Joe Stampone

If you wait, will it get easier, or will you just be older?

“No matter how many times you do something, there will come a day when you do it for the last time.”

Everyone wants the summary. But the summary is what's left after someone else decided what matters. Their priorities aren't yours. Their filters aren't yours. When you operate on summaries, you're thinking with someone else's brain.

David Foster Wallace on thinking:

“Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience.”

Effort is a choice. If it's important to you, there is no excuse for someone putting in more effort than you.

I’ve also learned slowly and painfully that a CEO can add enormous value simply by refusing to add noise. Clarity is kindness, but often feels like inaction to busy people. A lot of CEO work is invisible. It’s pressure management. It’s absorbing emotion without spreading it. It’s knowing what you think and how to say it with grace. It’s carrying

You are roughly as happy as you decide to be today. And some day, years from now, after you accomplish the thing you've been striving for, you'll have to decide to be happy on that day too