Make things for yourself, it'll be made for others that think like you as well. Having high standards means trying to do it right the first time. Making something right just means error-free. It's the thousands details that differentiate the best from the good one. The best art is one artists make for themselves. Don't fall in the trap of dropping your standard, the product of your work will me more meaningful. The firsts five times you repeat something gets you from bad to good, the next ninety five repetitions take you to world-class. Conforming is slow and kills what made you special. Companies need a singular figure everyone looks at for clarity. Most perfectionists aren't, they use uncertainty as an excuse rather than actually trying to make the thing done right and finished. Be picky about what matters, pick your battles. Volume negates luck: pick one thing and pray or brute-force your way in to perfection. You don't know what is good until you do the thing (podcast, photo, statue). Apply what you read before reading the rest, if the advice was shit you'd still learn a lesson. No matter how many sales book you've read, you'll sweat during your first sale call. Don't fear from being copied, they don't have a mind and reflect that what you're doing is valuable, they are your cover band. Sharing your failures removes worrying from others. To the victor goes the loot, nobody cares who's 4th at the Olympics. You can't fit in and be exceptional. When friends say "you've changed", what they often mean is "you've grown". You can't do what everyone else does and get outstanding results. By the time everyone talks about something, it's too late to get in. Think for yourself, make your estimations, compare them to others experts. Be a good person but stay unpredictable, be un-apologizingly yourself. Value your opinion more than others. Get used to embarrassment like "they would think X" then overcome it. Rejection doesn't kill you. Seek respect over recognition, integrity over exposure. Once you try to sell your hobby, it becomes a business. Would people be comfortable reading your work in public? There is no return policy on reputation. What is timelessly not cringe? True authenticity. What is forever cringe? Chasing likes. Make the thing you're the only one to have the capacity. You'll never wish for less epic stories and more regret on your death bed. If you fail entrepreneurship, you'll still have your skills and a good business story on top. Take a huge amount of imperfect actions rather than few perfect ones. Being imbalanced is good and necessary to achieve imbalanced goals. Most insults are compliments. Choose in advance what you're going to suck at, you can't focus on everything: dating, working out, getting a promotion. You loose more life trying to optimize everything it than just living it, what reduces your sleep keep you awake. Optimized people are easy to break as it become superstition. Anything on top of a computer, an internet connection, and a bed is extra. List what you can give up and keep in mind your competitors will. Find people that are down for your particularity, that enjoys your weirdness. Be confident, have a direction, and have fun pursuing it. The only insults that hurts are the one we believe. Don't worry about killing someone, they'll die someday. You are irrelevant but so are others. When insulted, respond "yeah, you're right" and move on. Agreement nullifies insults. Don't have 100 faces, be 1, be you. Thank god they don't really know you, otherwise they'd be even harsher. You have to agree to be cancelled, if you keep publishing it'll fix itself. Internet is made for convenience. Everybody only remembers your lasts 5 posts, keep publishing after bad buzz. Show you can laugh at yourself. If a customer is angry, be angrier than him (at your team) and he'll chill. Solving problems is required to be successful. Your today's problem will mean nothing in X years. You never know when is the right moment to quit, find balance between enjoying now and building tomorrow. Don't quit if no new information has come to life (push), quit if new information changes your perception (pivot). Don't quit, pivot. It takes longer to do great things meaning there is less competition. Come in without getting bored. Do the boring work that makes you rich: catching up with customers, doing boring reps. Work despite the lack of reward for a few years. Shift from "this is hard" to "nobody else will do it" thus leaving you with all the rewards. Successful people don't need to be rooted for, support people who struggle. Root for yourself. The path of an exceptional person is one of loneliness. Keep the passion throughout your journey, otherwise you'll quit too early without benefiting from the compounding rewards. It won't get harder than now: problems will be bigger but you'll be stronger and helped, while you're on your own and weak right now. Everything worth doing is hard. Experts have more ways to win than beginners. Your current struggles will make good stories for tomorrow. Be the hero of your own movie. Post even if you have 5 views, your journey will be available forever. Effort is un-noticed until you win. People don't care about your advises if you've build nothing. Be trust-worthy to be listened to. Make things too good to fail by perfecting the one thing that makes the others irrelevant. You don't find passion, you start something, suck at it, persist, get good, and now it's a passion that you enjoy. Do shit you hate to get in a place you love. Most successful people advices' aren't the one that made them successful, you need insights on what they did during their struggles. Ruthless focus on the most valuable activity. Make a sacrifice list, not a to-do list. We don't even know how to work, our output is shit, stop doing useless shit. Is your goal in life to be happy or do epic shit? The only way out is through, follow what has meaning for you. Give yourself permissions to be unhappy, to suck, to not achieve sometimes to push through something. Squeeze every once of potential you have or regret later. Fueled by future regrets. Teacher feel like fraud and impostor if they don't really have the real-life experience. Say your truth and be relaxed. You can't automate community. If you can be in a bad mood for no reason, be in a good mood for no reason. Cynicism is a proxy for intelligence, not true clarity. Cynics are wrong saying you won't succeed, they look in months and years instead of decades. The world belongs to optimists. The cynics gets to be right most of the time, the optimist gets to be rich every time. Don't try to trend on wrong things. If the cost is peace of mind, don't buy it. If a quote is right, who said it doesn't matter. Say the truth and state the facts in social circumstances, nobody prefers lies. People will know that you mean what you say, when it hurts but also when it praises. Shed bullshit from your life. Look stupid now by asking or be stupid forever by not asking. It's normal to not know what you're doing. There is nothing wrong with you, you shouldn't be X or do Y if you don't want to. Pills won't cure you. There is no "if" to happiness. Don't try to solve the problem that is life, live it. Accept reality. If you knew what you were doing, you'd be stagnating as there'd nothing new. Novelty leads to growth. You can't have a strong character and an easy life, you can't be confident and learn. Hardship creates growth. Do you want a Ferrari? Pay the price. State the facts and tell the truth. Don't take advises from losers. Trauma is accelerated learning. There's no more noble deed than educating.
Alex Hormozi