The value principle, the daily highlight method, best from 2023 and so much more
3 new ideas on better living, question to ask yourself and holiday discount
Hello everyone,
I’m Thomas. My goal is to help you master the best of what great thinkers, top performers, psychologists, philosophers and behavioural scientists have already figured out. Paid subscribers get more: an in invite to Thinking Toolbox course (mental models for a great life) and Mental Wealth Toolbox (practical psychology, economics and philosophy concepts, laws and principles for smarter decisions every day). Plus best essays and tools. Holiday discount: 50%
Launching in January 2024: How to Live: Lessons in Stoicism
If your emotions get the best of you, you get upset over things you can’t control, want to live a life of resilience, strength, peace, and tranquility or want to overcome daily stressors, Stoicism can help!
In How to Live: Lessons in Stoicism, I will provide enlightened explanation of how Stoic philosophy can help you cope with the many life challenges. Learn exactly what the most influential stoic philosophies say about how to live a good life.
Now on the value principle
The “indispensables” in our ever-changing world are those who consistently provide value for others.
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value,” Albert Einstein said.
Here’s the first law of success — aim to create more value now and in the future — not more money. Success is a by-product of value creation.
The idea is that if you focus on making money, you’ll overlook the many opportunities to make money. Instead, seek opportunities to add value or create more value — people are more likely to pay for value in the end.
When you first start a side business, your focus is usually on making as much money as possible. But the real value in any project is in the services you provide and the relationships you build.
You can make more money by creating value, not money.
I’m happiest when I’m in a “flow state” sharing valuable knowledge in public. I have attracted more success that way instead of making money the end-game.
“If you always think about how to make more money — you get distracted. You think of how to “optimize” profits, rather than to add new value. The only way to create new wealth (for everyone) is to create more value,” writesEric Kim.
Becoming a person of value is the only way to win in your professional life.
Be more than a specialist — be completely dependable.
Value is one of the most underrated concepts today — it’s often over-promoted and under-utilized. But your success as a professional depends on it.
Becoming a person of value requires continuous learning, reinvention and commitment to growth.
Warren Buffett once said, “Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.”
What value do you provide for the people you serve?
When you are recognized for the impact you make, your success will also accelerate simultaneously.
To be successful in life or business, you have to create more than you consume. Your goal should always be to create value for anyone you interact with.
Becoming a person of value requires being thoughtful about your actions, intentional about your relationships, and strategic about the value you add.
People exchange time or money for value — if you fall short of what they expect, you will soon become obsolete.
Becoming a person of value is the fastest path to wealth creation
Creating value is a universal law of success — the real world rewards those who solve real problems.
“The more I help out, the more successful I become. But I measure success in what it has done for the people around me. That is the real accolade,” Adam Grant said in his book, Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success.
Success compounds for people who are in the business of providing real value in exchange for time or money.
People are more likely to talk about you, share your work, tweet about you or your products if you make their lives better, solve a personal problem or helped them make more money.
“You don’t get paid for the hour. You get paid for the value you bring to the hour,” Jim Rohn once said.
You can provide value by making people happy, solving complicated problems, teaching something new, making life systems easier, saving people time, and helping people do something faster.
People who accelerate success provide solutions as a service, in books, via podcasts, newsletters or as a packaged product.
You can also provide value by renting your time as an employee or freelancer.
Seth Godin explains it beautifully, “If we can fall in love with serving people, creating value, solving problems, building valuable connections and doing work that matters, it makes it far more likely we’re going to do important work.”
Your success tomorrow is about how much value you can provide. To become indispensable, learn the knowledge you need to serve others better.
Creating value you care about is also the secret to a meaningful or happy life.
If you’re ready to make more value, not money, you will find success. I hope this universal law of success makes sense to you: apply it and change the trajectory of your life.
Free Medium read: The Daily Highlight Method: A Powerful Productivity Hack Behind Extraordinary Results
If you start your day with a long list of things to do, you are likely to overanalyse what deserves your attention or is worth doing and end up wasting productive time. If you have no clear priority before you begin the day, you will waste a lot of time and energy analyzing tasks instead of getting things done.
Best From 2023
40 Short Principles to Live Your Best Life Right Now — People often refer to life as a game. To win, you’ll need to learn its many principles, apply them at the right time, and be flexible enough to adjust when things don’t go as planned.
14 Attributes of Greatness — By and large, the high achievers had reached for lofty goals because they themselves wanted to, not because their parents had pushed them to do it. While 92% of the athletes considered themselves competitive, and this competitive streak manifested itself early in their childhoods…
100 Habits For a Great Life — Life is a canvas. Your habits are the brushstrokes that’s creating your life story as a piece of of art. How it turns out is all up to you. But here's the kicker – you have the autonomy to redesign this canvas. You can change your brushstrokes. Life is like a piece of art in the making.
Every self-help book ever, boiled down to 11 simple rules — Habit adjustment got a lot of help in the 21st century from groundbreaking studies into human behavior. These are outlined in the 2014 bestseller The Power of Habit. Then came Atomic Habits, which points out that improving any metric by one percent at a time adds up to exponential growth over the long term.
Ten theories for how to achieve true happiness — How do you think about being truly happy? You might find that your personal views on this topic are captured by one of these eleven popular theories. We hope that understanding these different theories will help you to better refine your own views of happiness…
3 Ideas on Better Living
Wendell Berry on the value of stillness
“When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”
Source: The Peace of Wild Things
Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on the importance of reflection
“You may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.”
Source: Essays and Aphorisms
Ralph Waldo Emerson on the importance of trial and error as a way of living
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.”
Source: The Heart of Emerson's Journals
Question to ask yourself to close the year
Did I achieve any of my goals from the past year?
What’s the one achievement I’m very proud of?
Am I happy with the direction my life is taking?
What do I want my life to look like one year from now?
What are my long-term goals? Can they be achieved 5 years from now? 10 years from now?
What are the short-term goals that can help me achieve my long-term goals? Can they be achieved next year by now?
What do I deliberately have to learn next year to become a better adult?
What am I working on that I’m excited about next year?
What are the new opportunities I’m looking forward to pursuing?
What changes do I want to make and why?
What do I want to create more of in the coming year?
What’s the one habit that made the most difference this past year?
What are my favourite memories or experiences from this past year, and how can I repeat them?
What was my favourite TV show, and what did I learn from it?
What was the most impactful book I read?
What minimised stress and improved my mental clarity?
Who/what caused more misery or unhappiness?
What skill made the most impact in your career?
What made me happy or miserable?
What music helped me focus and get more done?
What were some of the best and worst moments of my year?
What’s the one thing I bought that made the most impact?
Which of my current habits can help me achieve my short-term goals?
If I repeat the same habits, rituals and routines, will I become a better or worse version of myself?
Which practices do I have to stop repeating, and which ones do I double down on?
What social connections helped me become a better version of myself?
How can I improve my relationships, physical and mental health and work/life balance?
What would I do differently if I could go back?
What was my biggest failure? Or my biggest challenge? What did I learn from this experience?
What should I do less of in the next 365 days?
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Thanks for reading!
To an Epic 2024
Until next week,
Thomas