The most important trick to be happy is to realize that happiness is a choice that you make and a skill that you develop. You choose to be happy, and then you work at it. It’s just like building muscles.

I like to stay free because then I can see the little miracles in life. There are little miracles everywhere; it’s just we have taken them for granted.

The problem happens when we have multiple desires. When we have fuzzy desires. When we want to do ten different things and we’re not clear about which is the one we care about.

You don’t want to be the guy who succeeds in life while being high-strung, high-stress, and unhappy while leaving a trail of emotional wreckage for you and your loved ones.

On meditation: Sit down, close your eyes, get in a comfortable position, and whatever happens, happens. If you think, you think. If you don’t think, you don’t think. Don’t put any effort into it.

You have to work on your internal state until you are free of as many biases and conditioned responses as possible. This will improve every aspect of your life.

Enlightenment is the space between your thoughts. It isn’t this thing you achieve after 30 years of sitting in a corner meditating. It’s something you can achieve moment to moment and you can be a certain percentage enlightened every single day.

People who live far below their means enjoy a freedom that people busy upgrading their lifestyles can’t fathom.

The harder the battle the sweeter the victory.

Action is the foundational key to all success.

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

I think a lot of what we think of happiness is is just pleasure. It’s physical pleasure, either from, “Oh, that tasted good”. Or it might be momentary pleasure from, “He loves me, she loves me”.

I actually think happiness is the absence of suffering. It comes from peace, and that comes from being very careful about that desire, judgment, reaction. Realizing that you don’t actually need something anymore. That something is not important to you.

On how to deal with anxiety: I remember that I’m going to die — memento mori, as they say. It’s hard, though. Anxiety is the human condition. It’s probably the single most pervasive emotion. I don’t think people understand how deep anxiety runs. If I conquered anxiety, I’d be the Buddha; so would you if you conquered anxiety.

You should realize that this is such a short and precious life that it’s really important that you don’t spend it being unhappy. There’s no excuse for spending most of your life in misery. You’ve only got 70 years out of the 50 billion or so that the universe is going to be around.

The fact that you can listen to this podcast on an iPhone or whatever you’re listening to it on mans you’re already better off than a lot of people.

To live in the present moment is the highest calling. It’s the source of all happiness.

I need 4-5 hours of time by myself every day doing nothing. Because if I don’t have that time, I won’t be able to do anything. 

It’s a bad habit that we develop that we forget how to appreciate what we do have.

I’m not a busy person and I’m not busy because I refuse to schedule things.

If you try to micromanage yourself all you’re going to do is make yourself miserable.

Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.

Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.

No one knows what to say in the loser’s locker room.

Knowing how little you matter is very important for your own mental health and happiness.

Uncertainty, not outcome, is the root of stress.

I think to have peace of mind, you have to have peace of body, first.

Looking forward to holidays takes the joy out of everyday.

The best work is the work you’d do for free.

Work becomes flow at the limits of ability.

A taste of freedom can make you unemployable.

The secret to public speaking is to speak as if you were alone.

Organization is the enemy of innovation.

Solve via iteration. Then get paid via repetition.

If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.

Everybody pities the weak; jealousy you have to earn.

Partner with rational optimists.

Give society what it doesn’t how how to get.

In well-functioning teams, each individual has high accountability for their part.

In an older society with few resources and mechanical work, the scheduled life is the most productive. In a modern society with permissionless leverage and creative work, the unscheduled life is the most productive.

You’re never going to be the best in the world at anything unless it’s something that you just absolutely love to do.

Meetings should really be phone calls, phone call should be emails, and phone calls should just be texts.

Be present. Be meditative. Form real friendships. Stay away from business networking events or friendships where there is always an underlying business angle.

Surround yourself with the best people possible. If there’s someone greater out there to work with, go work with them.

Forty hour workweeks are a relic of the Industrial Age. Knowledge workers function like athletes — train and sprint, then rest and reassess.

Generally, most people will make the mistake of paying too much attention to the competition and being too much like the competition and not being authentic enough.

I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

A small band of deeply committed believers will spread a story better than a horde of the lightly committed. True for religion, reputation, brand, currency, politics.

At heart I’m an entrepreneur and any day in which I solve the same problem twice in a row, I’m pretty unhappy. So by definition, I like to do something different every day. I think all humans are sort of meant to do that kind of thing.