Wealth & The Mechanics of Leverage
“Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep.”
- Rent vs. Own: You will not get rich renting out your time. You must own equity—a piece of a business—to gain your financial freedom.
- Specific Knowledge: Pursue your innate curiosity and passion rather than whatever is “hot.” Specific knowledge feels like play to you but looks like work to others.
- The Four Types of Leverage:
- Labor: People working for you (the oldest and most difficult form).
- Capital: Money working for you (requires someone to give it to you).
- Code: Software that works while you sleep (permissionless).
- Media: Content that works while you sleep (permissionless).
- Permissionless Leverage: Code and media are the leverage of the newly rich. You don’t need anyone’s permission to build an app or record a video.
- Judgment is the Moat: In an age of infinite leverage, judgment is the most important skill. One good decision can move the needle more than a thousand hours of labor.
- Learn to Sell, Learn to Build: If you can do both, you will be unstoppable.
- Compound Interest: All returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest. Play long-term games with long-term people.
- Accountability: Take business risks under your own name. Society will reward you with responsibility, equity, and leverage.
- Hourly Rate: Set a high personal hourly rate and strictly enforce it. If a task can be outsourced for less than your rate, outsource it.
- Work Like a Lion: The modern world doesn’t require “grazing” (9-5). Sprint, then rest, then reassess.
- Escaping Competition: Authenticity is the ultimate moat. No one can compete with you at being you.
Happiness, Peace & Internal Management
“Happiness is a choice you make and a skill you develop.”
- The Desire Contract: Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.
- Peace vs. Happiness: Peace is happiness at rest; happiness is peace in motion.
- Reality is Neutral: Events have no inherent meaning. The “good” or “bad” is just the layer your ego adds to the facts.
- Meditation is Self-Observation: Meditation is not a sit-down practice; it is the act of watching your own thoughts 24/7.
- The Modern Struggle: Most modern diseases are diseases of abundance (too much sugar, too much news, too much dopamine).
- Total Honesty: Being honest with everyone creates a clear mind. Lies create “mental debt” because you have to remember them.
- Envy is a Trap: You cannot “cherry-pick” parts of someone else’s life. If you want their success, you must also take their failures and their daily anxieties.
- Acceptance: If you can’t change a situation, accept it. If you can’t accept it, change it. Anything else is just suffering.
- The Gap: Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts.
Decision Making & Learning
“The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”
- Read What You Love: Read what you love until you love to read.
- Meta-Skills: Reading, writing, and arithmetic (logic) are the only skills that matter. Everything else is built on top of them.
- Heuristic for “No”: If you can’t decide, the answer is no.
- The Hard Path: If you have two choices of equal value, take the one that is more painful in the short term. This usually leads to long-term gain.
- Mental Models over Facts: It is better to understand the basics of physics and economics than to memorize current events.
- Unlearning: You must unlearn the things that no longer serve you to make room for new growth.
- The Feynman Test: If you can’t explain a concept to a child, you don’t truly understand it.
Rapid-Fire Aphorisms
- Be a maker, not a manager.
- Value your time at $0/hour when you are “playing.”
- Avoid status games; they make you miserable and mean.
- If they can train you to do it, they will eventually train a computer to do it.
- Guilt is just your ego beating itself up.
- If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy?
- Wealth gives you freedom, not happiness.
- Impatience with actions, patience with results.
- Intentions don’t matter. Actions do.
- Authenticity is the best marketing.
- Wisdom is knowing the long-term consequences of your actions.
- The best way to get lucky is to be the best at what you do.
- Privacy is a superpower.
- Choose your friends carefully; you become the average of them.
- The gym is the only place where you pay to suffer.
- Most “news” is just noise designed to make you angry.
- Focus on the things that don’t change.
- True wealth is the ability to ignore the phone.
- A busy mind accelerates the passage of time.
- Solitude is where exceptional people are built.
- Don’t partner with someone you wouldn’t work with for a decade.
- Fasting is a cleanse for the body; meditation for the mind.
- You are going to die. Nothing matters.
- Because nothing matters, you are free to do whatever you want.
- Success is for the person who is obsessed.
- Be present. The past and future are just thoughts.
- Discipline is the bridge to freedom.
- Inspiration is perishable. Act on it now.
- Work harder on yourself than you do on your job.
- Specific knowledge is often found in things that look like “play” to others.
- The world is run by people who are just as confused as you.
- Find a mentor in a book.
- Consistency is more important than intensity.
- Your character is your destiny.
- Be the person who does what they say they will do.
- Live far below your means to be free.
- Happiness is what’s left when you remove the sense that “something is missing.”
- Suffering is the moment you see things as they really are.
- Praise specifically, criticize generally.
- The more you know, the less you need to say.
- Escape competition through authenticity.
- Play long-term games with long-term people.
- Be a student of everything.
- Self-obsession is the root of all misery.
- Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at someone else.
- Tension is who you think you should be; relaxation is who you are.
- Free education is abundant; it’s the desire to learn that is scarce.
- Everything is a trade-off.
- Earn with your mind, not your time.
- Life is a single-player game.
- Retirement is when you stop sacrificing today for an imaginary tomorrow.
- The goal is not to be the most successful person, but the most liberated.