Ep 198 | My Top Quotes to Jumpstart Your 2024

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to our New Year's Day edition of the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Excited to get after it today. We're kicking off the new year, and here's how I want to do it. I want to give you the quotes of 2023 that I'm thinking about as we roll into 2024. My top quotes from 2023, because who doesn't like a good quote or two? Lots of us. I mean, we read these things, we write 'em down, they inspire us, they motivate us, they make us think a little deeper. And so I want to give you a handful of quotes that I've, that I've leveraged over the past year. And intend to kind of use as a jumpstart to my 2024. Let's get into some of these. Of course, I got to start with one of my favorite thought leaders in the game today. I talk about him all the time here at No Days Off Podcast, and that is Naval Ravikant. Naval's first quote: If you have two choices to make and they're relatively equal choices, take the path more difficult and more painful in the short term. If you have two choices to make, they're relatively equal, take the more difficult path, the one that's more painful in the short term. I think you could, you could take that for what it, for what it's worth. What Naval's saying is go with the harder choice because in the long term it pays off. And that's a guy that's had a lot of experience, probably looking for hacks or shortcuts or more efficiencies. As well as, you know, go in the opposite direction. The thing that's harder or will take longer, default to the more challenging choice. The next quote I got from Naval, I think about it probably every day in some capacity. My old definition was freedom to— this was his description of wealth. My old definition was freedom to, freedom to do anything I want, freedom to do whatever I feel like. Whenever I feel like. Now the freedom I'm looking for is internal freedom. It's freedom from, freedom from reaction, freedom from feeling angry, freedom, freedom from being sad, freedom from being forced to do things. Such a powerful quote. So many of us describe our desire to have freedom to do these, a variety of things, spend more time with family or buy certain things or have certain experiences. And while that's great, Naval changed my thinking in 2023 around this, and it's certainly propelling me into 2024. I think the game is more of a freedom from— freedom from obligation, freedom from reaction, freedom from emotional, like, outbursts or feeling angry. Pretty cool. Next quote, I gotta give it to Charlie Munger, unfortunately passed in 2023. But obviously someone I'm a huge fan of. I know all of our No Days Off Nation loves Charlie Munger. There are so many amazing quotes this guy shared over his 100-year life. But one of my favorites is a rather simple yet profound one. Charlie's quote: The best way to get a good spouse is to deserve a good spouse. The best way to get a good spouse is to deserve a good spouse. Now, clearly this does in fact apply to finding a good spouse, but I see the application of this concept universally applied in health and relationships, in life and business. The best way to get what you want is to deserve it. The best way to build or to get a good company is to deserve a good company. The best way to have great relationships is to be deserving of great relationships. The best way to have a great idea is to deserve a great idea. An example around that, I'm going to get great ideas if I'm being purposeful in what I'm studying and reading and the environment I'm, I'm putting myself in. So this quote, the best way to get a good spouse is to deserve a good spouse. And I think about that all the time in life and in business. Let's pivot to Ryan Holiday. Ryan Holiday, amazing author, another thought leader. Uh, he quotes a lot of the, uh, famous Stoics of, of yesteryear. And one thing that Holiday talks quite a bit around is controlling the controllables. Here's what he says. We don't control what happens to us in life, but we control how we respond to what happens in life. The Stoics say in every situation, big ones, small ones, ones you want, ones you didn't want, are opportunities to respond with the four virtues: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom. That is what life is asking from you. One or all of these virtues in some combination. That's what life is demanding of you. So Ryan Holiday, this control the controllables. We don't control what happens to us in life. We control how we respond to what happens in life. Thinking about that as we roll into 2024. And in terms of response, He says there are opportunities to respond with courage or discipline or justice or wisdom or combination of them. Next quote I want to give you, it's from, um, it's from James Clear, the author of Atomic Habits and another brilliant individual. It's not that hard on any given day, but the trick is you can't skip days. 'Your workouts can be reasonable and still deliver results if you don't skip days. Your writing sessions can be short and the work will still accumulate if you don't skip days. As long as you're working, you'll get there.' Now, why do I have this quote down? For me, you know, there are plenty of days that I just don't feel like doing whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing. I'm human just like everybody else. But when I see this quote, it reminds me I may not have to go as hard or as long as I typically will go on a different day, but to not break that chain, to not break that habit, and to just get something in so that the momentum continues is critical. I think about this as it pertains to health and business. Like, it is so damn hard to create a habit or to create momentum. But it is so easy to screw it all up. You know, it takes 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 weeks to get into a rhythm and it takes 2 or 3 days of break to screw that entire rhythm up. So in 2024, I'm committed to never missing a day in anything that matters to me. But I may, you know, it may be only a 5-minute segment or even workout. Let's say, for example, on days that maybe I just don't have it in me, but at least I don't break that chain. Never skip a day. Kind of funny, but it goes with this no days off movement, doesn't it? Another James Clear quote: one sign you haven't done enough reading is if you find yourself agreeing with whatever book you read last. At first, It's easy to be swayed by any reasonable argument. Once you've read a lot, you can see that even the best arguments have limitations. Pretty self-explanatory there. This one's in here for me in 2024 because, well, if I'm being honest, there are many books that I read and I put the book down and I'm immediately motivated by the thought of the book or the ideas in the book. Uh, and I, I don't challenge them. As often as maybe I should, the ideas. And why is that? I think James Clear may be on to something. Maybe I'm not as well read in that particular subject. There are certain things I read and I challenge it the whole time I'm reading it, and it makes me think, okay, maybe I am a little bit more experienced or knowledgeable in this particular subject matter. But in other areas, other things I read, I become immediately inspired by that book, which isn't a bad thing, but it does beg the question, have I read enough so that I have logical thought, you know, experienced thought to challenge what it is I'm reading. In 2024, I will challenge a lot of what I read and really, and really push it so that I can vet out whether it does in fact make sense for me. The very last quote, and it's the same quote I started 2023 with. If you go all the way back to our earliest episodes, you'll find that I talk about this particular quote, and I am going to roll with it going into 2024 because it's one of the most meaningful things in my world, and maybe for you too. Not quite sure what made me say it or where I probably heard it from. I'm not taking credit for it. Maybe I have my own version of it, but here's the quote. It's very simple. More mirror and less window. More mirror and less window. To me, that means instead of looking outside at what's going on around me and looking at what everybody else is doing, I need to— I need to look at myself in the mirror, focus on myself, focus on my personal development, focus on my education, my knowledge, you know, my relationships, worry about me, and take small steps every single day improving my world. And everything else will fall into place. More mirror and less window. So just a handful of quotes for you. They're meaningful to me. Maybe one or two of them made a lot of sense for you. I would encourage you to maybe even go back and listen to this episode again and process some of these quotes. I also would encourage you to share this episode if you think there's a quote or two in here that someone important to you should in fact be hearing. That's the Frankly, the best way you can, you can show your appreciation for the No Days Off podcast is for you to share it. So I would love for you to do so. Thank you all so much. And here's to an amazing 2024. Enjoy your New Year's Day. Make sure you get after it. That's all I have for you. The No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.