...If you took a break, would your business fall apart at the seams? Make a list of all these things, because these are the places where you need to start creating systems...

...If you listen to people tell their stories, most people’s lives are actually lived as a series of two-to-four-year seasons strung together...

...Measuring the wrong thing is often worse than measuring nothing, because you do get what you measure...

...The more constrained and repetitive a challenge, the more likely it will be automated, while great rewards will accrue to those who can take conceptual knowledge from one problem or domain and apply it in an entirely new one...

...Good strategic thinkers always have an advantage over people who don’t take the time to do the thinking in advance...

...The world is not a collection of things, it is a collection of events...

...True recovery requires nurturing a recovery mind-set—one that fully honors the body’s need to recuperate and senses when it’s time to chill...

...When you ask questions, just sit back and listen. Be interested, don't try to be interesting...

...Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. Ninety percent of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort, and stamina...

...And that’s the charge for all of us: to defy the forgettable flatness of everyday work and life by creating a few precious moments...

...Economic independence belongs to those with the willingness to allocate time, money, energy, and cognitive resources to achieve financial goals...

...The harsh truth is that the most important driver in the growth of your assets is how much you save, and saving requires discipline. Without a regular savings program, it doesn’t matter if you make 5 percent, 10 percent, or even 15 percent on your investment funds. The single most important thing you can do to achieve financial security is to begin a regular savings program and to start it as early as possible. The only reliable route to a comfortable retirement is to build up a nest egg slowly and steadily...

...A lifeguard doesn’t have to spend much time pitching to the drowning person. When you show up with a life buoy, if the drowning person understands what’s at stake, you don’t have to run ads to get them to hold on to it...

...When it comes to making your art—whether it’s music or writing or building a great company—you either really want it or you don’t. There is no easy way in, or out...

...risk management is about avoiding the mistake of betting so much you can lose it all—the mistake made by nearly every bank and hedge fund that ran into trouble in 2007 and 2008...