By Shane Snow
Ray Kurzweil in “The Law of Accelerating Returns” says “So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century – it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate)”. 4
Smartcuts are shortcuts with integrity. Working smarter and achieving more – without creating negative externalities. 8
True success has more to do with our becoming better people and building a better world while we do these things than it does with the size of our bank accounts. 8
In today’s culture “hacking” is something not done just by criminals and computer scientists, but by anyone who has the capability to approach a problem laterally. This is infact the original usage of the term. 11
Do not place your hopes and dreams in the unreliable hands of luck. The world’s most rapidly successful people take luck into their own hands. Don’t say “If I work hard enough, something good will hopefully happen to me.” Serendipity can be engineered, luck can be manufactured, convention can be defied and the best paths to success are different today than they were yesterday. 14
Overnight success usually happens when you work hard in one field and then switch ladders laterally and level up to the observers’ surprise. 24
Someone with the ability to spot important details among noise is a “first class notice”. This is the key difference between those who learn more quickly than others. Modeling, whether conscious or unconscious should be done with a mentor. They should be able to give you so much feedback on a nuanced level that you essentially become them. 47
When you think about your North Star goal, you should screen every opportunity and experience that comes your way thru that lens of “will this get me one step closer to my goal? “ 48
Successful entrepreneurs are 50% more likely to succeed in a second venture. The more you win, the more likely you are to win again. 61
People explain their success and failures by attributing them to factors that will allow them to feel as good as possible about themselves. As in, successes are owned and failures are blamed on external forces. 66
It is important to create an environment where you can 1) gain quick feedback 2) depersonalize this feedback so it is just data and 3) lowers the stakes and pressure so there is room to improve. 70
Isaac Newton attributed his success as a scientist to “standing on the shoulders of giants” – building off the work of great thinkers before him. 86
Mathematics is a way of thinking about problems and issues in the world. Ge the thinking right and the skills come largely for free.” 91
Effort for the sake of effort is as foolish a tradition as paying dues. How much better is hard work when it’s amplified by a level? Platforms teach us skills and allow us to focus on being great. 99
Intuition is the result of nonconscious pattern recognition. What we take for granted often gets in the way of our own success. Deliberate pattern spotting can compensate for experience. But we often don’t even give it a shot. 110
Pioneers often miss the best opportunities which are obscured by technological and market uncertainties. In effect, early entrants may acquire the wrong resources which prove to be of limit value as the market evolves. 47% of first movers failed. LAST mover advantage has its merits. 115
You are better of being a fast follower than an originator – Steve Blank 116
Conventional thinking leads talented and driven people to believe that if they simply worked hard, luck will eventually strike. That’s like saying if a surfer treads water in the same spot for long enough, a wave will come; it certainly happens to some people once in a while but it is not the most effect strategy for success. Paradoxically, it is actually a lazier move. 121
No matter the medium or method, GIVING is the timeless smartcut for harnessing super connectors and creating serendipity. 138
When money is available in near-limitless quantities, the victim sinks into a kind of inertia. 144
Momentum isn’t just a powerful ingredient of success. It’s also a powerful predictor of success. Momentum can cover a multitude of sins. 150
Like great writers, innovators have the fortitude to cut the adverbs. This is why Steve Jobs’s closet was filled with dozens of identical black turtlenecks. US presidents do the same. President Obama does the same. “Because I have too many other decisions to make.” 164
Dr. Kathleen Vohs experiments that show that making lots of tiny choices depletes one’s subsequent self-control. 164
In 2010 only 2 billion of earth’s 7 billion people had Internet access. The Internet is the modern day equivalent of the library of Alexandria, except it is much harder to burn to the ground. It is indispensable for realizing human rights, combating inequality, accelerating development, and quickening the pace of human progress. Information will be the fastest route to world peace. Grammatis, 176
10x thinking is moonshot dreaming. Learning the art of the extremely big swing. 177
Merely knowing there are more competitors in a competition decreases our performance. Not relative to a group, but in ABSOLUTE terms. 179
If you simply do not believe in failure, you will be special. Like Elon Musk. 184
The bigger the potential, the more people are willing to back it. Space X. 186
Always want to be better. Look at your life in daily increments to try to succeed daily. And this builds up over time. Then you carefully pick your lateral move and get recognized. 195