The 4-Hour Work Week

An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction.

The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world.

I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness.

Focus on being productive instead of busy.

The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either. Conditions are never perfect.

Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.

People who avoid all criticism fail. It’s destructive criticism we need to avoid, not criticism in all forms.

It’s not giving up to put your current path on indefinite pause.

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

To enjoy life, you don’t need fancy nonsense, but you do need to control your time and realize that most things just aren’t as serious as you make them out to be.

Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do.

Define the worst case, accept it, and do it.

a person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.

Resolve to do one thing every day that you fear.

Don’t only evaluate the potential downside of action. It is equally important to measure the atrocious cost of inaction.

Measure the cost of inaction, realize the unlikelihood and repairability of most missteps, and develop the most important habit of those who excel and enjoy doing so: action.

Doing the Unrealistic Is Easier Than Doing the Realistic

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is, too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.