I have a suspicion that most adults (75%+) could pick any skill—excluding sports—and work their way into the top 10% in the world simply by working exclusively on it every day for two years.
But almost nobody displays that degree of focus, so we will never know.
Jobs would often test people, asking them, “how many things have you said no to?” Ive was up to the task of answering, only he didn’t mean it, and Jobs read right through him.
I would have these sacrificial things, because I wanted to be very honest about it. And so I’d say, “Well, I said no to this and no to that.” But he knew that I wasn’t
One of my (many) contrarian beliefs is that we do not have strong enough preferences. We often blame social media or the speed of information as the reason why we’re easily distracted, but the real reason behind our inability to focus has less to do with the sheer quantity of media and more to do with our laziness when it comes to distinguishing... See more
If you look around, you’ll notice the people and organizations moving the fastest are the focused ones. Not only do they focus on a few ideas, but within the scope of those ideas, they are able to focus on the key variables.
Identifying the variables that matter comes with focus. When you commit to living in a problem, you understand things about... See more
My note to self from reading the book: “THINGS LOOK GOOD AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY, NOT DURING.” Tesla and SpaceX were not built. They were willed into existence, against all odds.
SpaceX failed to launch many times, and was ridiculed by many people. After their third (or fourth) failed launch, Elon sends an email to his team: “ SpaceX is in this... See more