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.

The measure of success is happiness and peace of mind.

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.

Any meeting with eight people sitting around at a conference table, nothing is getting done in that meeting. You are literally just dying one hour at a time.

At the end of the day, we’re all founders. We’re all meant to work for ourselves. We’re not meant to go to nine to five jobs and be told what to do over and over.

Unnecessary meetings (and most are) are a mutually-assured-destruction of time. Learning how to avoid them is a prerequisite of doing anything great.

Networking is overrated. Become first and foremost a person of value and the network will be available whenever you need it.

It’s only after you’re bored that you have the great ideas. It’s never going to be when you’re stressed, or busy, running around or rushed. Make the time.

A lot of people think you can go to school and you can study for how to make money, but the reality is, there’s no skill called “business”.

The best founders I’ve found are the ones who are very long-term thinkers. Even decisions that maybe they shouldn’t care that much about early on, they fix it because they are not building a house, they’re putting bricks in the foundation of the skyscraper, at least in their minds.

My number one predictor of whether or not a company will find product-market fit: High shipping cadence.

Keep an incredibly high bar for who you work with.

Behind every successful entrepreneur is a former failed self.

On the Internet, a single individual can accomplish anything.

The human brain is not designed to absorb all of the world’s breaking news and 24/7 emergencies, injected straight into the skull with clickbait headlines. If you pay attention to that stuff, even if you have a sound mind and body, it will eventually drive you insane.