It’s a challenge to find meaning in our struggles, in the bad things that have happened to us.
- That nagging pain in your leg—thank you, it’s making me take things slow.
- That difficult client—thank you, it’s helping me develop better boundaries.
- That damage from the storm—thank you, the damage exposed a more serious problem I’m now solving.
- That mistake you made—thank you, for reminding me to be more careful and teaching me a lesson.
This is what Epictetus meant when he said every situation has two handles.
We can grab onto resentment—or gratitude. We can focus on obstacles—or look closer and see opportunities.
Gratitude shifts our perspective and transforms even the harshest realities into tools for growth.
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- That nagging pain in your leg—thank you, it’s making me take things slow.
- That difficult client—thank you, it’s helping me develop better boundaries.
- That damage from the storm—thank you, the damage exposed a more serious problem I’m now solving.
- That mistake you made—thank you, for reminding me to be more careful and teaching me a lesson.
This is what Epictetus meant when he said every situation has two handles.
We can grab onto resentment—or gratitude. We can focus on obstacles—or look closer and see opportunities.
Gratitude shifts our perspective and transforms even the harshest realities into tools for growth.
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Here are 13 truths I wish someone told me about your first 13 months in business:
1. You will make $0 for 9 months.
Maybe even 1 year.
Plan accordingly
2. You have no idea what you're doing.
You think you do, but you don't.
Confidence is the liquor of the fool.
Embrace being an idiot.
3. Nobody cares about your business.
Not your friends. Not your followers. Definitely not strangers.
Nobody even knows you exist.
4. "if you build it, they will come" is a myth
You can only learn this first hand.
Try to learn it in the first 10 days.
5. Everyone you admire spent years failing first.
Nobody gets it right on the first try.
6. You'll put in thousands of hours to make $10.
Your “hourly rate” looks delusional compared to your day job.
Startup dollars are worth 100x your hourly rate.
7. It's lonely af.
While all your friends party on weekends, you'll be stuck in your room…
Talking to yourself.
8. You’re not just a founder.
You’re customer support.
Complaint hotline.
Product manager.
And 100 more "hats.”
Generalists crush it as solopreneurs.
9. You will feel guilty doing ANYTHING besides building.
Gym? Nah.
Dinner? McD’s.
Friends? Who?
10. “No" is 10x more common than "yes."
Ghosts are even more common.
Tweets into the void.
Emails with no responses.
Learn to love it.
11. If your business doesn’t keep you up at night, quit.
You might not be cut out for this (sorry).
You’re better off with a 9-5.
12. You don’t need to be smart.
The most intelligent people I know are not business owners.
Conviction and determination will take you much further.
13. It's the craziest, scariest, most exciting thing you’ll ever do.
Better than drugs.
Better than hitting the lottery.
Better than sex.
If you made it this far, congrats—you’re one of the crazy ones :)
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1. You will make $0 for 9 months.
Maybe even 1 year.
Plan accordingly
2. You have no idea what you're doing.
You think you do, but you don't.
Confidence is the liquor of the fool.
Embrace being an idiot.
3. Nobody cares about your business.
Not your friends. Not your followers. Definitely not strangers.
Nobody even knows you exist.
4. "if you build it, they will come" is a myth
You can only learn this first hand.
Try to learn it in the first 10 days.
5. Everyone you admire spent years failing first.
Nobody gets it right on the first try.
6. You'll put in thousands of hours to make $10.
Your “hourly rate” looks delusional compared to your day job.
Startup dollars are worth 100x your hourly rate.
7. It's lonely af.
While all your friends party on weekends, you'll be stuck in your room…
Talking to yourself.
8. You’re not just a founder.
You’re customer support.
Complaint hotline.
Product manager.
And 100 more "hats.”
Generalists crush it as solopreneurs.
9. You will feel guilty doing ANYTHING besides building.
Gym? Nah.
Dinner? McD’s.
Friends? Who?
10. “No" is 10x more common than "yes."
Ghosts are even more common.
Tweets into the void.
Emails with no responses.
Learn to love it.
11. If your business doesn’t keep you up at night, quit.
You might not be cut out for this (sorry).
You’re better off with a 9-5.
12. You don’t need to be smart.
The most intelligent people I know are not business owners.
Conviction and determination will take you much further.
13. It's the craziest, scariest, most exciting thing you’ll ever do.
Better than drugs.
Better than hitting the lottery.
Better than sex.
If you made it this far, congrats—you’re one of the crazy ones :)
@ebooksCafe
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The One In The Driver’s Seat
At a friend’s house, the poet David Whyte was filled with the “demon of envy” when he saw his friend’s “little working paradise”—a space filled with bookshelves, lined with first editions, surrounding a desk perfectly positioned before a window overlooking a stunning mountain landscape.
“I gazed upon that meticulously put together and maintained study as a motorsport aficionado might gaze openmouthed upon a racing-green 1959 Jaguar XK 150 roadster,” Whyte writes.
“I wanted to turn the key and drive this study off into my literary future.”
As he imagined how such a space might enhance his creative output, Whyte snapped out it when recalled once sitting on a crowded train across from “a man crouched on the scruffy floor,” scribbling furiously on a notepad.
Nothing could break the man's focus—“not the accidental kick of his pad by passengers getting on or off at the stops, not his falling back onto his bottom when the train halted in the tunnel. He simply picked up his pen again in whatever position he now found himself in and carried on writing energetically.”
As he stood there in his friend’s little working paradise thinking about that man who didn’t need a little working paradise, Whyte realized, “If I look closely at what I need for work, the prized, internal possession of focus is much more important than the external environment that I might lust after in the abstract.” Like the way someone driving a Ford Focus might be happier than the person driving the Jaguar XK 150, Whyte writes, “It is the one in the driver’s seat, setting the destination and the attitude for the journey of work and vocation, who seems to make up our real possibilities for satisfaction over time.
The difficult truth is that our kingdom does not have to be very big at all in order for us to do good work: what is difficult is simply starting the work and carrying on with it day after day.”
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At a friend’s house, the poet David Whyte was filled with the “demon of envy” when he saw his friend’s “little working paradise”—a space filled with bookshelves, lined with first editions, surrounding a desk perfectly positioned before a window overlooking a stunning mountain landscape.
“I gazed upon that meticulously put together and maintained study as a motorsport aficionado might gaze openmouthed upon a racing-green 1959 Jaguar XK 150 roadster,” Whyte writes.
“I wanted to turn the key and drive this study off into my literary future.”
As he imagined how such a space might enhance his creative output, Whyte snapped out it when recalled once sitting on a crowded train across from “a man crouched on the scruffy floor,” scribbling furiously on a notepad.
Nothing could break the man's focus—“not the accidental kick of his pad by passengers getting on or off at the stops, not his falling back onto his bottom when the train halted in the tunnel. He simply picked up his pen again in whatever position he now found himself in and carried on writing energetically.”
As he stood there in his friend’s little working paradise thinking about that man who didn’t need a little working paradise, Whyte realized, “If I look closely at what I need for work, the prized, internal possession of focus is much more important than the external environment that I might lust after in the abstract.” Like the way someone driving a Ford Focus might be happier than the person driving the Jaguar XK 150, Whyte writes, “It is the one in the driver’s seat, setting the destination and the attitude for the journey of work and vocation, who seems to make up our real possibilities for satisfaction over time.
The difficult truth is that our kingdom does not have to be very big at all in order for us to do good work: what is difficult is simply starting the work and carrying on with it day after day.”
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👍6❤3
“It doesn’t get any less scary. All that happens is that you have less life left. It helps if you do your falling early, and it really helps if you do your reaching early.”
— Mary H.K. Choi
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— Mary H.K. Choi
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"A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else." - George Savile
If you can be still while others rush to move.
If you can delay gratification while others rush to feel it.
If you can make time your friend, not your enemy.
You will win.
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If you can be still while others rush to move.
If you can delay gratification while others rush to feel it.
If you can make time your friend, not your enemy.
You will win.
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On Hats, Haircuts, and Tattoos
I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.
Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don't like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.
Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won't be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile. That said, don't be scared of a bad haircut. Trying something new is usually a risk worth taking. If it doesn't work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else.
A few decisions are like tattoos. Once you make them, you have to live with them. Some mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you’ll move on for a moment, but then you'll glance in the mirror and be reminded of that choice all over again. Even years later, the decision leaves a mark. When you're dealing with an irreversible choice, move slowly and think carefully.
- James Clear
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I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.
Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don't like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.
Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won't be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile. That said, don't be scared of a bad haircut. Trying something new is usually a risk worth taking. If it doesn't work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else.
A few decisions are like tattoos. Once you make them, you have to live with them. Some mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you’ll move on for a moment, but then you'll glance in the mirror and be reminded of that choice all over again. Even years later, the decision leaves a mark. When you're dealing with an irreversible choice, move slowly and think carefully.
- James Clear
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“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
— Henry David Thoreau
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— Henry David Thoreau
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“One sign that determination matters more than talent: there are lots of talented people who never achieve anything, but not that many determined people who don’t.”
— Paul Graham
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“Suffering and pain are always mandatory for broad minds and deep hearts - truly great people, it seems to me, should feel great sadness on this earth.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
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"Doing your own thing" isn't for everyone.
In the modern social media age, there's this weird stigma associated with being an employee. Everyone says you have to "bet on yourself" and "build your own thing" or you will never get rich.
That's bad advice (and completely false).
Starting your own business isn't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with working your way up at someone else's company. In fact, for most people, it's probably the best path to building Financial Wealth.
Also, the notion that "doing your own thing" means working 4 hours per week from a beach in Bali is also a lie. There may be some people who are able to pull this off, but for most of us, "doing your own thing" means working just as much (if not more). There is no easy mode when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Don't get shamed into a path that isn't yours.
@ebooksCafe
In the modern social media age, there's this weird stigma associated with being an employee. Everyone says you have to "bet on yourself" and "build your own thing" or you will never get rich.
That's bad advice (and completely false).
Starting your own business isn't for everyone, and there's nothing wrong with working your way up at someone else's company. In fact, for most people, it's probably the best path to building Financial Wealth.
Also, the notion that "doing your own thing" means working 4 hours per week from a beach in Bali is also a lie. There may be some people who are able to pull this off, but for most of us, "doing your own thing" means working just as much (if not more). There is no easy mode when it comes to entrepreneurship.
Don't get shamed into a path that isn't yours.
@ebooksCafe
❤19👍5👏1
Anxiety comes from many options but no priorities.
Sadness comes from a perceived lack of options.
To solve the first, prioritize. Cut the rest.
To solve the second, look. There’s always an option. You just don’t see it yet. Which means finding it becomes your default action.
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Sadness comes from a perceived lack of options.
To solve the first, prioritize. Cut the rest.
To solve the second, look. There’s always an option. You just don’t see it yet. Which means finding it becomes your default action.
@ebooksCafe
❤22👏5👍2
"If you do not actively choose a better way, then society, culture, and the general inertia of life will push you into a worse way.
The default is distraction, not improvement."
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The default is distraction, not improvement."
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