#1 - Sahil Lavingia

(@shl)

Hey friends! 👋

• Every extraordinary person needs an extraordinary person to tell them they’re extraordinary before they become extraordinary.
• “Make something people want” includes making a company that people want to work for.
• Being a founder is hard. Being an early employee is hard. Being a VC is hard. Being a politician is hard. Being an engineer is hard. Being a writer is hard. Being a friend is hard. Being a partner is hard. Being a parent is hard. It’s all hard. Life is hard, and then you die.
• You’d be surprised how far you’ll get by just doing what you say you’ll do.
• People spend years looking for a shortcut.
• It takes years to become a great engineer, designer, writer, painter. But it only takes days to become communicative, reliable, and nice to be around — which will put you above 90% of your peers.
• Listen as if you’re wrong.
• Interesting advice: only buy something when you can afford two of it. Buy the product, then buy the company’s stock.
• Compliment people behind their backs.
• Give more than you take, and you’ll get more than you give.
• It takes years to get to the point where it takes an hour.
• You’ll get it when you no longer want it.
• Worse writers than you have written and published books. Worse founders than you have built successful businesses. If they can do it, you can too.
• Suffer the pain of discipline now to avoid the pain of regret later.
• When you spend a lot of time alone, you realize how much your thoughts matter. Then you spend a lot of time improving your thoughts. Then you get happy.
• Do something before there’s a name for it.
• Better to try 100 times and succeed 10% of the time than try 10 times and succeed 50% of the time.
• Before you ask someone for advice, spend a few hours seeing how far you can get by yourself. Either you’ll get to the answer yourself, or you’ll be able to frame your situation in a way that will yield better, more specific advice — and earn you more of their respect.
• I read somewhere that there are only two reasons we give feedback: 1) To cut someone down; 2) To help them grow. I try and go through that mental check each time I give someone feedback.
• How to be happy: find a few people you really care about and make them really happy.
• Nothing will make you happier than an ego death.
• You won’t get lucky if you don’t have skin in the game.
• Everything you make is informed by everything else you have made. Your last blog post, video, or painting did not take a few hours. It took your whole life.
• You can learn more from watching what people do than listening to people talk.
• The longer you wait, the more likely you won’t.
• “Nothing in life is free.” Sure there is! It’s free to be nice to everyone you meet. It’s free to assume someone’s good faith. It’s free to forgive someone.
• I’d rather fail doing what I love than succeed doing what I hate.
• If someone makes something that feels unachievable to you, find the earlier work they did to lead them there. It’ll show you the way.
• Growth is outsmarting yourself.
• If you have enough curiosity you won’t need as much discipline.
• Your life is your thoughts.
• The best way to signal your belief in someone is to give them your money and time.
• You don’t have to be right but you do have to be certain.
• Breakthroughs follow breakdowns.
• Someone’s favorite book has yet to be written. Someone’s favorite painting has yet to be painted. Someone’s favorite movie has yet to be made. It could be yours.
• Freedom is not needing anything from anyone. Peace is not wanting anything from anyone.
• Not sure if people change, or if they progressively discover deeper levels of themselves.
• If you help without expecting anything in return, you will eventually get something in return.
• Being funny is harder than being smart.
• Everything you do should help people enjoy life, or help people endure it.
• Too many people want all the answers before they begin. You won’t even know all the questions years after you begin!
• If someone really believes something, they wouldn't just be talking about it, they would be doing it.
• Distract yourself from rejection with another rejection.