I wanted to list my favorite frames, strategies, thought experiments, and meditations. Many of them will overlap, and that’s good. Seeing the frame from different perspectives will deepen understanding. All meditations are based on the fact that most thoughts are false. Each meditation strives to bring clarity. A bad meditation, on the other hand, makes life less clear. That means a good question collapses reality into a single word.
Disclaimers.
(1) Even though overthinking is bad, not thinking at all is even worse.
(2) Do not use strategy on people you know. Strategy is for the world where times are uncertain and people
sometimes malicious.
(3) If your goals in life differ from mine significantly, don't listen to me.
(4) Almost all frames have implicit assumptions or context.
(6) I cannot teach when which frame applies.
(7) You are responsible for your actions.
The prerequisite to all decisions is clarity. Here’s a rule to remember for the rest of your life: Arguing with a defeated mind is like going to the gym with a broken arm. Never make decisions when you’re tired, horny, hungry, thirsty, ... Nothing good happens past midnight.
Let’s get started.
1. It’s faster to do than it is to think.
Recently, I talked to a sixty-year-old guy, and he told me that he had been thinking about attending university for fifteen years. He said he feared looking stupid. The reality is, his degree would have only taken three years. So, I said, apply today and then see how you feel about it. (Akin to the motto, act-asses-adjust.) You see, he was hoping that more thinking would reveal more insight, which it didn’t.
I indulge in this superstition much more often than I want as well. Sometimes I don’t know where I want to walk, and as a result, I waste two hours without going for a walk.
I have established a rule: I think no more than a quarter of the time.
2. I shall see
In life, information is scarce. Excessive thinking rarely increases the amount of useful information. So, go for it. This principle is perhaps the most important I’m discussing today. If waiting won’t reveal meaningful information, you can make a decision now, and it shall be free of regret.
If overthinking a decision were the way forward, philosophers would be the most fulfilled people. Even if you had more information, it does not mean that you would interpret it correctly. Furthermore, it is common knowledge that you can make data say whatever you want if you look at it hard enough.
Put broadly, most moral philosophy can be eliminated. For example, many break apart on the question of whether abortion is morally correct. This is the wrong question. Rather, the question should be whether this moral crime is worth the material improvement.
What do you gain by waiting? No matter how much you think about it, you will keep going in a zig-zag between perspectives, which will all contradict each other. But more information won’t reveal itself – hence, it is more useful to ask not whether the action is right but whether you’re willing to live with the consequences.
Stop interpreting everything all the time! Truly. Decide, then assess. You can’t know the future. Adaptability is supreme excellence.
3. Don’t climb the wall when there’s an open door
Most thoughts create a wall between you and your potential. As such, they do no scale. These thoughts are a manifestation of a much broader insight – people find pleasure in overthinking because the mind craves to be busy. The mind of a warrior will turn inward in times of peace. But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
If you’ve ever attended a psychology lecture, they will discuss many fancy ideas. Confidence, self-esteem, and motivation. But what good are those?
Let’s start simple. Motivation is useless. It’s either you do the thing or you don’t. Thinking about finding energy for the things isn’t doing the thing. The same with courage or confidence – either you do it or you don’t. Motivation and courage are amazing, but they are means to an end. Stop building bridges where there are no cliffs! Imagine how far you could come if you simplified your thoughts to where they become pure action. You will live more peacefully if you ask, ‘Did I do the thing?’ versus when you ask, ‘Why was I not confident enough to do it?’ One is action, and the other is a maze of abstract ideas.
Self-esteem is a particularly annoying mental wall. It’s simple: if you think for long enough, you will certainly conclude that you are secretly a loser. Therefore, thinking of self-esteem almost always allows evil thoughts to penetrate your mind. “You must become so secure in yourself that self-esteem no longer becomes an object,” is the phrase I often hear, but it unfortunately does not mean anything; it’s just a word salad people use to gain social status. If it were so productive, the people saying it would not struggle from getting a thrashing from their conscience. And that’s exactly my point: you either feel like a piece of shit or you feel alright. Why should you add ten concepts in between? Instead of fighting the root problem, you’d be adding ten more enemies. It’s almost as if you secretly enjoy it. Psychological struggle is caused by poor mental health. And that is caused by living an inferior life rather than ‘unresolved childhood trauma.’ As such, energy must be directed at fixing the life rather than fixing the symptom.
Affirmations, manifestations, and visualizations are important, but taking action will always have a higher return on investment. Just do the thing. Thinking about the thing isn’t doing the thing. Making plans isn’t doing the thing. Doing the thing is doing the thing.
Thinking a bit broader, most of life’s problems are solved by ignorance. What you consider to be a problem most likely isn’t. That’s how you scale: you decide that most things are not worth thinking about.
4. Directional correctness
My family doesn’t like the fact I create videos and write texts.
“You’re just as delusional as you thirteen year old sister when she said she wanted to marry a millionaire. You
know you sister also once wanted to get big on social media...”
“Across four years I uploaded over five hundred videos.”
Silence.
People will always criticise what you do and they will be right ninety nine times out of hundred. Yet, there’s no glory in being a cynic; there’s glory in winning. You win by moving in the right direction. Step by step.
5. Ten times bigger.
What people call genius is seeing the obvious. You’ve all heard the saying “An idiot admires complexity; a genius admires simplicity.” A truly monumental programmer made it, so he knew what he was talking about. A lot of you don’t find programming sexy, but who cares? The idea of thinking ten times bigger naturally arises in programming, business, and all other enterprises. Instead of asking yourself how to make something a bit better, ask yourself how to make it ten times better. That will force you to think from the ground up. When you think from the ground up, you will find solutions no one else saw – hence, the genius.
The real world is full of such examples. A car is ten times faster than walking; flying is ten times faster than driving. As you can see, there’s nothing a car and a plane have in common except that they’re perhaps both not edible. The mode by which they operate is entirely different.
You can walk a mile, but you’ll almost certainly drive ten. Getting better grades is good, but what about skipping a grade? The size of your problem determines how free your thoughts must be. Seeking a five percent improvement forces you to iterate; seeking a thousand percent improvement forces you to innovate. It is a different mentality.
Hence, I make no compromise: this is my favorite frame.
If you think, think big.
6. Ten steps ahead
The mediocre man does not assess his actions. Let’s say the new television is fifty percent off. He would be pleased to save hundreds of euros. But what will happen when he has a new television? He will probably have more inclination to use it. When he watches more television, he will have less time. When he has less time, his spirit will remain trapped. When his spirit is trapped, he will not innovate. When he does not innovate, he will not get a raise, and his wife will refuse intimacy for another month, because she’s losing respect for him. So, by saving two hundred euros, he made his life overall five percent worse – that’s tens of thousands in cash.
Consider what will happen ten steps down the line.
Ten times bigger and ten steps ahead... that’s a hundred times more effective.
7. A year has passed and things have gone horribly wrong.
But before you go for it, ask yourself something. How could it go wrong? That will help you build bulletproof plans. When I ask this question, I see exactly what needs to be done. Anticipate the worst to architect the best
8. Time will pass anyway.
I find great relief in expanding my time horizon.
I am skinny considering that I have been resistance training for three years. Many things went wrong; I was inconsistent, didn’t eat enough, and lifted more for ego than for muscle. But who cares? Even if it takes me a decade to figure out training, I will be just twenty-five. I think ten times bigger – what can I achieve by training for twenty years?
In ten years, will this matter?
9. Be precise in your calculations when you have the number
Save time, not money.
You must get used to thinking of your time in terms of cash. That will bring peace; thinking about that one text message you didn’t reply to will feel too expensive.
I value my time at fifty euros per hour. I could start working as a programmer and earn that exact salary. I will amount to something, so I could easily justify valuing my time at a hundred euros per hour. I avoid people who don’t share this mentality and instead try to live the low-energy-money-obsessed way. If someone spends one hour to save three euros, it tells me that they are insane. I don’t like insane people.
Saving money will make you make less money overall. If you’re not willing to spend on education, food, and tools to improve your productivity, you will see fewer results in life. Your beliefs will also deteriorate, or does a three-euro-saver inspire positivity and growth?
Still, you’re supposed to waste all your money; don’t be stupid. Yet, even if you don't have money to spend, you will benefit from applying this frame. After all, who's going to use his time better, the one who values his time at zero or a hundred euros per hour?
*****
Thinking big is a habit. Get used to it.
10. The goal fallacy.
“If I want to build a business, should I aim to become a millionaire or billionaire?”
Well, how many things have you sold?
“I’m not trying to be a player.”
You’ve been rejected four times by the same six out of ten for fourteen months straight.
“I don’t want to go to the gym as I don’t want to be a bodybuilder.”
The last time you moved was when the buffet opened, you fat bitch!
“I’m not trying to be rich—I just want to be happy.”
But you’ve just been to a protest to lower your rent.
“I don’t want to be one of those guys who count every calorie.”
Your diet fills my blood with fury!
“I don’t want people to stalk me.”
Your video got five views, and none watched till the end.
“I don’t want to sacrifice my youth for a job. I’m not trying to become a productivity machine.”
You have a screen time of four hours!
No. You can do better.
11. What will not change?
Beginners are obsessed with trends. They ask where the political and economic state of the world is going. Let me tell you – no one knows what the future is headed, and your predictions are almost certainly useless. In times of great uncertainty, we must focus on the constants. No matter whether artificial intelligence replaces humans or not, going to the gym will not be the wrong choice. No matter whether climate change will end humanity, exceptional talent will be in demand. No matter what you’re going through, the person who is brave, hardworking, and smart will beat the lazy person.
Indeed, a masculine spirit yearns a thread to the eternal.
12. The default answer is no.
Most ideas are dangerous, unproductive, and false. Hence, I am conservative. If I accepted every idea, I would arrive nowhere. I do not operate in the realm of what could be; thus, I feel no pressure to change things that work. In fact, distractions are life’s biggest temptation. Women, obligations, small compromises—they don’t enter your life with weapons drawn. They entered because you lacked a wall. He who has no border will become someone else’s territory.
You must get used to saying no, ignoring messages, and not attending parties you don’t want to go to. Here’s a good frame to stop being a pushover: if someone asks you something, flip the request. Can you expect a yes if you were the one asking? If no, ignore the request. There’s an important caveat here. When your classmates ask you for homework, you should give it to them because one day you might be the one asking.
A few days ago, there was a massive party at my university. I thought about going, but the fact that I thought about it told me that I shouldn’t be going. Likewise, when you have to debate whether to take a girl, the answer is no. If you dismiss every debate with a no, imagine how peaceful your life will be.
Saying no hurts for the first fifty times, and then it becomes the new norm. I say no without excuses. I never say I don’t have time because everyone sees through that. I just say ‘No,’ and that’s a complete sentence. Don’t be the guy who says yes and then makes an excuse a few days later. Say ‘no’ and say ‘yes’ when you’ve changed your mind.
I have no interest in being smart. I have no interest in being strong. I have no interest in being nice. I only care about winning with a mind at peace. If winning makes me look stupid, confused, and mean, so be it.
Let’s think bigger. A big part of existence is about cutting, letting go, releasing, ... and those are all manifestations of denial. Hence, “What can I add?” should be replaced by “What can I subtract?” Indeed, less is more. To get better, you need to focus – focus is the skill of accepting that your time is limited – it’s to cut off the branches that don’t grow.
13. Invert
Let’s continue discussing the word that starts with ‘n’ and ends with ‘o.’ But here in a different context – framing the no as the default.
I never ask: “Do you like ...?”, “Do you want to ...?”, or even worse, “What do you want to do?” Instead, I ask, “Do you have a problem with ...?”
People are more hesitant to say yes than they are to say no. Also, when you’re asking whether someone likes something, they will try to recall experiences associated with that thing. But the human mind is built such that their perception will match their mood rather than their objective experiences. That means, unless they’re ecstatic, they will rate whatever is in front of them as four out of ten. ‘Nah, I’m not so sure...’ The longer they think, the worse their opinion will get, which makes a ‘yes’ less likely. (Hence, my beef with self-esteem: if you think for long enough, you’ll conclude that you’re secretly a loser.) But when you frame the question the opposite way, meaning, you ask for the negative, they will instead think ‘Man, this is actually decent...’
When you ask, “Do you have a problem with that?” you’re in charge of the conversation. You can even do this with superiors. For example, I asked my professor not whether he liked my designs. He said, “They’re decent.”
The same idea holds true in the context of making decisions.
“While the road to success can seem blurry, the road to failure is straightforward. Humans are exceptional at detecting problems. Asking yourself how to fail quickly and then flipping the answer is magnitudes more effective than asking yourself how to succeed. Life is simple.” – text #119
14. Choose the problem.
Becoming a doctor may earn you recognition and income, but so will building a company, assuming you succeed. The truth is, nearly any field can lead to money and status. If the rewards are similar, you must focus on the problems.
Can you enter a flow with the task at hand? Being a doctor is about as demanding as being the type of lawyer seen in movies. With one, you’re looking at documents all day, with the other, you’re looking at death and decay. I can tell you, no matter how much I practiced reading documents, it will still feel like sandpaper.
You can’t manufacture obsession. Deep in the marrow of your being, something is moving beyond your command. This also holds with people. The very trait that draws you in today can push you away tomorrow. For example, with spontaneity comes recklessness. My family calls me toxic because I don’t compromise. But that’s what brought me ahead. Such is the duality of existence.
15. You believe what you’re willing to die for.
The dictionary definition of ‘to believe’ is to think that something is true. That’s a very circular definition. At its core, a belief is an idea you’re willing to die for. For instance, when you cross the road, you bet your life that you won’t be hit. If your “belief” dissolves under pressure, it was never a belief—just a preference, opinion, or mood. And that’s okay, but then, don’t say ‘I believe’ unless you mean it. If you don’t mean it, be open-minded and don’t cling too hard. Most things in life aren’t that serious.
16. If opposite views exist, they’re both irrelevant.
After prom, my best friend and I conversed. He asked me to reflect upon the night. I said that this was the second time I had talked to a woman that year, thus no one knew I existed. “How does that make you feel?” I said, “The fact that no blonde knows I exist could despair me, or it could liberate me. Those are opposite emotions; one brings a knot to the chest, the other unties it. But because both are valid, neither of them matters. I must instead bundle my attention on changing that.” That was three weeks ago, and things have changed. Yet, this principle remains timeless. Some people debate morning routines – no one debates consistency.
17. “Who are you to speak?”
Fancy people insist we’re not supposed to do ad hominem attacks. “Disregarding a person’s argument by attacking their character is a sign of weakness, and you should take the argument at face value.” I disagree with those nerds. This is why philosophy has gone down the drain in the last hundred years – because we started to take depressed philosophers seriously, and made their depression the new enlightenment.
It would be disastrous if we took everyone’s opinion seriously without judging the life they’re living. Okay, imagine an ideal world. In this ideal world, people never consider where an argument came from and only look at it “objectively.” Now, you’re in a relationship, and then some loser writes your girl the best conceivable combination of words. Because those words are so perfect and she looks at them without considering his person, she is convinced that he’s the superior choice. Hence, she leaves you. We can see that speaking (or rather, lying) becomes the only skill in life. No one grows food, no one builds roads. Combining words becomes the only activity. Hence, everyone starves to death.
It is monumentally important to tie words to their speaker. Otherwise, you end up with beautiful, empty words. You can be glad you girl won’t leave for the loser who’s mastered the art of speaking. The ancients always knew it: you are inseparable from your word.
So, in order to live a peaceful life, look at who a person is before deciding whether you should listen. Ask yourself, are they living the life you want? That’s it. Everyone else is not worth talking to. As the sages said, “When you’re debating with a stupid person, be careful: bystanders may not know where to look for the smart one.”
Listen to people closest to your goals. The rest can be dismissed safely. Sometimes, the others will be right, but a broken clock is also right twice a day. Life is more peaceful if you listen to those who have done what you want to do.
18. The rich idiot
You can drop your self-limiting beliefs, and nothing bad will happen. Almost every conceivable thing has already been achieved by an inferior man. Just leave the house on Valentine’s Day, and you shall see irrefutable evidence.
19. Holding frame
I’m going to tell you a short version of my greatest story.
At 14 years old, I faced overwhelming pressure: academic overload, forced obligations, and a family intent on dragging me back to ‘normal.’ I was two years younger than my peers, since I had just skipped 9th grade. I was in a professional programming course, because I was building my first business, and on top of that, I was being suffocated by swimming classes and pointless tutoring. I hated it all. My time, energy, and will were under siege.
My mother tried to make me quit—tried to reroute me back to a life I refused: mediocre university, mediocre job, mediocre partner. But I held frame. I ignored every voice but my own because I knew what I wanted—and what I couldn’t tolerate.
Eventually, my skills caught up to my ambition. I cut out distractions, repurposed dead time, and built a system that worked. But the key was that I didn’t fold under pressure. Had I broken then, the chain reaction would have ended everything.
This was the first true test of my masculine frame. And I passed. When you know what needs to be done, you can safely discard everyone’s opinion. Life is here to test you.
20. Bravery is rarer than intelligence
Let’s continue discussing bravery.
Once you go to university, you’ll realize that intelligence is the norm. When you’re surrounded by geniuses, you have to find other criteria to distinguish yourself. Bravery. Because that skill is rarer, it pays more. Dedication also pays more than intelligence.
21. The big and obvious thing
I urge you, always return to the basics. If you think complicated, you cannot think big. Scaling simplicity is complicated enough.
“What’s the biggest thing holding me back?”
22. Choose a girl who chooses you.
If you chase a girl who does not want you, your quality of life will decline. If you don’t believe me, read my first one hundred and forty texts. Every hour dedicated towards chasing a girl who does not want you is an hour that could be spent at the gym – and it only takes a thousand hours to get muscular. You could, of course, get her, but then you’re going to be a part of the ninety percent whose quality of life drives off a cliff after marriage. I don’t need to mention that her respect will decline and respect is one of those things you can’t repair. Also, what exactly are you going to do after you’re done chasing? Humans aren’t supposed to stop. So, get real goals.
However, there is an important difference between pursuing and obsessing, leading and controlling, or flirting and harassing. The difference is you.
The principle behind choosing a girl who chooses you is fundamental to life. Passion cannot be taught. When you’ve found that which is meant to stay, you will know. You can let go of the pressure to find the perfect thing. Instead, you can direct your entire attention toward the search. Every cowboy will tell you: you don’t choose the horse, the horse chooses you.
That does not mean that you should take every girl who shows you interest. If there five girls into you, no one forces you to pick one and you should definetly not pick one because you think you owe it. That also means, if there aren’t any girls into you, relax and start putting in the work.
When you’re not sure she wants you, the answer is no. If a girl is into you, you will know.
The supreme fighter knows which battles to avoid.
23. To hell with communication
If you cannot communicate, you cannot get your way – that is a first principle. Therefore, you must be able to communicate well.
But again, there’s important context. People usually bring up effective communication in the setting of romantic relationships, and there, it has a different meaning: ‘I can talk away my low standards by changing people.’ Again, read the first one hundred and forty texts on my blog, and you will see how much time and energy went down the drain. Communication cannot replace standards.
Let’s say you don’t have to negotiate obvious things because you’ve increased your standards. Does communication matter then? No. There’s more to life. If clear communication were a solution, life would be paradise. It is irrational to expect the irrational to behave rationally, just as it is impossible for evil people to do no harm.
“…then they say that I’m being insecure for defending my values. May I be proudly insecure! Speaking of insecurity, three hundred years ago, being secure meant risking your life in a duel – now it means getting a shoe thrown in the face while forcing a smile – while being told that it’s healthy. How secure indeed. Isn’t that satanic? Don’t you see how these people are gaslighting you? … They may mean to be evil; deception is fundamental to existence. All living things deceive in order to preserve themselves, only some lie because they are malicious. Given that deception is a fundamental part of existence, what use has ‘clear communication’? “No, he’s just a friend.” “Our product is the best.” “Do this and you will be happy.” Is there really a difference between communication and deception? You must get used to reading between the lines. You must understand that you want to believe lies, they comfort. Hence, being able to detect deception is orders of monumentally superior to clear communication.” - Notes from my diary, April 2025.
Don’t communicate with the enemy.
Deceive, confuse, destroy.
Don’t negotiate values.
Impose clarity.
Don’t explain betrayal.
Exit.
Words are smoke.
Explanations are weakness.
To move without talking,
To judge without debating,
To disappear without apology —
This is the way of the unmoved.
Nevertheless, communicate as little as possible. Never overexplain. Never speak when you can only lose. Never speak when you just want to feel better, especially if its the other persons detriment. You don't know which danger you're putting yourself in.
I believe it is better to find high quality people than it is to fix people by communicating. As a matter of fact, that kind of communication makes everyone lose respect for you. Hence, high standards prevent nasty exeriences. Once you’ve found your people communicate as much and as clearly as you want.
24. “Well, you know the system...”
Many of my frames stem from a single conversation with a sixty-year-old beta, previously I thought they were obvious. When a man begins his sentence with “Well, you know, people in ... are just that way,” “The economy is...,” “The system is...” or “Society doesn’t want you to...” he has already surrendered. I don’t need to explain that those people have already given up. Now they only want to harvest empathy for their cowardice.
Yet, sometimes, people mean what they say and they genuinely believe that, for example, people are a certain way. The issue is, they mistake the three losers from high school for society. Hence, their environment is their problem.
Beware those who explain too much.
The wise man refines his work; the loser refines his excuse.
25. Bring flowers
An extra step can get you very far. People say effort is overrated. They’re wrong. Most people just apply it in the wrong places. They don’t understand leverage.
In 2023, I stuttered like an idiot. I’d been trying to fix it since 2022. I hired a professional. I trained. I improved. But I still sounded like a broken transmission. When I tried to make videos on self-improvement, I had to record each one six times. Editing them was hell. Watching them was worse. And no matter how hard I tried, I was too stupid to memorize even a 300-word script.
Then came the summer. On July 12th, 2023, I made a decision: For the next 14 days, I would record myself for five minutes a day—unscripted, unprepared, no second takes. By the end, I had 57 minutes and 2 seconds of footage. And my stutters had halved. Fifty-seven minutes of real work solved a five-year problem.
This isn’t a story about speaking. It’s a story about speed and consistency.
26. Two steps forward, one step back.
Recently, I had a bit of a problem. My right shoulder hurt while training. So, for two weeks, I was paying attention to my shoulder. As it turns out, I was unconsciously tensing it and so it tended upward. So, for a week, I paid attention to my shoulder and trained practically without weight but with absolute focus. Today, I resumed training the normal way – and guess what, the weight I was able to lift increased. It is often faster to go back and do it right.
Tactical retreats are the hardest moves to see.
27. Am I being a bitch?
When do you quit and when do you double down? When are you climbing the wrong ladder, and when are just tired?
Most things in life are unknowable. Hence, this is the hardest category of decisions. It is fundamentally impossible to know whether you’ve made the right choice as you’re making it.
Nevertheless, I’ve come across a frame: Would you switch to something more or equally difficult? Someone I knew complained about university. She wasn’t sure whether she was studying the right thing; she dreamed of switching to psychology. I then told her to email the psychology department to get the timetables. That way, she could join the lecture without any pressure and see whether the interest was genuine or whether the grass was just being greener on the other side. She wrote the email, got the schedules, but her interest to visit a psychology lecture collapsed to zero. Since then, she has never complained about switching.
Hard is meant to feel hard, and that’s okay. Stop expecting hard things to feel easy.
28. Misguided desire
Most work jobs they don’t like to buy stuff they don’t need. So, if objects don’t bring happiness, what does? Maybe lying on the beach and overeating do?
A motorhome sounds like a cool toy. It costs a hundred thousand euros. The average person makes fifty thousand euros per year, half of it is gone to taxes and another third for expenses. If were optimistic, ten thousand will be left at the end of the year. That means a motorhome costs ten years of life. Ten years of getting up against your will for a silly car that then has even more expenses on top of it. Really? Is that your ambition in life?
What would you work if you couldn’t spend your money?
What would you work if you were already a billionaire?
What if she weren’t hot?
Dating someone for being hot is the exact same mentality as working a job for its money. Truly, is that your ambition in life?
29. Unteachable lessons
It seems that people repeat the same mistakes over and over again. They mistake desire for love, they work themselves to the resentment of their children, and they don’t smile enough. Final regrets are suspiciously similar.
“If people would just learn from their ancestors’ regrets, the world would be perfect.” But would it? Well, reality proves that wisdom cannot be taught. Why? Because of context. One person may say they regret having worked too hard, and then say that you have to grind if you want to amount to something five minutes later. Those statements are clearly contradictions – all because you lack nuance.
Many will repeat a slogan, for instance, ‘I regret having worked too hard.’ Let's apply this slogan to a context. ‘I regret having spent my life at the factory, I did not like working just for my children to resent me because I’ve been absent.’ Suddenly, this vague pressure against working hard becomes very concrete: avoid work you hate and spend more time with your children.
If you’re going to learn from others’ regret, do so by taking the full story into account – otherwise, you’ll jump from one contradictory slogan to the next.
But again, some lessons remain unteachable because your feelings get in the way. Let me illustrate – you’re overthinking a relationship.
“You two look perfect together.” vs “You’re not supposed to date just because she’s hot.”
“You deserve to be happy.” vs “She’s holding you back.”
“You’re so lucky to have her.” vs “Well, three guys from the gym have already been with her.”
“Relationships take work.” vs “You’re addicted to the idea of her, not the reality.”
“Nobody’s perfect.” vs “You can do better.”
As you can see, these slogans contradict each other. So, you’re basically on your own – but so is everyone else. So, don’t pressure yourself into strategic brilliance all the time. Expect to make many mistakes.
30. What is valuable is difficult. What is difficult is not always valuable.
You can dedicate your life to memorizing a phone book. That will not summon hot blondes. You must know very clearly what you want. If you want strength, face weakness. If you want health, eat healthily. If you want freedom, say no to most things. In life, you can do anything. The question is, is it worth it? You must not confuse difficult with valuable.
“Well, I study three things at once, and work one hundred hours per week...” – Are you really working or just
pretending to be?
“I shower cold.” – That’s healthy, but that doesn’t mean you stopped being a nerd.
“I have a six pack.” – Respect the grind, but where are the sets talking to women.
“I have a lot of crypto.” – But still no real skills.
“I can speak five languages.” – You still bore the hell out of me. I didn’t know how could say so little in so
much time.
In all these cases, you’re doing something hard as a substitute for the actual hardship you’re avoiding. Thus, most things you do are useless.
Let me conduct a case study. Should you take a semester abroad to get out of your comfort zone? If your goal is to study a culture and potentially move to that country, yes. If your goal is adventure, no. If we’re talking about adventure, we can see that it’s a fake one. The real adventure would be moving to that country to start a business. But even then, it is often better to start a business in your own country because then you have to think about fewer things. Simplicity wins.
Here’s another example. Most of your work changes nothing about the reality of things. Over and over again, studies prove that an eight-hour work day only contains two hours of actual work. The rest shallow work that feels exhausting but does nothing. More often than not, it makes things worse because it distracts you from your goals. A mule works all day long – a lion hunts for ten minutes.
Do what is necessary, not what is hard. Lean beyond your true edge and don’t fake it.
31. I cannot give up; I cannot fatigue, for my resilience knows no bounds.
You must position yourself such that defeat becomes impossible.
If you cannot lose, you can only win.
See every action as an iteration.
Detach yourself from all things.
Take risks with asymmetrical returns.
And if all fails—write.
To conquer all, do not seek to win;
seek to get better.
To stand undefeated, step outside the contest.
He who does not chase victory
cannot be baited into loss.
The man who cannot lose
Holds nothing too tightly—
And thus, nothing slips away.
What depends on the whim of others
is not truly yours.
He who made fire his ally does not run from heat.
He prepares for betrayal before friendship.
He expects storms before sunshine.
32. You have to win just once.
I currently care about three things. Enlightenment, women, and health. By enlightenment, I mean living a good life, a life of adventure. That’s why I’m acquiring skills, reading, meditating, praying, and taking risks. Enlightenment is seeing things for what they are. By learning, you’re seeing reality more clearly. The other two things are obvious.
I, however, understand that the previous three sentences were irrelevant. In life, you just have to do one thing. Someone will be remembered for writing one exceptional song, one exceptional book, starting one exceptional business, or raising one exceptional child.
Your biggest task in life is finding your destiny. Figuring out what you want or are meant to do is the difficult part. The only thing that matters is getting as many iterations towards your goals as possible.
The rest is completely irrelevant.
This perspective shall bring you relief.
33. Stop hoping for things to change.
The biggest mistake in man is thinking that one day things will be different. Once this, then that. But how much longer will you allow yourself to be deceived?