eBooks Cafe

What is one commitment you are continuing to do out of inertia, but—if you had the courage to eliminate it—you would immediately benefit from discarding it? @ebookscafe

Prevent work for work’s sake, and to do the minimum necessary for maximum effect (“minimum effective load”). Distribute recovery periods and adventures (mini-retirements) throughout life on a regular basis and recognize that inactivity is not the goal. Doing that which excites you is. Do all the things you want to do, and be all the things you want to be. If this includes some tools and gadgets, so be it, but they are either means to an end or bonuses, not the focus. Be neither the boss nor the employee, but the owner. To own the trains and have someone else ensure they run on time. Make a ton of money with specific reasons and defined dreams to chase, timelines and steps included. What are you working for? Have more quality and less clutter. To have huge financial reserves but recognize that most material wants are justifications for spending time on the things that don’t really matter, including buying things and preparing to buy things. You spent two weeks negotiating your new Infiniti with the dealership and got $10,000 off? That’s great. Does your life have a purpose? Are you contributing anything useful to this world, or just shuffling papers, banging on a keyboard, and coming home to a drunken existence on the weekends? Have freedom from doing that which you dislike, but also the freedom and resolve to pursue your dreams without reverting to work for work’s sake. After years of repetitive work, you will often need to dig hard to find your passions, redefine your dreams, and revive hobbies that you let atrophy to near extinction. The goal is not to simply eliminate the bad, which does nothing more than leave you with a vacuum, but to pursue and experience the best in the world. Tim Ferriss @ebookscafe

Entrepreneur Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, on failure: “When my brother and I were growing up, my father would encourage us to fail. We’d sit around the dinner table and he’d ask, “What did you guys fail at this week?” If we had nothing to tell him, he’d be disappointed. The logic seems counterintuitive, but it worked beautifully. He knew that many people become paralyzed by the fear of failure. They’re constantly afraid of what others will think if they don’t do a great job and, as a result, take no risks. My father wanted us to try everything and feel free to push the envelope. His attitude taught me to define failure as not trying something I want to do instead of not achieving the right outcome.” @ebookscafe

Poet Marianne Moore offers a simple life strategy: “I’ve made it a principle not to be over-influenced by minor disappointments.” @ebookscafe

Focus is how you knit the hours of the day together. With focus, the day becomes a beautiful tapestry. Without focus, you end up holding a bundle of loose string.” @ebookscafe

How do you want to feel at the end of today? What do you need to do now, so you can feel this way? @ebookscafe

Entrepreneur Phil Levin on the importance of neighborhoods: “You are going to spend 1000x more time in your surrounding 5 blocks than you will in any other neighborhood in your city. Thinking about all the things that New York City has—or the next city has—is a lot less important than thinking about the things within the five blocks where you live. Most neighborhoods in your city you might never step foot in. They might as well be in the other side of the country. But the things in your immediate vicinity are the things that are going to dominate your life. So picking and influencing your neighborhood is really important… the neighborhood determines quite a bit about our life and our happiness.” @ebookscafe

Author Cormac McCarthy on the benefits of bad luck: “You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” @ebookscafe

One of life’s counterintuitive lessons is that you will often gain energy by spending a little bit of energy. When you feel lethargic and like you want to lay around all day, it is usually the case that getting up and moving will make you feel better than simply sitting around. Getting outside for 10 minutes or doing the first set of a workout or simply stretching on the floor for a moment — anything to get your body moving — will often leave you feeling more energized. If you want to get your day going, then get your body going. It’s harder for the mind to be sluggish when the body is moving.” @ebookscafe

“If you feel resistance before you begin, it’s usually procrastination and you need to get started. If you feel resistance after you begin, it’s usually feedback and you need to make adjustments.” @ebookscafe