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.
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
I fixed my phone addiction by having 2 phones:
1. Cocaine Phone - Full stack dopamine. Twitter. Instagram. TikTok. WhatsApp. Anyone can contact.
2. Kale Phone - Full stack serotonin. Notes. Kindle. Uber. Maps. Emergency number for 2-3 contacts.
Lemme explain...
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
“There’s nothing I revile quite as much as a dilettante,” Seinfeld told GQ , “ I don’t like doing something to a mediocre level.” Escaping mediocrity requires focus. “You have to dedicate yourself to these great things,” he added. “And I don’t believe in being good at a lot of things—or even more than one.”
All of my startup experience summed up:
The right person with the precise right focus and completely unshackled is 10x as effective as 10 pretty smart people working hard in a vague general direction
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