How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life

Another possible reason that affirmations appear to work is that optimists tend to notice opportunities that pessimists miss.1

I’m giving you permission to take care of yourself first, so you can do a better job of being generous in the long run.

Our business model assumed people would prefer eating upscale comfort food in an unusually attractive setting. It was a bad idea. Customers were confused.

You simply need to pick a life strategy that rewards novelty seeking more than mindless repetition. For example, you might want to be an architect, designer, home builder, computer programmer, entrepreneur, Web site designer, or even doctor.

failure is where success likes to hide in plain sight. Everything you want out of life is in that huge, bubbling vat of failure. The trick is to get the good stuff out.

Let’s start by defining happiness and agreeing on what causes it. My definition of happiness is that it’s a feeling you get when your body chemistry is producing pleasant sensations in your mind.

If something story-worthy happens to you, spend some time developing the story structure in your head—a structure I will explain in a minute—and practice telling the story in your head until you have it down.

I’d like to make an argument in favor of including copious amounts of both salt and butter in your diet, so long as you’re adding them to otherwise healthy food.

Humor temporarily shuts down the commonsense program in your moist robot brain and boots the random idea generator.

For a few months, eat as much as you want of anything that is not a simple carb. That frees up your willpower so you can use it to avoid those delicious and convenient simple carbs.