, rational people question the path. the obsessed assume they haven't tried hard enough yet. one group is probably right. the other occasionally changes the world. once you're obsessed, balance isn't an option. -sp (modified)

context switching in a day comes at a cost of not being my best in each context and i can't afford not being my best i try to avoid it, and its not easy to avoid

how many people are willing to go through a decade of failure without quitting? build the capacity to take pain.

all glory is fleeting and you should just get back to making something wonderful

i am led to the belief that, for 'vision' one might equally well read 'stubbornness'. the achievement is not just about having grand ideas, but refusing to compromise or give up, pursuing them with dogged determination; i.e. stubbornness.

tenacity, perseverance & optimism were traits that have been handed down to me through my family genes. -ak, founder of sony

to be the very best, to go after the highest quality, you have to be an extreme person with unreasonable expectations

he not busy being born, is busy dying if you’re not actively learning, growing, or reinventing yourself then by default you’re declining you have to constantly re-create yourself new ideas, new work, new perspectives. move forward or slide back

the list of qualities that beat iq is long: agency, determination, urgency, curiosity, optimism, tenacity, stubbornness, obsession, earnestness, resourcefulness, willfulness…

be strict about what you allow in as an input to reach your brain cells. you can control few things in life, the input you let inside is one of them. filter all inputs for noise. if you control your input, you control what you think about most of the time. if you can control the scope of your thoughts, you can control the scope of your actions. the consistency of your actions inside a limited scope over a long enough timeframe is the recipe for outstanding achievement

be strict about what you allow in as an input to reach your brain cells. you can control few things in life, the input you let inside is one of them. filter all inputs for noise. if you control your input, you control what you think about most of the time. if you can control the scope of your thoughts, you can control the scope of your actions. the consistency of your actions inside a limited scope over a long enough timeframe is the recipe for outstanding achievement

pay the price early pay the price often pay the price in full

@mskoriwilson pay the price early pay the price often pay the price in full early → sacrifice before payoff often → consistent, not one-time effort in full → no shortcuts → when you pay → how often you pay → how much you pay

@mskoriwilson pay the price early pay the price often pay the price in full early → sacrifice before payoff often → con…

@MartinGTobias it reminds me of James Dyson story: 14 years, 5127 prototypes ONLY then a breakthrough product: cyclonic vacuum cleaner inventing, the edisonian way

Success isn’t built in the spotlight. It’s forged in rooms where nobody’s watching and nobody cares yet.

Success equation: Speed × Consistency = Momentum Momentum = More Opportunities Therefore: Speed × Consistency = Opportu…

either 1% better daily or 1% worse

very few people can be brilliant and those who are, rarely do anything worthwhile you are just as likely to solve a problem by being unconventional & determined as by being brilliant

“Vision is just long-term stubbornness.”

actions produce ideas

aim not to be clever. but to be dogged. to be determined. a clever person doesn’t spend 14 years building 5127 prototypes of the world’s first cyclonic vacuum cleaner. a determined person does. determination over the long term is the foundation that progress and innovation are built upon. there is no such thing as a quantum leap. there is only dogged persistence. and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap. -jd

@rajshamani such a big insult “accepting mediocrity” but i wonder how someone develops “a maniacal sense of urgency”

trade off is clear if you want balance, you can’t have extreme success

Your lack of urgency for success shows your acceptance of mediocrity.

take a simple idea and take it seriously

to contribute to this museum, you better have some of these qualities: taste focus urgency curiosity ambition discipline earnestness determination deep restlessness relentless resourcefulness

that’s why we need to intentionally design and curate our environment instead of accepting the defaults additionally the input that you take in, anything that goes through your eyes and ears needs to be curated to support the kind of person that you need to become to achieve the type of outcome that you are pursuing all of this comes down to constantly identifying and removing noise and distractions

you must stick with whatever you pick long enough to have many trial and errors

i designed this routine, and it works well: make your bed clean your desk hide the tv remote delete the time-kill apps turn do-not-disturb on write 3 prio for the next 12h watch for distractions, remove

@CuriousMindsHub i designed this routine, and it works well: make your bed clean your desk hide the tv remote delete the time-kill apps turn do-not-disturb on write 3 prio for the next 12h watch for distractions, remove

learning the hard way is the default way it’s not the smartest way but far better than not trying and not learning

if you’re not failing at least some of the time, you’re not trying hard enough its like batting average. you fail most of the time, but you will eventually get it right some of the time if you try enough times champions keep trying until they get it right

@StartupArchive_ in baseball you fail most of the time, but you will eventually get it right some of the time if you try enough times, "champions keep trying until they get it right"

if you’re not failing at least some of the time, you’re not trying hard enough its like batting average. you fail most of the time, but you will eventually get it right some of the time if you try enough times "champions keep trying until they get it right"

when building a new product i see every obstacle as 1. an additional barrier to entry for competitors 2. another reason for others facing the same obstacle to get demotivated & give up 3. an opportunity for me to overtake & get ahead i like obstacles, they work in my favor

design your routine in a way to make at least one definite move daily toward your goal

distractions kill dreams look for them often get rid of them fast repeat

what you do is who you are it’s not what you tweet it’s not what you believe you are the set of actions you take you are what you do

Try again. And again. And again.

i have a tv and a playstation but the remote and joysticks are somewhere in a drawer in my bedroom hiding this simple environment design reduced my usage by more than 3-5x now it takes “real” intent from my side to turn them on and mot just out of habit

i have a tv and a playstation but the remote and joysticks are somewhere in a drawer in my bedroom hiding this simple environment design reduced my usage by more than 3-5x now it takes “real” intent from my side to turn them on and not just out of habit

steve job’s taste elon musk’s execution jeff bezos’s foresight brian chesky’s grit warren buffett’s patience naval ravikant’s clarity paul graham’s reasoning michael saylor’s conviction i like to develop this combination of qualities

steve job’s taste elon musk’s execution jeff bezos’s foresight brian chesky’s grit bill gates’s strategy andy grove’s paranoia enzo ferrari’s passion warren buffett’s patience naval ravikant’s clarity paul graham’s reasoning michael saylor’s conviction marc andreessen’s optimism john d. rockefeller’s discipline benjamin franklin’s versatility thomas edison’s experimentation i like to develop this combination of qualities

do not fear losing you will lose it will hurt the first 50 times when you get used to losing you’ll play each game with less emotion you’ll be more fearless take more risks em

if a timeline is long, it’s wrong

i don’t care about being right i care about being excellent

- a maniacal sense of urgency as an operating principle - working every single waking hour - being a frontline general: on the factory floors, climbing on the roofs, rolling under engines, pursuing innovation

- a maniacal sense of urgency as an operating principle - working every single waking hour - perform dramatic demonstrations: showmanship is salesmanship - being a frontline general: on the factory floors, climbing on the roofs, rolling under engines, pursuing innovation

the most dangerous form of procrastination is the one that doesn't feel like procrastination you’re "getting things done" just the wrong things unless you're working on the biggest things you could be working on, you're in this form of procrastination

show respect for life by compressing the task of making a living into the smallest possible time!

humans have 100,000 thoughts per day very few of these are intentional very few are original even fewer are relevant and this mental jungle is called “inner voice”! a volcano incessantly spewing forth hot fragments of thought that immediately turn cold it’s criminally idiotic to expect any guidance from this chaos you are not your inner voice; you are merely its audience it’s up to you to decide whether you want to listen and since your inner voice is mostly a signal jammer, I recommend ignoring it if possible —Rolf Dobelli, The Not To-Do List

the only way to progress in uncharted territories is through trial and error in such domains, persistence pays off you need to operate in a way to be able to try more and more and stay in the game long enough so you have made all the mistakes and learned all the rules champions keep playing until they get it right example: it took Thomas Edison over a thousand attempts to find a model for a light bulb that finally worked so he played it in way that allowed him to have up to a thousand tries and failures without being knocked out of the game But what if there comes a time when you stop making progress? Maybe even Edison found himself in this situation. I've talked about this with many scientists, including Nobel Prize winners. “How many attempts before you give up and adopt a completely different approach?” I asked them The consensus among the brightest minds of our world: the answer isn't set in stone, but the rule of thumb is closer to a thousand than three, more like ten years than three months So go on: pull yourself up by your bootstraps and try again!

the greater the chasm between what you say and what you do the farther away you move from authenticity, and the less progress you will make

the greater the chasm between what you say and what you do the farther away you move from authenticity, and the less progress you gonna make

The biggest mistake you can make is not to try hard enough. To the extent there's a secret to success, it's not to be in denial about that.

real artists ship

One yes cost me all the free time I had for one month. No, should be my default answer to things.

my goal is to create a stack of failed tries but with each try, my goal is not to fail this time

distraction kills dreams feeds mediocrity amplifies noise robs the best resource: attention notice it, remove it, avoid it, run away from it

General Eisenhower famously said: ‘I gave myself an order.’ An order that he set his mind to and treated like a command from a superior officer. Wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and say to yourself: ‘At your command!’ Then, write a list of the things that need to be done that day. Do them.

Obsession is an advantage hard to compete with. “I can’t stop thinking about this.” Obsession consumes you. While others burn out, your obsession sustains years of grinding. Work that captures your mind is the one that yields great work.

i don't ask this question enough of myself: what noise you removed from today?

i don't ask this question enough of myself: what noise you removed today?

you will end up wherever is acceptable to you -naval

Founders: Obsession is the price of insight. You have to care more than is reasonable—before the world notices.

Worry about the input, whatever goes through your eyes and ears. Because if the input is not curated and filtered for quality and signal, your output will be trash and noise. Adjust your environment to be in harmony with what you want to achieve.

Focus is constant subtraction of noise.

be the network everyone’s chasing

Genuinely curious. Radically earnest. Endlessly creative. Seriously obsessed. Moderately disciplined. Deliberately flexible. Stubbornly determined. Unreasonably ambitious. Uncomfortably open-minded. These are rare traits. But when developed, and combined, they become a serious edge in an AI-driven environment. Or at least, that’s what I believe.

@morganhousel What about the need to impress yourself? If you don’t need to impress yourself, will you amount to anything?

AMBITION is the desire to go far CURIOSITY is the drive to explore AGENCY is the belief you can act URGENCY is the fire to act now, not later DETERMINATION is the grit to keep going WILL is the strength to hold your ground DISCIPLINE is the system to stay focused

AMBITION is the desire to go far CURIOSITY is the drive to explore AGENCY is the courage to act URGENCY is the fire to act now, not later DETERMINATION is the grit to keep going WILL is the strength to hold your ground DISCIPLINE is the system to stay focused

don’t tell, show.

Trying to hit the right chord with a product, MAY increases your chances of hitting the right chord. But positioning yourself to become the kind of person that hits the right chord, WILL increase your chances of hitting the right chord.

Trying to hit the right chord with a product, MAY increase your chances of hitting the right chord. But positioning yourself to become the kind of person that hits the right chord WILL increase your chances of hitting the right chord.

Relentlessly resourceful. Determined. Ernest. Keep trying new things in face of external obstacles. Be willful balanced with discipline, aimed by ambition. Do things for the right reasons, and try as hard as you can. Follow your genuine interest, be slightly naive, but don’t be intellectually dishonest with yourself.

Take a simple idea and take it seriously.

That’s been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas. Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. It takes a lot of hard work to make something simple, to truly understand the underlying challenges and come up with elegant solutions. —sj

@DanielPink Sprinting opportunities… It’s very hard for me to keep my sprints less than 3 months…

Your first idea won’t be your best idea. Your hundredth idea probably won’t be either. But somewhere in there, if you k…

@JEverettLearned My best moments occur when I’m fully immersed in a task, completely focused, making connections obsessively, progressing on a line of thought, thread of ideas or a piece of work.

@theJayAlto love the idea of being internally driven and doing things that impresses yourself being slightly overconfident and thinking independently matters if you wanna do innovative work great insights

don’t try to impress others rather try to impress yourself because others have low expectations of you and often low bars for being impressed but there is no limit to how high you can think of yourself

You don’t control your desires—but you do control whether you obey them.

Notes to self: Action produces information. Less thinking. More doing. "The doers are the major thinkers. The people that really create the things that change this industry are both the thinker and doer in one person." --Steve Jobs

“The purpose of knowledge is action , not knowledge.” I think about this quite often. Especially when I look at my library. I ask myself: “Have I taken proportionate action based on the knowledge I’ve already accumulated from some of these books?” 🧵 The answer is always a solid “NO” Which makes me stop reading altogether and spend all my available time for taking action.

Change the game more than the game changes you.

"Just do it over and over. The truth is: Quantity leads to quality. The fastest way to get great... is to start by getting messy." Thanks for the reminder @DanielPink

@daltonc It was very hard for me to hit the like button. But I know I should put my emotions aside. Adapt or die.

The hardest thing about focus for me is not chasing the next shiny thing and staying with my convictions. Basically saying no to everything else except the current main thing. I suspect it's a muscle that I need to train more.

If it's worth doing, it's worth concentrating on today. It's worth focusing on now.

What is the main thing for me? If I don't know the answer, how can I possibly know what to say yes to and no to? How can I know what to show up to? What to wake up early for? What to practice? What to endure? I can't. I'm vulnerable to every shiny, exciting thing that comes my way. Discipline is Destiny by @RyanHoliday

There can be something about cleaning up—a nice shave, freshly ironed garments—that puts us in the right head-space, too, just as cleaning up our desk can work wonders for our productivity and focus.

There is no greatness without practice. Lots of practice. Repetitive practice. Exhausting, bone-crunching, soul-crushing practice.

Excellent execution guideline for myself: Build discipline. Act with urgency. Protect the momentum.

Starting the day with making your bed and cleaning your desk seems to have some good effect on the rest of the day. At least it was like that today.

"Is this what I was created for? to huddle under the blankets and stay warm?" --Marcus Aurelius, Meditations This is the most powerful man in the world trying to convince himself to get out of bed at dawn when the lower part of himself wants desperately to stay.

Comfort is often what discipline must overcome.

Getting comfortable is the enemy, and success is an endless series of invitations to get comfortable. It's easy to be disciplined when you have nothing. What about when you have everything? What about when you're so talented that you can get away with not giving everything?

Be obsessed or be average. The obsessed are: the industry builders, the leaders, the disrupters, the titans, the game changers, the legends.

Make it your goal in life to master three things: Game Theory, Probability, Supply/Demand.

I am: Entertained. Distracted. Comfortable. But I rather be: Annoyed. Focused. In pain.

“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily…

My Advice for those entering Adulthood: 1. Focus your Energy 2. Guard your Time 3. Train your Mind 4. Train your Body 5. Think…

@CyrusYari My Wednesday prayer for you: May your motivation turns to a routine before it fades…

Don't focus on impressing people focus on impressing yourself.

“Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” — Jim Rohn

@readswithravi This is one of the few things in life that we have control over.

Alex Hormozi's 5-step productivity system that he stole from Elon Musk:

- have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow know what you truly want to become - it’s stupid to worry about things you can’t control - 95% of everything you do is the result of habit; so build the right habits and make them your master - the person you will be in 5 years largely depends on the books you read and people you surround yourself with - to increase your income, make yourself more valuable to the marketplace by learning skills that are in high demand and short supply - when you want to buy something, calculate the number of days you have to work to pay for it; then ask: does this product worth all that time? - invest in meaningful relationships, having autonomy, and building competence; because that’s what brings happiness - desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want; peace is absence of desire

@wealth_director - have the courage to follow your heart and intuition; they somehow know what you truly want to become…

Small goals are harder to accomplish if you used to work on big goals that gave you a big sense of purpose.

@luke_metro This is the passive aggressive pep talk that I desperately needed to hear. This is enough sense to make me quit social media “presence” on X and LinkedIn where I post about the ideas from the books I read and try to express an uncommon perspective.

This is a fallacy. By definition, anybody who has succeeded at something has stuck with it. That's a statement of fact, always true in hindsight. But that doesn't mean that the inverse is true, that if you stick to something, you will succeed at it. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring out the difference. Reasoning from the book -> Quit: the power of knowing when to walk away by Annie Duke

EVERYTHING SIGNIFICANT STARTED INSIGNIFICANTLY. Amazon started with 1 line of code. The Harry Potter franchise, with 1 wor…

This is BS advice: “Quitters never win, winners never quit.” Here is why: 🧵 Grit can get you stick with what will never work.

@Founder_Mode_ Sometimes you have to do what you hate before you get to do what you love.

@LeilaHormozi Yep! Grand Cardone said it best: “Be obsessed or be average”

Buy Distraction = Buy Entertainment Buy Skills = Read Non-Fiction + Attend Courses + Practice What You Learn Buy Time = Avoid Loans/Mortgages + Avoid Distraction + Buy Skills Biggest distractions/entertainments: 1. Social Medias: Instagram… 2. Streaming Services: Netflix…

@readswithravi Staying calm and high self-control especially in tense situations suggests strong emotional intelligence…

Clear your YouTube history to retake control of your brain input. Because your input to your brain determines your output in life. I did that and my feed got reset. It finally made me to go through my “Watch later” list of great content I always postponed to watch. https://t.co/RlgFHDILba Brain matches itself to the input and leverages whatever information streams in.

@readswithravi Staying calm and high self-control especially in tense situations suggests strong emotional intelligence and has high correlation with success attainment.

“Stop being patient and start asking yourself, how do I accomplish my 10-year plan in 6 months? You will probably fail but you…

@annaarthoe If Elon’s work makes you feel bad about your achievements, it’s likely because either your self-image is unreasonably high (to put it mildly) or your understanding of probability is limited. Even Elon himself thought the probability of success in all of his projects is very small

@annaarthoe If Elon’s work makes you feel bad about your achievements, it’s likely because either your self-image is unr…

This is a fallacy. By definition, anybody who has succeeded at something has stuck with it. That's a statement of fact, always true in hindsight. But that doesn't mean that the inverse is true, that if you stick to something, you will succeed at it. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring out the difference. Reasoning from the book -> Quit: the power of knowing when to walk away by Annie Duke

@stijnnoorman This is a fallacy. By definition, anybody who has succeeded at something has stuck with it. That's a st…

@DearS_o_n High self-control in tense situations suggests strong emotional intelligence.

Your future self is watching you right now through memories. Make him proud.

@TheCedricGou “Don’t give up” slogan is a fallacy.

@donnellycss “Don’t give up” is a fallacy and terrible advice.

Focus has become a serious competitive advantage since the mass adoption of social media and the advent of smartphone screentime frenzy. Managing focus comes down to managing attention. Attention should be understood, protected, and finally, trained. Attention is a finite resource that depletes daily but can be restored with adequate sleep. To protect my attention: I turn off almost all notifications for apps, delete social media apps after each use (reinstalling them only when I want to access them), and avoid making unnecessary decisions, like browsing Amazon or checking non-work emails randomly. Finally, to train my attention, I read engaging books. reading also leads to: significant stress reduction, focus extension, more creativity, better communication, and ultimately better thinking.

I got fined 60€ some time ago for riding my bike in the opposite sidewalk (2 wrongs) in Munich. It was painful for 1 minute, but then my pain turned to delight. Why? I thought to myself: Don’t think of it as a fine! think of it as an effective education fee for cyclists in a new city. I then asked the officers other cycling rules in Munich, and they explained everything to me. This technique is called “reframing”. Reframing involves changing the way you look at a situation to shift your emotional response. By viewing the fine as an “education fee,” I turned a potentially frustrating experience into something positive and constructive, which helped me feel more at ease and even grateful for the lesson. First read about this in The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

I was fined 60€ some time ago for riding my bike in the opposite sidewalk (2 wrongs) in Munich. It was painful for 1 minute, but then my pain turned to delight. Why? I thought to myself: Don’t think of it as a fine! think of it as an effective education fee for cyclists in a new city. I then asked the officers other cycling rules in Munich, and they explained everything to me. This technique is called “reframing”. Reframing involves changing the way you look at a situation to shift your emotional response. By viewing the fine as an “education fee,” I turned a potentially frustrating experience into something positive and constructive, which helped me feel more at ease and even grateful for the lesson. First read about this in The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Just wrote my new not-todo list OR my recipe for a mediocre life: - Spend time on social media except for business reasons - Spend time consuming the news - Spend time on the next shiny thing, or what’s trendy, hot or buzz wordy - Not have a clear definition of my circle of competence - Pay attention to information outside my circle of competence - Have an opinion about topics outside my circle of competence - Sell big chunks of my life by big financial commitments before I’m wealthy: cars, houses… - Not improve my competencies daily - Not expand my circle of competence by deep dive into books written by experts … I should update this list more often. I’m guilty of not sticking to this list from time to time in my life. But I can say overall I had followed most of the advice here for the most part of my life. If I look at the different age periods: 7-18: I was an A+ student all those years spending majority of my time learning and studying hard without any major distraction. 18-24: didn’t stick to this list much! I spent a lot of time in the university playing video games all nights, dating or on the phone talking to girls for hours, hanging out with friends, going out a lot… but luckily I managed to achieve a few things: getting my bachelor’s degree in 8 semesters, do a body transformation by working out a lot (built my first six pack, developed big arms and back muscles), started to understand more and more English because of American movies and series I was watching. 24-32: I managed to learn new skills like understanding high levels of English, software development, presentation and public speaking, leadership, fund-raising, persuasion, company building, product development, entrepreneurship and innovation. Had a few important achievements like failing 2 companies! getting a job in Munich and immigrating to Europe, getting promoted to senior and now team lead position with a very good salary. Read +100 books on the topics I mentioned, built a social media app for readers (still in development, getting ready for a re-launch). I’m still sharpening my skills and expanding my knowledge in all above areas. Mostly by reading books and practicing them in the real world. I think that would be my circle of competence. I’m curious to know: - What is your not-todo list? - And what is your circle of competence?

@arjunkhemani @bryan_johnson I listen to this voice every day and follow the advice. Then at 5:30 pm I drink my pre-workout supplement (which basically has the equivalent of 2 cups of coffee 😐) and hit the gym! the only voice then is: “good workout or weak workout?” 🫠

Focus means quitting more, committing less. Focus is hard. Not going after the next shiny thing is hard. Not-todo list is the secret to long-term advantage… I forget this principle more than I like to admit 🤦‍♂️ Next todo: create a new NOT-todo list and update it frequently!

Ego is the enemy. Ego can make you lose your head. How stupid you must be to underestimate the consequences of disrespecting a genius industrialist publicly… to make him so mad that he would make it his priority some day to campaign against your party personally in PA and pay $1 million daily to people supporting his cause among many other things…

I can’t tell you how many times I don’t feel like training and tell myself, “I’ll just do one set and see how I feel.” You…

This is the most PRACTICAL way improve your communication skills.

Mastering Time Management:

Stay disciplined

• Have a Beginner's Mindset Humility drives a beginner's mindset. It recognizes you don't have the answers to everyth…

• Develop Good Habits You are what you repeatedly do. If you want to be successful, then you need to BE successful.…

• Set Your Goals Successful people set goals. A Harvard MBA class was asked if they had Goals and a Plan: C - 84% no…

Ignoring things that are irrelevant is more beneficial than noticing things that are relevant.

If you want to take control of your priorities, use a calendar and not a to-do list.