Notes

The problem is their desire is colliding with reality and preventing them from seeing the truth, no matter how much you say it. The same thing happens when I make decisions. The more desire I have for something to work out a certain way, the less likely I am to see the truth. Especially in business, if something isn’t going well, I try to acknowledge it publicly and I try to acknowledge it publicly in front of my co-founders and friends and co-workers. Then, I’m not hiding it from anybody else. If I’m not hiding it from anybody, I’m not going to delude myself from what’s actually going on.

Almost all biases are time-saving heuristics. For important decisions, discard memory and identity, and focus on the problem.

Comment seeding (or comment traffic generation) can be traced back to the blog era, where people would mass-comment on other websites. The username and the comment content served as advertisements. By commenting on hundreds or thousands of sites, one could continuously bring in a steady stream of traffic. The veteran blogger Lu Songsong, a well-known figure in the site owner community, insisted on commenting under various blog posts back then, which provided significant help to his later traffic and fame. ...

Don’t play zero-sum games .

Any end goal will just lead to another goal, lead to another goal. We just play games in life. When you grow up, you’re playing the school game, or you’re playing the social game. Then you’re playing the money game, and then you’re playing the status game. These games just have longer and longer and longer-lived horizons. At some point, at least I believe, these are all just games. These are games where the outcome really stops mattering once you see through the game.

Spend more time making the big decisions. There are basically three really big decisions.

The punishment for the love of money is delivered at the same time as the money. As you make money, you just want even more, and you become paranoid and fearful of losing what you do have. There’s no free lunch. You make money to solve your money and material problems. I think the best way to stay away from this constant love of money is to not upgrade your lifestyle as you make money. It’s very easy to keep upgrading your lifestyle as you make money. But if you can hold your lifestyle fixed and hopefully make your money in giant lump sums as opposed to a trickle at a time, you won’t have time to upgrade your lifestyle. You may get so far ahead you actually become financially free.

The Time Factor in Achieving Success It takes time. Even once you have all the necessary elements in place, there’s an indeterminate amount of time you must invest. If you’re constantly counting the hours or days, you’ll likely run out of patience long before you achieve success.

This is not to say it’s easy. It’s not easy. It’s actually really freaking hard. It is the hardest thing you will do. But it’s also rewarding.

You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money. In an age of leverage, one correct decision can win everything. Without hard work, you’ll develop neither judgment nor leverage.

You have to put in the time, but the judgment is more important. The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. Picking the direction you’re heading in for every decision is far, far more important than how much force you apply. Just pick the right direction to start walking in, and start walking.

You have to put in the time, but the judgment is more important. The direction you’re heading in matters more than how fast you move, especially with leverage. Picking the direction you’re heading in for every decision is far, far more important than how much force you apply. Just pick the right direction to start walking in, and start walking.

Reading is a reliable method that ensures you stay above the passing grade—meaning you avoid becoming excessively vulgar, mediocre, and self-important, while possessing moderate-to-high level thinking and introspection. Once you reach this baseline, wanting to advance further and become even more capable is actually very simple: practice. Put what you read in books into practice.

The Wealthy: Pursue high quality, hard to fool. The Middle Class: Pursue cost-performance, nitpick every detail. The Idiots: Act purely on instinct, easily fooled. Instinct includes: being greedy for cheap deals, being emotional, fear of missing out (FOMO), loving to get a bargain… Live streaming sales primarily relies on short video traffic driving. What kind of short video is more attractive? A middle-aged person crying over a bankruptcy/liquidation clearance… This perfectly matches the greed and emotional nature of the common people. ...

The brain is an extremely energy-intensive organ. Despite making up only about 2% of the body’s weight, it consumes 20%-30% of the body’s total energy. Since the brain’s daily output is limited, you must dedicate your mental energy to important matters. Don’t waste your life in vain.

The Buddha says: If I don’t go to prison, who will? This way, the maximum collective benefit will be achieved.

Our trouble is not how to find happiness, but how to be happier than others.

The one thing you have to avoid is the risk of ruin. Avoiding ruin means stay out of jail. So, don’t do anything illegal. It’s never worth it to wear an orange jumpsuit. Stay out of total catastrophic loss. Avoiding ruin could also mean you stay out of things that could be physically dangerous or hurt your body. You have to watch your health .Stay out of things that could cause you to lose all of your capital, all of your savings. Don’t gamble everything on one go. Instead, take rationally optimistic bets with big upsides. [

Choosing what kinds of jobs, careers, or fields you get into and what sort of deals you’re willing to take from your employer will give you much more free time. Then, you don’t have to worry as much about time management. I would love to be paid purely for my judgment, not for any work. I want a robot, capital, or computer to do the work, but I want to be paid for my judgment.

Value your time at an hourly rate, and ruthlessly spend to save time at that rate. You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.