The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business and Life

Research has shown that cognitive dissonance is most painful for us when we encounter facts or evidence that destabilise or conflict with how we see ourselves, that undermine our identity and confidence in ourselves, or that make us feel in some way threatened.

You don’t want to be the entrepreneur that misses the next technological revolution, you don’t want to be the CMO that dismisses the next big marketing opportunity, you don’t want to be the journalist that dismisses the next frontier of media. You don’t want to be a ‘lean out’ person.

Whether my father realised it or not, the science shows that the most important thing he did was not trying to fight the habit, but replacing the final step of the habit loop with a much less addictive reward – the lollipops.

I’m absolutely not telling you to go and blow your money on a big blue slide, but I am telling you that your public story will be defined not by all the useful practical things that you do – in many cases, not even by the products that you sell – but by the useless absurdity that your brand is associated with.

I have to finish the three rounds, because I said I was going to do the three rounds. I’m not leaving this gym with everybody knowing that I quit. Because I couldn’t live with myself. I’ve got to go home and go to sleep. I can’t go to sleep knowing that another man made me quit.

a friend of yours has a limiting belief about themselves, or you have a limiting belief about yourself, the best chance you have of changing that belief isn’t by reading self-help books, inspirational quotes or watching motivational videos, it’s by stepping out of your comfort zone and into a situation where that limiting belief will

Some people will love you. Some people will hate you. Some people simply won’t care.

The kaizen philosophy vehemently rejects the notion that only a select few members of a company’s hierarchy are responsible for innovation; it insists that it has to be an everyday task and concern of all employees, at all levels.

With this in mind you should be conscious of what prizes you bet your chips trying to win – you should prioritise the things that bring you joy and deprioritise trying to attain hard-fought prizes that deliver nothing more than negativity, anxiety and illusion.

You will only connect to the first two. But not to the third. Indifference is the least profitable outcome.