When you are down.Who do you call?Who is the one,That shares your burden? When life hits hard,Who comes close?Who is the one,That holds you up?

Be A Friend 

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

philosophy

Philosophy

mindfulness

Mindfulness

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

mentalhealth

Mental Health

Be A Friend.

"There is nothing wrong with working on important individual milestones, as long as you understand that they may not be memories you treasure 25 years from now."-Tom Rath

Author Quote

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23493818-are-you-fully-charged">Are You Fully Charged </a>shows you the three keys to arriving at work and life with a battery that’s brimming with happiness and motivation, which are energy, interactions and meaning, and how to implement them in your day.

Are You Fully Charged - Book Summary

<a href="http://www.tomrath.org/about/">Tom Rath </a> books build on one another. <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23493818-are-you-fully-charged">Are You Fully Charged </a> is his most recent one, and it incorporates what he learned and taught in <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/eat-move-sleep-summary/">Eat, Move, Sleep </a> into a practice that goes beyond health and into happiness.

Book Overview 

It is based on three things: meaning, interactions and energy.

<ol><li>The pursuit of happiness is our biggest roadblock on the way towards it. </li><li>Put your phone out of sight when talking to someone. </li><li>Try to take 10,000 steps a day. </li> </ol>Lead acid or Lithium ion, it doesn’t matter, by the end of this article, you’ll know how to wake up fully charged!

Top 3 Book Lessons

There are many books, movies, and entire cultures built around the pursuit of happiness. It’s what fuels the American Dream (and life in most other Western countries), and while there’s a lot of debate around what it should look like, hardly anyone questions the premise itself:

Lesson 1: The pursuit of happiness is our biggest roadblock

Is happiness even something that must be pursued? Well, Tom Rath isn’t “hardly anyone”, so he raises just that question. He believes thinking that, as long as we spend enough time chasing it, we’ll eventually find happiness is one of the biggest misconceptions of the <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century-summary/">21st century </a>.

You might have already learned that <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/drive-summary/">external motivation ruins internal motivation </a>. But if Tom Rath is right, this means it actively makes you unhappier , instead of just not increasing your happiness. He says happiness is simply a by-product of a meaningful life, which is centered around internal motivation .

Have you ever seen two people in a restaurant, sitting opposite each other, each staring at their own smartphone? It’s a nightmare. The only thing that’s worse is when just one person stares at their phone, and leaves the other one hanging. I’ve always tried to avoid using my phone in conversation, but this I didn’t know about, and it takes it one step further:

Lesson 2: Hide your phone somewhere out of sight when talking to someone.

Lesson 2: Hide your phone somewhere out of sight when talking

<a href="http://eab.sagepub.com/content/48/2/275">A 2014 study </a>found that conversations, where no phone is visually present, are significantly superior to those, where a phone is on the table, in someone’s hand, or otherwise in sight . This is called the iPhone effect , and it implies that even if people just see a phone while talking to you, they already feel like you’re not giving them your full attention and can’t be as empathic towards you.

Here’s a crazy fact: You sit more than you sleep . <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/01/sitting-is-the-smoking-of-our-generation/">On average, people sit for 9.3 hours a day, while sleeping only for 7.7 </a>. According to Tom Rath, this is what happens when you sit for extended periods of time:<ul><li>The nerves in your legs stop working and shut down.</li><li>Your calorie burning rate drops to one calorie per minute.</li><li>The number of enzymes, which break down fat in your body, drops by 90%.</li><li>Your good cholesterol (HDL, H igh-D ensity L ipoprotein) drops by 10% every hour.</li></ul>Here’s how to avoid all of this: take 10,000 steps every day.

Lesson 3: Make an effort to take 10,000 steps every day

Here’s a crazy fact: You sit more than you sleep . <a href="https://hbr.org/2013/01/sitting-is-the-smoking-of-our-generation/">On average, people sit for 9.3 hours a day, while sleeping only for 7.7 </a>. According to Tom Rath, this is what happens when you sit for extended periods of time:<ul><li>The nerves in your legs stop working and shut down.</li><li>Your calorie burning rate drops to one calorie per minute.</li><li>The number of enzymes, which break down fat in your body, drops by 90%.</li><li>Your good cholesterol (HDL, H igh-D ensity L ipoprotein) drops by 10% every hour.</li></ul>Here’s how to avoid all of this: take 10,000 steps every day. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. 10,000 steps equals<warningtag> roughly 5 miles (or 8 km) a day. According to Tom, walking increases your energy levels by 150%, and since I started paying more attention to it, I feel he’s right. Do this to make sure you hit your 10,000 step goal each day:</warningtag>

Lesson 3: Make an effort to take 10,000 steps every day, starting today.

It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t. 10,000 steps equals roughly 5 miles (or 8 km) a day. According to Tom, walking increases your energy levels by 150%, and since I started paying more attention to it, I feel he’s right. Do this to make sure you hit your 10,000 step goal each day:

<ol><li>Design your environment to make you move . For example, when using your laptop in your office, leave your charger in another room, so you have to go and get it when you run out of power. </li><li>Take detours . When I walk to the café I work in in the morning, I always go right, instead of left, when I leave my house, to make sure I do a full circle of the city center before going there. Extending walks you’re already taking is a lot easier than making up reasons to take more of them. </li><li>Track your steps . Just seeing the number on a regular basis will make you work harder towards your goal. I guarantee it. </li> </ol>You can do this!

I love that Tom doesn’t compartmentalize life into certain buckets, because fixing just one thing about yourself is never the solution. The only thing I can critique about <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23493818-are-you-fully-charged">Are You Fully Charged </a> is promoting a fairly specific diet instead of telling you to find out what works for you. Other than that, everything he does is very focused on giving you principles, which you can then decide how to turn into action for yourself. Consider me a fan!

Are You Fully Charged - Book Review

The 32 year old consultant on his race towards his next pay raise, the 54 year old mum, who’s fascinated with her discovery of Instagram and can’t put her phone down, and anyone who spends most of their weekend walking from the couch to the fridge and back.

Who would I recommend the Are You Fully Charged to?

This Are You Fully Charged summary shows you how to find meaning, improve interactions by hiding your phone & how you can finally take 10,000 steps a day.

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

habits

Habits

Are You Fully Charged Summary

An ancient Greek philosopher named Epicurusbelieved that we do not need all these extravagant pleasures to be happy.Expensive luxurious vacations to distant places, accumulating an excessive amount of money and possessions, or acquiring power through politics will not lead us to satisfaction in the long run.

Minimalist Style Of a stoic

We could say that the wealthiest person isn't the one who has the most but the one most satisfied with what he has

We could say that the wealthiest person isn't the one who has the most but the one most satisfied with what he has.And that being full of desires to be fulfilled is poor, but being content is rich.If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desiresEpicurus once said.

Minimalist Style Of a Stoic

The cheaper our pleasures of choice, the lesst ime and effort we need to attain them, and more we enjoy not wishing for anything else.If that isnt the ultimate form of minimalism,then what is?

Mini

Stoicism helped me to understand my desires! Desires are the root cause of misery, yet having no desire may drive you to become a monk. It is that middle path, minimalism. Minimize your desire to maximize your experience of life. 

'It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us ... without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry' For several years of his turbulent life, in which he was dogged by ill health, exile and danger, Seneca was the guiding hand of the Roman Empire. This selection of Seneca's letters shows him upholding the ideals of Stoicism - the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to life's setbacks - while valuing friendship and courage, and criticizing the harsh treatment of slaves and the cruelties in the gladiatorial arena. The humanity and wit revealed in Seneca's interpretation of Stoicism is a moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind. Selected and translated with an Introduction by Robin Campbell

writing

Reading & Writing

education

Learning & Education

books

Books

'It is philosophy that has the duty of protecting us ... without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry' For several years of his turbulent life, in which he was dogged by ill health, exile and danger, Seneca was the guiding hand of the Roman Empire. This selection of Seneca's letters shows him upholding the ideals of Stoicism - the wisdom of the self-possessed person immune to life's setbacks - while valuing friendship and courage, and criticizing the harsh treatment of slaves and the cruelties in the gladiatorial arena. The humanity and wit revealed in Seneca's interpretation of Stoicism is a moving and inspiring declaration of the dignity of the individual mind. Selected and translated with an Introduction by Robin Campbell

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca or Seneca the Younger); ca. 4 BC – 65 AD) was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero, who later forced him to commit suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to have him assassinated.

Seneca

Letters from a Stoic

"A person is limited only by the thoughts that he chooses."-James Alle

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81959.As_a_Man_Thinketh">As A Man Thinketh </a> is an inspirational book. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Allen_(author)">ames Allen </a>, the author, was a pioneer of the self-help movement, and published this great philosophical piece in 1903. It’s less than 50 pages long and was meant to fit in anyone’s pocket.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Allen_(author)">Allen </a>kept the book simple, both in length and language, so that everyone could understand the points he was trying to make about how power over one’s thoughts gives power over one’s life.

As A Man Thinketh - Book Overview

<ol><li>Your actions are outgrowths of your thoughts. </li><li>You shape the world just as much as it shapes you. </li><li>Thoughts can keep you young or make you age faster. </li> </ol>Want to become the master of your own mind? Time to think!

The very first argument Allen lays out is that man is the sum of his thoughts. Just like tiny seeds turn into big plants, a single thought often turns into a major decision, which makes your thoughts the roots of your actions.

Lesson 1: What you do is the result of what you think.

Over time, these actions shape into patterns, which will eventually make up our character. This is why most <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/learned-optimism-summary/">pessimistic people </a>tend to give up more easily on the things they care about, because your attitude and your actions are directly linked to one another. If you don’t start out with confidence and expect very little of yourself, that’s exactly what you’ll deliver.

But if your thoughts shape your actions, then by changing your thoughts, you can change your actions and subsequently, your character too! The time to start weeding out bad thoughts is right now. Today is the day to stop accepting negative thoughts as normal and fight back. Take control of your mind, and you’ll take control of your life.

The reason your thoughts and actions are so deeply connected is because they live in a constant cause-and-effect relationship with the outside world .

Lesson 2: You shape the world just as much as it shapes you.

What does that mean? You might see your life as mostly determined by external factors. The weather, the economy, politics, your co-workers, your boss, whether you have good luck or bad luck, your life depends on so many things you can’t influence. But it’s not as black and white as that. Playing the victim is easy. You can just push off responsibility and blame the world for everything.

In reality, your thoughts, your actions, your character, they all take at least as much influence on the world, as the world does on you. The thoughts and attitudes you have are what lead you into the situations of your life, some of which you then end up assigning to good or bad luck, when it’s really yourself that got you there .

Therefore, you can’t describe a person’s character just by looking at the environment she lives in, or predict the circumstances she’ll end up in, because of the way she is. There are many admirable and probably genuinely good people in jail, while some greedy bastards live happily off other peoples’ misery.

A crucial aspect almost no one looks at when examining thoughts is your health. When we talk about <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-power-of-positive-thinking-summary/">the power of positive thinking </a>, we usually speak of affirmations, goals, priorities, etc. But not about health. Yet, what you think massively impacts your heart rate, sleep, chronic pains like migraines and your skin . Yes, you can think yourself to wrinkly skin.

Lesson 3: Be careful what you think, it may make you age faster.

Do you know that saying “be careful what you wish for?” This book extends it to “be careful what you think about.” On the other hand, thinking very positively and dwelling on energizing thoughts can keep you young. So take every chance you get to weed out negative thoughts. Pretend your mind is a garden, and everything that doesn’t help it grow has to go. You’ll thank yourself for years to come.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81959.As_a_Man_Thinketh">As A Man Thinketh </a> is a very short book, with a very short summary. At first I thought it’s best to just get the book and read it in one go, but come to think of it, I’d use this summary as a guideline and look into it to get a better grip on things, as the language in the book can be quite complicated, simply because it’s so old. I have since read the book and can recommend that too in full, though. It’s still a short read and worth reading through at least once in your life.

As A Man Thinketh - Book Review

This As A Man Thinketh summary explains why actions are just the result of your thoughts, how you shape the world & why pessimists get wrinkles.

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

problemsolving

Problem Solving

As A Man Thinketh Summary

"When you get in the mud with a pig, you get dirty and the pig gets happy."-James Altucher

Author Quote 

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18595404-the-power-of-no">The Power Of No </a>is an encompassing instruction manual for you to harness the power of this little word to get healthy, rid yourself of bad relationships, embrace abundance and ultimately say yes to yourself.

The Power Of No - Book Summary 

<a href="http://www.jamesaltucher.com/about/">James Altucher </a>‘s universal advice to anyone is to <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/choose-yourself-summary/">choose yourself </a>, but to do that, you first have to stop choosing others and letting them choose you. That, naturally, includes saying no. A lot. <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-one-thing-summary/">Steve Jobs was pretty good at it </a>. The thing is, most of us are pretty bad at it. I’ve said yes to so many things I knew the moment I heard the question, that the real answer was no, that I’ve lost count. It’s something all of us need to get better at, which makes this book probably one of the most important ones we’ll ever come across.

Book Overview

<ol><li>Rate your regulars to say no to the wrong people. </li><li>Stop doing things you don’t like, and everyone will be better off. </li><li>Say no to scarcity to go beyond “glas half full”. </li> </ol>Ready to say no (you have to say yes this time)? Yes! Let’s do it!

Top 3 Book Ideas

We all know ’em. The people that every time we talk to, we walk away from and feel a little worse than before. In an ideal world, we’d just get rid of them entirely, but often that’s not possible. However, you can reduce the time you spend with them.

Lesson 1: Rate your regulars to say no to the wrong people.

Here’s a good exercise for that. <ol><li>Make a list of all the people you see at least 5 times a week. </li><li>Rate how the encounters with these people make you feel, 1 is the worst, 10 is the best. </li> </ol>With the results you instantly know who makes you feel good and who’s rather poisonous. Start spending more time with all people rated 8 and above, and less with everyone else, especially those lower than 5.

You are the average of the 5 people you surround yourself with. And while you can’t CHANGE the people around you, you can change THE PEOPLE around you. Step by step. Eventually, you’ll only be left with an inner circle that helps you thrive.

This year started out rough for me. At 52 years old, my uncle died in his sleep.Stopping to do things we don’t like was one of the biggest lessons his death taught me (<a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-art-of-happiness-summary/">read more about it in that day’s summary</a>).James says the no you have to use to decline the things other people ask you to do, just because they expect you to, is your assertive no .

Lesson 2: Stop doing things you don’t like

The problem with saying yes to work you don’t want to do is that you’ll not only start disliking the work, but also the person who asked you to do it in the first place . Even worse, the people who give you the work will feel bad too, because they’ll see that you don’t really want to do it and feel like they’ve given you a burden.

Have you ever had a friend help you move while they actually had to study for exams? You probably felt bad for “making them help you”, so it was a lose-lose situation. So instead of conforming to other people’s expectations, form your own and <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/mastery-summary/">follow your own path </a>.

Our ancestors kept chasing food, better shelter, and human contact. The reason was that all of these things used to be scarce resources. But none of them are any more. So trying one more new fast food restaurant, moving to a new house with one more room or finally getting that 1,000th Facebook friend today are useless achievements – they won’t help you survive, but just make you feel stressed! More, more, more doesn’t do us much good today, but our scarcity ridden brains give us a hard time accepting that.

Lesson 3: Say no to scarcity to go beyond “glas half full”.

One way you can do better at this is to just shift your focus to the abundance all around you . Yes, your neighbor’s loud parties might be annoying (knows I speak from experience), but don’t focus on that, instead use this chance to see how amazing it is that we can have all the recorded music in the world playing right in our living room today and dance to it wherever we are.

When you recognize that nothing in today’s world is really scarce, you can <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/the-happiness-advantage-summary/">go beyond the optimism of seeing the glass as half full </a> and realize that there’s plenty of water, you’re not going to die of thirst and that you have lots of reasons to be thankful for both the water and the glass. Practicing gratitude gives you a sense of calmness you won’t find elsewhere and make it a lot easier to say no, because you’ll see that what you have is plenty – trust me, <a href="http://niklasgoeke.com/about-me/">I’ve been doing it for over 1,000 days </a>.

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18595404-the-power-of-no">The Power Of No </a> one of the most important lessons I learned in 2015. It started with saying no to bad clients, continued with saying no to family members, trips, events, and even my own ideas, so I could focus. I’m 100% sure that he who masters the power of no will master life.

The Power Of No - Book Review

The 14 year old who keeps wondering what he should do his homework for, the 21 year old college student, who feels forced to get a degree just because her parents expect it, and anyone who’s currently in a job they don’t really like.

Who would I recommend The Power Of No s to?

Read The Power Of No Summary to learn why you should rate your friends, stop doing stuff you hate & why "glass half full" isn't enough.

The Power Of No Summary

You can never make a mistake if you view everything as an opportunity to learn.

You Can Never Get Anything Wrong

There is nothing to be afraid of. There are only experiences to look forward to; and no matter what happens, you'll grow as a person; you'll enrich your life's experiences. ﻿So, be true to yourself and make choices that are authentic and real for you at any given time. That's what truly matter - to be authentic, real and honest with ourselves. With that, we are always authentic, real and honest with others too, and the experiences we will be creating around us, likewise, are authentic, real and honest too.

When in doubt, choose what feels the closest or in alignment with your big vision / goal / life destination. That's your big compass, the ultimate destination in life.However, if that doesn't give you the support that you need, choose (always) what feels the closest to your heart. That's your internal GPS guiding you towards your ultimate destination in life. ﻿Our internal GPS is also a great guidance to the values that we hold true to ourselves in maneuvering our ways towards that ultimate destination in our lives.

We are capable of being excited and calm at the same time too.﻿With excitement, we look forward to the anticipated experience of what to come.﻿With calmness, we are able to think clearly and make aligned choices when we need to.That, to me, is mastery.

Writing down thoughts and inspiration that come to me as I reflect on current life experiences that I am truly thankful and grateful for. Looking forward to more wonderful experiences! 

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

Nothing is a Mistake

The Stoic philosophers were known for their practical advice on how to live a fulfilling and virtuous life

Four Timeless Pieces of Advice from Stoic Philosophers for a Fulfilling Life

"Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not"

"It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters."

"True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future."

"The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts."

<ul><li>Happiness = Health + Wealth + Good Relationships</li><li>Health = Exercise + Diet + Sleep</li><li>Exercise = High Intensity Resistance Training + Sports + Rest</li><li>Diet = Natural Foods + Intermittent Fasting + Plants</li><li>Sleep = No alarms + 8–9 hours + Circadian rhythms</li><li>Wealth = Income + Wealth * (Return on Investment)</li><li>Income = Accountability + Leverage + Specific Knowledge</li><li>Accountability = Personal Branding + Personal Platform+ Taking Risk</li><li>Specific Knowledge = Knowing how to do something society cannot yet easily train other people to do</li></ul>

Short Summary 

<ul><li>Leverage = Capital + People + Intellectual Property</li><li>Return on Investment = “Buy-and-Hold” + Valuation + Margin of Safety</li><li>Be present above all else.</li><li>Desire is suffering. (Buddha)</li><li>If you can’t see yourself working with someone for life, don’t work with them for a day.</li><li>Reading (learning) is the ultimate meta-skill and can be traded for anything else.</li><li>All the real benefits in life come from compound interest.</li><li>Earn with your mind, not your time.</li></ul>

<ul><li>Truth is that which has predictive power.</li><li>Watch every thought. (Ask “Why am I having this thought?”)</li><li>All greatness comes from suffering.</li><li>Love is given, not received.</li><li>Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts. (Eckhart Tolle)</li><li>Mathematics is the language of nature.</li><li>Total honesty at all times. It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive.</li><li>Praise specifically, criticize generally. (Warren Buffett)</li></ul>

<ul><li>Wealth is assets that can earn while you sleep and that is being reinvested into other assets.</li><li>Intentions don’t matter. Action do.</li><li>“Learn to sell , learn to build. If you can do both , you will be unstoppable.”</li><li>“Making money is not a thing you do- it’s a skill you learn”</li><li>“Getting rich is about knowing what to do, who to do with and when to do it.</li><li>“If you don’t own a piece of business, you don’t have a path towards financial freedom”</li></ul>

Wealth

<ol><li>Labor(worst form of leverage): Other humans working for you. Managing other people is incredibly messy, it requires tremendous leadership skills.</li><li>Money(good form): if you get good at managing capital, you can manage more and more capital much more easily than you can manage more and more people.</li><li>Product with no marginal cost of replication: includes books ,media, movies and code. You can multiply your efforts without involving other humans and without Needing money from other humans.(permissionless).</li></ol>

Classes Of Leverage

Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow.How do you get there?<ol><li>Have so much money that your passive income covers your burn rate.</li><li>Drive your burn rate to zero—You become a monk.</li><li>Doing something you love—You know how to do it better because you love it and no one can compete with you.(Figure out how to map that to what society actually wants)</li></ol>

Definition Of Retirement 

<ol><li>Hope luck finds you.</li><li>Hustle until you stumble into it.</li><li>Prepare the mind and be sensitive to chances other miss.</li><li>Become the best at what you do.</li></ol>

Ways To Get Lucky,

<ul><li>The really smart thinkers are clear thinkers. They understand the basics at a very, very fundamental level.</li><li>If someone is using a lot of fancy words and a lot of big concepts, they probably don't know what they're talking about.</li><li>If you can't explain it to a child, then you don't know.</li><li>I never ask if “I like it” or “I don’t like it.” I think “this is what it is” or “this is what it isn’t.”—Richard Feynman</li><li>The more you know, the less you diversify.</li></ul>

How To Think Clearly

<ul><li>Lean into things with short-term pain, but long-term gain.</li><li>Read what you love until you love to read.</li><li>It’s not about “educated” vs. “uneducated.” It’s about “likes to read” and “doesn’t like to read.”</li><li>A calm mind, a fit body, and a house full of love. These things cannot be bought. They must be earned.</li><li>The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order, but their importance is reverse.</li></ul>

Happiness>Health>Wealth

We are highly judgmental survival-and-replication machines. We constantly walk around thinking, “I need this,” or “I need that,” trapped in the web of desires. Happiness is the state when nothing is missing. When nothing is missing, your mind shuts down and stops running into the past or future to regret something or to plan something.How do you learn to accept things you can’t change?Fundamentally, it boils down to one big hack: embracing death.

When Nothing Is Missing ... 

<ul><li>People mistakenly believe happiness is just about positive thoughts and positive actions.</li></ul>The Tao Te Ching says it’s all duality and polarity.<ul><li>If I say I’m happy, that means I was sad at some point.</li><li>Every positive thought even has a seed of a negative thought within it and vice versa, which is why a lot of greatness in life comes out of suffering.</li><li>You have to view the negative before you can aspire to and appreciate the positive.</li></ul>

Duality And Polarity 

<ul><li>The world just reflects your own feelings back at you.</li><li>Reality is neutral. Reality has no judgments.</li><li>To a tree, there is no concept of right or wrong, good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations (lights, colors, and sounds), and then you die.</li><li>How you choose to interpret them is up to you—you have that choice. This is what I mean when I say happiness is a choice.</li></ul>

Happiness Is A Choice

<ul><li>Happiness is what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in your life.</li><li>Real happiness only comes as a side-effect of peace. Most of it is going to come from acceptance, not from changing your external environment.</li><li>Happiness, love, and passion…aren’t things you find—they’re choices you make.</li><li>A lot of our unhappiness comes from comparing things from the past to the present.</li><li>The anxiety is just a series of running thoughts.</li></ul>

Acceptance 

<ul><li>A happy person isn’t someone who’s happy all the time. It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.</li><li>I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you’re going to be made happy because of some external circumstance.</li><li>Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.</li></ul>

Desire Is Suffering

<ul><li>The enemy of peace of mind is expectations drilled into you by society and other people.</li><li>Jealousy, It’s such a poisonous emotion because, at the end of the day, you’re no better off with jealous. You’re unhappier, and the person you’re jealous of is still successful or good-looking or whatever they are.</li><li>When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you. When playing, surround yourself with people happier than you.</li></ul>

Expectations, Jealousy And Happiness 

<ul><li>If you’re present, you’ll realize how many gifts and how much abundance there is around us at all times.</li><li>First, you know it. Then, you understand it. Then, you can explain it. Then, you can feel it. Finally, you are it.</li><li>At the end of the day, you are a combination of your habits and the people who you spend the most time with.</li><li>World’s simplest diet: The more processed the food, the less one should consume.</li><li>Too much sugar leads to a heavy body, and too many distractions lead to a heavy mind.</li></ul>

“Stop asking why and start saying wow.”

<ul><li>In any situation in life, you always have three choices: you can change it, you can accept it, or you can leave it.</li><li>If you want to change it, then it is a desire. It will cause you suffering until you successfully change it. So don’t pick too many of those. Pick one big desire in your life at any given time to give yourself purpose and motivation.</li><li>It is much more about understanding than purely hard work. Yes, hard work matters. But it has to be directed in the right way.</li></ul>

Hard Work In Right Direction. 

<ul><li>Brain works better</li><li>Exercise & sunlight</li><li>Shorter, less pleasantries</li><li>More dialogue, less monologue</li><li>No slides</li><li>End easily by walking back</li></ul>“I don’t have time” is just another way of saying “It’s not a priority.”

Benefits Of Walking meetings: 

<ul><li>Relaxed breathing tells your body you’re safe. Then, your forebrain doesn’t need as many resources as it normally does. Now, the extra energy can reroute those resources to the rest of your body.</li><li>If you stop talking to yourself for even ten minutes, if you stop obsessing over your own story, you’ll realize we are really far up <a href="https://dsta.sh/EYGwMFQ3tUQoVo236">Maslow’s hierarchy of needs</a> and life is pretty good.</li></ul>

Relaxed Breathing

All of man’s troubles arise because he cannot sit in a room quietly by himself.

<ul><li>Don’t spend your time making other people happy. Other people being happy is their problem. It’s not your problem. If you are happy, it makes other people happy.</li><li>Anger is a loss of control over the situation.</li><li>Anger is a contract you make with yourself to be in physical and mental and emotional turmoil until reality changes.</li><li>Wisdom- Understanding the long-term consequences of your actions.</li></ul>

Anger 🤬

...when you’re thirty, what advice would you give your twenty-year-old self? And when you’re forty, what advice would you give your thirty-year-old self? (Maybe if you’re younger, you can do it by every five years.)

Ask Yourself, 

<ol><li>Read everything you can. And not just the stuff that society tells you is good. Just read for its own sake. Develop a love for it.</li><li>Having the skill of persuasion is important because if you can influence your fellow human beings, you can get a lot done. Persuasion is an actual skill. So you can learn it.</li><li>Value your time. It is all you have. It’s more important than your money, friends or anything. Your time is all you have. Do not waste your time.</li></ol>

Value Your Time 💎

In the grand scheme of things, the Universe has been around for ten billion years. Your life is a firefly blink in a night. You’re here for such a brief period of time. If you fully acknowledge the futility of what you’re doing, then it can bring great happiness and peace because you realize this is a game. But it’s a fun game. All that matters is you experience your reality as you go through life. Why not interpret it in the most positive possible way?

Your Life Is A Firefly Blink In A Night

“You have two lives, and the second one begins when you realize you only have one.”

Naval ravikant is an icon in silicon valley & startup culture. He founded multiple successful companies Epinions, angellist. He is also an angel investor, betting early on companies like Uber, Twitter, postmates and hundred more….

GETTING RICH IS NOT JUST ABOUT LUCK; HAPPINESS IS NOT JUST A TRAIT WE ARE BORN WITH. These aspirations may seem out of reach, but building wealth and being happy are skills we can learn. So what are these skills, and how do we learn them? What are the principles that should guide our efforts? What does progress really look like? Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, philosopher, and investor who has captivated the world with his principles for building wealth and creating long-term happiness. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a collection of Naval's wisdom and experience from the last ten years, shared as a curation of his most insightful interviews and poignant reflections. This isn't a how-to book, or a step-by-step gimmick. Instead, through Naval's own words, you will learn how to walk your own unique path toward a happier, wealthier life.

moneyandinvestments

Money & Investments

health

Health

Getting rich is not just about luck; happiness is not just a trait we are born with. These aspirations may seem out of reach, but building wealth and being happy are skills we can learn. So what are these skills, and how do we learn them? What are the principles that should guide our efforts? What does progress really look like? Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur, philosopher, and investor who has captivated the world with his principles for building wealth and creating long-term happiness. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant is a collection of Naval's wisdom and experience from the last ten years, shared as a curation of his most insightful interviews and poignant reflections. This isn't a how-to book, or a step-by-step gimmick. Instead, through Naval's own words, you will learn how to walk your own unique path toward a happier, wealthier life.

Eric Jorgenson is an entrepreneur, writer, and investor. He is on the founding team of Zaarly, and has been publishing online since 2014. His blog has educated and entertained over a million readers.Eric is on a quest to create (and eat) the perfect sandwich. He tweets at @ericjorgenson and publishes new pieces and projects on ejorgenson.com/blog

Eric Jorgenson

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant

"I'd you can't you must, and if you must you can "-Tiby Robbins

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180116.Awaken_the_Giant_Within">Awaken The Giant Within </a>is the psychological blueprint you can follow to wake up and start taking control of your life, starting in your mind, spreading through your body and then all the way through your relationships, work and finances until you’re the giant you were always meant to be.

Awaken The Giants - Book Summary

<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180116.Awaken_the_Giant_Within">Awaken The Giant Within </a> was released in 1991 The strategies and techniques <a href="https://www.tonyrobbins.com/biography/">Tony Robbins </a>talks about have long become standard practice, but he pioneered them.

<ol><li>Associate bad habits with pain and good ones with pleasure. </li><li>Change the words you use to transform how you feel and deal with problems. </li><li>Make up your own rules and communicate them to become happier. </li> </ol>Ready to wake up your inner giant? Let’s do it!

Top 3 Book Lessons 

A very simple framework to look at the world is this: All of our actions are aimed at either avoiding pain or getting pleasure.  Going to the job you don’t like is something you do to avoid the pain of not being able to pay rent. Listening to your favorite song should lift your mood. And so on. You can use this framework to <a href="http://niklasgoeke.com/how-to-break-bad-habits/">successfully break bad habits </a>and establish good ones. You simply have to pair bad habits with pain and good habits with pleasure .

Lesson 1: Associate bad habits with pain

For example, if you want to quit eating chocolate, Tony says you should force yourself to sing a song you hate out loud every time you eat some. After having to sing a terrible song loudly at a packed restaurant even once, just because you ordered molten chocolate lava cake for dessert, chances are you’ll easily avoid the cocoa-packed candy from then on.

Eventually, you’ll have to replace your bad habit with a new, better, more positive one, in order to fill the void. This is a crucial part of habit change. A technique called <a href="http://fourminutebooks.com/better-than-before-summary/">temptation bundling </a>can help you with it. The creator, Kathy Milkman, loved the Hunger Games audiobooks, but allowed herself to listen only while working out in the gym. As a result, she worked out six times a week, just to find out what happens!

If you’ve ever seen Tony Robbins in action, you know he’s a powerful guy in every sense of the word. He’s tall, big, loud, and has a very positive aura. Something you might have not picked up on is his vocabulary. Tony always uses expressive and unusual language to reinforce positive emotions and play down negative ones.

Lesson 2: Use different words to end up in a different state

Awaken The Giants (Tony Robbins) - Book Summary

This Awaken The Giant Within summary shows you how to change habits with associations, get happier with better words & come up with better rules.

Awaken The Giant Within Summary

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