1. A lack of clarity about who you are—and what you should do—can hurt. If it lingers long enough, it leads to a chaotic mind.

2. When your heart knows what you should do but your mind isn’t willing to accept the consequences, a void begins to form inside you. You long for that void to be filled.

3. We lack clarity in our careers, relationships, and lives because we don’t know who we really are, what we want, what our core values are, and what purpose our souls should serve.

4. This inner turmoil can spill into our everyday lives. The first step is to acknowledge it, then understand and accept who we are.

5. It can be difficult to come to terms with who we are deep down and what we want. Society has conditioned us to function according to its expectations. We have forgotten our real selves.

Ask for advice
People love giving advice. So, start your small talk with a request for advice: ‘I want to buy a smartphone [or a cocktail or a book], but I can’t decide which one.’ Most people will happily open up. Then thank them for the tip and the other person will feel like a fireman who has successfully extinguished a fire. The psychology behind this: if you ask for advice, you create intimacy; intimacy makes rejection difficult. Therefore, if you want to influence someone, it is a good idea to ask that person for advice first.

Ask a second question
We often ask something and then wait for the other person to ask something back. This is not a conversation. Instead, use the old reporter trick and ask a second question. If you just asked ‘Where did you grow up?’, then a good follow-up question might be: ‘How has that place shaped you?’

The highest form of wealth is the ability to wake up every morning and say, “I can do whatever I want today.”

People want to become wealthier to make them happier. Happiness is a complicated subject because everyone’s different. But if there’s a common denominator in happiness—a universal fuel of joy—it’s that people want to control their lives.

The ability to do what you want, when you want, with who you want, for as long as you want, is priceless. It is the highest dividend money pays.

The mind without pauses is like a cluttered desk — no space to work, no room to breathe.
Stillness doesn’t throw everything away. It clears a little space so you can see what actually matters.

With even a little mental clarity, the impossible feels manageable.
The loud becomes softer.
The messy feels organised.
And sometimes, the question that haunted you finds its answer in the quiet.

Stillness is not wasting time — it is reclaiming it.

In any negotiation, neither side can see the whole picture. You know the cards you hold and the terms you are willing to accept. At the same time, you have no clear view of your opponent’s cards or the concessions they may be prepared to make.

This uncertainty makes negotiation similar to poker, a game in which part of the information is always hidden. A negotiator, like a poker player, tries to deduce the opponent’s hand by interpreting their moves rather than relying on complete knowledge.

As with any game of imperfect information, success depends heavily on position at the table.

Most of the time, we don’t consciously notice the thoughts that pass through our minds or realise the extent to which they shape our reality. The more deeply embedded these beliefs become, the harder they feel to challenge. You may begin to believe that “this is just who I am,” rather than recognising these beliefs as learned patterns — and, more importantly, patterns that can be unlearned.

Our beliefs determine how we perceive situations, how we interpret events, and ultimately how we define ourselves. They become self-fulfilling prophecies, for better or for worse.

That’s why I like to live like I’m immortal. Because when you live forever . . .

You have all the time in the world to build something.
You can make mistakes and learn from them.
There’s no pressure to make things happen fast.
You treat people with respect because other people will also be around forever.

This small tweak in my mindset has helped me to take a different view on life. I’m not afraid to look 10 or 20 years ahead. That helps me to make better decisions TODAY. For example, I’d rather save my money or invest it instead of spending it because I know that “future Darius” will benefit from that.

People fear cocaine, heroin, and drugs.
But not alcohol.

And yet…

Alcohol kills 3 million people every year (WHO data)
More than 200 diseases are caused or worsened by alcohol
Alcohol is the leading cause of liver failure and cancer
Alcohol destroys more families than any drug

Even worse:

Alcohol is the only drug that people pressure you to take.

Nobody will ever say:
“Come on, have some heroin. Be a sport.”

Inadequate sleep—even moderate reductions for just one week—disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure.

Fitting Charlotte Brontë’s prophetic wisdom that “a ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,” sleep disruption further contributes to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality.

Our perception of reality is very real. We will feel what we think, and our feelings are real — that is completely undeniable. However, our thinking can look like an inevitable, unchangeable reality until we begin to see how our reality is created.

If we know that we can only ever feel what we are thinking, then we know that we can change our feelings by changing our thinking. In this way, we can change our experience of life by knowing that it comes from our own thinking.