101 Pieces of Advice to Myself for 20237 min read

Inspired by  Kevin Kelly, here are 101 things I hope to remember entering the new year. These are in no particular order or organization.

1. Create, don’t consume.
2. Ask for help.
3. Surround yourself with people who excite you.
4. Remove people from your life that drain you.
5. Avoid lukewarm romantic relationships for extended periods.
6. Be in nature.
7. Meditate.
8. Have more long dinners with your family.
9. Pester more people; the cliche is true.
10. Take all the blame. Give all the credit.
11. Single task.
12. Doing a difficult task, day after day is a superpower that can change your life.
13. 2-3 hours of uninterrupted time for personal projects per day, undistracted and focused, will change your life – schedule it.
14. Only purchase things to eliminate a negative, not improve a positive.
15. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes and then change your actions based on that thought experiment.
16. Ask yourself, where is the incentive? Who is being influenced because of it?
17. Be the person who maintains important friendships and calls on a Tuesday evening to check in.
18. Ask yourself, how will doing this or saying this actually change things? Is it an emotional reaction or a logical one?
19. Remember: everything can be learned.
20. Everything can be forgotten.
21. Everyone will die, some sooner than others.
22. Everyone is focused 99.999% of the time on themselves.
23. Everyone wants to feel important.
24. Everyone wants to be happy.
25. Every semi-pro wants to guide a beginner.
26. Switch up your gym routine at least once every year.
27. As soon as you feel the “bad pain” stop, you know what the “bad pain” is. When you feel the “good pain,” keep going.
28. Figure out at what time you work the best, and treat that time as gold. Work out after it. Have meetings around it. Don’t sacrifice it for anything unless that thing is essential.
29. If you wouldn’t replace it if you broke or lost it, throw it away or donate it.
30. Don’t be afraid to confront haters, but not with anger, with a true goal to understand and help the other person. 
31. Remember your roots.
32. Go first.
33. Connect with every single person you encounter, including Uber drivers, grocery baggers, elevator companions, and anyone you see, because you never know what will come from that connection.
34. Lean in.
35. Establish your own personal rules and stick to them. Your rules are who you are; when you break them, you are breaking yourself.
36. Seriously, just start.
37. Apologize quickly, sincerely, and without excuses.
38. What is the core product you are advertising or selling? Make sure it doesn’t expire. Amazon, for example, focuses on fast and free shipping, a great selection, return policy, and affordable prices.
39. Stay publically apolitical.
40. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results; if you want to live a different life, you need to do things you’ve never done.
41. What would my hero do? Act like them. Would James Bond give up? Would Gordon Ramsay accept this? What question would Howard Stern ask? What would my mom and dad do? Use this mindset when facing a challenge and unsure how to react.
42. Don’t wallow in sadness. Feel sad, but don’t make it an unsurmountable drama. Learn from it and move on.
43. People undervalue execution, copywriting, marketing, sales, listening, and speaking. People overvalue ideas, social media, grammar, clothing (mainly shoes), and academic degrees.
44. Be humble with everyone.
45. Be personal, tell personal stories, be passionate, and be real. 
46. Sharing happiness doesn’t dilute it, it concentrates it.
47. Side projects and hobbies will change your life. Video games don’t count unless you are creating them.
48. Never complain.
49. You aren’t using 80/20 analysis enough; apply it to your health, relationships, and work.
50. Lousy customer service makes me never want to use the service again. Good customer service will make me tell my friends. Never forget about customer service. Wow and amaze your customers, and your customers will wow and amaze you with cash.
51. The real success, 99.999% of the time, goes to the obsessed person. Figure out what to obsess over and then commit 100% for an extended period (1-10 years). You will come out ahead of your peers and change the world.
52. Sell the ability to do magic, not the special wood or feathers in the wand (Ollivander had it all wrong). 
53. The harder it gets, the greater the chance the competition has dropped out. Keep going.
54. Bite off more than you can chew. You can figure out how to chew later.
55. You can’t out Amazon Amazon.
56. You can accomplish anything, win anything, or learn anything. It is just a matter of time and effort.
57. What do you strongly believe is true that most people think is false? Focus on that. 
58. Your company should be your dream world. What do the chairs look like? Is there a game room? What does the factory look like? Do people get massages on Mondays (I would call it “massage Mondays.”)
59. Are you making enough money to survive? Are you adding value to the world? Are you happy? Surely that is enough.
60. Create something that can scale.
61. Always be ready to scale.
62. Delegate more, but when you delegate, have strict standard operating procedures. If there is a mistake from the delegatee, it’s not their fault, but yours.
63. It’s your fault if the internet ignores you. Change, adapt, steal, copy, grow, invent.
64. No one will ever be angry at you for saying “thank you.”
65. You always have the freedom to choose how you respond to a situation. You cannot always control what happens, but you can control how you react.
66. Decide the “why” and the “how” will come.
67. What would you be willing to fight for? To not sleep for? To not eat for? Focus on that thing.
68. When creating something or designing something, design it for someone like you. What is a problem you have? What solution would you want? What design would you like? What get’s you to buy something? Anything beyond this is astrology (before it goes to the market).
69. Employ magical freaking wizards, not muggles.
70. Learn more about history, math, biology, chemistry, world culture, and music.
71. Smile.
72. Praise specifically and immediately. Classical conditioning is a powerful thing.
73. To create a new habit: make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying.
74. Do the thing that’s “fun” at least once a week.
75. You can callous your mind just like you can callous your hands.
76. There is no finish line. What track would you be ok with endlessly running on?
77. Remember, time is your most valuable asset.
78. Spend more time analyzing your schedule, where is the fat? Trim it as much as possible. Now replace that fat with muscle.
79. Better negotiation comes from understanding the other side better. Don’t come in with an exact plan. Try and create a positive outcome for both of you.
80. Write more hand-written thank you notes.
81. Emotional arguments are nearly always pointless. Avoid them.
82. De minimise non curat lex – “the law does not concern itself with trifles.” Neither should you.
83. Play the long game, always.
84. Protect your reputation at all costs.
85. Stop listening to junk. Start listening to more podcasts from people you want to be like.
86. If you have no backups and it fails, it’s your fault. If you have one backup and it fails, it’s your fault. If you have two backups and they both fail, it’s your fault.
87. Put on a show. Tell a great story.
88. You should do one thing every day that you don’t want to do.
89. Don’t hire mercenaries. Inspire soldiers.
90. Your appearance matters. Optimize your looks as much as possible. Be neat, wear flattering clothing, regularly get a haircut, and avoid sweatpants in public.
91. Always propose a deadline.
92. If you aren’t sleeping at least 6.5 hours a night, you aren’t sleeping enough.
93. To keep your sleep optimal, keep your bedroom cold, dark, and quiet. Have light exposure within the first hour of waking up, stop consuming caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, exercise during the day, have a morning and nighttime routine, and stick to it.
94. Wake up and go to bed at the same time every day. This will change your life.
95. Call customer service.
96. Always exercise, not just to look good, but to feel good.
97. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Be quiet and encourage the other person to talk about themselves. You will be globally liked, invited, and wanted.
98. Humans can live for 2 to 3 months without food, and some unfortunately do. You are really complaining about the temperature of your New York Strip steak?
99. The top 1% of the business world runs entirely off connections. Build them and cultivate them.
100. If you improve yourself 1% daily you will be 37x better in a year. If you are 1% worse every day, you will be 33x worse by the end of the year. The universe is conspiring to make you better. Go with the universe, not against it.
101. Everything passes—your opinions, your possessions, your goals, your emotions, your body, and your life. Enjoy the good, notice the bad, and realize both will pass.