Small Changes, Big Impact
We make a few changes, but the results never seem to come quickly and so we slide back into our previous routines. (Page 16)
Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations. (Page 18)
Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits. Your net worth is a lagging measure of your financial habits. Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits. Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits. Your clutter is a lagging measure of your cleaning habits. (Page 18)
Small changes can affect your direction in life a little bit, but the end result is you end up at much different place. It is atypical that once in a lifetime decisions can impact your success – it is more likely built up over time.
I read somewhere how the greatest force in life is the concept of exponential or compounding growth. In investing, in long-term goals, etc. The difficulty is that humans are biased towards the near-future, not the far-future. It would be a great superpower to be able to focus for long-term gains.
My anecdotal casual readings reminds me of how most stock-holders and consultancy firms focus on short-term profits (the near-future), instead of long-term success. Like I read in When McKinsey Comes to Town, firms who don’t understand the business and the culture will destroy it. Because they have no incentive to prioritize the survival of the company, they seek to extract profits quick over maximizing profits.
As touched upon in both The Nvidia Way and Focus - The ASML Way, short-term investors pressured these two companies to change its direction (Nvidia away from CUDA, ASML away from EUV). In hindsight, CUDA and EUV are the defining technologies that now make Nvidia and ASML the companies they are now.
Non-technical investors/consultants know nothing except short-term success, internal politics, and concept of a lone shark. It is engineers (and anyone else technicaL) who can steer towards sustainable success with a team. Perhaps someone should keep track of companies who are run by technical CEOs (perhaps a previous CTO) or non-technical CEOs (likely those who came from CMO or CFO positions).
Identity Changes
The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. True behavior change is identity change. You might start a habit because of motivation, but the only reason you’ll stick with one is that it becomes part of your identity. (Page 34)
We are continually undergoing microevolutions of the self. (Page 38)
The focus should always be on becoming that type of person, not getting a particular outcome. Habits can help you achieve all of these things, but fundamentally they are not about having something. They are about becoming someone. (Page 41)
Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. (Page 118) When changing your habits means challenging the tribe, change is unattractive. (Page 121) At a deep level, you simply want to reduce uncertainty and relieve anxiety, to win social acceptance and approval, or to achieve status. (Page 127)
Identities are Narratives that you tell yourself. Shaping a narrative around yourself is the same as changing your perceived identities by others.
Changing Habits
Whenever you want to change your behavior, you can simply ask yourself: How can I make it obvious? How can I make it attractive? How can I make it easy? How can I make it satisfying? (Page 54) By sprinkling triggers throughout your surroundings, you increase the odds that you’ll think about your habit throughout the day. Make sure the best choice is the most obvious one. Making a better decision is easy and natural when the cues for good habits are right in front of you. Environment design is powerful not only because it influences how we engage with the world but also because we rarely do it. Most people live in a world others have created for them. But you can alter the spaces where you live and work to increase your exposure to positive cues and reduce your exposure to negative ones. (Page 86)
Hearing your bad habits spoken aloud makes the consequences seem more real. Just saying out loud, “Tomorrow, I need to go to the post office after lunch,” increases the odds that you’ll actually do it. (Page 66)
The simple way to apply this strategy to your habits is to fill out this sentence: I will {BEHAVIOR} at {TIME} in {LOCATION}. (Page 71)
Remove a single cue and the entire habit often fades away. (Page 95)
One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day. (Page 117)
Make your habits obvious, attractive, easy (reduce friction), satisfying, and design triggers to increase the odds of doing it. Triggers are from your environment so you should change it – to emphasize or de-emphasize habits. Create an environment where doing the right thing is as easy as possible. (Page 158)
Pair multiple actions together from a single cue.
Reframe habits to highlight benefits over drawbacks (I am building endurance instead of I am running!)
Self-Control and Willpower
Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one. You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it’s unlikely you can muster the willpower to override your desires every time. Instead of summoning a new dose of willpower whenever you want to do the right thing, your energy would be better spent optimizing your environment. This is the secret to self-control. Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible. (Page 95)
Motion vs Action and Learning
Sometimes motion is useful, but it will never produce an outcome by itself. It doesn’t matter how many times you go talk to the personal trainer, that motion will never get you in shape. Only the action of working out will get the result you’re looking to achieve. If motion doesn’t lead to results, why do we do it? Sometimes we do it because we actually need to plan or learn more. But more often than not, we do it because motion allows us to feel like we’re making progress without running the risk of failure. Most of us are experts at avoiding criticism. It doesn’t feel good to fail or to be judged publicly, so we tend to avoid situations where that might happen. And that’s the biggest reason why you slip into motion rather than taking action: you want to delay failure. It’s easy to be in motion and convince yourself that you’re still making progress. (Page 142)
Pain is an effective teacher. If a failure is painful, it gets fixed. If a failure is relatively painless, it gets ignored. The more immediate and more costly a mistake is, the faster you will learn from it. (Page 206)
It is interesting to note that both CEOs of ASML and Nvidia (sources: Focus - The ASML Way and The Nvidia Way) are willing to critique others publicly so they can fix their mistake as fast as possible. They’re also both opposed to internal politics that lead to motion instead of action. If you avoid criticism and make up bullshit, you will be called out fast.
Choosing Direction
If you want to be truly great, selecting the right place to focus is crucial. (Page 219) The key is to direct your effort toward areas that both excite you and match your natural skills, to align your ambition with your ability. (Page 219)
No internal judgments or people-pleasing. No second-guessing or self-criticism. Just feelings of engagement and enjoyment. Whenever you feel authentic and genuine, you are headed in the right direction. (Page 225)
What feels like fun to me, but work to others? What makes me lose track of time? What comes naturally to me? What feels natural to me?
Misc
Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you. Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system. (Page 203)
Goodhart’s Law! Use a metric to guide you as a feedback, not as a target.
Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way. (Page 236)
Discipline > motivation. Consistency > intensity.
Being curious is better than being smart. Being motivated and curious counts for more than being smart because it leads to action. Being smart will never deliver results on its own because it doesn’t get you to act. (Page 261)
This is a shared view by both Einstein and Jensen Huang.
Suffering drives progress. The source of all suffering is the desire for a change in state. This is also the source of all progress. The desire to change your state is what powers you to take action. It is wanting more that pushes humanity to seek improvements, develop new technologies, and reach for a higher level. (Page 262)
The root for passion is suffer, apparently. Suffering causes growth, causing progress. It is my opinion that 1st generation immigrants suffer the most, driving progress toward a stable life for the 2nd generation. The 2nd generation observe this suffering and on a stable platform, aim to make it to the top. But the 3rd generation lives in the absence of suffering – they are rich and living comfortably. The decline of that culture begins here.