Here are the lessons I’ve learned last month: 

1. Paul Graham; In 2021, ⅞ richest people in America shared five qualities. (1) Overconfident, (2) extremely competitive, (3) impatient, (4) moderately intelligent, (5) independent-minded. He calls the people that have these qualities, Fierce Nerds.

Extreme competitiveness & impatience are manifestations of a single underlying quality: drivenness. 

*Definition of driven: “All a person’s behaviour is directed towards their goal.”

“When you combine all these qualities in sufficient quantities, the result is formidable.” And now that you know them, you can forcibly acquire them.

2. Paul Graham: “We spend a lot of time trying to learn how to predict which startups will succeed. We learned quickly that the most important predictor of success is determination.” You want to have a 100/100 determination. 

- “There are plenty of people as smart as Bill Gates but achieve nothing.” 

- “I can’t think of any field in which determination is overrated. None.” 

- "Even in the highest of high-tech industries, success still depends more on determination than brains.” 

- “Startups take off because the founders make them take off.”

Determination is made up of two things: (1) Will. (2) Discipline.

I see will as belief. Pure, relentless, unwavering belief that you will win. That you are that 1 in a million. One day while at school, Kobe's class was asked what they wanted to be when they were older. Kobe wrote three letters: "NBA". This worried the school counsellor, so he pulled Kobe aside and told him to be more realistic. Because only 1 in a million make it to the NBA. Kobe's response: "I am that 1 in a million". He was 12 years old. That's the level of belief you need.

But being strong-willed, and believing is not enough. You must also be hard on yourself. "If you are willful but self-indulgent, you would not be considered determined. Determination implies your willfulness is balanced by discipline." 

With will and no discipline, you give in to impulses. So without discipline, you achieve nothing.

For most people, discipline is the skill they are missing. Levelling up discipline is the same as building muscle.

Alex Hormozi; “If you can’t sit still, ignore notifications, and focus on one task for 8 hours straight, never expect to build something great.”

3. Two quotes from Naval (my favourite thing I learned last week): 

(1) “Pay the world whatever it takes to leave you alone to think” 

(2) “You want to be paid purely for the quality of your thoughts”. 

Bolt on to the above: 

From Naval; “the best investors read and walk a lot.”

From me: “Work as hard as you can to get financial freedom as fast as you can” - Why? This allows you to think.

4. The start is easy (when you feel motivated). It’s the days after that are hard. Hard work starts when the motivation subsides.

5. Obsession, obsession, obsession. All the greats were obsessed with what they did.

Getting obsessed is a skill you can learn. I got obsessed by listening to Founder’s podcast, and by reading in every spare waking moment I had. You can cultivate obsession.

6. Find something you love. Curiosity is the key to this. Paul Graham; “If you asked an oracle the secret to doing great work, and it replied with a single word, my bet would be on curiosity”. To become the best; be obsessed about pursuing your genuine intellectual curiosity. 

“To do great work, you must have the burning desire to do great work.” 

“The root of all great work is a sort of ambitious curiosity, and you can’t manufacture that.”

7. Don’t read business books, read biographies instead. A reporter asked what business books he read to learn how to start a business. Elon replied by saying he didn't read business books. He read biographies instead. 

You don't have to only read biographies about people who excelled in the same field you wish to excel in. Study all extremely successful people. For example, I have no desire to play in the NBA–but I’ve listened to all the Michael Jordan and Kobe episodes 5+ times in the last month. Why? What got Michael 6 rings, will lead to you becoming the greatest at whatever you choose to pursue. Winning is a universal process. The only differentiator is the game you choose to play. Michael & Kobe played the game of basketball. I play the game of business. Same skill set, different game. Winning is universal. 

From this week, it's a requirement for all founders I work with to do this. 

Here are the episodes of the Founders Podcast I recommend to start with: Bill Walsh. All the Kobe episodes. All Michael Jordan episodes. Start by listening to these on repeat. Fix the mindset first. Learn how the greats thought about achieving goals. After that, follow your curiosity. Listen to what you find interesting. 

My current listening: Everything on Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffet.

8. Intellectual compounding is the eighth wonder of the world. This is like financial compounding. From Charlie Munger; “In my whole life, I’ve known no wise person who didn’t read all of the time – none, zero.” Buffet spends 80% of his time reading. All these great investors talk about the power of reading & thinking. This is something I am further exploring over the coming months.

Compilation of quotes from great investors on reading & thinking.

9. Do special things now and then, and appreciate them when you do. But, in the middle, work incredibly hard. And be totally obsessed. (I must work obscenely hard to enjoy the other parts of life). 

Last week, I had one of the most enjoyable days I can remember. I'd booked a special event, for just myself, months in advance. I only enjoyed this as much as I did because I felt like I earned it. As a rule; the harder you work, the more enjoyable things like this are. Make them rare. But, always have something booked for the future. I like to have these occasions once every 45-90 days.

A note on rewards: don’t stack other dopamine-releasing things on top of the thing you enjoy. Doing that reduces the amount you enjoy the thing on its own. And the next time you do the thing, you'll enjoy it a lot less. 

10. Spend lots of time designing a life you like. I love my routine. I do the same thing, at the same time, every day, 7 days a week. But, I'm always testing, and iterating the structure of my day. As of writing, my weekdays look like this. But how do you design a life you like? I use inversion; what do my worst days look like? What are the things that make these my worst days? I removed everything until I liked my day. And when you stack days that you enjoy one after the other, you tend to become happier.

11. Routine is the foundation you build everything else on. How can you expect to win at anything or do anything great if you can’t stick to your routine? It doesn’t work. So get the routine right first.

12. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This just makes sense to me. Use it as a general base for everything you do. Here are some simple examples: get good sleep. Eat nutritional food. Remove everything you don’t like from your life. And work as hard as you can. I'm surprised at how much energy I have every day. And I think that all comes from getting your biology right.

13. Chinese-wall your mind. I learnt this one last week. It does take practice to use though. This filters out anything and everything that isn't related to my goal, or something else I care about. Why? So all my thoughts are on my goal. And why's that so important? Every day, we have X number of thoughts. A lot of people overcomplicate focus. I think it's the proportion of your total thoughts that are on your goal. The higher the proportion of your total thoughts on your goal, the more focused you are. If you invert this: it's how few thoughts can I have on things that aren't my goal. Protect your thoughts. We do this by 'Chinese-walling' our mind.

14. The one superpower is reading & thinking. I do this by listening to Founders podcast for most of the time I'm awake not doing deep work. The point isn't to remember everything. The point is to give you the deep-rooted beliefs that will change how you think. Remember, just because you don’t remember it, doesn't mean it's not valuable. 

15. The point of financial freedom is to (a) remove everything from your life that isn’t your goal. And, (b) everything you don't like. This means you can now think clearly. The point is not to add more (stuff & complexity) to your life (like most people do).

16. You want to be described as; “well-read”, and "a broad thinker". Bill Gates on Charlie Munger “[Munger] is the broadest thinker I have ever encountered.” If you boil this down, it means being a multi-disciplinary thinker. This is something many great thinkers (who are also usually billionaires) talk about.

17. The point of life is to do things others have not done before.

18. Set a near-on impossible goal that scares you. Goals give you focus. Unbelievable goals give you so much more focus. You thinking; “How will I achieve that?” is the point. It causes you to think differently. And anyway, most people lack ambition.

19. Two Quotes: (a) “Believe before achieve”. (b) “Champions act like champions before they’re champions”. There is a lag between your inputs and outputs–you'll act like a champion long before the world recognises you as one. The rush to get there is what kills everyone.

There's two things you can do to fix this: (1) Ignore the competition. (2) Study billionaires, athletes, and other great people in history. I'd focus on billionaires. Why? Because they think a lot longer.

20. “Ruthless consistency” - Michael Jordan & Kobe both had and talked about this all the time.

21. Warren’s ABCs of biz failure: (1) Arrogance, (2) Bureaucracy, (3) Complacency. You see this a lot in the online space. People think they’re the hottest shit ever because they make 100k per month. Online, the ones who make $1M per month are even worse. 

22. I’m surprised at how much I prefer being alone. In peace. With just my thoughts. Consider trying it.

From Naval; “I look forward to solitary confinement. You leave me alone for a day, and it will be the happiest day I’ve had in a while. That is a superpower that everybody can attain.”

To your success,
Lukas