Summary

Success can be broken down into happiness, achievement, significance, and legacy. Work hard and be gritty but balance the exploit explore tradeoff and practice satisfysing instead of maximizing. Identify your intensifiers and build your environment to make them positive traits. Pick the right peer group, find a mentor, and make yourself visible by self-promoting. Be an ambivert and confident but not arrogant. Think long-term and make others think long-term. Trust others, practicing a generous tit-for-tat strategy by cooperating first and forgiving but not being selfless. Relationships account for 58% of happiness and thus is a major driver of success.

“We spend too much time trying to be good when good is merely average. To be great, you must be different. And that doesn’t come from trying to follow society’s vision of what is best, because society doesn’t always know what it needs.”

“That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time.”

Key Takeaways

• Success: study of metrics that matter most:
  • Happiness: enjoyment, satisfaction
  • Achievement: goal striving, winning, knowledge (respect, vanity)
  • Significance: relationships, impact
  • Legacy: establishing your values, extending

• Relationships drive happiness, success
  • 0.7 correlation between perceived social support and happiness
• Intensifier: a quality negative at the mean but positive in specific contexts

• Confabulate / cognitive reappraisal: turn it into a game or weave a new story
• Grit and exploit explore tradeoff: spend 5%+ of time trying new things
• Ambivert: extroverts → monetary success, introverts → expertise
• Mentor → 3x success:
  • Ambition, study them, start small, ask great qs, follow up, make them proud
• Be confident but not arrogant
  • Be your own toughest critic but practice self-compassion
• Working more tends to pay off (but heed to P vs PC)

Notes

1: Playing by the rules

• Valedictorians tend to settle into the system rather than shaking it up
  • Schools test ability to comply with rules, giving teachers what they want
• Schools reward being a generalist
• Filtered leaders: ascend through traditional routes (promoted)
• Unfiltered leaders: those who come through the window (unexpected)
• Intensifiers: qualities that are negative at the mean but positives in specific contexts / environments
  • Optimize your environment / context to turn your intensifiers into positives
• “We spend too much time trying to be good when good is merely average. To be great, you must be different. And that doesn’t come from trying to follow society’s vision of what is best, because society doesn’t always know what it needs.”
• “That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of our time.”
• Counterpoints:
  • Exploit explore trade off
  • Growth vs fixed mindset
• Turing test on humans: our flaws (eg. moody, irritable) make us most human

2: Trust and cooperation

• Flattery never backfires, even if it’s insincere
• Bad is better than good across a wide range of psychological phenomenon
• Selfishness doesn’t work in organizations over the long haul
• Good guys finish both last and first
• Chunk charitable efforts, 100 hours per year is the magic number
• Generous tit for tat: optimal strategy
• 8/10 level of trust optimal
• Don’t be envious: not zero sum
• pick the right peer group
• cooperate first
• but don’t be selfless
• be visible and self-promote
• think long-term and make others think long-term
• forgive

3: Grit and stories

• Grit: known as dependable
• Optimism → perseverance
• SEALs: positive self talk, resilient self-worth
• Confabulate: give meaning by telling yourself the right stories about the world
• “A healthy mind tells itself flattering lies”
• Eulogy values vs resume values
• Cognitive reappraisal: turn it into a game or weave a new story
• Games: WNGF
  • Winnable: control
  • Novel: flow, hard but not too hard
  • Goals
  • Feedback

3.1: Feedback

• Strategic quitting: opportunity cost
• Essentialism
• Lucky people try stuff, have growth mindset
• Find a place to fail and fail fast
• Indifference to rejection (sales)
• Don’t be a perfectionist
• More jobs, more hobbies
• Exploit explore tradeoff: spend 5%+ of time trying new things
• Arranged marriages happier than love ones in long run: they work to make it work
• Don’t dream: fantasizing gives us the reward before we’ve finished the task
• Implementation intentions: plan
• Actually come up with a plan and schedule
• WOOP: wish outcome obstacle plan

4: Networks

• Drinkers make 10% more than abstainers
• Bar at least 1x a month, 7% more on top ↑
• More networked employees beneficial
  • IBM: every email contact worth an extra $948 dollars for employer
• Introverts more likely to become experts
  • eg. 96% of olympic athletes are introverted
• Optimal is ambivert: in the middle
• How to network:
  • Be a generous friend, not transactional
  • Genuine interest in shared passion
• How to make friends:
  • Find people similar to you
  • Assume others will like you
  • Make them talk about themselves
  • Flatter them
  • Ask for advice, don’t give advice
  • Be a giver
  • Follow up regularly
  • Show gratitude
• Network unconventionally
• Have a mentor: 3x success
• How to get a mentor:
  • Ambition, do the leg work beforehand
  • Study them
  • Don’t waste their time, start small
  • ↑ ask great questions
  • Follow up
  • Make them proud
• Managing disagreements:
  • Keep calm, slow it down
  • Fully understand their story, ask Qs
  • Make them think, ie. what should I do?

5: Confidence and self-compassion

• Earning power when attractive: 3-4% more, unattractive: 3-22% less
• ↑ level of confidence at least as important as intelligence for earning power
• Confidence: positive self talk, feel in control
• Dunning-Kruger effect: inverted U curve of confidence due to lack of insight
• Can’t be arrogant or deluded: a little bit of caution, fear is beneficial
• Be your own harshest critic: negative feedback / results → motivation
• Pessimistic entrepreneurs more successful
• Be accessible and open to new ideas
• Self-compassion: be kind to yourself

6: Time management

• Hard work pays off
• Price law: top 10% in field produce 50% of notable work
• Signature strengths: do what you’re uniquely good at
• Work vs play: have to do vs want to do
• Find challenging, meaningful work
• Perfectionism crowds out the space for other things such as family
• Fun > money, opportunity for promotion
• 39% of Americans work 50+ hours per week, 18%, work 60+ hours
  • Top 6%: 35% over 60 hours a week, 10%, 80+
• Americans average 6.8h sleep / night
• NASA: 40 to 90 minute naps beneficial
• Standards are raised with communication technology can’t be the best anymore
• Draw your own work/play line
• Pick multiple metrics
• Success: study of metrics that matter most:
  • Happiness: (enjoying) having feelings of pleasure or contentment in and about your life
  • Achievement: (winning) achieving accomplishments that compare favorably to goals others have strived for
    • / challenge / knowledge
  • Significance: (counting to others) having a positive impact on people you care about
    • / impact
  • Legacy: (extending) establishing your values or accomplishments in ways that will help others find future success
    • / respect / vanity
• Maximizing vs satistfysing: trying to maximize something (eg. income) versus picking first option that satisfies needs
  • Maximizing leads to more income, but considering more options leads to more opportunities for buyer’s remorse, feeling can do better
  • Can’t maximize everything when factoring in trade offs (FOMO)
  • Net net, satisfysing actually leads to maximization of “success” / happiness
• What do I really want?
• Autonomy

Conclusion

• 0.7 correlation between perceived social support and happiness
  • Higher than smoking → cancer
• Relationships drive happiness, success