Eugene Zag

Hapiness is absense of desire, desire for external things. Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy untill you get what you want. Pick one desire at any given time.

-Naval Ravikant

In a 500 things to do list: “There is about half a dozen things that makes up all the difference”

-Jim Rohn

https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful

On one of the podcasts, I have heard Eric Schmidt talk about the “spin rate”, basically a rate at which the whole company works and how his job was to make that “spin rate” consistent. It made sense that that is such an important productivity hack (to think of our business that way). It is so simple but just puts all of the “to do list” in the right place. You do not want to overwork/underwork because will lose the “spin rate”. Also, you need sleep, nutrition, exercise and personal life everyday so can run like a well oiled machine. Business is like a marathon and the best way to run the marathon is at a consistent pace or “spin rate”.

My main take away for this podcast was that we need to appreciate and be thankful for everything that is surrounding us because we live in a connected world, and probably there was an army involved in order to make my day a reality. Probably millions of people involved in order for me to go through my day. A.J makes a point that there was about 1000 people involved in order for a cup of coffee to be made (from farmers, to truck drivers, to barista, etc). What about the laptop, tv, phone, car, furniture, clothes, etc. If you multiply all of that, I would not be surprised that it would be more than a million people involved. Anyway, we need to be appreciative of that idea and strive to be a purposeful individual that will give back the investment that has been made in us. We are so lucky to be alive on this earth. Like Gary Veynerchuk mentions that we have 1-400 trillion chance to be alive right now. It is just bananas to think that we can breath right now. Anyways, that’s my little rant for today. Go listen to the Tims podcast, read the book that A.J Jacobs is coming out with, and say thank you more often. Definitely a life changer!!!

The second reason to quit drinking alcohol forever is for the beautiful mornings. Instead of having fun at night drinking you can have fun in the morning by waking up early, having a cup of coffee/tea, meditate, go for a run/gym. You will notice a much better feeling that you have overcame the peer pressure. Basically you are switching fun from the night till the morning. It’s only 8-12 hours away. Best part=no hangover to deal with.

The first reason to stop drinking alcohol would be because you just become more productive by default. There is no more wasted hazy days treating hangovers by drinking water, laying in bed, eating soups, binge watching netflix, etc. Instead you gain control of that dreamy state and finally start checking off your bucket list.

Jay Z is a “business”, not a “businessman”. As he says in his verse, the meaning of it I understood only after reading this book.

His name and everything associated with it is a business machine.

Everything he does is mostly to make money. Rapping was the best vehicle to get to the business empire. By using rap fame as leverage he was able to use his business genius to situate himself in music, sports, liquor, nightclub, restaurant, clothes, Reebok, beauty products, etc.

It was a great read and gave me a lot of business lessons. Recommend it.