Excerpt:
• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.
• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.
• Anything you say before the word “but” does not count.
• Courtesy costs nothing. Lower the toilet seat after use. Let the people in the elevator exit before you enter. Return shopping carts to their designated areas. When you borrow something, return it better shape (filled up, cleaned) than when you got it.
• When you lead, your real job is to create more leaders, not more followers.
• Ask funders for money, and they’ll give you advice; but ask for advice and they’ll give you money.
• Productivity is often a distraction. Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible, rather aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.
• Speak confidently as if you are right, but listen carefully as if you are wrong.
• The consistency of your endeavors (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity. Nothing beats small things done every day, which is way more important than what you do occasionally.
• Three things you need: The ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two.
• Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.
• Half the skill of being educated is learning what you can ignore.
• The advantage of a ridiculously ambitious goal is that it sets the bar very high so even in failure it may be a success measured by the ordinary.
• A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.
• When you have some success, the feeling of being an imposter can be real. Who am I fooling? But when you create things that only you — with your unique talents and experience — can do, then you are absolutely not an imposter. You are the ordained. It is your duty to work on things that only you can do.
• Make stuff that is good for people to have.
• You cannot get smart people to work extremely hard just for money.
• When you don’t know how much to pay someone for a particular task, ask them “what would be fair” and their answer usually is.
• We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it ten years. A long game will compound small gains to overcome even big mistakes.
• Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.
• The only productive way to answer “what should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “who should I become?”
• Average returns sustained over an above-average period of time yield extraordinary results. Buy and hold.
• It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.
• It’s possible that a not-so smart person, who can communicate well, can do much better than a super smart person who can’t communicate well. That is good news because it is much easier to improve your communication skills than your intelligence.
• Prescription for popular success: do something strange. Make a habit of your weird.
• When introduced to someone make eye contact and count to 4. You’ll both remember each other.
• Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife? Or, where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.
• When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process.
• Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Make progress by making habits. Don’t focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout.
• If you repeated what you did today 365 more times will you be where you want to be next year?
• For a great payoff be especially curious about the things you are not interested in.
• Focus on directions rather than destinations. Who knows their destiny? But maintain the right direction and you’ll arrive at where you want to go.
• Every breakthrough is at first laughable and ridiculous. In fact if it did not start out laughable and ridiculous, it is not a breakthrough.
• Copying others is a good way to start. Copying yourself is a disappointing way to end.
• The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.
https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/
Kevin Kelly © 2022
Category: Rules
April 28, 2022
State of Being 