There’s an old Zen story I recently revisited while re-reading The Obstacle Is the Way by Ryan Holiday that I love.

It’s about a king who believes his people have grown soft and somewhat entitled.

So, the king decides to teach them a lesson.

He places a huge boulder in the middle of the main road into the city, completely blocking the entrance.

Then he sits back and watches how his people react to the newly created obstacle.

The king slowly starts to grow more and more disappointed by what he sees.

Person after person comes up against the obstruction and simply turns around without trying.

Those who do try only make a half-hearted attempt.

Many complain and curse the king. Others become frustrated at the inconvenience.

But nobody actually does anything about it.

Then, several days later, a peasant comes along on his way into town.

The peasant doesn’t turn his back and give up before he’s properly tried.

Instead, he strains with all his might to move the enormous boulder.

It obviously doesn’t budge one bit.

Then he has an idea.

He scrambles into the nearby woods to find something he can use for leverage.

He eventually returns with a large, solid branch, which he fashions into a lever.

After some more effort, he manages to dislodge the huge rock blocking the road.

But underneath the boulder, he finds something unexpected.

He finds a purse filled with gold coins and a note handwritten by the king himself.

The note reads:

“The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.”

There’s a lesson here that extends far beyond a big boulder in the middle of a road.

Life will constantly throw obstacles at each and every one of us.

We’ll forever be told we’re too small, too big, too young, too old, or that we’re the wrong person for the job.

We’ll forever experience failure, uncertainty, rejection, and fear.

And we’ll forever worry about what other people think of us and, at times, feel completely incompetent.

There will always be something standing between where we are and where we want to be.

And that’s why our ability to deal with obstacles matters so damn much.

What stands in the way becomes the way

The former Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius taught something remarkably similar in real life to the Zen king nearly 2,000 years ago.

Marcus said:

“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”

The obstacle isn’t something that needs to be avoided.

It’s the obstacle that becomes the thing that moves us forward.

Failure can teach us what doesn’t work and rejection can help to make us more resilient.

Criticism can show us where we need to improve, and difficult people can teach us some much-needed patience.

And adversity reveals to us the strengths we didn’t know we possessed within.

More than 1,600 years later, Benjamin Franklin expressed the exact same idea in just four wonderfully written words:

“The things that hurt instruct.”

The things that hurt us the most can also teach us.

We’ve become experts in avoiding discomfort

What’s funny is that we live in a time when there are fewer obstacles to many aspects of life than ever before.

Technology has made our lives exponentially easier.

Medicine has advanced at an unfathomably rapid rate, and all the information we could ever wish to access is available at the touch of a button.

For the vast majority of us, everyday life is more comfortable and convenient than it has ever been in human history.

Yet our ability to deal with discomfort hasn’t necessarily kept pace.

But obstacles are unavoidable, and always will be.

It’s not a case of when we’ll encounter them.

The question is:

What will we do when we encounter them?

The obstacle is the opportunity

The person who learns to look at obstacles differently has an enormous advantage in life.

The person who confronts obstacles well doesn’t ask:

“Why is this happening to me?”

Instead, they ask:

“What can this teach me?”

Rather than seeing failure as concrete evidence that they aren’t good enough, they see it as a form of constructive feedback.

Rather than seeing rejection as the end destination, they see it as an opportunity to improve their approach for the next obstacle they encounter.

Rather than seeing adversity as something that’s scuppered their plans, they look for the lessons hidden deep inside.

Things will always be difficult.

And life will always be somewhat cruelly unfair.

But even then, we always have a choice in what we do with the things that have happened.

There will forever be boulders in the road.

However, as the peasant in the old story teaches us, these life obstructions can always be moved.

Where there is an obstacle, there lies opportunity.

It’s just up to us to find it.

The obstacle is the way.

See you next time,

Tom

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Born nearly 2000 years ago, Epictetus is one of the most influential philosophers of all time.

What makes Epictetus so great is that he is quite literally the embodiment of Stoic philosophy.

Despite spending 30 years of his life as a Roman slave (like an actual slave), he somehow turned his real-life experiences into an incredibly powerful, genuinely useful guide for living a life full of freedom and prosperity.

Even though none of you reading this today are slaves like Epictetus was, the beauty of the great Epictetus’s work is that it will forever be applicable, there is always a chance to make use of his teachings in our everyday lives.

So, without further ado, let’s dive in.

Here are 13 rules for life from the great Epictetus…

1. Focus on what you can control. Forget the rest.

“The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.”

One of the key ingredients of Stoic philosophy is the ability to differentiate between what is within our control and what isn’t.

The funny thing about control is that hardly anything at all is within our control to begin with.

We can’t control the weather, how people behave, or even when we’re going to die.

But we can always control ourselves, our interpretations, actions, and behaviours, so focus on that.

2. Be content with what you have

“Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

We’ve seen stories behind people who have millions and millions sitting around in the bank.

They seemingly have everything they could ever wish for, and yet they’re still dreadfully unhappy and dissatisfied.

Whereas on the other side of the scale, we’ll see a person who can hardly rub two pennies together and struggle to get by, yet they still walk around with a constant smile on their face.

True happiness and life satisfaction come from being satisfied with your keep, no matter how big or small that might be.

3. Stop suffering in imagination

“Man is not worried by real problems so much as by his imagined anxieties about real problems”

Hardly anything we worry about ever comes to full fruition.

Even if it does, things very rarely turn out as catastrophic as we imagined they would do in our minds.

Suffering in imagination is the easiest thing in the world.

However, reality nearly always paints a different picture.

4. Embrace being a fool

“If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.”

We have to confront our own ignorance to get better.

Without ever asking the silly questions to seemingly obvious answers, we will forever remain stupid.

It’s like they say: The fool of today is tomorrow’s master.

And the first step to being tomorrow’s wise master is having the courage to hold our hands up and embrace our current limitations.

5. Listen more than you talk

“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

We don’t learn by talking, we learn by listening.

Like the Dalai Lama says: “When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new.”

Listen more than we speak and we will learn more, prevents us from saying we might come to regret in the future, and weirdly enough, makes us more likable.

Fools love the sound of their own voice, wise people listen twice as much as more than they speak.

6. Focus inwards before facing outwards

“When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.”

Before we start judging other people and picking fault with all of their imperfections, turn inwards.

Put yourself in their shoes and try to see things from their perspective.

When we do this, our empathy increases and the frustrations we feel towards other people start to drop, because it makes us realise that we’re not exactly perfect either.

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7. Surround yourself with the right people

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”

It’s as simple as this: We will only ever be as good as the people we surround ourselves with.

Surround ourselves with the wrong kind of people, people whose company we don’t enjoy, and our lives will turn out to be more miserable than they need to be.

8. Be self-reliant

“It is silly and pointless to try to get from another person what one can get for oneself.”

It’s silly to lean on other people to provide us with something we already possess within ourselves.

Forever leaning on other people to make us feel better about ourselves and letting them dictate our lives will always lead to needless misery.

9. Look at the big picture

“You ought to realize, you take up very little space in the world as a whole.”

We all of a sudden become terribly small when we zoom out and realise that our problems aren’t the be-all and end-all of the universe.

Whether we feel happy, stressed, anxious, or angry, as a whole the world doesn’t care much.

The world keeps on spinning regardless and will continue to spin for a very long time after we’ve gone.

10. Don’t be a preacher

“Since when are you so intelligent as to go around correcting other people’s mistakes?”

Constantly trying to correct other people isn’t a form of wisdom, quite the contrary in fact.

Forever trying to set people straight is a form of arrogance.

It’s arrogant because we have our own abundance of problems to deal with in the first place.

Before we try to fix other people, turn inwards and try to fix ourselves first.

11. Act in accordance with who you want to be

“First, tell yourself what you want to be, then act your part accordingly.”

Pick a path we want to go down, and do whatever we can to stay directly on track.

Don’t deviate, and make sure that our actions reflect who we want to be as people.

12. Look at the other perspective

“Whenever anyone criticizes or wrongs you, remember that they are only doing or saying what they think is right.”

There is always a reason behind why people behave the way they do, and the vast majority of people believe that what they’re doing is correct.

So rather than going in on them all guns blazing and being critical of others, let’s have a sense of empathy.

Understand that there are always other opinions and mindsets that exist on the other side of the fence.

13. Embrace the inevitable end

“I cannot escape death, but at least I can escape the fear of it.”

We all know that we’re eventually going to die, it’s a simple fact of life.

But it’s a fact that scares the daylights out of some people and restricts them from living their life to its highest potential.

But fearing the inevitable is pointless.

Rather than fearing death, use death as a tool.

Use it as a tool to give us a sense of urgency to live life on our own terms, doing the things we enjoy the most.

See you next time,

Tom

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Sometimes a few words can change a person’s life.

Some words, however, shake you to the core.

They shake you to the core not only because they’re written and said wonderfully.

They shake you to the core because they’re 100% true.

Here are 8 of those quotes…

1. “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There’s a strong correlation between someone’s level of intelligence and level of happiness.

Quite often, the more intelligent and the deeper thinker someone is, the more miserable a person is.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky himself is a prime example of this.

Dostoyevsky was a literary genius, but for most of his life, he was tormented and lived in a deep state of depression.

Everyone wants to become more intelligent and rightly so, I know I do.

However, it’s worth remembering the additional baggage that comes along with high levels of intellect.

2. “I don’t think most people would want to be me. They may think they’d want to be me, but they don’t know; they don’t understand. I mean, my mind is a storm.” — Elon Musk

This one is a case of be careful what you wish for.

It’s easy to think that you want someone else’s life looking from the outside in, although we never get to see what’s going on behind the scenes in a person’s mind.

You might want to be the richest man in the world and the owner of some of the coolest companies on the planet just like Elon, but nobody wants the inevitable torment that comes along with it.

3. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pascal

When was the last time you were able to sit down and do nothing but think, without any form of external distraction?

If you’re a normal person, you’ll hardly ever do this.

The ability for people to sit there and be comfortable with their own thoughts has rapidly diminished over time.

So much so that people would quite literally receive an electric shock rather than sit alone with their own thoughts, which is shockingly sad.

4. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — Carl Jung

It takes an immense amount of courage to 100% accept who you are as a human being and all of your flaws.

It’s only after you’ve truly accepted who you are that you’re free to start living without having to worry about the repercussions.

5. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” — Henry David Thoreau

How dreadfully saddening it is to know that you could potentially go your whole entire life without truly expressing who you are underneath your exterior.

Time is ticking, and the best time to showcase to the world who you are and get your music out is now.

You best start playing before the beat stops and it’s too late.

6. “The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” — Ronald Reagan

Quick reality check: Nobody is coming to save you.

You’re on your own in this world, and nobody owes you a thing.

Nobody is going to sort your life out for you, and absolutely nobody is going to hand you anything on a silver platter.

It’s up to you to find your own way in life because nobody is going to help you, especially not the government.

7. “Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process.” — Stanley Milgram

Human beings will always be at their utmost best when they’re regularly confronted with hardships.

Not only that, it’s not the people who face regular difficulties that are the problem; it’s the people who never have any at all.

8. “The worst problem of all in any society is that the majority of human beings are sheeplike in their obedience and conformity to authority, even when they are instructed to commit acts that go against their real values and beliefs.” — Israel W. Charny

Terrible things happen when nobody dares to speak up and say no even when they know what they’re doing is wrong.

It’s like Jordan Peterson said:

“When you have something to say silence is a lie.”

If you have something to say and you don’t believe what’s going on is right, say it.

Because if you don’t, who will?

See you next time,

Tom

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Everyone needs a little daily guidance.

For me, that guidance usually comes through books, timeless ideas, and the words of people who are significantly wiser than I am.

Some lessons are complicated and very long-winded.

Others can simply be summed up in a single sentence.

Over the years, these five short reminders have helped me become a better person, a better decision maker, worry less, and keep my life on the right track.

Let’s get into it…

1. “Focus on what you can control. Forget the rest.”

We all like the idea that we have control over what happens to us in life, but we don’t.

In reality, the number of things that are genuinely within our control is surprisingly small.

We can control ourselves, our reactions, our judgments, how hard we work, and that’s about it.

The weather? Zero control. Other people? Nope.

Forever clinging to and trying to control things we can’t control will always lead to needless stress and anxiety.

It’s easier said than done, but letting go of the externals and focusing on the internals is one of the best things we can do for our peace of mind.

2. “The world doesn’t owe you anything.”

People spend their whole lives expecting the world to give something back to them, only to wonder why they remain dissatisfied.

It might sound cynical, but the world doesn’t particularly care about your problems, regardless of how big or small they are.

The world will keep spinning on its axis regardless, and everyone around us will carry on with their lives.

You might think this way of looking at things is depressing, but if you ask me, it’s actually liberating.

It means we’re free to stop waiting for life to hand us something and instead take responsibility for creating it ourselves.

3. “Progression over perfection.”

Perfection is a target that’s impossible to hit.

Not only does perfection not exist, but striving for it often leads to paralysis.

We spend so much time trying to make something perfect that we never end up producing anything at all.

As long as we show up and give our absolute, honest, hand-on-heart best effort, then that’s more than good enough, regardless of how much we produce or how polished and perfect it turns out to be.

4. “You don’t always have to have an opinion.”

It’s hard to believe nowadays, but we don’t always need to have an opinion on every issue in the world.

There is always the option of staying in the middle without feeling pressured to pick one side or the other.

We can always choose to remain neutral.

Having no opinion doesn’t mean never having an opinion.

It simply means being selective about where you invest your attention.

Think of it as a way of preserving your mental energy for the things that matter most.

5. “All behaviour makes sense with enough information.”

I can’t take credit for this one.

It comes from Morgan Housel in his book The Art of Spending Money.

What he means is that there is usually a reason behind someone’s actions.

They might be having a bad day.

They might be carrying burdens we know nothing about.

Or they might simply have had a much rougher life than we realise.

So before we judge someone’s behaviour, let’s do our best to put ourselves in their shoes first and approach them with a little empathy.

See you next time,

Tom

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Marcus Aurelius is one of the most respected and wisest leaders to have ever graced the face of the earth.

He may have been dead for nearly 2,000 years now, but what’s remarkable is that Marcus’s words still continue to shape people’s lives today, including mine.

Marcus’s wisdom offers a timeless guide to living more purposefully, thinking clearly in awkward situations, and becoming an all-around better human being.

So with that being said, let’s dive in.

Here are 9 classic Marcus Aurelius quotes that might just change the trajectory of your life…

1. “It never ceases to amaze me that we all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinions than our own.”

We all like to think we value ourselves highly.

Yet at the same time, we put every ounce of trust in other people’s judgments, the exact same people we don’t even want to be like.

If we truly loved ourselves, we’d trust our own decisions instead of letting other people steer our inner wheel.

2. “The best revenge is to not be like your enemy.”

What’s the first thing we do when someone pisses us off?

Retaliate? Form a plan to get back at the person who caused us harm?

Fair enough. It’s only human nature to want some form of revenge.

However, fighting fire with fire is hardly ever the best course of action.

The best revenge is to be the bigger person and refuse to become like the person who wronged you.

3. “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”

It’s quite obvious: we’re all going to die at some point.

This simple fact scares the living daylights out of some people, but it shouldn’t.

Worrying about the inevitable serves no purpose.

Instead, we should be worried about never starting to live a life we can look back on and be proud of.

4. “The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.”

The quality of your life is shaped by the quality of your thoughts.

Think negatively long enough, and you’ll start seeing problems everywhere, and your life will become worse than it has to be.

Think with purpose and optimism, and you’ll start noticing that your life will begin to improve.

How we choose to see the world is eventually how we’ll experience it.

5. “Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.”

We all do our best to escape the stresses and problems of life.

We go on long, relaxing holidays and do everything we can to get away from it all, and why wouldn’t we?

The trouble is, however, the things we’re trying to escape never really disappear. They’re still there waiting for us when we get back.

A change of scenery can bring temporary peace, but lasting peace always comes from within.

6. “What are you afraid of losing, when nothing in the world belongs to you?”

Everything we have is borrowed.

Our possessions, our money, our relationships, even our own lives. None of it truly belongs to us forever.

One day, we’ll have to give it all back to nature.

That’s not a depressing thought. If anything, it’s freeing.

The more we accept that nothing is permanently ours to keep, the less fear we have of losing it, and the more grateful we become while we still have it.

7. “It’s silly to try to escape other people’s faults. They are inescapable. Just try to escape your own.”

It’s the easiest thing in the world to sit there, focus on other people, and point out all of their flaws without bothering to look inward first.

The truth is, we all have more than enough faults of our own to work on.

So rather than trying to fix everyone else, focus on fixing yourself first.

And no, that’s not rude or selfish. It’s necessary.

8. “You don’t have to turn this into something. It doesn’t have to upset you.”

Controversial opinion incoming: Getting upset is often a choice.

Someone can say or do something, but we still have to give it permission to ruin our day.

That doesn’t mean we should never feel emotions like some sort of robot.

Although we do have more control over our reactions than we often realise.

9. “Most of what we say and do is not essential. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

Question everything.

Is what I’m about to do going to move me towards the life I want?

Is this actually moving the needle?

Do I really need to do this?

If the answer to those questions is no, don’t do it.

Life is too short and time is too precious to waste on things that don’t matter.

See you next time,

Tom

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Wisdom isn’t something we’re born with.

It isn’t acquired overnight or via a one-time life experience.

Instead, wisdom is built through thousands of tiny decisions, conversations, and mistakes we make along the way.

Wisdom is a bit like compound interest, it’s something that compounds over time.

The wisest people on the planet aren’t always the smartest.

However, they consistently practice certain habits that make them a smidge better every day, including these 11 habits…

1. They never stop being curious

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein

Curiosity is the foundation of wisdom, and wise people, no matter how old they are, forever retain a childlike curiosity.

They’re open and hungry to explore new ideas that challenge what they already know, approach everything with genuine interest, and never assume that they have all the answers.

2. They read constantly

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.” — Charlie Munger

The beauty about reading is that you can learn from the quite literally thousands of years’ worth of experiences in a few pages.

Books expose us to new experiences and perspectives, and teach us lessons without ever having to live through the experience itself.

Basically, every page we read and every book we devour expands our mental library and helps us make better, wiser decisions.

3. They constantly ask questions

“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.” — Bruce Lee

A wise person is never afraid to ask questions, even if they seem ridiculously simple and almost stupid.

It’s asking questions that help a person better understand their curiosities.

It’s asking questions that leads to deeper understanding and better decision-making skills.

4. They listen more than they speak

“Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.” — Doug Larson

When we’re talking, all we’re doing is just repeating and concretizing what we already know.

When we’re listening, we’re opening ourselves up to learn something new.

Wise people prefer to listen a lot more than they like to talk.

5. They know the limits of their knowledge

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates

Wisdom starts when you recognise how much we still have to learn.

Wise people are perfectly comfortable with admitting that they don’t know something.

They see not knowing something as an opportunity to learn rather than a weakness.

6. They live with integrity

“Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody’s watching, and doing as you say you would do.” ― Roy T. Bennett

Wisdom is so much deeper than being knowledgeable, it’s also about one’s character.

People with high integrity align their actions with their inner values, no matter who is watching.

The other beauty of living with a sense of integrity is that it builds trust with the people we want to be loved and respected by.

7. They take radical responsibility

“Everyone is really responsible to all men for all men and for everything.” — Fyodor Dostoyevksy

Wise people never waste their precious energy blaming their current circumstances on anyone but themselves.

They focus on what they can genuinely control and take the utmost responsibility for their choices and decisions.

Taking on heavy responsibility gives us a sense of freedom because it puts power back in our hands rather than in someone else’s.

8. They stay open-minded

“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth.” — Marcus Aurelius

Open-mindedness isn’t about changing our opinion on a whim from one day to the next.

Instead, it means valuing what we believe is right and wrong given the circumstances we’re in.

The difference between a wise person and an unwise person is that wise people are always willing to challenge their beliefs, put their egos aside, and update their old beliefs.

9. They think independently

“Think for yourself, or others will think for you without thinking of you.” — Henry David Thoreau

The person who’s the most vocal is hardly ever the wisest person in the room, but they’re the person most people tend to follow.

Wise people, though? Wise people can think for themselves and aren’t afraid to walk a different path from the many.

They have the skill to form their own conclusions based on reason rather than following the most popular opinion.

10. They live below their means

“Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.” — Morgan Housel

Spending more than you earn is a recipe for a needlessly stressful life.

Living below our means creates a form of mental freedom that’s unparalleled.

Living below our means means we’re able to invest in our futures and create a better life for our future selves without psychological stress.

11. They spend time in nature

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” — John Muir

It’s amazing what time outside in nature can do to our lives.

It puts life into perspective, creates room for reflection, and reduces mental clutter in a way that can’t be replicated.

Some of the clearest thinking we’ll ever experience happens when we put the screens away and surround ourselves with the great outdoors.

See you next time,

Tom

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A few well-presented words, heard at the right moment, can change the entire trajectory of your life.

I know this to be true because it’s happened to me on God knows how many occasions.

In this article, I thought it would be worth sharing a few of those words.

Let’s get into it.

1. “You could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow.” — Marcus Aurelius

I’m not afraid to admit that I’m a serial procrastinator.

I’ll naturally try my best to put things off until the very last minute and only do what needs doing when I absolutely have to.

But it’s a ridiculous way to live, quite ignorant, in fact.

Basically, by putting things off, all we’re doing is assuming we’ll have another opportunity further down the line and be granted the time to do it then.

The problem is, time doesn’t work like that.

Our time could be cut short at any moment, and there isn’t much we can do about it.

So rather than putting things off, if something can be done now, it should be done now, without much hesitation.

2. “A person who’s never made a mistake has never done anything of note in their life.”

This one comes from my old boss.

For over 20 years of my life, I was terrified of getting things wrong.

I was scared of looking stupid, scared of what other people would think of me if I failed, and scared of feeling humiliated.

But in reality, the people who never fail never achieve anything and never come close to realising their full potential.

It’s the people who fail repeatedly and then learn from those failures who forever pull ahead of the pack.

3. “We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca

If I had a dollar for the number of times I’ve worried about something that might happen versus the number of times it actually did, I’d be a very wealthy man.

The truth is, hardly anything we worry about comes to fruition.

And even when it does, it’s hardly ever as terrible as we imagined.

Suffering in our imagination is the easiest thing in the world.

Reality, however, nearly always tells a different story.

4. “People want you to do well, just not better than them.” — Alex Hormozi

This one sounds quite cynical, but it’s scarily accurate.

People will root for you on your way up, but the moment you start to overtake them in life is often the moment they begin to envy you.

Yes, it sounds harsh, yet it’s true.

The key is not to let those people pull you down and instead surround yourself with people who genuinely want the best for you.

5. “Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt

I used to compare myself to other people all the time, and, in some instances, I still do. It’s rather hard not to.

I compared myself to people who earned more money than I did, were in better shape than I was, and seemed to be smashing life out of the park while I was just plodding along.

Guess what?

It made me feel like s**t. It made me miserable.

Nowadays, the only person I try to compare myself to is the person I was yesterday, nobody else.

Ultimately, life is a single-player game, which means you should compare yourself only to yourself. Otherwise, you’ll make yourself far more miserable than you need to be.

6. “To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

It took me a long time to realise that it’s far better to be wrong while doing your own thing and following your own scorecard than it is to blindly follow the crowd.

It takes courage to do so, but I promise you that life is far more fun, not to mention more satisfying and rewarding, when you walk your own path.

7. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin

I wouldn’t say I hated school. I just didn’t enjoy 80% of what was being taught.

I understand that the teachers were trying to fill me with knowledge, but it wasn’t the right kind, at least not for me.

It wasn’t the kind of knowledge that was going to move the needle or make a major difference in my life.

What’s funny is that now I’m a tad older and wiser, I’m more open to learning than ever before.

Why?

Because the more knowledge I gather, the better my life becomes in every way imaginable, spiritually, mentally, and financially.

I can’t think of a single time I’ve invested in my own knowledge and come away with a negative ROI.

See you next time,

Tom

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It was a while ago now.

I once heard someone ask what Stoicism is, and someone explained it badly.

They said something along the lines of, “the ability to nullify all your negative emotions.”

They were completely wrong.

A better way to explain Stoicism is this:

Stoicism is a practical framework for living in a world that throws surprises at us every day.

It’s an ancient philosophy that teaches us to focus on what’s within our control, let go of what isn’t, and regulate our emotions without being ruled by impulse.

That’s Stoicism in a nutshell.

And if I had to boil the entire philosophy down even further, I’d use these three timeless quotes from the big three Stoics: Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus.

1. “You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius

Most of life’s stress comes from trying to control things that were never ours to control in the first place.

We worry about other people’s opinions, the weather, the traffic. The list of externals is endless.

In reality, the scope of what we can actually control is a hell of a lot smaller than most of us like to believe.

We can’t dictate what happens around us, but we can always control how we interpret those events and how we respond to them.

So instead of wasting precious energy fighting things we have zero control over, reinvest that energy into the one thing you do control:

• Yourself.

• Your thoughts.

• Your actions

And,

• Your responses.

In a nutshell, focus on your inner world and let go of the rest.

2. “It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” — Epictetus

Two people can go through the exact same experience and come away with completely different perspectives.

One sees failure, feels inadequate, and lets the experience define them.

The other sees feedback, the lessons to be learned, and an opportunity to improve.

The event itself hasn’t changed, only the meaning attached to it has.

We rarely suffer because of what happened. We suffer because of the story we tell ourselves about what happened.

Stoicism is about seperating the events from the narrative we have towards it.

Rather than being on autopilot, pause for a minute.

Question your assumptions and ask yourself whether you’re responding to reality, or the assumptions you have of it, and then choose your response accordingly.

3. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca

Human beings have an incredible ability to create problems that don’t even exist yet.

Our minds love jumping straight to the worst-case scenario, replaying outcomes that will probably never happen.

Seneca noticed this nearly 2,000 years ago, and if anything, it’s even more relevant today.

Hardship is inevitable.

But a surprising amount of our suffering comes from anticipation and catastrophising a future that exists only in our heads.

That doesn’t mean ignoring risks.

It means seeing them clearly without becoming consumed by them.

When we stop living 100 miles ahead of ourselves and bring our attention back to the present, we eliminate a hell of a lot of unnecessary anxiety and conserve our energy for what actually matters.

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When two of the richest people in the world sit down to have a conversation, there is bound to be an outcome one way or another.

A) Their egos get in the way, and there are fireworks (i.e., Trump and Elon)

Or,

B) A serious amount of wisdom comes out of the conversation.

It was the latter that occurred when Jeff Bezos sat down for a conversational lunch with the greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffett, at the Sundance Film Festival.

When Bezos asked Buffett why more people don’t copy his insanely successful investing strategy, Buffett replied in classic Buffett-esque style.

Buffett said:

“Because no one wants to get rich slow.”

In a world obsessed with becoming an overnight success and becoming rich at a click of a finger, Buffett has always understood something most people never realise:

Building wealth is boring. Repetitive. And often painfully slow.

The problem is that the vast majority aren’t willing to wait.

They don’t have the discipline to wait long enough to experience the fruits of their patience.

And this is why people will forever fall short in their pursuit of getting rich.

It’s not only Buffett who swears by the patient approach.

His partner in crime, Charlie Munger, says:

“The big money is not in the buying and the selling, but in the waiting.”

Mohnish Pabrai, another billionaire investor and a close disciple of both Buffett and Munger said:

“The single most important skill for being a good investor is to be very content with not doing anything for extended periods and that’s perfectly fine.”

See a pattern occurring here?

The moral of the story is this:

What you’re doing probably isn’t wrong.

You’re just working with the wrong time horizon.

Rather than thinking in a few years, you need to start thinking in terms of decades.

This is what all great investors do.

They understand that wealth is built by making solid long-term decisions, and then letting time and compound interest do the rest of the heavy lifting.

If you have a solid wealth-building strategy, patience is a godsend.

The problem is, people aren’t willing to be patient.

Don’t be like most people.

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The quality of your thinking and your ability to make decisions are the things that will ultimately determine your life’s trajectory.

If you don’t know how to think and make good, rational decisions based on your own psychological make-up, you’re in trouble. You’re not going to make the most of your life’s potential.

Luckily, you don’t have to figure everything out yourself.

Like I try to do, you can borrow the best mental models that other people have already developed and apply them to your own life.

There are a hell of a lot of different models you can use in a wide range of situations (which you can read about in James Clear’s article here).

In this article, I’m going to cover a few that can be applied to everyday life.

Let’s dive in.

1) Inversion

One of Charlie Munger’s famous little quips was:

“Invert, always invert.”

It’s a phrase he borrowed from the great German mathematician Carl Jacobi.

Inversion is quite different from how most people think about thinking.

It’s about working in reverse and thinking backwards before thinking forwards. It’s about approaching a problem from the bottom up rather than the top down.

Instead of asking questions such as, “How can I make XYZ a success?”, inversion asks the opposite question:

“How can this go disastrously wrong?”

What actions would guarantee failure? What mistakes should I avoid at all costs?

By flipping the narrative on its head, you’re much more likely to spot risks and blind spots that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

Inversion has helped me immensely with my investing strategy.

Before I understood the power of inversion, I enjoyed having a flutter on individual stocks and the odd crypto coin. What happened? I lost money almost every time.

The bets I placed without first considering what could go wrong ended badly.

Over the years, those rash decisions have cost me thousands of pounds that should have been invested elsewhere.

Nowadays, rather than thinking about how much money I can make from an investment, my immediate thoughts go to how much money I can lose.

When investing for the long term, avoiding losses is just as important as, if not more important than, making a quick buck.

Not just in investing, but in life in general, avoiding stupidity gets you much further than constantly trying to be brilliant.

2) Hanlon’s Razor

Computer programmer Robert J. Hanlon said:

“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”

The majority of people, myself included, often assume the worst in others.

Someone annoys you or angers you, and your immediate reaction is to think they did it deliberately, with malice and bad intent.

Fair enough. Some people will almost certainly behave that way.

Most people, though? Most people aren’t like that at all.

Most people are good people. They’re just careless, unaware, distracted, or wrapped up in their own lives. After all, we’re all human.

That’s what Hanlon’s Razor is all about.

It’s a useful reminder to stay grounded, stop jumping to conclusions, and avoid getting emotionally worked up over situations that may not be what they seem.

More often than not, there isn’t a grand conspiracy against you. Someone simply made a mistake.

3) Circle of Competence

Charlie Munger said:

“You have to figure out what your own aptitudes are. If you play games where other people have the aptitudes and you don’t, you’re going to lose. And that’s as close to certain as any prediction that you can make. You have to figure out where you’ve got an edge. And you’ve got to play within your own circle of competence.”

The Circle of Competence is the ability to distinguish between what you know and what you don’t know.

Once you understand where your strengths lie, you can focus your energy on the things you’re actually good at.

In the past, I’ve wasted a huge amount of time and energy focusing on things that were way outside my limited circle of competence. More often than not, I felt like a fish out of water.

I’ve written articles I had no business writing because I lacked the knowledge and expertise to do them justice. The feedback and results reflected that.

I’ve also made investments outside my circle of competence, and over time they’ve backfired and cost me money.

And so on.

The good news is that your circle of competence expands as you learn, stay curious, and gain experience.

But the number one rule of the circle of competence is honesty.

You should know your limits, know when you’re out of your dept, and know when it’s time to put your hands up and say:

“I don’t know.”

See you next time,

Tom

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From the day I was born until I was around 20 years old, my life was shaped by my parents, family, and closest friends.

From age 20 to this moment, my life has been mostly shaped by books.

More specifically, books written by dead people or books written about dead people.

One of these people is the philosopher-king and former Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, one of the most powerful people ever to grace the face of the earth.

The weird thing about Marcus, despite his immense power and influence he had over the world, when you read Meditations (aka Marcus’s journal), you can’t help but feel he was just a normal guy with normal thoughts and normal life problems as people have today.

I revisit Marcus’s wisdom at least twice a year and feel like I’ve become a better human being for doing so.

Although he’s been dead for roughly 2000 years, much of what Marcus wrote and said remains applicable today and probably always will.

Marcus changed my life in so many different ways.

Here are six ways the great man changed my life.

1. Have a damn sense of urgency

“You could be good today, but instead you choose tomorrow.”

I’ve always been a natural procrastinator.

I was the type of guy who would leave everything to the very last minute.

I’d do my homework the night before, and I had the mental attitude of ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’

When I look back now, I wasted so much damn time living like this. It’s frustrating to even think about it.

For example, I always had the idea of starting an online business of some form, like the one I have now. Yet I kept on putting it off.

So much wasted time.

Living like you have all the time in the world, as I used to, is so ignorant.

By putting things off for another time, you’re just presuming that life will be kind enough to grant it to you.

But life is cruel and time waits for nobody. And it definitely won’t wait for you and me, no matter how much you will it to.

2. Never let your anger get the better of you

“Why would you feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice.”

I was that angry young man.

Most people who don’t know me all that well don’t believe me when I tell them that, but I was.

I was in trouble numerous times in school for fighting or hitting people.

I broke my right knuckle by punching someone’s head in the wrong position, and then I broke it again a couple of years later after fighting with a rock-solid wall. Needless to say, the wall won convincingly.

When I look back now, it’s quite embarrassing.

And the funny part is that my anger never helped me, not once.

My anger only fueled more anger, and it always made my life so much more difficult and worse than it needed to be.

The truth about anger is that the world doesn’t give two shits whether you lose your temper or not.

The world laughs at you and carries on.

It’s such a monumental waste of time that helps absolutely nobody. It serves zero purpose.

3. Think before complaining

“Never be overheard complaining, not even to yourself.”

I love playing a stupid little game with myself:

I try to see how long I can go without ever complaining about anything at all.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve managed a full 24 hours yet.
But it has genuinely prevented me from complaining more about life.

Nobody likes a complainer.

All complaining does is zap the energy out of the complainee and the room they’re in. It’s so needless. I’ve never once met a happy complainer.

The world doesn’t listen to your complaints.

Whenever you do complain, the world laughs straight back at you.

4. Your thoughts shape your entire existence

“The soul is dyed by the colour of its thoughts.”

I haven’t always been a believer in the whole sloppy ‘see, believe, achieve’ self-help crap.

But man, that stuff is genuinely true and works, granted you take the required action.
At the end of the day, your life is a product of the thoughts you implant into your brain.

Whether you drown yourself with negative or positive thoughts, your life will reflect the quality of your thinking in one way or another.

You are a product of your thoughts. There is no getting away from that fact.

5. Love yourself

“It never ceases to amaze me that we all love ourselves more than other people but care more about their opinions than our own.”

I used to think I loved myself.

Not in a big-headed and egotistical manner. More in an I like who I am sort of way.

On reflection, though, I don’t think that was always the case.

I liked the thought of loving myself, but my actions and thought process reflected otherwise.

I spent so much time caring what other people thought of me, and whether they liked me, it was almost like I was relying on them to make me feel good about who I was.

In reality, if you love yourself, you don’t particularly care how other people perceive you.

You carry on being yourself regardless.

If you love you for being you, and so do the people closest to you, that’s more than good enough for a positive life.

6. Revenge isn’t the answer

“The best revenge is to not be like your enemy.”

This one goes back to anger in a way.

Whenever someone wronged me, it would piss me off so badly.

My mind would immediately jump to how I could get my own back on whoever had upset me and my ego.

As I’ve grown older and a tad wiser, an eye for an eye rarely seems to be the best idea.

Fighting fire with fire never extinguishes a situation, it just makes the flames more vicious.

If someone wrongs you, stay calm.

The chances are, the person who’s wronged you is just having a bad day, and you’re just an outlet.

Don’t take it personally. Be the bigger person. Don’t be like your enemy.

Marcus Aurelius might have been dead for 2000 long years, although the guy still has major influence over not just mine, but millions of other people’s lives across the globe.

You might be one of them, people.

See you next time,

Tom

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Wise people have a way with words.

They know how to condense some of life’s most important concepts into bite-sized pieces, and one sentence can provide several years’ worth of life lessons.

The following thirteen quotes have done just that for me. No doubt they’ll do the same for you too.

1. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates

The dawning of wisdom is the ability to put your ego aside and admit that you don’t know everything.

The funny thing is, the more you know, the more you begin to understand how little you know and how much more there is to learn in life.

2. “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” — Seneca

We fret, worry, and panic about all the things that might catastrophically go wrong.

It’s almost like we constantly go round and round in circles, and then nothing happens.

Or at least things never turn out to be as dreadful as we thought they would be.

Suffering in imagination is the easiest thing in the world.

Reality, however, nearly always paints a different picture.

3. “What are you afraid of losing when nothing in the world belongs to you?” — Marcus Aurelius

We’re born, we live for a few years, we die, and then we’re returned to the nothingness we once were. The world continues to spin as it always has, and everyone gets on with their lives.

It sounds unbelievably cynical, yet it’s also very liberating.

When you put things so literally, you begin to realise that you don’t really have anything to lose in the first place.

4. “Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, states, and societies, it’s the norm.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Individually, people are actually quite smart and rational. They make decent decisions, or at least they don’t make terrible ones.

However, when surrounded by others, people tend to lose their rationality and develop a herd mentality.

And as we all know, when people adopt a herd mentality, terrible things can happen...

5. “We have two lives; the second begins when we realize we only have one.” — Confucius

Most people live their lives on autopilot.

They drift through life without any real sense of urgency until something terrible happens to them or someone close to them. Then things change.

That’s the moment life number one ends and life number two begins.

It’s better to start your second life sooner rather than later.

6. “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” — Carl Jung

It takes a long time for a person to become who they want to be.

Today, you might think you know exactly who you want to become. Tomorrow, that might change.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

In fact, it’s a fun journey, and one that might never end.

Enjoy the process and stop focusing so much on the end goal.

7. “Man suffers because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” — Alan Watts

There’s a fine balance between taking life seriously and not taking it seriously at all.

Take things too seriously, and you’re just inviting stress, anxiety, and needless worry.

On the other hand, if you never take anything in life seriously, nothing is ever any fun and life somewhat lacks a sense of purpose.

Most people fall into the former, some the latter.

The best balance is to be somewhere in between.

8. “A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.” — Michel de Montaigne

It sounds embarrassingly obvious, but someday we’re all gonna die.

Some of us will die long before others, some a long time after. Either way, this makes some people feel extremely uncomfortable.

The more at peace you are with your inevitable ending, the more free you are to live a life you can be proud of, with a genuine sense of urgency.

9. “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin

The beauty of knowledge is that once it’s locked away and rooted in your psyche, it’s never coming out and can never be taken away.

It’s knowledge that defines who you are, and those who pursue it religiously and ferociously over a long period of time often get exactly what they want out of life.

Read books. Take courses. Learn new skills.

Do everything you possibly can to take your knowledge to the highest levels you can.

10. “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” — Albert Einstein

If you’re not failing flat on your face every now and then and trying new things regularly, you’re not doing life right.

You’re not pushing yourself hard enough, and without failure, there’s not a chance in hell you’ll be able to live a life you can look back on with pride.

11. “People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.” — Epictetus

This is one of the key concepts of Stoicism in a single sentence.

People can be nasty, call you every name under the sun, and do everything within their power to make you feel as small as possible.

But it’s your choice to feel that way.

People will only ever hurt you if you grant them permission to do so.

You have the power to decide how much other people’s opinions affect you.

12. “In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn’t read all the time. None, zero.” — Charlie Munger

If you want to become wise, you have to read... a lot.

There is no better, or more accessible, path to wisdom than the books written by some of the smartest people to ever walk the earth.

It would be a shame not to make the most of this immense privilege.

13. “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.” — Abraham Lincoln

There is a reason why we have two ears and one mouth, and it’s so damn obvious: we’re supposed to listen significantly more than we speak.

You might learn something by speaking and repeating what you already know, of course.

But you’ll always learn more by listening than by talking.

Nobody is born with wisdom. It’s something you earn, and it doesn’t come easy.

It comes through living, reading, learning, and experience.

But most importantly, wisdom comes through doing and implementing.

You can read all the quotes and books you want, but if you never apply what you’ve learned, you’re not wise. You’re simply well-read.

These quotes might help point you in the right direction, but they don’t mean a thing unless you put them into practice.

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There’s a strong case to say that re-reading books is just as important as reading new ones.

By re-reading books, you concretize what you already knew, you pick up on certain details you missed the first time around, and since you’ve no doubt grown since the last time you read the book, you interpret things differently.

Re-reading books isn’t something I’ve always done too much of.

However, there are a certain few books I’ve re-read many times over, including these 3…

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Imagine having the privilege of delving into the thoughts and ideas of one of the most influential and powerful people to ever grace the planet.

Well, that’s exactly what we get with Meditations, written by the great Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius.

In essence, Meditations is the diary of Marcus that was never intended to be published as a book for the big, wide world.

It was quite literally titled Ta eis heauton, which roughly translates to “to oneself.”

Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is easily one of the most crucial books I’ve read in my relatively short life.

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had a bit of a shitty day, read a few pages, and come out the other side feeling significantly better about life.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes from Meditations…

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The weird and wonderful thing about creating is that the actual creating isn’t hard.

Do you know what is hard?

Sitting your ass down to create.

The War of Art is almost like the bible for creators, and with good reason.

In the book, Steven Pressfield talks about the one thing that all creators struggle to contend with, the one thing that stops us from creating our art:

Resistance.

Once we’re over resistance, we’re free to create.

But the thing is, resistance never fully goes away. It’s always there.

Which makes The War of Art such a special book to have in your creative arsenal.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes from The War of Art…

“It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.”

Letters from a Stoic by Seneca

Isn’t it wonderful how some books manage to find their way into your life at the exact time when you most needed them?

For me, that book was Letters from a Stoic.

I’ll never forget the time when I first got my hands on a copy of Letters from a Stoic several years ago.

Ever since then, it’s been a book I’ve religiously re-read, without fail, at least once a year.

Seneca writes a whole bunch of letters to his friend Lucilius, basically advising him on how to become a better human being and a better student of Stoicism.

Despite being quite literally ancient, Letters from a Stoic, much like Meditations, is timeless.

What’s so special about Letters from a Stoic is that even though Seneca was writing to his friend nearly 2,000 years ago, it feels like he’s writing directly to me.

Here’s one of my favourite quotes from Letters from a Stoic…

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them”

See you next time,

Tom

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Out of all human emotions, anxiety is one of the most crippling of all.

It prevents you from thinking clearly and puts you in a state of panic and worry, where the entire world feels like it’s falling onto your shoulders.

I’ve seen what chronic anxiety does to people, and it’s horrifyingly terrible.

I’m no expert on anxiety. I feel anxiety from time to time just as much as most people.

But I thought it would be useful to share some ways that help me to reduce anxiety and prevent it from bubbling over too much.

1. Stop explaining yourself to other people

We live in a culture where we feel like we need to explain ourselves to everyone.

It’s almost like every decision we make and every action we take needs to be put up for approval.

However, by constantly feeling the need to explain yourself to other people, you’re basically waiting for approval from the external world, which is a total recipe for disaster.

If you know why you’re doing and why you’re doing it, that’s more than good enough.

Not everything needs to be justified.

You’re free to make your own decisions without always having to worry about the potential repercussions.

You just need to realise you have that ability.

2. Get up and get moving

When you feel anxious or down, the best thing you can do is get up and start moving your body.

Head outside for a walk. Go to the gym. Do the laundry. Wash the dishes.

Quite literally, do anything but sit there and wallow in your anxiousness and repeat things in your head.

There will never be a time when you regret moving your body in some shape or form.

3. Make more difficult decisions

You probably know you should be making more difficult, decisive decisions.

But you’re worried about the potential negative repercussions you’ll experience.

I promise you, though it’s extremely rare, that things will ever turn out as terribly as you thought they would.

And as Seneca once said:

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

Even if your decision was the wrong one to make, at least you’ve gathered the data to know that it wasn’t the right call.

As soon as you make a difficult decision and it doesn’t turn out as painful as you envisioned it would, you’ll immediately want to make another one.

4. Reduce the caffeine

A morning isn’t fully complete without a cup of coffee.

And as it turns out, drinking caffeine, specifically coffee, comes with a boatload of different health benefits.

But like anything in life, too much of anything isn’t a good idea.

Too much caffeine increases heart rate, disrupts sleep, and yes, increases anxiety levels.

At the end of the day, caffeine is a stimulant.

It’s a tool that should be used quite sparingly and only when necessary.

It should never be seen as a reliance.

If it’s used as a reliance, you can guarantee a boost in anxiety.

5. Write it down

Mind-dumping all of your current life predicaments and anxieties onto a physical piece of paper is a practice people have followed for thousands of years.

It worked well back then, and it still works today.

By writing things down, you’re getting it out in the open.

You’re making sense of the thoughts circulating around in your brain.

Problems, specifically anxiety, never increase after writing things down, they only ever get better.

6. Put the phone away

The average person spends four and a half hours on their phone every day.

No wonder we’re suffering more and more from anxiety as time goes on.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never spent 30 minutes scrolling through my phone only to feel better about myself at the end.

If you’re anything like me, by the end of scrolling, you feel like you’ve just totally wasted your precious time when you could have been doing something more beneficial, like reading a book, going for a walk, or writing an article like this one.

It’s not to say you shouldn’t ever use your phone, just use it less.

By doing so, not only will you gain back some time, but you’ll also protect your overstimulated mind.

7. Put things into context

Alan Watts famously said

“No amount of anxiety makes any difference to anything that is going to happen.”

It sounds very literal, but it’s so true.

Your anxiety isn’t going to make a difference to anything, ever.

Worrying about the outcome is never going to change the outcome, and the anxiety you might be experiencing doesn’t make a blind difference to anything that’s going to happen in the world.

Whether you’re feeling anxious or not, the world doesn’t care about what’s going on in your head.

The world has bigger problems to sort than what’s going on between your two ears.

See you next time,

Tom

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Don’t you just love it when you stumble across a few words that force you to contemplate your entire existence and totally throw you out of sync?

If you’re in the mood for a little existential vertigo, you’re in the right place.

Here are 7 psychological mind-bending quotes that will do exactly that.

1. “Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.” — Sigmund Freud

The longer you keep your emotions bottled up inside, the more violent the eventual eruption will be.

And make no mistake: that eruption will happen.

When it does, it won’t be pretty. It could be devastating not just for you, but for everyone within your blast radius.

Find an outlet.

Write your deepest, darkest thoughts down, talk to someone, let out a scream, do quite literally anything except choke on your own feelings in a safe manner.

Do this, and you’ll finally be able to breathe again.

2. “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” — George Orwell

We like to comfort ourselves with the idea that we’re all playing on a level field, that society treats everyone with equal fairness.

However, when you look around, it doesn’t take long for you to realise that in reality the world is rather unequal.

Orwell may have written this line in a fictional context, but it rings scarily true of today’s modern society.

3. “You know, no one ever knows when he goes insane: He supposes it is the world altering, not himself.” -L. Ron Hubbard

This one hits home every single time.

It’s far easier to look out the window and assume the rest of the world has completely lost its marbles rather than you looking in the mirror.

Sometimes, the most uncomfortable realisation you can experience is that you’re the one who is out of alignment, not the universe.

4. “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — Carl Jung

One of the scariest milestones in life is realising you aren’t actually the person you imagined you were in your head.

This leaves you with a couple of choices:

• Accept your flaws, your dark side, and your imperfections.

Or,

• Live in miserable denial and wait for the external world to validate you.

P.S. It won’t.

5. “Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.” ― Bertrand Russell

This is psychologically disturbing because of how true it is.

There is a famous study where participants were left alone in a room with their thoughts for just 15 minutes.

They had the option to give themselves a painful electric shock to pass the time.

The worrying part is that a shocking percentage of people chose the physical pain over sitting in silence.

Moral of the story: We can’t stand being alone with ourselves.

6. “He who fears death will never do anything worthy of a man who is alive.” — Seneca

If you’re paralysed by life’s inevitable ending, you will never live a life of note.

The more time you spend developing a healthy relationship with death, the less power it has over you.

Once you understand you have quite literally nothing to lose, you finally become free to live life on your terms with the time you have left.

7. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” — Henry David Thoreau

It should terrify you to your core that you could reach the end of your life only to realize you never let your music out.

If you have something you’ve always wanted to do, do it now.

The clock is ticking, and you’re running out of time.

It would be such a shame to die with your song still hidden deep inside.

See you next time,

Tom

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In his book 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson wrote:

“Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.”

It’s a rule I’ve implemented in my own life ever since reading it, and it works.

It’s a shift that has made me more open-minded and forced me to pay closer attention to others, even when I don’t necessarily agree with them.

But what’s funny is that when I look back on the moments where I’ve learned the most about human psychology, nobody was actually talking.

They were saying a whole lot without ever opening their mouths.

This might sound strange, but hear me out.

The Master of Silence

In my daily life, I work with an enormous spectrum of people. Most are truly great; a few are loud, obnoxious, or rude.

But some people are at the other end of the spectrum.

They hardly say anything at all, and they do it in a brilliant psychological manner.

I immediately think of a boss I had about four years ago.

I didn’t necessarily like the guy, but he was a master at keeping his words under wraps, using them so frugally you would have thought they were going out of fashion.

He was the living embodiment of Law Number 4 from The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene: Always Say Less Than Necessary.

Greene writes:

“When you are trying to impress people with words, the more you say, the more common you appear, and the less in control. Even if you are saying something banal, it will seem original if you make it vague, open-ended, and sphinxlike. Powerful people impress and intimidate by saying less.”

I don’t know if my old boss ever read the book, but he was the epitome of that law.

People would burst into his office in a rage, and he would just sit there.

He would pause and stare at them before responding.

You could see the cogs in his brain ticking as he weighed his response.

When he finally spoke, he would say exactly what was needed and not a syllable more.

I never once remember him raising his voice.

He was in total control of his emotions at all times.

To this day, I still wonder if he even had any.

By saying as little as possible, he was always able to dictate the pace, rhythm, and trajectory of the entire conversation.

The Weight of Your Words

In meetings, the silence was sometimes a bit awkward.

His lack of words made people cringe and squirm, but it was undeniably effective.

By the end of every meeting, the guy always seemed to get exactly what he needed and wanted without barely saying a word. It was a sight to see.

You might call it psychologically manipulative. I call it being smart.

By opening your mouth when you don’t have to, you run the risk of saying something you might come to regret in the future.

Not only that, but by getting into the habit of saying less, when it does come your turn to talk, people will value your words so much more.

Your words will carry a hell of a lot more weight, and when you do speak, everyone will naturally pay more attention.

A Timeless Source of Strength

People wrongly mistake saying less than necessary for a source of weakness.

However, saying less reflects one’s self-mastery.

It’s a valuable source of power which human beings have discussed for quite literally thousands of years.

• Lao Tzu pointed out over 2,500 years ago: “Silence is a source of great strength.”

• Ancient Greek physicist Archimedes said: “An expert on speaking also knows when not to do so.”

• And the godfather of Stoic philosophy, Zeno, says: “Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue.”

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Always Say Less Than Necessary

Rather than being desperate to jump right into saying something, take a step back and think whether you need to say anything in the first place.

The point of saying less isn’t about not saying anything at all.

It’s about only speaking when you have to and when you have something valuable to say, rather than releasing words into the world on a sixpence.

Think of words in terms of money.

You wouldn’t part ways with your hard-earned cash recklessly, so why would you do the same with your words?

Think before you speak, and speak only when it’s absolutely necessary.

See you next time,

Tom

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I don’t think there is much debate about who the greatest investor of all time is.

That man is, of course, the one and only Warren Buffett.

Buffett is currently worth close to an unfathomable $150 billion.

However, it’s not just his ridiculous net worth that makes the guy so special.

He’s so much more than that.

Like his right-hand man, Charlie Munger, a disciple of Buffett, has had a major impact on my life, not only financially but also personally.

So, in this article, I thought I’d share 13 quotes from the wonderful Warren Buffett that have had a major impact on my life.

Let’s dive in.

1. “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”

The habits, mindset, and decisions you make right now can have significant repercussions on your future life.

If you start planting the right seeds today, you will be duly rewarded in the many years to come.

2. “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.”

If you know exactly what you’re doing and you’ve thoroughly laid out all the contingencies for things not going to plan, that’s not a risk because you know what you’re doing and why.

It’s only a risk if you have no idea what you’re doing.

3. “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.”

If you don’t prioritise your time, something or someone else will steal it away from you every single time.

Your time is extremely limited, and needless to say, non-refundable, so use it wisely.

Spend it wisely.

Protect it at all costs.

4. “Rule number 1: Never lose money. Rule number 2: Never forget Rule number 1.”

This rule changed my entire outlook on investing.

Rather than thinking, “ How can this investment make me money?” It makes me think, “Does this investment have a high probability of losing me money?”

Focus on avoiding financial disasters first, and then go from there.

5. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

You can be perfect for 20 years or more, but as soon as you do one wrong thing, the world will pounce on you without hesitation.

Just let this be a reminder of how quickly things can unravel with one poorly executed mood.

6. “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.”

This is easier said than done!

Some of your greatest opportunities in life, especially from an investing and financial perspective, come when everyone else is scared stiff.

If you remain calm, spot a gap somewhere, and see a golden opportunity arise, grab it with both hands, don’t let go, and be greedy.

7. “I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute.”

Have the utmost confidence in yourself.

Because if you don’t, who will?

8. “Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.”

You’ll always find out who’s well prepared for adversity versus who isn’t when disaster strikes, which it will.

Disasters always happen, you just don’t know when, so do your due diligence to be as prepared as you can be.

9. “If you get to my age in life and nobody thinks well of you, I don’t care how big your bank account is, your life is a disaster.”

I think we can all agree that money makes every single one of our lives a hell of a lot easier and genuinely benefits us.

Yet at the same time, it’s not the be-all and end-all of life.

If you’re rich but nobody likes you for who you are as a human being, then you’ve lived a poor life.

10. “Of the billionaires I have known, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks before they had money, they are simply jerks with a billion dollars.”

I can’t help but think back to what one of my colleagues said to me a few years ago with this one. He said:

“How do you expect an asshole not to be an asshole.”

If a person is an idiot before they have money, they’ll more than likely remain an idiot when they do have money.

11. “You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.”

Avoiding disaster is just as important as being brilliant over the long term.

The majority of Warren Buffett’s huge fortune came because of a dozen or so correct investment decisions he made a long time ago.

Avoid making stupid decisions first, and then go forward from there.

12. “The best thing I did was to choose the right heroes.”

You are the product of the content and people you dedicate the majority of your time, focus, and attention towards.

Pay attention to poor content and bad people, your life will never turn out the way you want it to.

Pay attention to great content and follow the right people, and you’ll eventually be rewarded with a great life to suit.

13. “The big question about how people behave is whether they’ve got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard.”

As long as you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, that’s good enough.

It doesn’t matter what other people think.

If you spend all your time following an outer scorecard the world expects you to follow, you’re not living your truest, most authentic life. Nobody wants that.

Which is your favourite Buffett quote?

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I used to think that reading was the most boring and pointless thing to do on the planet.

Well, fast-forward to today, and it’s safe to say that things have changed, big time.

If I had to pinpoint the greatest habit I’ve ever developed in my relatively young life, it would, hands down, be reading.

And if I had to give my younger self a piece of advice in life, it would be not just to read, but to read a lot.

Reading transforms your entire mindset towards the world.

If you read the right book at the right time, it quite literally changes the course of your life.

Some books make more sense when you read them when you’re slightly older, but some books should be read early on in life because they’ll set you up for future life.

Here are 4 of them books…

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

Growing up, we’re constantly advised to “follow your passion.”

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Surely following your passion results in a life of immense fulfillment and joy.

In So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Cal Newport argues otherwise and demonstrates why following your passion is terrible advice.

He argues that job and life satisfaction don’t come from following your passion but from becoming extremely good at what you do.

So good in fact that nobody can possibly ignore you.

This book alone pretty much saved my current career, which I wasn’t “passionate” about, and turned it into one I genuinely enjoy nowadays.

Here are a few quotes from So Good They Can’t Ignore You…..

“Passion comes after you put in the hard work to become excellent at something valuable, not before. In other words, what you do for a living is much less important than how you do it.”

“If you’re not uncomfortable, then you’re probably stuck at an “acceptable level.”

“If your goal is to love what you do, you must first build up “career capital” by mastering rare and valuable skills, and then cash in this capital for the traits that define great work.”

Discourses and Selected Writings by Epictetus

Epictetus is an ancient Stoic philosopher, and yes, he was also a slave.

In Discourses, Epictetus gives us a series of lectures on the overriding importance of control.

He explains how to differentiate between what is and isn’t within one’s realm of control, how to keep our emotions in check, think rationally, prevent anxiety from arising, and not give in to our desires.

Discourses was written in 108 AD, but even today, it’s probably one of the most useful and applicable books you could wish to use in everyday life.

This book quite literally changed my entire mindset towards life.

I’d be surprised if it doesn’t do the same for you, too.

Here are a few quotes from Discourses…

“Don’t hope that events will turn out the way you want, welcome events in whichever way they happen: this is the path to peace.”

“Don’t put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else.”

“When someone is properly grounded in life, they shouldn’t have to look outside themselves for approval.”

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The animals at Animal Farm are fed up.

They’re sick to the back teeth from working so hard and being mistreated by their cruel owner, Jones.

The dream of one day rebelling. They dream of a day when all animals are free to live better, more fulfilling, and happier lives without being under human ownership.

That day eventually comes true, and the animals at Animal Farm overthrow Jones and rule the roost with zero human intervention.

But not everything is what the animals dreamed of. In fact, everything is so much worse than they could have ever imagined.

This book will shock you to the core, it’s downright horrifying.

As worrying as it is, you can’t help but think that Animal Farm paints a scarily accurate picture of today’s modern society.

A must-read for any young person.

Here are a few quotes from Animal Farm….

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

“Several of them would have protested if they could have found the right arguments.”

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”

The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel

Money isn’t a game is intellect.

Money is a game of psychology and behaviour, both of which are extremely difficult to teach.

In The Psychology of Money, Morgan Housel explains complex money ideas in a way that makes them ridiculously easy to understand, so even a numpty like me gets it.

Housel is a genius storyteller who has this godly writing ability to turn a potentially dry subject like money into something you physically can’t stop reading.

I’ve read tons of books on money over the past few years, but The Psychology of Money sits above the rest in my opinion.

Here are a few short quotes from The Psychology of Money…

“Not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness. Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself.”

“Spending money to show people how much money you have is the fastest way to have less money.”

“Controlling your time is the highest dividend money pays.”

See you next time,

Tom

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The other day, I remembered all the books we used to stash away in my big brother’s bedside table.

There were hundreds of them, practically bursting out of the drawer.

When I think back to my earliest memories, I genuinely enjoyed reading, especially Roald Dahl’s classics.

But as I grew up, that early joy for reading faded, and all those books seemed to vanish. (I’ll have to ask Mum and Dad how that happened!)

Between ages 10 and 21, I don’t remember reading any books, except when I had to for English class at school. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, to be specific, which I actually enjoyed.

Apart from that, though, nothing.

I used to think that reading books was totally pointless.

I mean, why would I want to read books when I could watch Netflix or YouTube?

Fast forward to today, and it’s a different story.

I only started reading because I wasn’t happy with the way my current life was panning out.

When I decided to turn my life around, I started researching the habits and daily routines of some of the world’s most successful people.

One thing everyone had in common was being avid readers.

Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger spent the whole day reading.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates reads a book a week.

Love him or hate him, Elon Musk was a voracious reader in his youth.

So I followed suit, and I haven’t looked back since.

Reading is not only the best habit I’ve ever developed, but it also gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction every single day.

Many people want to read more, but most never do.

Everyone knows reading is good for you, but not everyone understands the deeper benefits, and that’s what this article is about.

By the end of this post, I hope you’ll be inspired to read more and understand just how powerful the benefits truly are.

So, let’s get into it.

1. Empathy

Legendary psychologist Carl Rogers said that empathy is one of the most delicate and powerful ways of applying ourselves to serve others and is the most precious gift one can give another.

Well, as it turns out, reading, more specifically literary fiction, enhances the ability to detect and understand other people’s emotions when compared to those who read non-fiction.

The world tends to push non-fiction reading in the pursuit of knowledge.

But as studies show, reading fiction changes how you see the world.

Fiction helps us to see and live a life experienced by someone else, and forces us to see the world through their eyes.

2. Compounding of knowledge

In 2000, in response to a question about how to prepare for a long and prosperous investing career at Columbia Business School, Warren Buffett held up a stack of papers and said to the asking students:

“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

Let’s be real, we’re not going to do that.

But the sentiment makes absolute sense.

The more you read, the more you learn, and over time, that knowledge snowballs and compounds into something brilliant.

3. Improved focus

The average person can only focus for about 47 seconds. That’s awful.

These days, being able to focus on a single task for an extended period is almost a superpower.

Luckily, you can train this ‘superpower’, and reading is one of the best ways to improve focus and reclaim your attention span.

On the face of it, reading is so simple.

Yet at the same time, if you were to sit there for 30 minutes with a book in hand and focus solely on reading, you’d probably struggle.

Start small.

Begin by reading for 10 minutes, then gradually increase your time by a minute each session.

Among the benefits of reading, improved focus is potentially the most important nowadays.

It’s reading that’s the gateway to breaking free from this modern-day focus crisis.

4. Patience

Reading a book isn’t a two-minute job.

On average, it takes roughly 8.5 to 12 hours to read a 300-page book, depending on a person’s reading speed.

You might think you can speed-read, but you really can’t.

As Ryan Holiday bluntly puts it,

“Speed reading is bulls**t.”

If you’re reading properly, you’re reading slowly.

You take your time.

You don’t rush through the pages, and this obviously teaches you to be patient.

5. Make friends with the dead

The chances are, the answers you’re looking for in your current life dilemmas have already been found a long time ago.

Uncle Charlie Munger said:

“If you go through life making friends with the eminent dead who had the right ideas, I think it will work better for you in life.”

Speaking from experience, some of the most impactful books I’ve read were written literally thousands of years ago.

Take Meditations by the former Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Letters from a Stoic by the legendary Greek philosopher Seneca, for example.

These two books found their way onto my lap at a time when I was looking for guidance on how to live my life, unsure what to do with myself.

Both were written 2000+ years ago.

They might be ancient, but they provided me with everything I was looking for, and then some.

We might be in the modern era, but it’s such a shame not to listen to the people who’ve already figured out the answers we’re yet to figure out by ourselves.

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About five years ago, I stumbled across an article by New York Times bestselling author Ryan Holiday that changed my life.

It changed everything I perceived about how I use my time and what I use it for.

Way back when, a young Holiday worked as an apprentice under the master of dark human psychology and author of The 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene.

Greene introduced Ryan to two different types of time: alive time and dead time.

Greene said:

“One is when you sit around, when you wait until things happen to you. The other is when you are in control, when you make every second count, when you are learning and improving and growing.”

Sitting around and waiting for things to happen to you = dead time.

When you make every second count, when you are learning, improving, and growing = alive time.

Just think about what we do after we’ve finished a long day at work.

What do you do?

Kick your feet up and watch Netflix?

Spend the next few hours doomscrolling through social media?

This is dead time. Nobody ever makes any meaningful progress in a state of idleness whilst waiting for things to happen to them.

But the real beauty about dead time is that it can be reversed at any time. The script and your use of time can be turned completely on their head.

You can always turn dead time into alive time.

Your environment and life circumstances don’t have to dictate the kind of time you experience.

Let’s take the after-work scenario again.

You get home, but this time, despite how appealing it is to turn on Netflix and relax after your hard day’s work, you say no.

Instead, you do things a bit differently.

In that time, you might take the opportunity to read a book, educate yourself, work on a new side business, and spend time exercising.

Same amount of time, but time spent differently.

Robetr Greene also goes on to say:

“The worst thing in life you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you’re not creative with and you’re not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.”

That doesn’t mean you should quit your job immediately because you’re not passionate about what you do.

No.

What Greene is really saying is that you have the power and control to choose how you’re going to spend your time and where you point your attention.

You can turn any dead situation into a live situation.

But that comes entirely down to you.

You can either spend your time wallowing in your lack of time and bad environment, or you can try your best to make every second you can count.

The choice is entirely up to you.

Will you choose dead time or alive time?

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