Daniel's notes on Shane Parrish

Big ambitions, low expectations, and high standards are a powerful combination for living your best life. Ambitions pull you forward when it's hard. They connect you to something larger. One of my most important ambitions is to be a great father. Another is to grow FS. You can't have a meaningful life without a connection to something larger than yourself. Expectations minus reality = happiness. The world doesn't owe me anything. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen. You can't sit around waiting for the world to come and hand you what you think you deserve. Go positive and go first. High standards - I am not always at my best, but I always give my best. I hold myself to a high bar. I don't always meet it, but I won't lower the bar to feel better about myself.

If you see someone failing to take action, it tells you they don't know the cost of inaction. Just because the cost of inaction is invisible doesn't mean it's not real. What happens if you don't take action? Nothing. The cost of inaction is the status quo. If you're ok where you are, then you don't need to do anything. But if you want to get to the next level, you need to put a price on inaction. Action is expensive, but inaction costs a fortune.

Daniel: Thinking in decades enables you to zoom out and ask the right questions that will auto-correct and enhance your overall direction. Once you are directionally correct, then all you need is a set of repeatable actions performed day in and day out. right direction plus consistency.

Your environment is powerful because it communicates with your subconscious and your subconscious drives a lot of behavior. When I say environment, I'm thinking four things. First, you have your physical environment. If I'm trying not to eat potato chips and I see potato chips, it's easy for me to eat them. Next, the people you hang around ... The people you choose to spend time with. Then, what you read and injest, so your mental enviroment. What you put in becomes the foundation for future thoughts. And finally, your rituals and culture. What are the standards that are acceptable? What are the norms?

“Most people aren't in the truth business, they're in the story business, whether it's the story they tell to themselves, the story that they're telling to other people, they don't want the truth. They want the story not the reality. Entrepreneurs on the other hand, are rewarded for being in the truth business. If you can't figure out the truth, you go out of business. .. Whereas a lot of people can be blind to reality and blind to the truth, and focus more on the story.”—Kunal Shah

Clear writing gives poor thinking nowhere to hide. A lack of understanding, which was previously invisible, suddenly becomes visible. You can’t simply take a few minutes here and there, get the gist of the problem, and expect to have clear writing. It doesn’t work that way. Good writing, like good thinking, takes time.

If you want to have an outsized impact, you need to accept two truths. First, following the same path as the crowd else takes you to the same place the crowd is going. Common methods get you common results. Second, if you break away from the crowd and follow your own path, the crowd might think you’re an idiot. Yet so much advantage in life comes from being willing to look like an idiot in the short term.