Dear Today Me,
Try to be the best version of yourself as you possibly can—that's the reason why you exist on this planet.
Always give your best, even when no one is watching. It's not just about shining. It's about fueling your energy and boosting your confidence. At the end of the day, you can lay down and rest easy knowing you have made the best of which you're capable and gave it your all.
Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment. Be obsessed with being the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Go all-in on your obsession. It’s what you were born to do. Never do half-reps. Wherever you go, go with all your heart. Otherwise, you'll always have to wonder what would have happened if you emptied your tank and gave it absolutely everything. Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you.
Follow your obsession. Try to be legendary in your own way. Few people get remembered hundreds of years after they die. Live a life worth remembering. You have nothing to lose. You only lose what you cling to.
Do not limit or cage yourself. You are capable of much more than you could imagine.
Old ways won't open new doors. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got. If you want something you've never had, you must be willing to do something you've never done.
Try to identify your capability gap and work relentlessly to close it.
Never say never. You don't know what you don't know, the unknown unknowns.
Believe in yourself. If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard to let yourself have contrarian ideas about the future. Have almost too much self-belief, and balance it with self-awareness. Your belief system is critical to how you perform and respond to challenges.
Keeping the promises you make to yourself. Every single time you keep that promise, you are stacking evidence in favor of the type of person that you want to become. Never rationalize.
Always dream big and think big. If your dreams don't scare you, you are not dreaming big enough. When you want something bad enough, all the universe will conspire in helping you to achieve it. The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do. If you set your goals ridiculously high and it's a failure, you will fail above everyone else's success. When you think big and lose, you often grow more than when you think small and win.
Deliberately train yourself to be uncommonly resilient and have a very high level of pain tolerance. Develop world-class mental strength and adaptability. Be an ascetic.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. If you don't feel pain, you haven't been hurt. You are the cause of your own suffering. If you are suffering, it is because you are asleep. Wake up!
Live as if today is your last day on Earth. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Learn with no end in mind. Learn for no reason at all. Learn how to learn. Learn in public. Learning is the single best investment that you can make for your time.
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something every day. Never, ever stop learning. If you are not growing, you are dying. If you don't learn, you can't change, and if you are not changing, what is the point of being here? Think about it again! Cherish this massive birth gift. Always have faith in your capability learn new skills, no matter how hard the task seems. Your ability to learn is not fixed, it can change with your effort.
Question every rule. Always dig deeper. Doubt everything. Remove all labels. Don't believe everything you believe now. No beliefs are true. Avoid the trap of expertise and experience.
Be ready to transform yourself completely into another person, and be ready to be in an internal state of self-revolution at any time. Strong opinions, loosely held. Be dynamic, adaptable, and open-minded. Don't get married to past views. Stay curious.
Expect nothing. Expectations are limitations. They limit your true potential. Know your limits but never stop trying to exceed them.
Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. Adopt what works for you NOW. Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted. Always see things from different perspectives. No assumptions. No judgments.
Never forget why you are really doing what you are doing. Always ask the WHY. Spend much of your day out of interest rather than obligation. Only do what energizes and makes you truly fulfilled and happy as a kid. Only do what you love for work, and use your work to create anything you truly care about from anywhere on Earth.
You get one life. One chance. One go. You make yourself either miserable or strong — the amount of work is the same. Why not create something wonderful? The time will pass anyway. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.
Never forget your childhood dreams. Never lose the child inside you. Have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition — they somehow already know what you truly want to become — everything else is secondary.
Pursue what catches your heart, not what catches your eyes. Let your heart speak. Listen to your instinct. If your heart isn't in it, don't start it. Grab the opportunity when it presents itself, and then give it your all.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Twenty years from now you will regret and be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do.
Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. A lion doesn't concern himself with the opinions of the sheep. Bees don't waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than shit. Your time is so limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life.
Be your true self. Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.
Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.
Live according to your values. Live your life, unapologetically. In the end, that's ALL you can do.
Do not try to be the man your father would want you to be. Be the man you would like your son to be.
Be the master of your fate. Be the captain of your soul. Own your power, influence your world, and be the champion you are meant to be. Never compare yourself to others. Comparison is the thief of joy. Run your own race. No jealousy. No envy.
If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they'll fly away. But if you spend your time making/mending a beautiful garden, the butterflies will come. Attract, not chase.
You should be too busy working on your grass to notice others is greener. Let the improvement of yourself keep you so busy that you have no time to criticize others. Water your own grass. Focus on bettering yourself.
Just do yourself. No one will ever be as good at being you than you are. No one can compete with you on being you. The only person you have to compete against is yourself.
Focus on the internal scorecard, not the external validation. Be primarily internally driven. You don't need to impress anyone but yourself. You become inhumanly strong when you try to impress only one person: YOU. You are always going to win the “YOU” game.
Be confident, bold, and fearless. Always stand up straight with your shoulders back. Be decisive. Trust your gut. Remember that no one has it all figured out. Everyone is in a constant process of finding.
In life, the only constant is change. Your life doesn't get better by chance, it gets better by change. The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.
Don't settle. Don't fixate on anything. Progress is about moving forward. Move. You are not a tree!
Embrace the uncertainty and randomness in life. Accept things the way as they are. When nothing is certain, everything is possible.
There is no such thing as a perfect you. It's all about optimization. And optimization is an ongoing process. There is always room for improvement. You are always a work-in-progress. Always seek candid feedback for self-improvement and personal growth.
Keep your identity small. Listen very carefully to constructive negative feedback and criticism. Seek for the truth. No ego. Be humble. Be coachable. When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be. Enjoy being wrong or looking/sounding “stupid” in a public setting. Embrace that beginner's embarrassment. Approach everything with a beginner's mind. It's always Day One.
Life goes on. You got to keep going, keep moving, keep improving, keep exploring, and keep experimenting. Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
Treat your life as a laboratory where you can try anything. Consider everything in life as an experiment, with each experience serving as a diary entry.
Explore, Discover, Try, Fail, Disappoint, Get lost, Suffer, Ask, Get feedback, Learn, Grow, Iterate, and Repeat. You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
Leave your comfort zone. Don't always play safe. Don't always stick to what you already know. Take as much calculated risk as you can afford. Step into the unknown. Sit with the discomfort. Remember, if you are not failing occasionally, you are probably being too conservative. Taking no risk is the biggest risk you can take.
Never give up. Rest in the end, not in the middle. Be like a postage stamp. Stick to it until you get there.
Adapt to changes. Learn from failures. Never make the same mistake. Your greatest success is very likely just one step beyond your greatest failure.
If something is wrong, fix it now, but train yourself not to worry. Time spent worrying is time wasted. It only drains your energy. Worry fixes nothing. Worry before it is necessary is to worry more than is necessary. Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles, but it takes away today's peace. Deal with the big while it is still small. Minor problems become major problems if you allow them to linger.
You always have 3 options in any circumstance/situation in life: change it, accept it, or leave it. If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. But never, never, ever complain about anything. If it's within your control, go do something about it. If it's not, complaining is just a waste of energy.
Control the controllable. Determine the variables that are within your control.
Change yourself to change the world. Be the change you want to see.
Take ownership of every result in your life. Everything is your fault. Don't make any excuses. Things that are not your fault can still be your responsibility.
Pursue your goals aggressively and relentlessly. There is no compromise. Don't just dream for winning. Train for it.
If you want something—and you've done the work to earn it—go ask for it. Closed mouths don't get fed. In life, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you think you deserve. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Just tap yourself on the shoulder and do the work directly. If you live for people's approval, you will die from their rejection.
Make consistent daily tiny actions. Make everyday count. Never miss a day. Everyday you start at zero. The sun is new each day. Each morning you are born again. What you do today is what matters most. The days are long, but the decades are short. How you spend your days is how you spend your life.
Never to be idle. No time wasted. Every single minute matters. Ten minutes, once gone, are gone for good. You will never get the same moment twice.
You don't get to pick and choose when to show up, because the world will ignore your best and judge you for your worst. Show up every day. Be a habit and routine machine. Every single day, chop wood, carry water. The work never stops.
Your daily behaviors shape your future. A good day of training is worth little on its own, but a good year was worth plenty. Your final results are merely a reflection of your prior commitments. Do a little more what you want to do every single day, until your vision becomes reality. It's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. All success is a lagging indicator.
Every effort counts. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Anything above zero compounds positively. Start with small baby steps. Always take the small things seriously, because small things become big things. Ordinary becomes extraordinary. Drops of water make an ocean. Every focus session is a building block of a big pyramid. The little things really do count. The most exciting outputs come from the most boring inputs. Over time, bit by bit, step by step, little by little, things will add up and lead to giant leaps. Remember to always focus on how far you have come, not how far you have to go.
Be very biased toward execution. Set 5-year goals, but take 10-minute actions. Think in terms of decades, but act in terms of days. Think as if you were in a marathon, but act as if you were in a sprint. Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought. Focus on the effort, not outcomes. Be patient with results, but inpatient with actions. If you are not taking action consistently, then you are not practicing patience—you are just waiting. Remember: Action doesn't have to be perfect for it to be right.
Knowledge is useless until you act on it. It's not enough to know something. You have to turn that knowledge into action. Everything good in life is a byproduct of action. Information is abundant, action is hard. Ideas are easy. It's the execution of ideas that really separates the sheep from the goats.
You got to fall in love with the process. The journey is the reward. Trust the exponential growth and non-linear, asymmetric results. Never take little progress for granted. Aim to be consistently good rather than occasionally great.
Work hard. Work very hard. Work very hard every waking hour. But not every day. Work as hard as you can without burning out. The world needs people willing to work while others rest.
You have to embrace the boredom in the dark to shine in the light. If you want to look good in front of thousands, you have to outwork thousands in front of nobody.
Don't seek quick wins or shortcuts. The only shortcut is doing something the right way the first time so that you don't waste any time on the shortcuts. The only “hack” is relentless consistency. If you want to be good, you don't really have many choices. It takes what it takes. You have to do what you have to do to be successful. Do what is necessary. Do what is required.
In the mean time, try to accomplish things with the least amount of effort. Find the easiest way first. Do the simplest thing first. Move fast. Play easy mode.
Show your work. Share all ideas you have. Share a lot. Put them freely on the internet. Open source your knowledge. Give everything you have without any expectations in return.
Most of life is a search for who and what needs you the most. Serve for the community. Leave your legacy. Try your best to be useful and helpful to the society, the world, the universe. Your goal is to become a person of value, not a person of success. One hand washes the other and together they get clean. Help someone else. Inspire and help others, however you can. It doesn't matter how many people don't get it. What matters is how many people do it.
You are playing an infinite and lifelong game. Everything important is uncertain. Nothing worthwhile comes easy. Nothing meaningful in life is easy. Nothing easy in life is meaningful. Everything worth doing takes time. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing very well.
Do things no one cares about but you. Do the old fashioned things well. Do foolish things that don't scale with enthusiasm. Those stupid, meaningless obsessions are all worth it in the end, because once you get there, you can move mountains and bend the world.
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. Focus on what you can control. Your time will finally come. The things you've been waiting for will finally come. Just keep your perseverance and patience. Remember: A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
In this life journey, you will fail many times, but you will be really right once. You will have lots of troubles in life, and most of which will never happen.
You are always just one good decision away from being in a better place tomorrow—just focus on the next decision. Just begin. Solve one problem. Then solve the next one. And the next one. Eventually you will solve all problems.
Life is cyclic and chaotic. Bad things happen dramatically. Good things happen gradually, and don't feel like “news”.
Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, take what comes.
Never let success get into your head. Never let failure get into your heart. Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Optimize for long term growth over short term gains. Optimize for fun and joy over money.
Stop avoiding the uncomfortable work you need to do. Do what scares you; what you are most afraid to do because it is usually the thing you need to do most.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are always avoiding. The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek. Gather information and confront your fears.
Don't wait. Don't tell yourself you'll warm up to it. Do it now. Do it first. The time will never be just right. The longer you put off a task, the harder it becomes.
Discipline now, freedom later. Hard now, easy later. Only the disciplined ones in life are free. The labor will pass, but the rewards will last.
Do hard things. Seek intensive hardships to forge self-discipline and self-control. You will feel incredibly great afterwards. Eat the frog. Build your evidence pool. Be accountable and reliable. Confidence is built, not born.
Life is never going to be easy. Everything you want to earn in life is on the other side of hundreds of things that suck.
Life is hard. Choose your hard. Use the difficulty. Find your edge. Remember that: The right way is the hard way. The obstacle is the way. We all struggle; it's just part of human nature.
When in doubt, zoom out. When in doubt, act. When in doubt, don't. When in doubt, follow your genuine intellectual curiosity and interests. They never lie, and they know more than you do about what is worth paying attention to.
Slow down and calm down to select opportunities and activities with the highest leverage and return on investments. Do things strategically, incrementally, and methodically. Always make sure you have clean thinking and extreme clarity in mind prior any effort. If you slow down, you'll speed up.
Wanna go fast? Go slow first. Slowly by slowly. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Start slow, finish fast. Pause, Think, and Act. Rushing causes errors. Errors cause setbacks. Setbacks cause delays.
Direction over speed. Trend over position. Depth over width. Ambition is nothing without direction.
Prioritize. Narrow your focus. Go all in, and fully committed to that one most important thing, the bottleneck, that moves the needle.
Stay focused. No distractions. Ignore the noise. Focus is the art of knowing what to ignore. Say NO to everything else that arises at all costs. Learn to embrace the power of NO.
Separate planning from doing. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans. Whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you will experience in your life.
The main thing is to keep the main thing main thing. Choose important over urgent. Don't sweat the small stuff. Don't major in the minor things. The trick is letting go of the minors and focus on your priorities. Learn to let the small, bad things happen and meke the huge, great things happen.
Always speak less than necessary. Keep your mouth shut as often as possible. The more you say, the more likely you are to say something foolish.
Man who cannot control his words cannot control himself.
You have two ears and one mouth. Therefore, you should listen twice as much as you speak.
Make active listening mode your default. Listen to what is not being said. Listen intently before replying. Listen with compassion. Then observe, engage. And then ask powerful and thoughtful genuine questions. Opinions are earned—not owed. Everyone has to agree with you LATER.
When you say something, make sure it benefits all parties involved and contributes to the conversation. Seek mutual benefit in all interactions. Remember: If both people are not winning, both are losing. Think Win-Win.
Always be aware of how you are using the word, and be impeccable with your word. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Remember: The most powerful word is the one you use to talk to yourself.
Don't lie. Be honest and authentic, especially with yourself. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Create zero distance between you and your feelings.
The most damning lie is the lie you tell yourself. Always tell yourself the brutal truth.
Know who you are. Love yourself. Value yourself. Forgive yourself. Make time for yourself. Enjoy yourself, it’s later than you think.
Don't take anything personally. Never let any words hurt you. Don't care what other people might think of you. If you try to please everyone—you will please no one. Never try to impress people you don't like. Never try to copy someone who wants something you don’t want.
Think deeply. Think independently. Think in a different time frame, horizon, scale, and dimension. Think long term.
Try to make as many right and wise choices as you possibly can. Try to make as many great decisions that your eighty-year-old self and ten-year-old self would be proud of. Your decisions are investments you make into your future. Your future self is the most important stakeholder in your life. Take care of your future self, because you will become that person one day, and that person is the one who ultimately has to deal with whatever you do TODAY. No one cares more about your actions in the present than your future self. Bring the after into the before.
Guard your time and take care of your brain (the software) and body (the hardware). A sound mind needs a sound body. Make it non-negotiable to prioritize your sleep, exercise, and nutrition.
Never ever sacrifice your sleep. Don't limit sleep length. Sleep as much as your body needs. Sleep is the best legal performance enhancing drug on the planet. Listen to your body. Always make sure you get enough of seven to eight hours of sleep each night.
Move your body. Tame your mind. Meditate, journal, go for a walk or do micro-exercises throughout the day.
Take more breaks, but not too long. Learn to rest, but not quit. Learn to rest before you are tired. Rest is a critical part of your high performance routine. It's not a special treat. It's an absolute necessity.
Do yoga, stretching, foam roller massage, and a lot of heat-cold contrast therapy as often as you can. They reduce your muscle tension, anxiety, or stress, both mentally and physically, and could help you to relax for better productivity and creativity.
Fast as often as you can. Only eat when you are hungry. Eat when you are ready to eat. Stop eating when you are eighty percent full. Be wholeheartedly appreciative and fully present in gratitude for the food you eat and the body you are feeding. No craving. No snacking. Don't use eating as a form of procrastination.
Eat real, whole, unprocessed food only. Not too much. Mostly plants. Drink lots of water and tea. Limit coffee. No sugar, except raw honey. No alcohol, except white or red wine.
Your mental and physical health above all. You can only enjoy your life if you are healthy. The healthier you are, the more enjoyable money is. Do your best to control the releases of your dopamine and insulin as much as you can. Delay gratification. No bad habits.
Accept everything. Judge nothing. Find beauty in everything. Don't keep score.
Happiness comes from being grateful for what you already have. Being upset over what you don't have is to waste what you do have. Never let the things you want make you forget the things you already have. You have to want what you already have. Remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough. Don’t let the pursuit of more stop you from enjoying what you already have. Never let the quest for more distract you from the beauty of enough. Enough is enough. Moderation and harmony is key. Everything in balance. You are already as perfect as you are now.
Life is only 4000 weeks long. Make the rest of your life the best of your life. Don't live the same year 75 times and call it a life. Inject some planned spontaneity and adventures into your days. Every time you do something that is one less time you could do it — cherish every moment of your life like it is your last — because it very likely might be. Every single thing you do today is something that your ninety-year-old self would wish they could go back and do. The good old days are happening RIGHT NOW.
Smile often. Laugh more. A day without laughter is a day wasted. Be funny. Be playful. Be cheerful. Chill out. Have fun. Don't panic. Calmness is a superpower.
The more seriously you take yourself, the unhappier you’re going to be. The more you can laugh at yourself, the happier you'll be. Learn to laugh at yourself. Literally, in three generations, no one will even remember your name.
Take a deep breath. Relax. Enjoy each moment in life. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Let shit go. Choose to be happy. You can't wait until life isn't hard anymore, before you decide to be happy. You live longer once you realize that any time spent being unhappy is wasted.
Be optimistic and willful. Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being positive about what could go right. Focus on the positives.
Don't worry about bullshit and nonsense. Remember: If it's not gonna matter in 5 years, don't spend more than 5 minutes upset about it. Focus on the outcomes, not the obstacles. The outcome is the only option here. Never waste your precious time, energy, and attention. They are your ultimate currencies. Trade them wisely.
Spend as much of your time as possible doing activities that will provide you with nostalgia in the future. Create stories that you will be excited to tell your kids about, and your grandchildren will love to hear someday. Live the truth you want your descendants to embrace.
Be mindful, intentional, and purposeful. Live life by design, not default. Run your brain in "debug mode" 24/7 and watch every thought. Always ask, why am I having this thought? Day by day, what you constantly think and what you do is who you become. Monitor yourself.
Live in the present. Let past go. Look towards the future. Anything outside of this present moment is just an imagination. Only NOW is the reality. Nothing lasts forever. Life is not something happening in the future, it's something happening RIGHT NOW. Live immediately.
You are the average of the five people you associate with most. Surround yourself with people you love and admire; with people who think differently than you. Put yourself in rooms you don't belong to; in rooms with a high density of value-aligned individuals. Find people who are genuinely rooting for you to succeed and truly wanting to see you to win. Hold on to these people like your life depends on them. The quality of your experiences will be largely determined by the people you surround yourself with.
Reach out to inspiring people who are going to uplift you higher and living the life you want to live. Learn from those ahead of you on a path you want to take. Every person is a new door to a different world. Every person has a story to share and a lesson to tell. Find your tribe. Build your personal advisory board of mentors.
Life is short. Savor close relationships. Treasure “inner circle” friendships. Tell those human you love that you love them while they are still alive. Create memories with them.
When you hug someone, hug them with everything you have, and always let them go first. Life is more fragile than you think.
Don't avoid hard conversations. Any effort you spend on cultivating deep relationships will pay major dividends.
Don't hate anyone. Don't insult anyone. Only take shots at things, not people. Judge yourself by action, but judge others by intention. Always keep the Fundamental Attribution Error in mind. Be soft on the person and hard on the problem. Do no harm, but take no shit and crap. Set boundaries.
Never blame others. Remember: Who you blame is who you give your power to. He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has arrived.
Praise specifically. Criticize generally. Praise in public. Criticize in private.
Be kind, gentle, and friendly. Show empathy and compassion. You have an unlimited resource of love and kindness. Radiate boundless love towards the entire world. Give it to others every single day. Practice random acts of kindness. Remember: Every single person is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Everyone is doing their best they can.
When you think something nice about someone, tell them right away. Don't hold any unexpressed love until the last day of your life. Leave a positive review. Leave a compliment for someone, no matter how small it is. Make the coffee.
Strive to empower everyone around you to be better. Minimize suffering caused to other people. Be conscious of other people's feelings, facial expression, and body language.
The quality of a person is almost always viewed through how they touched the lives of others.
At the end of your life, God will only assess you based on how well you help other people be better people. Life is people.
Ultimately, your success in life is proportional to the number of uncomfortable actions you are willing to take, the number of hard conversations you are willing to initiate, and the number of conversations you finish with “I love you.”
Peace.
Better Me