Focus

Anyone can say no to bad ideas, but only a focused person can say no to good ideas. Focus is about saying no.

When talking about one of the biggest lessons he learned from Steve Jobs, Jonny Ive said it was focus.

This sounds really simplistic, but it still shocks me how few people actually practice this, and it’s a struggle to practice, but is this

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as Jeff always noted, you can make micro-adjustments in the long run to tweak the profit leaks. For some really large, heavy items, you can tack on shipping surcharges or just remove them from qualifying for Prime. These days, some items in Amazon are marked as "Add-on items" and you can only order them in conjunction with enough other items such... 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

“Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they are doing.” -Warren Buffet

At the core, strategy is about focus, and most complex organizations don’t focus their resources. Instead, they pursue multiple goals at once, not concentrating enough resources to achieve a breakthrough in any of them.

Distractions divert you from your goals, while opportunities align with and propel you toward them. For example, Americans spend an average of 11 hours daily consuming media, much of which is unproductive noise. To succeed, creators and entrepreneurs must take intentional control of their inputs, focusing on content and activities that support... See more

Be willful

A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time—most people don’t even try, and just accept that things are the way that they are.

People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever... See more