Life is Largely Positive-Sum

Most of the essential activities in our life are infinite games, meaning that to win means you have to keep on playing. For instance, health isn't over when you've reached your weight-loss goal.

If you can keep going, you haven't lost.

Growth is dominated by two trends:

1. Diminishing returns: At some point, more effort becomes increasingly unproductive. A key realisation is often to know how good is good enough.
2. Compound growth

Thinking up a new life is not enough unless you also pair it with action. It is important then to realize that most of our actions happen without thinking. We do the same pattern endlessly, and those actions create our lives.

Real change seldom comes from a single ...

Steve Jobs stated that life is not fixed and ready-made for you to live in. You can change and influence the world and leave your mark on it.

Most of us will have a far less impact than Steve Jobs did. But in the smaller sphere of our lives, there is enough flexibility if we unders...

The quality of your life is mostly determined by what you pay attention to. But most of what grasps our attention isn't good for us, such as anxiety and anger about things we cannot control.

Like a prudent gardener, you can choose what you let grow in your mind by watching the conv...

In the novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, two people are unfairly imprisoned. One spends his time brooding, raging and attempting suicide. The other spent his captivity improving his mind by practising languages, developing tools, and reconstructing manuscripts from memory.

Freedom ...

Exposure therapy works to reduce an irrational fear by exposing you to the fear in a safe environment.

Public speaking, talking to strangers, or taking tests can create a paralyzing anxiety. Knowing how to deal with it makes a big difference.

Setting difficult, ambitious goals and committing to them has a much bigger impact than people realise.

Edwin Lock, who pioneered the experimental study of goal-setting, found two things:

• Harder goals produce better results, provided you stay comm...