Lesson 1 Do you deserve it? (More than yesterday, because you worked on it) Are you worth a damn? I am a little better every day before sleep in relationship to waking up. If you could bet on one of your high school peers, if the one you would bet on makes 1 million you get 100.000 (10% deal), which one would you pick? Make sure you have the qualities you have based your choice on. Managing Oneself – Peter Drucker Not everything is black or white (not in de criminal sense) On a scale of 1 to 10. How much do you deserve success? Dalai Lama: There are 3 kinds of people Worst Not doing Normal Doing + Thinking Best Instinctual (only doing) Will Durant: You don’t deserve anything (nature) Homework: Write down the things you want to achieve and give your effort a credit, somewhere between 1 and 10. Include the positive and negative things you’re doing pursuing the goal. Answer: Well rounded life. Good shape, close friends, grounded, good job/income, woman I love, hobbies.
Lesson 2 The most changeable person wins/survives. Key factor to adaptability: Not everything is black in white Made in America by Sam Walden Remove ignorance (every day at least once) ISS – Looking for the stability by changing till it’s a stable situation (for as long as it stays) Homework: Number 1 area where I’m too stubborn, too black and white, aren’t changeable. Answer: My social skills have been lacking for the past year. I need to connect more with different kind of people. For example, I need to network with my professors at school so they are willing to support me in my research.
Lesson 3 Sam Walden (Wallmart) – Made in America Humility (not outward humility (shy in public and so on)) Be humble enough to listen to every because you can learn something: Every man I meet is in some way my superior. In that way I learn from him. Humility factor: add the 4 score How many books have you read? Scale 1 to 10 How good are you tracking down mentors? Scale 1 to 10 Copy the competitors? Scale 1 to 10 How much money have you been spending on being a robin hood? Seminars and so on. Scale 1 to 10 Homework: What is the number one area you have been lacking the humility factor? Health, Wealth, Love or Happiness. And give one concrete thing you are going to change from now on. Answer: The number one area I have been lacking humility for the last time is: School. I’m sometimes too stubborn to listen what my peers have to say regarding the project or the homework assignments, I think I have the answer. To prevent this from happening I'm going to listen more and ask more question about their way of thinking.
Lesson 4 “Good artist copy, Great artist steal” – Pablo Picasso Humans learn by osmoses. I’m great because I’m Standing on the shoulder of giants – Isaac Newton Figure out your endgame!!! 33% rule: 16 hours a day awake: 33% spend this time with people below you (people you mentoring/helping) -> comfortable 33% spend this time with people on your level (your closest friends) -> comfortable 33% spend this time with people above your level (mentor) -> uncomfortable but most important Pitfall of looking for perfection (impossible) Become a learning machine Set 18 month goals If a famous person makes time for you. Sent them a gift! Homework: Who are some potential mentors? Max. 10. And a simple plan to start cultivate a relationship with your chosen mentors. Answer: Elliott Hulse, Owen Cook, Tai Lopez, Greg Plitt, Alan Watts, Eric Thomas, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Russell Brand
Lesson 5 See difference in different kind of people. Fit vs fat. Rich vs poor. And so on. Joel Salatin search him Discipline! Money is money. Be honest but nog too generous. “I never met a person who I didn’t learn something from” Abraham Lincoln. Make careful bets in life! Listen to rich people (rich in the sense of know their stuff, succeeded) Observing! Become more aware (off obvious things others ignore) Homework: What is the thing of a profound lesson what you have learned from a rich friend versus a poor friend? The difference in mentality. Answer: My rich friends seem to think different about life. They take more responsibility in their own life, know most of the time what they want and have more consistency in their behavior.
Lesson 6 We tend to believe something we hear more often (Can be untrue). Sculpture Approach to life. Life doesn’t happen to you. Love the grind. Pick a rock and sculpt it. First pillar of the good life: Health. Know your strengths and choose your path according to that. Homework: What is the number one area you have taken the lottery approach? What was the result? Answer: The number one area I have been taken the lottery approach is my happiness. I let my happiness depend too much on circumstances and opinions of other people.
Lesson 7 Avoid learned helplessness Go outside the cage into the wild Enough practice pays off Homework: What is one area where you have been helplessness (learned)? Answer: Finding what I want to do with my life, passion.
Lesson 8 The integrated life Don’t see life in compartments like TGIF Thank God It’s Friday Combine Health Wealth Love Happiness. Job friends and so on. Make a job out of your passion. Tap dance out of bed kind off mentality. 2 mile rule: ensure everything important in your life is close to you Homework: What are 2 things you have not integrated well in your life? Answer: School & Health
Lesson 9 John Wood (en): “We are in competition with ourselves”. Poor friend always have opinions on stuff. Be the most adaptable, look at people and copy/improve on them. Screw it let’s do it – Richard Branson Richard Dawkings must read! “Survival machines that can simulate the future are one jump ahead off survival machines who can only learn on the bases over trial and error.” (Trial – time+ energy, error – often fatal.) Learn by mistakes, but the mistakes don’t have to be yours (learn by reading.) Rich friends never work alone. They have a team. Counselors, mentors. The behavior of humans are mostly caused by fear. It’s a good thing but don’t get caught by it. Start with the first pillar, health. There are too many books (around 130 million). Tips: - Read in order (read the right books) - Don’t increase your speed reading yet. Be a gold miner, set a time and find the best content. - Start Slowly! (average 1 book a month, get to the point that you read one book a week) - You can read many books in the same time ( for example, a classical (book that stood the test of time), a how to book (health of business industry), a biography to fall asleep (courage) Are you in a room and don’t know who is the sucker, you’re the sucker!! Go easy on the fiction, or find good fiction! Elementary of Speed reading: - Read back, front, about the author (get an image off the setting) - Go through the table off content this first pass 5 min. - Second pass: find a good chapter, read some pieces: around 10-15 minutes - Third pass: study something you think is the piece of gold in the book 30 minutes - Today’s how to book 1 or 2 pieces off gold. Old good books you have to read more slowly. - Leaders are readers -> the ability to predict the future, so you can avoid the bad.
Everyone wants the good life, not everyone gets the good life. Because reading is humble, you gain knowledge and so on. Homework: What’s your biggest excuse for not reading? And what pace are you committing to
Answer: That I don’t have the time for reading. I’m committing to one book in a week to start and want to progress to the speed of one book every 2 or 3 days within a year. Lesson 10 There is no right or wrong. Not the 500 year old mind. Living in the moment (epicurean, live for pleasure) but! Invest in the future. Stoic, sacrifice now for the future. Adversity makes men, prosperity makes monsters. 3 types off people: People who make things happen People who look things happening People who are wondering Tom Hanks: The hardships is the thing that makes life beautiful. There is a valuable lesson in the Spartan culture. Find a balance between pleasure (epicurean) and hardships, sacrifice (stoic). Be brave! Toughen up! Be courageous! Respect will come your way if you’re tough. The limit is in your imagination. There is a penalty for not hardening up. Use it or lose it. For example, leave your phone for 2 days. Be the master not the other way around. Good things to start: Cold shower (build it up to toughen up), Stick to a new habit, sleeping on the floor without pillow, camping, go to a farm, read a book, study and so on. Tony Robbins: Be glad you fail! Embrace the failure. Aristotle: Find the balance Seeking out the adversity. Face your fears!!! Persistent other word for tough. Metaphor: Put some scars on your back. Homework: In what area are you the softest, Health Wealth Love Happiness. Answer: Homework. This is an area I need to stop being a softy and toughen up. Stop procrastinating, just do it and get it done as soon as possible.
Lesson 11 Evolutionary mismatch (Richard Dawkings). Your instincts don’t have to be as effective as is used to. For example sugar cravings. They use to have a purpose (prevent starvation) today -> overweight. Now when you can go with your “gut” feeling or you have to rationalize and think. Human are not meant to save. So ignore your gut and think, overwrite it. Go from a consumer to an investor.
(Robert) Dunbar’s number. We supposed to live in small groups. (Groups of 150 core people) The story of the human body – Daniel L. Liebermann New friends are good old friends are better. Keep your old friends and family!!!!! (the good ones, people who won’t hold you back) Eat inside to get the good life. Tip: get a noise machine and go to bed early. Wake up light style reversed. Revive old friendships! You have gone to adversity together (going to war is an extreme but truth) Technology is a double sided sword. Be part of something bigger than you. Homework: Which of the four area is the 10.000 year old instinct working against you. Answer Like most people I have trouble with my diet. It doens't feel right but it is right. I have to rewire my brain in the long term. Lesson 12 Can you tell me in one simple sentence what you are doing with your life? (As short as possible, 6-8 words.) The 5% rule. The best 5% are successful. You have many choices to be average only a few to be great. Follow your Eulerian Destiny. Leave an impact on one big thing. Just be good at one thing. Don’t fall into the American Idol dream. Not everyone can do everything. Have big goals around your signature strength. Four circles slightly intersect: (the common intersection, feedback analysis) - What you grew up around (hint to your future) - Where did you have stranger feedback? (Completely stranger complementing you) - (Maybe not apply if you are 18). What have you done the past 10 years? (10.000 hours.) Use it! Even when you are hate it. Find a solution where you use the skills. - On what topics can you talk for ever on a Saturday night with your friend? What is the thing you really like, not the escape from your life week. Never life from your weekends. If you have to go on a holiday to escape from your life you should never come back. - Find the intersection, there are numerous solutions. Make your mess a message. The funeral test. How many people will be on your funeral? Think about it. Health, Wealth, Love, Happiness destiny. 4 destinies. Don’t live other people’s dreams for you. The power of introverts. Books. Homework: What is your one sentence business plan? Answer: (I’m still an engineering student second year but for now my answer is) Make the world a little bit better by the development of new technology.
Lesson 13 Set up your life so that your work is your vacation People need downtime, it is part of a cycle. Look for a job that gives you as much pleasure as your spare time Are you chasing another mirage? Avoid make your job of something you love, because you will love it less by it. Make something you like your job. Find a life where vacation is only a small part of your life not the highlight of the year. Tap dance to work, not every day but most days. Otherwise it is time for a change if it is in your power. Picasso’s dichotomy: Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time. Learned optimism book. Homework: Have you been vacation minded? When you wake up, do you feel like tap dancing to work? Are you in danger of pursuing something you lust after instead of something you like? Answer: I'm a little bit vacation minded. Sometimes I do, but there are days I want to close my eyes again. No, not in my business/school career.
Lesson 14 What would happen if you take the mindset that everything is your fault. Be prepared, have a skillset with intangibles Prepare for the dark days. They will come. If you don’t prepare it is going to hurt. Be a survivor. Check yourself before you’re wreck yourself. Aristotle: The answer is in the balance. You are optimistic in the endgame, but in the anticipation of tomorrow be realistic/kind of negative. Don’t be the zombie chasing a mirage. Respect the boundaries. Take responsibility. Prepare for the difficult when it is easy. Lao Tzu. Homework: What is one area where you have had ankle pain because you weren’t prepared enough? Answer: My drumming skills. I play in band and there are times I don’t master the drum part of the song/music. I need to prepare more by make drumming part of my daily routine.
Lesson 15 1 thing is sure in this life: (Descartes though experiment) Math, numbers You have to get to the truth. To the heart of the matter. Nice about math. Absolute precise answer. There is no gut feeling involved. But in real-life you get ruff answers. Be able to put numbers on things. Quantify and simplify (scale 1 to 10 or so). On Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness. Learn to play chess or backgammon. (Learning how to quantify). Homework: Pick one different future choice, calculate the odds of one doing better than the other and why do you think that it will? Answer: Trading daily 4 hours of travelling to my university for a room during the week. Pros: More spare time, close to the school, new friends and new experiences. Cons: Cost extra money, find a new/extra job and learn to cook.
Lesson 16 Rousseau, a great figure in history. (Read his biography). Rousseau was a true renaissance man. (Karl Marx, Leonardo da Vinci). In this day, men do only thing that interest women (rock star instead a teacher), this is caused by media. But be a renaissance man. The great men which run society are most of the time Renaissance man. (Collector man) Another great example is Malcolm X. Download new mindsets. Read broad categories of books but not all the books only the best books out there. Do an inventory: what do you know? Do you know music a bit, enough to get the enjoyment. Language, do you know more than one language. History, simulate things without doing it yourself, learn from mistakes from others. Little bit of art, architecture, poetry, literature (arts, intangibles), science, well-traveled (geography) and politics. Watch things happen, make things happen or wonder. Choose one of the three. Jack of all trades is impossible. Be good at one thing, the world is too competitive. But be supported by the other small knowledge’s you have. The edge effect, your core skill will benefit by other smaller skills. Be Robin Hood, take ideas from the rich people and give it to yourself. It is going to conflict your life but it will pay off. Homework: On which of these subjects are you weak and you can improve your skills. Answer: History and art. These two topics are a weak area in my armor of skills. I’m going to start reading at least one good article/chapter of a book per week on each of these subjects.
Lesson 17 The four hour work week is a myth. Love the grind If you only want to do something for four hours a week it is probably not the right things for you to do. You have to find something that makes the time fly. Homework: What is one of the area’s where you have been adopting/working to the four hour work week and what can you do to fix it? Answer: Doing my homework. I need to invest more hours in order to pass the upcoming exams.
Lesson 18 The contrast bias, make it work for you. Men have put men on the moon. So ask yourself. Is it harder than put men on the moon? We innovate out of our problems. Tools to reframe your mindset. Shrink every problem down. 1 million a year is 3000 a day. Around 300 per hour. Does this sound more plausible? Two types of people: one who overcomes fear one who dies from fear? Alexander the Great. The likely hood that you save in a pool to save someone is genetic. Keep simple things simple. Today: How much burst of energy did you take on something simple. Four categorize of income: Scarcity, financial independence, prosperity, happiness (wealth). Don’t make something hard to easy. It is simple not easy! Homework: What is something you have fear around? Use the man on the moon principle. What is the best contrast to it (someone who did it big time?) Answer: I made trying a new diet to hard. Making money to easy.
Lesson 19 Keep your financial life organized. What do you earn and what is your take home money. Software: QuickBooks. (of excel and so on) 30(minimum) till 40 percent of your take home money, invest it in your brain/mind. (ratio doesn’t change) You’re in the kitchen of life. Have the good ingredients so you can make a wonderful dish. Most of the time these ingredients come from outside sources/forces. Reading, listening, mentoring. Invest in skills. Humans fighting always over scarce resources. Today it is economics. Try to buy used books. Saves a lot of money. Investor mentality: Don’t invest in things that depreciate, rot. It has to be worth more in the end. Even get a library card. Best investment ever. Read, learn and improve yourself! Have a blend. Get free information but also spend money on seminars and books. Poor Charlie’s almanac. Cory Rudell books on internet things. Save something money, have some fun, but invest. Around 1/3 each after you pay taxes and so on. Give, Give, Give, and people will give back. Have a bookkeeper or do it yourself but have your finances in order. Homework: Right now, what is your take away income? On what things do you spend this income? Where are you going to reinvest it in? Answer:
Around 2K. Most of the money gets spend on booze in de weekends and other party activities. Personal development in the forms of books and seminars/lectures.
Lesson 20 You can have anything, but you can’t have everything. Choose what you want in life. Create a life you like to live. Life is a parachute jump. You only have 1 jump, so be prepared, watch how others are doing it and live yourself but don’t wondering what if. One each of the four pillars, Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness find a future imagine you would like to live. Be realistic but not be too afraid to dream big. Do a personality test. Are you introvert, extrovert. Reverse engineering: imagine your supposed ideal life in 10 or 20 or 30 years. How can you achieve that life bit by bit? So, how can you make a nonjob? Find a way to create a living out of your hobby. Homework: What does your world look like that you’d like to reimagine around health? In your ideal world, where is your income going to come from? How are you going to reverse engineer? Socially, what does it look like? (IMPORTANT ONE, EVERYTHING WILL DEPEND ON THIS). How are you going to be happy? Answer: Exercise daily is something I would like to do. I used to but due to several injuries I have to regain my condition and strength to the level I want to. Also a good diet is necessary. Eating as much none processed foods as possible in combination with meat and fish. Until this day I have no idea where my future income would come from. I study engineering which I like. But I haven’t made up my mind yet if I want to be an adviser, entrepreneur and so on. I live in a small town with all my family and friends very close. Living close to them in the future with a girlfriend who likes my friends and family is something I’ll be happy with. Having hobbies a like to do, including sports, reading, drumming in a band and do charity work. And the above.
Lesson 21 Reading, persuade, understand people. Social is probably the most important skill in this world. First analyze yourself. P.A.S.E. Practical, Action, Social (lot of small talk), Emotional. What am I? Casanova: “……. And play the chameleon.” Before you can change you must understand what it is. Bring different kinds of your personality to persuade different kind of people. Practical: Planning, money, persistent. (Doesn’t have to be materialistic), finishing things. Action: People who like to do. Make things happen. Start things. Not enough patients. Aggressive. Social: They like to go with the flow, hippie style, light, very social because they just like other people. Emotional: Hold things in, they are sensitive but also intuitive, can read people easy. To easily offended, driven by fear, driven by environment. They have to gain a thick skin. Do not used this for bad things. Abuse no one because it makes the wise one fools. Avoid extreme ideologies. You get stuck in them. Be adaptable. Learn to be more persuasive. By the P.A.S.E. system. Adopt their dominant way. Homework: What is your dominant? What is your weakest? What are you mom and dad? How can you bring out each of these in a practiced way, one each day? Answer: Practical, for the last couple of years I plan most of my daily life. Naturally I plan my day (practical). Emotional Action based because I work towards my goals these 67+ days. My mom is PAES and my dad it PASE. Social and emotional are tougher to integrate. Perhaps chatting in the public traffic with some strangers.
Lesson 22 Black and white will undermine you in every step you undertake to success. First understand the situation, see it clearly, where you are, change accordingly with a plan. Be a truth seeker. Embrace the truth, the real truth. But follow that truth, stop eating unhealthy. Read the obvious signs. Health, would you date yourself if you look at yourself in the mirror? Every action has an opposite reaction. What is your wanted end reaction? Determine your endgame. Social, friends, family lovers. Surround yourself with people who take you further in life. See the signs, follow the 7 fold path to the solution. 1 Ask yourself a question. 2 research the answer. 3. Make a hypotheses. 4 Test it. 5 Observe it. 6 Analyze the results. 7 Ask other smart people on their opinion on your results. Avoid extreme ideas, most of the time they are wrong. Willing to go through the mud of life. Failing isn’t bad. It was an experiment and you can take a lesson from it. We are only bound by the laws of physics. The rest is disputable. You shouldn’t hold any belief until you can understand the other side better than they do. Commitment consistency cognitive bias. If something doesn’t work fix it or stop it. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. You are far from the truth. Don’t be a zombie chasing a mirage. Homework: Regarding your physical health, where have you been black and white and not experimented enough? What can you do to experiment more? Regarding your business/wealth/career, where have you been black and white and not experimented enough? What can you do to experiment more? Regarding your social life, where have you been black and white and not experimented enough? What can you do to experiment more? Regarding your happiness, where have you been black and white and not experimented enough? What can you do to experiment more? Answer: The types of cardio training I should do to complement my lifting program. There is LISS HITT and so on. I’ve read a lot but haven’t experimented/experienced it myself yet. Stuck in the same routine for the last years. Finding/making friends in the city I go to college. I though this wasn’t possible because I live too far away. Trying new hobbies to find something I like perhaps more than the hobbies I have at this time.
Lesson 23 You have to make your life where you want to go. The grind of life is life. Prepare so when the times comes when you need to perform you perform. Force of will. Have backbone, this comes from faith (feeling success before you have it). Example: Kontiki. Force of will emanates from fate. So, pick your endgame. Expect the worst because if you expect them they are not that bad and you can prepare. Have perspective (to make you feel better and more optimistic). Innovate you out of problems. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, that is insanity. – “Einstein”. Being happy is tough but being unhappy is easy, there are a lot of things that cause unhappiness. Seize the minute. Generate faith through the right end game, find your Eulerian destiny. Break problems down in tiny bits, linear thinking (a good way this time). Homework: Do you have a realistic plan that creates fate? What is your force of will? Scale 1 to 10 What area have you lost perspective and how are you going to fix it? Answer: I do not have a realistic plan yet. My force of will is around a 4.5. I have a knee injury and felt bad, then my sister came home from her basketball match with a more serious knee injury than me. (Health wise) Stephen Hawking – a brief history of time, Peter F. Drucker – manage oneself, Sigmund Freud – civilization and its discontent.
Lesson 24 Your funeral, how many people will show up. The ultimate test of how good your life was. Humans always calculating how good their live is. Give you a prize for activity (today’s society), you will get lazy. Paid by the hour, stretch the time. Have end goals, but look at life in periods of 5 to 10 years. Two kind of friends: The first friend doesn’t show up to year party and comes off with a big excuse the next day (flurries of activity), the other are war winners (decide yes or no (end goals)). You are fighting 4 wars, health wealth love happiness. Find the endgame and win or lose battles but eventually you have to get to the end goal. Winning these wars and you will win the funeral test. The men who can manage themselves can manage all other men. Your environment does affect you. So, be picky in life. Think with the end in mind. One simple framework: the funeral test. Then break it down into the four wars. And define your endgame. The fastest way to your goals is straight ahead. Once defined, efficiency goes up. Homework: For you who is the epitome of someone who has passed the funeral test?
Do you have a clear end game war winning concept for your life? What does your winning the war in the four pillars of life look like? What is your weakest pillar that you create flurries of activity for? (Doing a lot, but having no results)
Answer: Robin Williams, I don't have a clear goal/vision for my life yet. Winning in the health category is playing football with my grandkids, Wealth wise, that I have enough money to live prosper without the worry of first and second human needs. Find a woman which I love with whole my heart and find happiness in the friends around me and my hobbies. Love part. Lesson 25 Never forget, nature laughs last. Universal laws to life. Three sources of unhappiness according to Freud. Decay and disillusion of your body, forces of nature, other human. One way to track your progress according to Will Durant, the ability to withstand these outside forces. Know your enemies only then you can protect yourself, you won’t be surprised. You are not the center of the universe, be part of something bigger. Find one thing and hold on to it. Balance around a certain industry in business. Go through the dark years, the learning curve and 10.000 hour rule. You can shorten the curve a bit by mentorship and so on. But you need the learning curve. Media bias, images you see, things you hear, everything that gives you false world image. Your life is a season. Different stages. For example work in the summer and study in the winter (metaphorical). Winter is a period where you lose easily focus, but hold on! Do research, ask questions and plan then the spring comes, experiment, test and innovate. Work in the summer, put in the hours 100 hours if necessary get ahead of the competition. Mother Nature, the teacher of last resort. You can’t beat nature, respect it and work with it. Homework: Write about a winter in your life? Write about a spring in your life? Write about a summer in your life? Write about a fall in your life? What are you in now and what are you doing to do differently. Answer: A winter in my life was the period before my exams. I studied pretty much every time I had. A spring in my life was the time when I tried new sport plans. A summer in my life was literally in the summer time when I had a season dependent job. A fall in my life is the period where I am now. Looking back and reviewing the things I’ve done till this day and how it will/can improve my life. In in the fall. I’m going to review my latest experiments, categorizing what went right and what went wrong.
Lesson 26 Six Sigma: Creating perfect systems. A few go wrong when you perform a lot. Increase efficiency. Seneca, Book on the shortness of life. Life is short yet we act like we have all the time in the world. We spend time but we don’t live. Because our mind is never in the place where it is prepared. Do the hard things when it’s easy, plan. Don’t fail. The greatest expectations to fail is why you fail. Over the shoulder management style. Check everything. Monitor it. F-22 exercise: (to lower your stress). You should always plan for 3 scenarios. A: the best case scenario. B: Think about the most likely. C: worst case scenario. (And this is not pessimistic!) Learned optimism but you can be over enthusiastic. 3.4 mistakes per million. Try to achieve that. Planning! You must increase your knowledge level by reading listening and so on. Homework? Of the 6 levels of sigma what skill level are you at? How often do things go wrong? What is the primary reason you think you’re at the level you are at now in six sigma perfection? Of the things talked about in the video which of these do you need to work on most? To get from point A to point B (your goals) what is you F-22 plan to get there? You A, B and C. What is a practical thing you can do to have a better back up plan. Answer: My level of sigma would be around 3 to 4. Thing don’t fail to often but they still fail sometimes. Experience (experiments). I need to develop a solid F-22 plan. The most likely is that I pass al my exams this year with straight A’s. The worst is I fail this year because I came up short on the study points. The most likely plan is that I succeed this year with B average and very hard work. Start to ask questions about the stuff I don’t know earlier on.
Lesson 27 26.55 You need allies in each of the four pillars of the good life. (Lieberman – social) because you’re in war. Trench warfare. You will not always win. It will take many hours. Get in the top three in the wealth category. Get out of the scarcity. Energy, Intellect, Integrity (Warren Buffett) Three things you are looking for in a partner (loyalty also) Business partner, married, you need people who are intro/extroverted because off complementary! Charlie Munger way: forget job interviews, interview references. Because you can act during job interviews. Finding out the background of people. Dig deep! (Quicker approach) Other way: they did the opposite, they did job interviews but 27 interviews over 1 year. It takes a year to get to know somebody. (slow and steady approach) Pick carefully the people you let in your life! The best is to pass both the tests. Homework: What is a relationship you have been betrayed in? And how can you make it better next time? What is a business relationship you have been betrayed in? And how can you make it better next time? What is a friendship you have been betrayed in? And how can you make it better next time? Where is a partnership where you have not been complementary? Answer: Private, happened yet, I'm still in school, Private, Private
Lesson 28 The preparation that precedes good luck. A man makes his own luck. There is an element outside your control. The element of “luck”. And there are the area’s you have control. Do what is difficult when it is easy. “Lao Tzu” Don’t scramble at the last minute, be prepared. Convictions are the enemies of truth. “Nietzsche” Jim Rohn: Prepare for tomorrow today. Make it a habit, take 30 seconds before you go to sleep. Don’t overdo it! Don’t over plan because life is short. John Wooden ted talk. Search it. Prepare for a rainy day before it is raining. You can control your destiny within certain boundaries. Don’t be too extreme on either sides. When you don’t know what to do, then you have something hard to do. Jump right in and within a blink of an eye it’s halfway done. (Don’t think about the thing, it makes it harder). Do the hardest thing early in the morning. Homework: What is something difficult what you put off and didn’t do and bite you afterwards? What is a bad habit that you have? What is a resolution right now to change one thing starting right now? Hare you going to do this?
Answer: Doing my homework. Procrastinating led to the fact I couldn’t hang out with my friends in the weekend because I had to study. Thinking/planning too much and experiment/experience too less. Stop eating unhealthy things and get in shape. To accomplish this I already have an exercise plan.
Lesson 29 Time is moving forward. Cosmological time, thermodynamic time, physiological. Life is long if you know how to use it. Seneca. Don’t burn time. The greatest enemy is expectancy. Invest your years well. Double down on yourself. Nature laughs last. Remembering the future. Homework: How have you been squandering your time? What or who could you be embracing that you have been procrastinating seeking out? What are you going to do to slow down entropy? Answers: Watching too many TV shows and movies, procrastinating the things like homework, hobbies. I have a lot off time but don’t use it properly. In order to do this I will search youtube for informative videos in complement with reading books. To slow down entropy I deleted facebook from my phone. Furthermore I’m going to plan my days each day before bedtime so I make better use of my time.
Lesson 30 Removing and disabling ignorance (in business as well as your normal life). We have known knows. We have known unknown. And we have unknown unknowns. What are the things that disable you because you are ignorant on this specific subject? Warren Buffet: You have to get at least rid of a good idea/rule every year. Get rid of your rules. Your mind gets full, it’s like an attic. (Sherlock Holmes, Doyle) Conviction are greater enemies off truth than lies. Nietzsche. Rules about how you critic other people. (Most of the time things you are strong on, movies, books, and so on…) Go deep. Most of the time the solution is in the middle. Consistency bias. Stay by a (wrong) rule. Ask yourself why three times. Diet, politics, hobbies, god, morality. Homework: A belief that you held very strongly that you know realize is crazy? What is something that you believe that you could take the opposite side of? Write out an opposing arguments to something you believe. Answer: That my body was capable of training very hard for a long time without proper rest. Going to college vs following your dream. The world can be explained by physics and biology. Natural selection has taken place, when you look at different species, you are able to see the micro evolutions that have taken place in the last thousands of years. For example the Galapagos Islands.
Lesson 31 The man who can manage men mange the men who manage things. The man who manage money manage all. (Investors are the most financial successful). First manage other people. Then learn to manage people. Your ability to form allies, coalition are important. But you don’t always have to be in charge. Managing isn’t controlling. You have to persuade people. You have to have an active role in managing. The 4 hour workweek doesn’t apply here. If you let other people do something to you, shame on them. But if they succeed twice, shame on you. It is alright to delegate something you do know, but not when you don’t know it. At some point in your life you have to try to be a jack of all trades. Try to fix your car, cook and so on. These things only apply to the things you do often and are needed for your success to the integrated life. Be a jack of all trades in the basics of life. No one will ever have the best of heart for you but yourself. Sam Walden: Over the shoulder management. Don’t micro manage (every move) because it is annoying? Let them work and once in a while look over the shoulder (and know what you looking for because you know a little bit about the topic). Trust but verify. This is one way to rise above the masses. Don’t be average. The error of the dilatant, don’t think you know everything if you read one little thing! The reward is the leverage of your time and energy. This is the start to be able to lay on the beach. Homework: Nightmare story where you delegated something over someone and it bite you in the ass Some everyday basic skills I need to develop. What is something were you delegated something without knowledge and how are you going to increase your knowledge on this specific topic. Answer: Don't have one yet Dancing, Cooking Well, I’m still a student so my knowledge is still increasing every day. To maintain this progress I am going to do my homework and exercises each day.
Lesson 32 Your philosophy needs to be right (your big picture). (Your core conviction can be flawed). Most of us are chasing mirages. (It’s imaginary it doesn’t exist, it is dangerous). Instead of being sure of stuff let go off some convictions. Become more observant. You have move towards the slot machine probability. More overall winning is better life. Sometimes the right thing don’t worked out. And the other way around. You have to be able to live with this fact. Epistemology concepts of knowledge. Search it. You need to have tools to choose the way which is the way of less lost. Go with the numbers, go with the odds. See earlier lessons. Plato: Life is like being in a cave, …. You need to come into the light. There are times you have to take big risks, but still return to the odds. Building skill, getting better as an artist, entrepreneur, and so on. It is a good slot machine to bet your life on, but now this: You can still loose, but you will lose less than other choices. Rutger Kipling Poem, “If”. (1943) Everyone will plateau. Invent your way out and hold on. Homework: What is your thing that you have been able to stay with past the 18 month plateau? What’s an example of something you gave up to quickly on? What is the clear path that you know you should take but have not taken and what is your resolution to get there? What is an improbable ‘horse’ that you have been betting on? Answers: Exercising and playing the drums. Playing the guitar. Finish engineering school. I have the capability to succeed the only thing I need to do is putting the hours in and don’t give up. Dropping out of school and becoming a musician.
Lesson 33 The application of knowledge is as important as the inquiring of knowledge. The worst people: people who don’t want to learn something when they can’t do something. Don’t learn a pig (worst people) to fly it will bother them and it won’t work anyway. You have to forgive innocent ignorant. They want to learn but don’t know it yet how. Something’s are strings you can’t push them you have to let it come to you. Sometimes you don’t need to concur but you need to seduce. You have reward people when they progress. But don’t reward in the old way but the new learned one. Changing the reward and punishment structure. Don’t let them be comfortable in the old situation. To convince you need a little bit of pain and discomfort. Give people their time they need. Some need longer than others. But be not too patient. Homework: What is an example of a person that is never going to come around and be able to be taught? How are you going to go about cutting them out of your life? What is an example of you pushing on a string? What do you think you need to do to get the wisdom to know the difference? Answer: Can't think of anyone close to me. Just spend less and less time with them until they fade away. Try to help someone in the family, by offering help. Instead I should have wait and let her come to me. Observe people around me. The poor and rich friend mentality and see the difference in how they make this kind of decisions.
Lesson 34 We don’t have control over our brains but we think we do. We’re sense creatures. Have a perception of the timeline how long it will take to succeed. The ten dark years. (10.000 hours) Plato, Socrates believed we have to learn to live. There are two types of people. People who defeat fear, live or the people who die from fear. A fence that you build fast falls fast, a fence that is built surely and slowly will stand the test of time. A key to a good marriage is low expectations according to Warren Buffet. Have high end goals but have the right timeframe. Homework: What is an example of something you have had an unrealistic time frame for health? /Wealth? /Love and relations? /Happiness? And put the timeframes for each of the four pillars. Answer: Getting in good shape in a time period of 8 weeks. It takes longer than 8 weeks to reach the level I want to. Probably something like 1 year to 3 year.
None Getting a solid relationship with my (back then) new friends. I believe you can achieve happiness anytime you want. Good timeframes are: Health, average of 2 years. Wealth, 10 to 30 years. Love and relationships at least 1 year.
Lesson 35 Ignoring the 99 out of a 100 people. But when you find that one person do everything they say. Do not ask the 99 out of hundred people. It is counter intuitive. The same with books The ratio should around 99/100, so you Can have multiple mentors. Who are you going to trust your life and future with? You can end up dead both ways. But the odds are highly in favor of the skilled mentor. People should earn your trust to listen to them. You don’t have all the time in the world. “Seneca” 10% rule. You probably only do 10% of the success of the people who you learned from. So learned from the best of the best. `Be picky who you listen to. Philosophical changes are the easiest if you get past the stubbornness of your mind. Homework: When it comes When it comes When it comes ignored? When it comes When it comes When it comes When it comes When it comes
to health who are you listening to that should be ignored? to wealth who are you listening to that should be ignored? to love and relationships who are you listening to that should be to to to to to
happiness who are you listening to that should be ignored? health who going to start listening to? wealth who going to start listening to? love who going to start listening to? happiness who going to start listening to?
Answer: One of my close friends and the media. The media. A close friend of mine. The media. They picture happiness as something you get when you have that “one” new unique thing, which you have to buy most of the time. Greg Plitt, Elliot Hulse, Tony Robbins, Omar Isuf, Kelly Starrett Tai Lopez, Warren Buffet, Sam Waldon, Charlie Munger Owen Cook, Tony Robbins, Elliot Hulse. Tony Robins, Owen Cook, Elliot Hulse, Alan Watts,
Lesson 36 Everything happens in the mind first. Mind over Matter. If you are playing poker and you don’t know who the sucker is after half an hour. You’re the sucker. You don’t always have to be the alpha and so on. You have to take responsibility. Take the horns of life. You have to love yourself over 50 years. There are 25 cognitive biases. Delusion, chemical, social proof, reward (strongest) and so on…. These biases create the Lollapalooza effect. You can withstand one, but multiple? Not possible. So don’t put yourself in that kind of situations. So, avoid. Strengthen the mind. Use it to your advantage, use the biases to persuade other people. Homework: What is a time you have thought everybody had your best interest in mind but instead you were the sucker in the room? What is an example of you being persuaded, and what was it that persuaded you? What do you think about the world not being so “black and white”? Answer: Don’t recall a particular situation where this happened. Shopping for new clothes, I got persuaded by social proof. Fashionable clothes which I didn’t like very much when I came home. I think it is good that the world isn’t black and white. This mindset makes you able to see the good in people and always reflect on the way they handle the situation from their perspective.
Lesson 37 Control all three factors of the classic production. Land, labor, capital. Land in the modern world is connection. Positional advantages. It is not what you know but who you know. Labor is the skilled team around you. And capital is free cash available to invest. Land, the people who you collect around you. Labor, how much do you know. Personal skills. Persuasive, Interesting and so on… Most restaurants fail because they missing out on at least one of the three people. Homework: In what you are doing now what is your land advantage? When it comes to labor how skilled are you? Do you have cash or access to cash to grow your dream? Which one of these three things do you need to work on most, and what is you plan? Answer: I don’t have land advantages. Socializing and building a solid network around me is one of my primary goals while I’m still in college. I’m still a student so I’m improving my engineering skills every day. On top of that I’m working on the better self of me every day. For example the 67 steps. No I don’t have any capital I can use to grow my dream.
The thing I need to work on the most is having cash/capital. I’m still a student but my goal is to find a job where I can work an x amount of hours so I will earn at least 150 euro per week.
Lesson 38 Bounded rationality. We have unlimited choices at some level. We give these choices boundary conditions which leads to fewer choices. But better? What type of person you want to ally with. What type of person do you want to compete? If you can pick who you compete with you can do well. Inversion principle. With what type of person don’t you want to ally with? You want to compete with a bunch of idiots so know your skills and pick a small area in your field were not everyone is very smart. You must look in your comparative advantages. Find what you’re good in. You have to get rid of distorted esteem people, too high or low. They will cut you down. This doesn’t mean cut down the realistic people who know themselves. You have to hang around people who accurately know who they are, they don’t think too much or too less. These people will surprise you the least. A distorted sense of self-esteem is unstable because the world is constantly giving them feedback and it will influence them constantly. This is the ally test. Stable people, loyal people. Optimism isn’t distorted but when they think they already achieved it all, avoid them. Homework: What is an example, socially, where you have allied yourself with unstable people? How can you adjust your carrier so you compete with idiots? Little tweaks? What are your advantages? Answers: One of my friends craves social proof, this caused some fights in my group of friends. I’m studying Engineering. One of the things I can do is find out what area of expertise I have. Accordingly, I can choose a master study so I will set myself apart from the masses. I don’t think I have any advantages yet. But I’m still young and if I work hard maybe I can create an “edge” over the competition.
Lesson 39 We don’t have that many choices but it may appear that we have in modern world. 18%. In anything you do, if you reach 18% of people who are highly engaged with you, you will get the good life. More is less in this case. Think globally, act locally. Solve small problems at a time but your endgame can be huge. You’re first customers are always bias, family friends and so on. If you want to succeed there aren’t many things you can do. Don’t chase the mirage. At a party don’t talk to 100% of the people. Talk to the 18%. From the small base you can expand but aim for the 18%. Be yourself, if you want to please everybody you will end up pleasing nobody. Make your mess your message. Finding your life story. Combine this with your Eulerian destiny. Homework: What is the 18% you are going to focus on?
Who have you been trying to please that you have not been able to please? What is your messy message? Answers: I will finish my bachelor qualification first. In the same time I will search for the best combination of personal skills and studies with good prospects. I will choose my field of specialization (18%) accordingly. Personal answer. I don’t think I have a messy message. Maybe someday.
Lesson 40 Not going to the extreme of being always negative of positive. Use practical pessimism instead. You have to have optimism in the endgame but in the short game is pessimism a great tool. There is a certain necessity to faith. See the future when no one else does. Practical pessimism is the tool to get to the positive goal. You move to positivism with pessimism. Don’t confuse pessimism with negative. Now is the youngest you will ever be. Homework: What imbalance side have you been on, pessimistic or optimistic? What is the root of that imbalance? What are you going to do differently? What is your optimistic end goal you are going towards and what could go wrong? Answers: A little bit to the optimistic side. I think if you want to be happy you need to be realistic with a bit of optimism. I will have 3 plans as mentioned in one or the earlier lessons. One optimistic scenario, one pessimistic scenario and one most likely to happen. My optimistic end goal is the good life. Something that can go wrong: Unrealistic goals that will cause unnecessary pain in de long term.
Lesson 41 Sam Chupp & Making, Watching and Wondering. Your level off awareness need to come up. Be rich in life. Don’t chase the mirage. Become better in knowing things. Already made things happen. Be curious. Don’t wondering, pass time. LIVE! You have to be an impressive person to become wealthier. You will be impressive when you know things. Unimpressive people wonder. Ask why three times? To get to the crux of the situation. Book: Curious. Watch things happen or doing things but never wonder. The 5 love languages. Book. Homework: What is something you have always been bad at being in a state of wondering? What is something that you have been good at making or watching? Of the subjects I talked about what is the one you are going to find out more about? Answers: I don't know much about historical events or forms of art besides music. Physics and math. I’m going to find out more on history and art.
Lesson 42 According to Charlie Munger there are 25 cognitive biases. One of the most important skills: The ability to geniusly prioritize your life. Health, wealth……. First things first (preferred in the morning). The media bias tries to convince you of their agenda. Don’t priority stupid things like donuts and so on? Stupid things/procrastinating are effortless and easy. Jump in when you have something hard to do, if you do this it will be halfway done fast. Commitment-consistency bias. Don’t stay commit to something that is no longer priority, it is hard. You only have to be afraid of the law of physics nothing else. Don’t follow the agenda of other people unless is in the same as yours or they are the laws of physics. Don’t let rules that are imaginary let you drive. Don’t be too focused on one thing or too less. Pick four goals, one goals in each pillar, don’t have too many goals and not enough. Homework: What is an example recently that you miss waged and what are the consequences? What are the four goals and what do you need to do first? What things do you need start doing in the start of the day instead of later? Answer: The amount off work it takes to prepare myself for the upcoming band rehearsal. The consequence was that I had to do it last minute and this caused stress. I need to start with wealth, if I don’t I will run out of money soon. Health is going well, I exercise daily and feel good and fit. I haven’t reached my health goals but I will get there. The other goals are specified in my personal notes. My homework. The evening is the time when I do most of my homework.
Lesson 43 The one that brings you the most highs in life is human relationships. Love happiness. Social is almost the hardest to balance. Everybody can be 20% weird, more will cause trouble. The people who become betrayers are a little too weird AND INSECURE. Stay also away from people who don’t think. Belief something because your parents done it and copy it without thinking. (Really strong and unfounded beliefs) Sometimes weird is better but this is an exception. You need to allow some differences. Homework: Take a person that comes to mind that is critical to your business, what is their weird factor, 0%-100%? What is your weird factor, 0%-100%? How are you going to deal with the insecure people in your life? Answer: Around 15%
Somewhere between 10-15% I will not cut insecure people immediately out of my life (not business wise). But I have to make sure don’t to trust them too much because it will backfire. They can change, if they don’t you can refuse to spend time with them.
Lesson 44 First things first. Have control over your mind! Six pack of the mind. Cognitive bias: Miss waiting. Do you spend your time properly (important things) or were you focused on the wrong things. People’s priorities are insane these days. Prioritize your life. Most people are penny wise but dollar foolish. Be the opposite!!! If I don’t love myself, who will? Homework: Write out an example where you have heavily miss weighted things? What is an area that you have under invested in? Think specifically in one area, how much time each day are you going to commit prioritizing you that area? Add a list below for today’s priorities. Answers: I thought I didn’t have to save that much money because I’m still young. I can save up the rest of my life. Job experience. I’m a student and don’t have many job experience within my field of study. Finding solutions for my current lack of wealth. I do this by the means of planning ahead each day before going to bed. So, when I wake up I have a game plan for the day. Tomorrow’s game plan: Wake Up Work till 12 o’clock Doing my homework (of school period 4) Relaxing by playing drums. And in the evening hang out with my friends.
Lesson 45 Start with changing your habits. Changing habits will change your life, but it takes time. Income should come in a constant pace. Monthly weekly and so on. To pay the bills and hopeful have way too much money. Scarcity (below 70.000), financial independence (70k 150k), prosperity (150k to 1 mill) to abundance (1 mill – xxx). Be an investor. Investor: someone willing to invest now to gain more in the future. The opposite of the consumer mentality. The investor takes control of their lives. Homework: In what ways are you under the tyranny of the 1 st and the 15th? In what ways have you adopted the old ways of making money? What is something you can do right now to start making more money? Answers: Only in paying my phone bills Working under a boss and doing what you is told. Finding an extra job to do outside school.
Lesson 46 Anything you’re doing you have to have scale ability. Expansion/compression. Start small and organize, normalize and practice. If you have the process you can upscale! Practice small but practice to get to the big. Prepare for the rainy day. Systems! Work in systems. Homework: What is an example where you ignored this rule, and you stayed too small? What is an example where you started with too many sheep and got burnt out? What is a simple idea that you can start practicing with 5 sheep? Answer: Going out and having fun with my friends. Changing my lifestyle instantly instead of by creating small habits. Reading every day, playing drums, working out, going to school... Buying some dumbbells and start working out at home (gym membership just expired). And try to scale it up to a home gym.
Lesson 47 When good enough is perfect? Extreme number one: Jump into things but never finish them, you get a lot done but nothing is perfect. The other extreme is that everything has to be perfect before you start. You are precise but you struggle to get things of the ground, to start. The context ask for one extreme or another. For example, you can’t always be introverted. You can’t set up the world around you only based on your strengths. It isn’t possible. The 5% tweak. Don’t change everything at once but make several 5% tweaks. Focus on your three foot world, make small changes each day. The big focus can paralyze you. Sample! Create a little bit of momentum by starting small. Book: Switch by heath. It can’t be too sloppy! Don’t be the lion in the ocean. Make sure you are in the right environment. Know yourself! Too perfectionist? Good enough is perfect. Too sloppy, prepare, learn more. Homework: What is an example in your life where you have been paralyzed by inaction because you were waiting to gather to much information? What is an example of you not gathering enough information to make a good decision? What are you going to do to be the lion in the right place? Answers: Choosing which book to read and choosing where to start with my homework. Don’t know actually. I’m trying too much to be a perfectionist my challenge is to create momentum and start doing things with less information. Good enough is perfect. Still plan everything but stop procrastinating the decision making. And then execute my plan.
Lesson 48 Confidence is one of the large tools to get the good life. Success takes risk and in in that confidence. There are two extremes of confidence. Confidence cannot sabotage teach-ability. Learn to listen! Smart risk-taking. It requires preparation and the right confidence. There is a lot of noise in the world. Pick off the 100% of the people only to the 1%. Listen to everything the 1% says. This will lead to non-delusion confidence. This can come over as cocky but if you act on knowledge from the best and not false confidence nothing’s wrong. Don’t listen democratic. (To everyone) Don’t be overoptimistic (cognitive bias), that is just arrogant. Have humility. Confidence isn’t cocky. Have Michael Jordan Swagger but make sure you do what you say! Be smart with confidence it will set some people of P.A.S.E. Refine your craft. Because you can’t fool everybody all the time. Rise above mediocre. Don’t use arrogance to drive you forward to your goal. You can show faith but not arrogance. Homework: What is an example of you being democratic in who you listen too? What is an example of you going beyond confidence into delusion and arrogance? How are you going to proceed with knowledge? Answers: I listened to everyone on the topic of strength training/weight training. Also on the topic of strength training. I thought I knew it all but I didn't. Through injury I realized the only way to get ahead off the competition was to study everything there is to know about training and health principles. This was around 8 months ago and still going strong looking for more in depth research in the health category. Get lessons from the best in each field of interest. By means of books, youtube videos and seminars if I can afford it.
Lesson 49 Video on youtube: Jay Z Warren Buffet Forbes. “Don’t make too much mistakes in your life”. You will make mistakes in life that is certain. The err is human to forgive, divine. Don’t make many mistakes on a relative scale. Make less mistakes than your competition. It’s like baseball: Hit a whole lot of base hits. Slow and steady wins the race. Thoreau: the life of quiet desperation. Stop the negative momentum. Small steps. And lock the progress in (lifestyle). Every step takes time. Three kinds of happiness: Memory happiness (completing realistic goals with a realistic timeframe), Moment by moment happiness. Homework: What is an example of you trying to hit a home run in Health, Wealth, Love and Happiness, and what was your end result?
What is an example of something you want to change in your life in either Health, Wealth, Love or Happiness? Answers: I tried to get in shape quickly, although I slowed down so my body had more time to recover it was too late. Several injuries followed. The first thing I’m changing right now is my health, slow and steady progress.
Lesson 50 The how and why of self-reliance. We have to be self-reliant in today’s modern world. How do you get things done that will stand the test of time, the funeral test? More important than self-reliance is mastery. Learn to master yourself, job, and the pillars of life. Master or learn to delegate to masters. Use inversion. When you want to find the path to mastery, first what is the path to not-mastery? Master the right things, don’t major in the minors. But first why are things at this moment the way they are. Form a good image of where you are. Be flexible with the means to get to your goal. Focus on the goal not the path. It you took the wrong path, experiment cut it and start a new one. Avoid Blue Eye shadow Numb-nuts on your way to mastery. Inexperience people. Make sure you rely on experienced people, who have scars and grey hair not on people who don’t it. Only masters are remembered. Make your mark on one specific thing. You aren’t probably the next Einstein of Leonardo Da Vinci. The law of 5%. Homework: What is an example where you have been a master in the wrong thing? What is an example of a time when you trusted someone who did not have the experience to warren the amount of trust you gave them? What is an example where you stuck with a numb-nut, it then turned you into a numb-nut, and how will you be quicker to realize it in the future? What are you going to make your mark in? Answers: I don’t consider me a master in anything yet. In the past I have spent some time doing the wrong things but I didn’t continue with it too long. People more experienced than me said it wasn’t doing me any good (and they were right). Can’t think of any. It was the behavior of a close friend, I started copying him without realizing it. To realize this more quickly in the future is to know myself better by reading and watching the 67 steps and so on. I really don’t know where I want to make my mark. That is the reason I started with the 67 steps. Hoping to get some insight in myself in order to make a wellfounded decision I feel good about.
Lesson 51 Vickenstein, search him. Words create future, one school of thought, the other one are very strict with words. Communication is more important than words itself but don’t get to sloppy with it, for example swearing all the time. The most important things about language is that you have to be understood. Seek not to understand but to be understood. Don’t be egocentric. Be understood is the beginning of persuasion. (Don’t manipulative!!) I can control myself but I can’t control someone else. Self-Reliance. Language is not natural for humans. You have to understand, facial expressions, tone of voice, pace, volume and body language. Soft social skills we call it. The intangibles. The right thing at the wrong time is the wrong thing. The timing of the message! (experience) It’s not enough to always conquer, sometimes you have to seduce. “Voltaire”. Homework: When is a time when you have taken words too seriously? What is an example of a time when you didn’t realize how important words are? How can you use what you learned today to be more persuasive with words? Answers: Some jokes between me and my friends. Making a promise that I knew I couldn’t keep. Make sure the people I talk to understand me.
Lesson 52 The disillusion of the body. Nobody can escape this. Take your destiny in your own hands instead of others determining your life. Pareto efficiency: defined as a win-win. (Manipulation will cause a win-lose.) Master it. Perfect Pareto efficiency and social skills go hand in hand. There is no reason to go to war if you don’t have to. We need companionate love. It’s in our DNA. So money and loneliness = bad life. Three types of careers: Level 1 business: Pareto inefficient: one win, one loses. There is always a winner and loser in negotiations. (Losing party will get resolution eventually). Level 2 business: Neutral. You not harming the world but you not helping it either. The middle of the road. It is a good solid business. Level 3 business: a win-win business. People will give you money and they are excited by it. For example Oprah Winfrey. This is the ultimate business dreams. No enemies. Money isn’t evil, money is a tool. It depends on the user. The level of forgiveness of your customers in the level three business is pretty huge. You need a margin of safety. A buffer because things can go wrong. Homework: Which of the three levels is your current career in? How do you feel about the level you are in now? What is a transition plan to move up to level 3? Besides you career what are things you can do to move into more of a win-win situation in Health, Wealth, Love and happiness?
Answers: I’m still a student and don’t have a career yet. I’m still a student and don’t have a career yet. Therefore I can't think of how I feel. I’m still a student and don’t have a career yet. So, I don't need a plan die get into another Level. I need a plan to start in at least a level 2 career. To do this I have to orientate in the field of expertise of my study and develop a good image of what level 2 and level 3 business' are like at this moment. Find an easy and proper diet to complement my training routine so I get results and don’t have to put in too much time in the future (until I reach a plateau.) Lesson 53 You’re surrounded in a world of mixed messages. You have to trade (money) to get what you want. We live in a world of specialization. The first rule of business is: don’t lose money, get profit. The second rule: don’t forget the first. Get your knowledge to level three don’t stop at level 2 because you feel good. Get the end goal. Things have to capture financial value. Otherwise you only sing in the shower nothing more. Know the fundamentals! They apply to everyone. For example the fundamentals of persuasion are the same for everyone after that you develop your own version/specialization. Have value but know how people want to pay for your value. We are born with capacity but you have to learn along the way to create value. Value has to be scarce and in (huge) demand. Know something that only few people can do. Homework: What’s your superpower value you can offer the world? How well are you capturing it profitably? What’s one way you can add more value to what you do? Answers: Nothing yet, I think. I have still three and a half years to go in college. Not at all, the only way I make money is by the means of a job in a bar. Develop more experience in my future field of expertise. For example join the “building a professional race car team” at the Technical University Delft.
Lesson 54 Assiduity, you have to be diligent, and have attention to be successful. According to Charlie Munger: Sitting in a chair and reading and thinking and planning. Balanced thinking! A mindset to not always to be in the rat race. See the larger picture. Meditation: Let your brain go into a not logical taught. (Not meditation) Go in a room with no electronics only some books and Chess like Thinking/daydreaming. 1) And step away from everything. 2) A little reading (some sort of stimulation to get the mind going, can be everything) 3) Pick a problem or something important in your life. Don’t wander but solve this problem. Three of four times a week 20 min. (Deep thinking). The man who chases two rabbits catches none. Daydream with a focused intention to solve a problem. Don’t do disempowering beliefs, according to Peter Drucker. Life is a product of the decisions you make each day.
Make sure you go multilayer into your problem. Ask why three times. And be honest! Make sure you add in outside knowledge, for example reading a book. All successful people ever can sit down in a chair and think, plan. Homework: What is the number one reason you have never done this before? Where are you going to do this? What is the 1 problem on the 4 pillars that you are going to confront? Answers: I think I’m afraid off what I might find out about myself and my life. In my bedroom where things are quiet. I perform these sessions 2 times a week to start with and I want to build it up before next summer to 4 times a week at least. Wealth.
Lesson 55 Abraham Lincoln: I learn from every man I meet, but sometimes I learn what not to do. When you leave out everything that is untrue you are left with the thing that is true even if it seems unlikely to be true. You need to be good in discovering things in life. Very few people life, a lot of people pass time. We have to put bounds on are rationality. Don’t plan forever and don’t do but do neither the opposite don’t plan and do everything. The answer is in the middle. Not to do in wealth, unreliable with yourself and with other people and slough. Trust in communication is important in Relationship. Know yourself! For example, are you introvert or extrovert? (managing oneself – P. Drucker) The inversion Principle! Homework: What will not What will not What will not What will not
get get get get
you you you you
healthy? wealthy? love? happiness?
Answers: Don’t work out and eat great amounts of candy Not thinking and planning my future and spending money recklessly. Not going out the door and socialize and meet somebody. Comparing myself to other people and the image created by social media on the good life instead of my own image of a happy and fulfilled life.
Lesson 56 Probably the most important virtue in entrepreneur lifestyle: Courage. The world has a certain momentum. Do you want to join the masses in this path to the future? How much do you care what your neighbor thinks? Courage will makes you do the things other people/the masses aren’t willing to do. The good life lies behind the border of fear. Fear is to keep the pussies out. There is a time to back down, don’t be foolhardy, but most of the time not. Have enough courage, read biographies. Don’t be stuck in paralyzed! Built momentum. There are genes for courage (certain hormones and so on). You can adjust them. People limits themselves too much. Homework: What’s an example of an opportunity that you missed out on because you were afraid? Who is someone you look up to that you can study? What is a practical action you can take today to start rewiring your brain? Answers: A relationship. Elliott Hulse, Greg Plitt, Tai Lopez and many others. Start with a little 10 day challenge like doing corrective posture exercises after I wake up and let it progress to a lifestyle.
Lesson 57 Optimism is good, but over optimism isn’t good. Al people tend to over positive thinking. Unstumpability: know the answer to every question to your expertise. Make sure you can’t be stumpable. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. This factor will show passion, curiosity and so on. Turn the question around, how do I sell something? But: Would I buy this from myself. Be this person if it’s congruent with your good life destiny. Book: Curiosity. Read it! The most important factor in unstumpability. To be energetic, fun, hardworking, achieving and passion. It comes down to curiosity. Example Sherlock Holmes. Become more aware through curiosity. In this way improve your worth a damn factor. Make curiosity become a habit. This will make life more fun. Be impressive! Make sleuthing like Sherlock Holmes primary factor in the four pillars. Understand beauty, cognitive biases, human attraction, happiness (Freud, Jonathan height). Homework: What is an example of a question you or someone else asked you that you don’t know the answer to and you should have? What keeps you from searching a little more? What is a practical area that you are going to learn a little bit more of today? Answers: How do you replace and adjust the gears of a bicycle? The awareness that I don’t know the answer while I should know the answer. I’m going to search the answer of the question above. How do I replace and/or adjust the gears of a bicycle.
Lesson 58 Real opportunities come to you very few. You get only a few to make a real impact. If you see one seize it boldly and don’t do it small. Charlie Munger. We are patiently inpatient. We have goals far in the future but don’t do anything know. Be the other way around. Make haze quickly. Opportunities are most of the time past by for being pretty good. Be excellent, be so good they can’t ignore you. Be Impressive! Be impressive before your path crosses those off the one you need to get the good life. Act like you’re mortal! Don’t pass time. Aspire and make a commitment at least in one thing. Lack of awareness, unstumpability everything from the 67 steps. Forward age. A 14 years old boy is older than a 67 year old women if he has one day to live if the 67 years old women a couple of years. Excellence captures opportunities. Book: Bounce. Homework: What is an example of a big opportunity that you are pretty sure you missed? What is the reason that you think you missed the opportunity? In the area that you want to succeed in what is the thing that you need to double down on in order to be ready for the opportunity?
Answers: I don’t think there has ever been a big opportunity in my life yet. None. I have to double down on more experience in my desired field of expertise, mechanical engineering. I don’t have that much practical experience. The right way to go is to excel in theoretical experience in combination with a broad enough base of own life practical experience.
Lesson 59 See a man diligent and skilled in what they do and he will stand before kings not average people. Everyone search for significance and meaning (at least for a small group there in). It is hard to be skilled and diligent in something you don’t have the genetics for. Work with what you have got. The people who are remembered are never random people. They deserve it. Hard/soft skills. Have tangible and intangible skills. Be skilled (tangible, hard) and soft skills. What are your hard and soft skills? Sit down and write them down. And which kind of skills are you willing to gain which will require hard work. You will need a broad range of skills. Soft skills are more character skills, persuasive when need to be, true, motivate yourself and so on. Hard skills involve knowing how to plan and execute and solve. The earned respect of your peers is a sweet thing (nobody stands above that) People need people. The aspiration to work to get respect from your friends is a good thing. For happiness have for example a tangible skill: music instrument, meditate ….. Learn a language perhaps. If something doesn’t come naturally you can still be a local celebrity and not national. Know how to learn! Homework: What are your intangible skills? What are your tangible skills? In what are can you start striving to become a local celebrity? Among your friends what is an area that you can be seen as a local celebrity? Answers: Good listener, patient, hard worker. Play the drums, knowing things on health, good with math Being a drummer. Health area, the strength/conditioning side, I still need to build a more solid base of knowledge on the topic: diets.
Lesson 60 Great answers can (seemingly) contradict. This doesn’t mean one is wrong or right. Your regrets are primary this one: When you look back on your life you wish you would have known that so you can act different. Don’t live this way. Die a hero without any fear in your life. Gulp life! (You can go to fast, be aware of this.) Train yourself to gulp. Book a day instead year. Have a good balance between gulping and slowing down. Be impatiently patient. Not PI. 70% rule. If you know 70% of something. DO IT!!! Gulp to jumpstart but be patient up next. Don’t wait with starting something, start and do it. I can be too late before you realize it. Make haste slowly. Climb each stair of success (scarcity, independence, prosperity, wealth) in the right order. You cannot change overnight but you can get the momentum started overnight. He who is faithful with a little is trusted with a lot. Homework: What is an example of when you set a really far off goal and did not follow though? What is an example of when you did it the right way? What is something you have been holding back that does not need to be held back? Answers: Playing the guitar. I started right away but after a month of two my guitar playing stopped. Learning more on bike maintenance. Started with a short internet search and went right to my bike to learn/fix a part. Fixing my homework.
Lesson 61 All things have time cost to it. Not everything costs money but can tracked back to money. Ask yourself: What are the tangible and intangible cost to doing things. Your brain isn’t evolved to handle the amount of opportunities we have these days. Opportunity costs! It is not what you pay. It is what you receive! The better investor you are, the more expensive it is for example to buy a movie ticket. The true value is important! True costs: Investments opportunity, short time win (friendship) long time lost. Multiply everything you spend times 15. That gives you a good idea on the true cost. Knowledge is nothing. Make knowledge instinctive! That it becomes handy. Put it to use! How many people can you count on if you lost everything right now? (social life) How many people will really care if you die?
How many units of freedom do you have (how big is your bank account?) You only get wealth by spending it. Become a master in opportunity costs. Look to the future to understand that everything you spend right know could have been a lot more. 10X. never be afraid to charge money but make sure you give those 10 x the value you charge for. Get 10 times your investment back in 10 years. Homework: What is an example of something that you bought that the law of 15 makes you realize was too expensive? What percentage of your spending is on things that depreciate? What is a change that you can make to have more financial freedom? Answers: A lot of beer during my holiday vacation. I think it used to be more than 90%. Recently I started to invest in myself (books) that don’t depreciate. I’m around 70% now. Ask myself three times why before I buy something.
Lesson 62 Don’t fall back. Lock in the progress you made. Keep in a little fear that you can fall back and so on. Don’t lose you momentum. Build things that have a large margin of safety (building forgiveness into the land). Prepare for the rainy day. EFP. Economic Financial Planner. Putting on muscle is the scientific proven buffer for Health. And stretch! Joint health. Invest in friendship once in a while. You don’t have to give only on one birthday a present. Built forgiveness, because when you mess up you have enough good will besides you that you can make it out of the hole. Homework: What is an area What is an area What is an area What is an area
of of of of
health that you have not built forgiveness into? wealth that you have not built forgiveness into? love/social that you have not built forgiveness into? happiness that you have not built forgiveness into?
Answers: I used to be in good shape but due to multiple injuries my health got worse. At this point I’m working to get in shape, “raise the forgiveness level. My savings are not on the level where they should be. If something happens I will need my family to help me out. I see my friends pretty often, forgiveness level is good. But I’m still single, when that changes I need to build forgiveness into that. The last time I let my happiness depend on other people and happenings outside my control. With the help of for example the 67 steps I’m changing my habits and build my happiness factor.
Lesson 63 Dream big but be realistic with each small step towards the grand goal. In our fears we act if we are mortals. In our desires we act if we are immortals. Seneca. 10 Years goal are just too far away. Vague life goals can, but concrete goals is tricky. People on the rise: You don’t have an off day. You can’t afford it. Create maintain; momentum. Never be someone that an investor wouldn’t invest in. Youthful is the amount of days we have left to go till we die. Planning is important but only if it is coupled with action right away. Be Inpatient Patient not Patient Inpatient. Be inpatient on the short term! Start with it if you would die tomorrow, and stick with it if you would live long and prosper. Wealth: Investing, insuring, entrepreneurialism! Important skills. Health: Cardio, Diet, Weightlifting. Happiness: Travel, Music, Draw, reading … Trying to prove yourself wrong and improve upon that. Wisdom. The good life: abundance. This comes from mastery. Opposite of fear is abundance not courage. Don’t be abundant where you shouldn’t be abundant: TIME! Use the lack of time to Inpatient Patient. Homework: What is an example of a long-term goal you had for health, wealth, love and happiness that should have been done much quicker? What is something you can start impatiently right nog and how are you going to break it into bite size chunks? Answers: The first health goal was to get in shape, meaning losing fat building muscle. While building muscle went well I lost track of the losing the fat part. For wealth, I always wanted to learn more on how to invest and manage money. Losing the fat part. I will do this by managing my calorie intake more precise.
Lesson 64 We have been probably been burned by listening to someone else. Today almost everyone is listening to themselves, sometimes it is good but a lot of the time not. We are the only species on this planet that can changes radically. Take action every day!! Doing will change your thinking and this is what you want. Don’t forget who’s in the room. Is that someone smarter than you? LISTEN! There is a time you recognize that you are with someone in the 33% above you. They are better so listen. The other way around too, don’t listen to someone who doesn’t know there stuff, you should be the talking then. With friends bounce between the 2 things. Don’t act like you know everything and the other way around. Book: The moral landscape – Three social skills: Hardcore listening (people smarter than you) Don’t listen at all (people that you are above in some particular area) In between (give and take, friends and so on) Our brain is a belief creating machine. Don’t get stuck in tunnel vision. The answer is in the middle. Money can’t buy life. Respect and ask yourself what they know that I don’t. Make sure you come in the room with great people. Homework: What is an example of a time you should have been listening to people, but didn’t? What is an example of a time when you listened to people that you shouldn’t have? What is something you can do to spend more time around people of quality? Answers: There was a time when I didn’t listen to my peers during the school project last semester. If I had listened to them the project could have been perhaps more successful. I have listened to some people at the local gym why claimed they knew it all. It turns out that they talked nonsense and didn’t even know a thing about training. Go out and be impressive myself. This way I hope I come across someone in the 33% above me and start listening.
Lesson 65 One of the dangers of knowledge is that you don’t know enough yet. It becomes dangerous. Someone without real expertise but which read one book, one movie and so on. But speaks like he knows it all. (Poem: The Pierian Spring by Alexander Pope.) Limit the conviction about new learned stuff. You don’t become an expert overnight. Don’t become only a preacher of teacher! Put everything you have learned into practice. Don’t become a lecturer but be curious, be humble and ask the questions even if you be the expert. Don’t think you know it all when you don’t know it all. Put in the time. Phase 2. Take everything in your brain and make it tangible by receiving success in all four pillars of life. Deep Domain Expertise Homework: What industry do you know a lot about? What subject could you drink deeper from? What subject are you going to start drinking deeper from today? Answers: Strength Training Nutrition, Engineering Nutrition
Lesson 66 Change habits! Jerry Weintraub book The hinging element in the 67 steps is the story of the persistent widow. Be persistent! Do you want something go get it! Most people get bored to easily. That is why they don’t stick to one thing. Don’t confuse effective persistence with dumb persistence (stubbornness). The answer is in the middle! You got to know when to hold’em, you got to know when to fold them. Benjamin Graham: three fold step: adequate knowledge, test it to judgment, then build up persistence. A mistake is an experiment running to long. Homework: What was something you wasn’t persistent? What was something you was too persistent? Stubborn persistent? What is an example where you going to commit to for the next 67 days? Answers: Reading the amount of books I planned to read. Exercising while being tired. It led to injury. Keeping a journal every day before I go to sleep. To overview the day (so I can check whether I make progress or not in certain area's).
Lesson 67 You want some hate. But unfounded hate, around 5 percent. Social pressure makes you fear. You cannot please all people all the time. The average people fail 2 businesses till the (probably) third makes it. The first one is for the thrash. MPFC Mastery. Fear annihilation through exposure therapy. You cannot ever be fear free, but you can minimize it. Face your fears! Think it through. Most business fail because of cash flow. Always have a margin of safety, in the form of cash or brain power. Be afraid of ageing. Don’t be afraid to work because you are working. The feeling that you will lose it all if you drop a gear back. Real fears are: don’t do things you don’t like. Be emotional stable! Only for men: if you want more status be stable and though. If you lose a million dollars and you won’t even flinch you’re tough. Contrast makes you happy! (Contrast bias). Book: The upside of your dark side. Homework: What did the 67 steps do for you? Answer: It accelerated my awakening process and my hunger to learn more. General principles that will apply to life like: Be humble, 70% rule, six sigma and so on.
