(Motivation = Primal Motivations + Values + Morals)

Or the way we view others. Our tendency to lionize members of Us and demonize members of Them.

Human evolution has driven our use of this elevator, striking what’s probably an optimal balance for maximum genetic survival.

I wish someone had told me about this distinction when I was a kid, because it's one of the most important things to think about when you're deciding what kind of work you want to do.

Another way to get through the lame phase of ambitious projects is to surround yourself with the right people — to create an eddy in the social headwind. But it's not enough to collect people who are always encouraging. You'd learn to discount that. You need colleagues who can actually tell an ugly duckling from a baby swan.

On the largest scale, we’re all a part of a few vast pan-national cultural clouds—where customs like shaking hands, waving hi, New Year’s Eve, birthdays, card games, sports fandom, and tipping, to name a few, have taken on broadly shared meaning. Each nation is a smaller cloud with its own sub-culture.

It’s a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.

Once again, you buy an asset for $1,000 and then sell it for $10,000, making a 10x return. But what if a few months later, you see that the asset crashes and plummets down to $1?