David Deida and Mark Manson (the authors of The Way Of The Superior Man and The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck) were former students of his. (View Highlight)
If you struggle in any domain of life, it’s because your perspective doesn’t include the aspects that would make it whole. This is why multi-perspectival understanding via open-mindedness and questioning is important. (View Highlight)
You are a whole that includes your interests. Interests are parts in the whole of a niche. Niches are a part in the whole of a market. Markets are a part in the whole of social media. (View Highlight)
The first are dominator hierarchies, which is what gives the word “hierarchy” a bad reputation. These consist of a pyramid scheme-esque structure. (View Highlight)
The second are natural hierarchies or “actualization hierarchies,” which is “an order of increasing wholeness, such as: particles to atoms to cells to organisms, or letters to words to sentences to paragraphs. The whole on one level becomes a part of the whole of the next.” (View Highlight)
The people at the bottom of societal pyramid schemes are not investing money, they’re investing attention. (View Highlight)
You escape this enslavement by creating your own actualization hierarchy to invest your attention in. One that orders your mind so you can enjoy life, create a conscious identity, and impact the world through your passionate work. Reproduction through spirit. (View Highlight)
It is not feasible for someone with worldly responsibilities to “live in the present” for the entirety of their lives. The present is a tool. A gift. A haven that you can resort to when you don’t need to take immediate action. (View Highlight)
For the sake of simplicity, your purpose will be synonymous with your vision, life’s work, and any other big goal in your life. (View Highlight)
This is crucial. It is the most important step in taking control of your life because it is the whole that contains all parts. Without it, everything else we will talk about will fall apart. (View Highlight)
My “worst” actions led to the best points in my life, but only because I was conscious of their ramifications and changed my behavior accordingly. (View Highlight)
Treat this as a Minimum Viable Purpose that you will refine with experience (you need experience to make you aware of opportunities). (View Highlight)
Observe the masses, realize what kind of life you don’t want to live, and move in the opposite direction. (View Highlight)
As you go about life, you will miss almost everything unless you reflect on your actions. That is, what went right and what went wrong, from your perspective. (View Highlight)
Quality questions dictate your quality of life, because the quality of your understanding is dependent on the quality of answers you receive. (View Highlight)
What is the process that will allow you to achieve that goal? Every goal that you have – by nature – is accompanied by a subsequent hierarchy of goals descending down to a small, behavior-related goal, like writing the first word of an article. (View Highlight)
Your process, system, or strategy for achieving your purpose is how you prevent your mind from declining into chaos. Systems, when understood, help maintain order in your mind. This alone will 10x the enjoyment in your life. (View Highlight)
Make these goals conscious by writing down 10 year, 1 year, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. (View Highlight)
As a business beginner, your levers may be learning the fundamentals of marketing and sales, writing content, and making online connections. As an intermediate, your levers may be building out a product so that you can monetize your audience. You can start to ween off of learning via external sources. As an expert, your levers may be doing what you enjoy, repurposing your best work, and diversifying your reach. (View Highlight)
Yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals paired with the lever moving actions that will move you toward achievement. (View Highlight)
Instead of aiming for an uncontrollable goal of “50 followers a day,” aim to write 3 posts that may lead to 50 followers a day. Instead of aiming for a “well written article,” aim for writing 1000 words (that you can come back and edit). (View Highlight)
These are best framed as performance goals (as opposed to vanity goals). (View Highlight)
Bring your purpose to the top of your mind. This will help you filter signal from noise. If it isn’t conducive to your vision, it isn’t important (unless you’ve been convinced it is important by someone else). All of this takes time. Your signal (importance) to noise (distraction) ratio will improve as you do. (View Highlight)
Your perspective is based on your identity. With time, we want to work towards adopting a cosmic perspective. If you identify as the universe, human problems become minor, and you can begin working towards creative solutions to advance humanity. (View Highlight)
If your perspective is a part of the whole that is your identity, you evolve by transcending and including different perspectives until you’ve become the whole of the cosmos. Start by identifying with your future self, how would they approach situations? If you can do this, decision making will become automatic, as you are trying to survive the idea of your higher self. Perspective goes so deep. I’m planning another letter for it, but the main question is this: How can you view the situation that allows you to perceive it in a way that is conducive to action? (View Highlight)
Perceive the situation in a way that allows you to act in alignment with your purpose. Problems are only problems if you interpret them as such. If you don’t feel like getting out of bed, step back and think about your measly problem. (View Highlight)
You raise your consciousness by questioning everything, gaining awareness of a potential future, and learning to deal with those highs and lows… for life. You raise your consciousness even more by creating a holistic identity, like humanity or the cosmos, and expanding your mind to embody that perspective. Your behavior will follow, and true problems will reveal themselves that you can solve through creativity. (View Highlight)
Many conventional goals are challenging at the start, but that challenge soon fades. And, those challenges aren’t something you actually want to take on. Challenge narrows attention further. This helps eliminate distractions from taking you off the path. (View Highlight)
This isn’t a corporate gig where you stop evolving at a certain rung in the ladder. Avoid mindless repetition without progression. (View Highlight)
If creating your purpose, process, and priorities does not come easy to you, don’t fall into the quick fix mindset. (View Highlight)
The top pyramid – purpose, process, priority – creates a potential reality for you to create through your daily choices. These are responsible for extrapersonal neurotransmitters like dopamine. The bottom pyramid – consciousness, challenge, and clarity – create an ever increasing order in your mind. (View Highlight)