Author: Eric Jorgenson
Reading is faster than listening. Doing is faster than watching.
Study microeconomics, game theory, psychology, persuasion, ethics, mathematics, and computers.
There are no get-rich-quick schemes. Those are just someone else getting rich off you.
When you’re finally wealthy, you’ll realize it wasn’t what you were seeking in the first place. But that is for another day.
The best jobs are neither decreed nor degreed. They are creative expressions of continuous learners in free markets.
Similarly, being able to convey yourself simply using ordinary English words is far more important than being able to write poetry, having an extensive vocabulary,
I would argue this is the worst form of leverage that you could possibly use. Managing other people is incredibly messy. It requires tremendous leadership skills.
You start as a salaried employee. But you want to work your way up to try and get higher leverage, more accountability, and specific knowledge. The combination of those over a long period of time with the magic of compound
You have to watch your health.
Set a very high hourly aspirational rate for yourself and stick to it. It should seem and feel absurdly high. If it doesn’t, it’s not high enough.
Figure out what you’re good at, and start helping other people with it. Give it away. Pay it forward. Karma works because people are consistent.
Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow. When today is complete, in and of itself, you’re retired.
Well, one way is to have so much money saved that your passive income (without you lifting a finger) covers your burn rate. A second is you just drive your burn rate down to zero—you become a monk.
third is you’re doing something you love. You enjoy it so much, it’s not about the money. So there are multiple ways to retirement.
Money is not the root of all evil; there’s nothing evil about it. But the lust for money is bad. The lust for money is not bad in a social sense. It’s not bad in the sense of “you’re a bad person for lusting for money.” It’s bad for you.
I think the best way to stay away from this constant love of money is to not upgrade your lifestyle as you make money.
You put yourself in a position to capitalize on luck or to attract luck when nobody else created the opportunity for themselves.
People are oddly consistent. Karma is just you, repeating your patterns, virtues, and flaws until you finally get what you deserve. Always pay it forward. And don’t keep count.
Most of the time, the person you have to become to make money is a high-anxiety, high-stress, hard-working,
competitive person. When you have done that for twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years, and you suddenly make money, you can’t turn it off. You’ve trained yourself to be a high-anxiety person. Then, you have to learn how to be happy.
Buddha was a prince. He started off really rich, then he got to go off in the woods.
The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth.
A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform.
Facebook redesigns. Twitter redesigns. Personalities, careers, and teams also need redesigns. There are no permanent solutions in a dynamic system.
Then you’ll start believing your own lie, which will disconnect you from reality and take you down the wrong road.
praise specifically, criticize generally.
If you have a criticism of someone, then don’t criticize the person—criticize the general approach or criticize the class of activities. If you have to praise somebody, then always try and find the person who is the best example of what you’re praising and praise the person, specifically.
IF YOU CAN’T DECIDE, THE ANSWER IS NO.
Fewer desires I can have, the more I can accept the current state of things, the less my mind is moving, because the mind really exists in motion toward the future or the past. The more present I am, the happier and more content I will be.
To a tree, there is no concept of right or wrong, good or bad. You’re born, you have a whole set of sensory experiences and stimulations (lights, colors, and sounds), and then you die. How
I think people believe neutrality would be a very bland existence. No, this is the existence little children live. If you look at little children, on balance, they’re generally pretty
We think of ourselves as fixed and the world as malleable, but it’s really we who are malleable and the world is largely fixed.
Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts.” It means enlightenment isn’t something you achieve after thirty years sitting on a mountaintop. It’s something you can achieve moment to moment, and you can be enlightened to a certain percent every single day.
It’s someone who effortlessly interprets events in such a way that they don’t lose their innate peace.
I think the most common mistake for humanity is believing you’re going to be made happy because of some external circumstance
The idea you’re going to change something in the outside world, and that is going to bring you the peace, everlasting joy, and happiness you deserve, is a fundamental delusion.
Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale
When working, surround yourself with people more successful than you. When playing, surround yourself with people happier than you.
Your breath is one of the few places where your autonomic nervous system meets your voluntary nervous system.
Now, the freedom I’m looking for is internal freedom. It’s “freedom from.” Freedom from reaction. Freedom from feeling angry. Freedom from being sad. Freedom from being forced to do things. I’m
I think it’s actually very bad for your happiness. To me, the mind should be a servant and a tool, not a master. My monkey mind should not control and drive me 24/7.
Anger was good when I was young and full of testosterone, but now I like the Buddhist saying, “Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody.”
Inspiration is perishable—act on it immediately.