1) "cynics get to be right, optimist get to be rich"

• its better to have a worldview that is delusionary but beneficial, than accurate but stale.

• if you are going to be wrong majority of the times, why not be wrong in a way which benefits you.

• you are better off aiming for the moon and falling short among the stars, than of not launching at all.

2) operationalising emotions

• Operationalise emotion means setting an action cue after a sense emotion is felt to quickly mitigate the feeling.

• Frustration – cut out unessential tasks

• sadness - generate more options by mitigating ignorance

• anger - wait it out till water gets calm

• anxiety - prioritise available decisions

3) There is no utility in underestimating your opponents

• in which manner does it serve to perceive your opponent as weaker than you, what is the most that you get? Ego, at what cost? Complacency.

• you risk looking foolish if the opponent overdelivers and you underdeliver, and even if you win, you would have won with greater margin given you believed your opponent is stronger.

• be conservative when adjusting advantages and reasonable when disadvantages.

4) Learning isn’t a spectator sport

• intelligence - rate of learning

• learning - same condition, new behaviour

• if increased the rate at which you change your behaviour you can effectively be more intelligent.

• if I show you red card, and then slap you, and then show the red card again, and if you duck, that means you have learned, same condition, new behaviour.

• if I show you red card again and you don’t duck, or it takes more trials to duck, that effectively means you are stupid.

• life shows us red card daily in our life, and if you don’t change, then you are not as smart as you thought you were.

5) this is what hard feels like

• there is no alternative to the act of shoving the fucking coal, no productivity tactics are going to make you feel less shit for any less amount of time than what is demanded by the work. Work needs to be done.

• stop complaining about the results that you didn’t get for the work that you didn’t put in.

• people underestimate how much you can impact just by the sheer act of coming back at it, and chipping away every day.

• work works on you more than you work on it, no amount of work is wasted because one thing that is constant is you, and you change whilst outcomes might not.

6) You don’t have to feel like you embody a trait, just exhibit the actions in congruence of that trait.

• judge yourself like you judge others, by their actions and not their thoughts. This gives liberty to think that you are not a certain trait but act in congruence with it and you will be.

• and most often you would never feel that you are patient, or hard working, or humble. You just need to act in congruency to be able to say that you are patient, or hardworking or humble.

• you don’t have to feel like you deserve something to get it, you can not deserve it but still get it.

7) Outwork your self-doubt

• Confidence is just having an undeniable stack of proof that you are who you say that you are

• Desiring confidence without evidence is asking for delusion. And the line that distinguishes between arrogance and high confidence is the skills that you have.

• Two people can be at same level of self-belief but differ in skill level, so one will attributed arrogant whilst other confident

• Give yourself the evidence that you are good at something and the confidence will follow suit

8) Being directionally right rather than absolutely right.

• trying to chase perfectionism and moving when all city lights are green is the stupidest way to always remain where you are.

• Instead focus on being directionally right and believe that during the process you will refine your direction to meet your exact requirement.

• so starting soon and starting shitty is the most crucial thing, be a big believer in shitty workouts, shitty study sessions, shitty sales calls, because these shitty ones pave the path for golden ones.

9) You should not care what people think of you because they aren’t

• we tend to overestimate how much others think about us, and underestimate how self-absorbed people actually are.

• are you willing to give power of your life decisions to some person’s thought who in themselves are not remarkable or significant in their own life.

• No one is going to talk about you 6 days after you die, and everyone would have forgotten about you in 6 months.

• Then do their opinion really do matter, if many of them would not be able to even attend my funeral. Should their word really hold that much value.

10) heaviest burden comes from unmade decisions

• Heaviest regrets and pain stems from things that you didn’t do than with the ones you did.

• many unmade decisions lie on the crux of conversation you are unwilling to have. Many times, its not the decision but the judgement of the decisions either by you or others is what you are afraid of.

11) you cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything

• prioritisation becomes crucial at a stage when opportunities are the most alluring, ability to say no to practically everything for something is what creates commitment.

• Only focusing on the most essential things are the ones that will yield the greatest return, stop trying to be cute, but rather be effective.

12) superiority - inferiority

• success comes in the synergy of extreme paranoia in the present and unshakable belief in the future, this makes you hard to outcompete today and hardest to outlast tomorrow.

• Believing that you deserve the world and are better than everyone whilst having extreme need reinforce that belief again and again gives us a cocktail for a billionaire.

13) Luck doesn’t eat the major pie

• What do you think has played a major role in your life – luck or hard work, if it is luck then, acknowledge it that it is still working in your Favor but beware as you should not rely on it too: The reality is that everyone must work hard to achieve their aspirations and ambitions... Moreover, each individual chooses the path they decide to take and it is ultimately up to that person. One's choice should not be the scapegoat of destiny.

14) The hardest respect to gain is of one selves

• often we lose respect for ourselves for all the unkept promises and failed commitments.

• And often the greatest enemy we create is our own mind in the pursuit of success. Don’t let the demons enter. Don’t give them the evidence that you are not able to keep your words or not able to follow up on commitments.

• provide yourself evidence that you are constantly nearing the gap between one you could have been and one you are.

15) Lengthy work is an antithesis to effective work

• Parkinsons law - work expands as to fill the time allotted to its completion

• A simple task shouldn’t require long stretches of time, it should take small intensive few blocks of time.

• Learning how to effectively work requires experience, but the first trap to avoid is to think it will take too long.

• use Parkinson’s law in your Favor and shrink the amount of time, hence making your work denser.

16) Its better to be a Hunter than a fisherman

• When aiming to be highly agentic and trying to discover information regarding a certain subject, it always helps to actively search than to passively observe.

• Being a fisherman is about passively scrolling through YouTube, or LinkedIn in hopes of stumbling upon any opportunity.

• Being a hunter is about aggressively going in depth of certain topics and extracting all the juice there is.

17) There is no morality in weakness

• By all means be moral, but never forget that the authenticity of morality is judged by strength of the character.

• If you are weak, you are not moral, you are weak. You are forced to act moral, so your morality stems from coercion not choice.

• Always pursue strength and never fake morality.

18) Big effort - small changes - Big win

• As you get higher up the hierarchy, harder it gets to surpass others, bigger effort it takes, to make small change in the pecking order. But those small changes have big wins associated with it.

• So beware when you want complacency to be least, its the highest.

Summary

Be optimistic

Respond to emotions

Never underestimate competitors

Adapt continuously

Work harder for longer

Exhibit actions congruent to traits

Gather evidence to gain confidence

Move without specifics

Stop caring about people

Never let unmade decisions pile up

Practically everything is unimportant

You deserve the world - world requires proof

Luck doesn’t dictate the major pie

Gain respect of oneself

Length ≠ effectiveness

Hunter > fisherman

Strength before morality

Big Effort-small change-Big win