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
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
Here is the message he ended with: “Study something you love in depth.”
“Here’s the only thing you need to remember from this talk: ‘Study something you love to death’—I mean ‘depth’! [laughter] ‘Study something you love in depth.’ I just gave you an hour, so tonight give me 45 minutes. Spend 45 minutes tonight studying something you love. Watch the... See more
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.
The tendency of people and organizations is to lose focus. So one way to identify outstanding people is by their ability to commit and focus on something for a long period of time.
The only people you should hire are focused ones. The only competitors you should worry about are the focused ones.
Focus accelerates the accumulation of skills and accurate world models. In open-ended domains, such as writing, relationships, or business, there is nearly endless room for skill growth.