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Pirated from the Brainfood mail by farnamstreetblog.com.
Sign up there, always use’ful.
Hence the share.
More fiction has been told in Microsoft Excel than in books.
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Everyone gets knocked down; the difference is who stays down.
When you’re on the ground, you’ll hear people saying, ‘That’s not fair’ or ‘That shouldn’t happen.’ The longer you lie there, the louder the voices become.
Getting up isn’t easy, but it’s the only way forward.
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If you want to get paid, find the contrast.
No one hears you if you sneeze in the middle of New York. But if you sneeze in a library, everyone does. The same concept applies to work.
It’s better to dominate a small pond than drown in an ocean.
Insights
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Will Ahmed on what success means:
“Success is being excited to go to work and being excited to come home.”
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Vincent Van Gogh on the accumulation of small things:
“Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. The trick is to focus on the first small thing. Starting small is still starting, and small beginnings often lead to extraordinary endings.”
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Russell M. Fowler illustrates how our very tendencies that drive progress often pave the way for downturns:
“Maybe the reason the business cycle endures is the economy is solidly based on human nature. When things are going good, some human reactions occur: overconfidence, complacency, poor workmanship, greed, over expansion, mistakes; all bad and leading to a downturn. Then when things are going bad, there is a tendency to shape up and turn things around. Maybe that’s all there is to it.”
Mental Model of the Week
V2 | Physics | Leverage
Leverage is the force multiplier of the world, the principle that allows the small to move the large and the few to influence the many. It’s the idea that a little force, strategically applied, can yield outsize outputs.
At its core, leverage is amplification. Think of a crowbar prying two boards apart or a pulley system hoisting a heavy load. In each case, the applied force is multiplied. But leverage isn’t just useful in physics. Rather, it’s a principle that applies across our lives.
Leverage is often lurking in the background of nonlinear outcomes. Consider the author who took the ideas in their head, put them in a book, and sold millions of copies, or the Wall Street investor who made a single decision that resulted in billions. Or even the CEO who directs the people working for them. All of these examples are leverage in action.
In personal development, leverage is about identifying the key habits, skills, and relationships that will impact your life and work most. It’s about focusing your energy on the critical few rather than the trivial many, about finding the points of maximum leverage where small changes can cascade into massive results.
