...The hallmark of originality is rejecting the default and exploring whether a better option exists...

...We’ve all heard about the importance of persistence. But I had misunderstood. Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working. Don’t waste years fighting uphill battles against locked doors. Improve or invent until you get that huge response...

...To perform at a champion’s level, you must understand the importance of a long-term memory for success and a short-term memory (selective amnesia) for failure...

...The cumulative accretion of knowledge by specialists that allows us each to consume more and more different things by each producing fewer and fewer is, I submit, the central story of humanity...

...I learned a good lesson in karate, which was that just by not quitting, I’d progress...

...Where does your responsibility as a parent to your kids begin and end...

...further research has revealed that when we’re in a negative mindset, all loads feel heavier, all obstacles loom bigger, all mountains seem less surmountable...

...Your view of the world is no photograph. It’s a construction of your brain that is so fluid and so convincing that it appears to be accurate. But sometimes it’s not...

...As Columbia Business School professor Eric Johnson explained to us, the more meaningful a potential loss is, the more loss averse we become. In other words, the more there is on the line, the easier it is to get swept into an irrational decision...

...“There’s a big difference between probability and outcome. Probable things fail to happen—and improbable things happen—all the time.” That’s one of the most important things you can know about investment risk...

...Greed leads many investors to seek shortcuts to investment success. Rather than allowing returns to compound over time, they attempt to turn quick profits by acting on hot tips...

...To begin you must study the end. You don’t want to be the first to act, you want to be the last man standing...

...Motivation is what gets you into this game; learning is what helps you continue to play; creativity is how you steer; and flow is how you turbo-boost the results beyond all rational standards and reasonable expectations...

...When we lack the knowledge and skills to achieve excellence, we sometimes lack the knowledge and skills to judge excellence...

...Nobody is good at the beginning of doing something new. Get over it. If you want to live a life that matters, don’t start when you get good; start now so you become good...