#28 15 Quotes That Rewire Your Mind

I am a voracious reader. I am convinced that the single most important thing you can do is to read and think. The more you read, the more you know, and the better decisions you make. That was a quote from Charlie Munger. And the reason why I'm doing an episode like this that's a little bit different than all my other episodes is that I really want to focus on what makes just someone great. And what I came down to is just after studying through Readwise, all these quotes and highlights that I have, I'm looking at this and I really have a ton of quotes and I really want to share it with you guys because as Charlie Munger said, you know, this reading, this idea of reading quotes come from books and their principles and ideas and quotes are basically just compressed mentors. You know, one line is decades of hard-won judgment. Charlie Munger's playbook is simple: master the best of what others have already figured out and then think for yourself. Books are mentors, quotes are the handholds. I know David Sinra has talked about this where quotes are literally— or maxims. David Sinra is a big fan of this. I know Naval Ravikant is a big fan. When you actually read his book, there's a ton of different individual highlights within each single chapter. So you are actually getting the premise of the book and not just random obscure thoughts. I think Stephen Bartlett has done this in his book. There are a lot of different books that if you want to make your book great, if you have a book, just put a ton of quotes or highlights that people can really focus on. Brad Jacobs has done this. There's a lot of people that do this, and that is really important, especially if you're writing books or just whatever you're doing. But that really keeps the audience engaged. And so I want to go over these because I mean, frankly, I have been using Readwise for the last 20 days straight. Um, I love it. One of my favorite apps. Go use the link below to get 3 months for free, 3 months, 90 days for free using my affiliate link. Um, and it truly is one of the greatest power tools that you can get because if you don't have time to read the books or you really want to keep refreshing your memory, The best way to do that is by reading these quotes every single day and just, just start with 5. Start with 5 a day and really just get it into your brain. That's really the idea. So I really want to go over these 15 different quotes that I have for you guys that have really are just— there's a lot of power behind them. And this is from Readwise. This is from partly my AI pulling from Readwise and just some quotes that I actually have saved on my phone because of how good they are. So I really want to share this with you guys. I want to make sure that everything that I do is to the best for you guys. So that's why this episode's taking a little bit longer to get out. But my goal is to make sure that you guys are equipped with what you have. And so this will hopefully just help you guys start learning from different people you might not have heard of. So let's start with the first one. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. That's from Mike Tyson. And that was actually from Brad Jacobs' book, which is really interesting. Brad Jacobs, his book is in, or his book was one of our first podcast episodes. So that was number 4 or 5, actually both of those, 4 and 5. And really, truly incredible. It's called How to Make a Few Million Dollars, one of the most downloaded episodes in the whole series for this year. And so really has done really, really well for my podcast. You guys have loved it. And so one of the things that I really want to focus on is just this quote from Mike Tyson and a quote that he brings out. This is a really interesting quote. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Why is that interesting? Well, that's a good question. When you look at this, when you really dissect the underlying score of this quote, you see that when someone— like, let's say you get punched in the face, or you have a plan, you know, everyone has this plan, they have this idea of what they're going to do, but then something comes out of left field, or something comes out of nowhere, and then all of a sudden their plan crumbles. But they didn't They didn't keep, um, they didn't put that in an account. Um, they didn't account for that. So that's a really key idea, um, to just keep in mind as you're going into your day, where it's like things are going to happen left and right. How do you respond to it and how do you react? The next quote is, we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit. This is from Aristotle, and The whole idea behind this podcast is uncommon excellence. What does that mean? Well, uncommon— you're being a— you are being uncommon, um, in a world full of common people. Excellence is doing something to your best ability, um, and just keep on coming back to that and you keep on doing it. So as Aristotle says, excellence isn't— it's not an act, it's not a one-time thing, it's not like you do it and you're excellent, it's a habit. And it doesn't matter what you are doing. Anything can be excellent. Anything that you do to further the advancement of yourself or just any, anyone or any person. Excellence can be anywhere. And I love what he says, we are what we repeatedly do. So excellence, uncommon excellence, be uncommon and be excellent. And excellence is a habit. To habit. Um, the next quote is, the first step to thinking clearly is to question what we think, what we think we know about the past. So, um, an interesting thing about this is one thing that I, um, I talked to Jonathan Jarecki about is questioning everything. And this kind of plays into the same, um, framework as Peter Thiel. And Peter Thiel said this quote where The whole idea is to question everything, and you gotta think clearly to question what we know about the past. So learn from the past, question what we know. Um, I, I would argue use the past to inform what you're going to argue against in the future. You know, this has happened in the past. Um, human nature repeats, history repeats, and so what we are seeing in the past question, oh, this worked here, but can we make it better? It's a truly powerful quote. This next quote is one of Steve Jobs' arguably best quotes ever, because it really helps with guidance of yourself and what you're going to do in life. He says, you've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully. Over the last couple of few, or just over the last couple of weeks and really month, I really realized that I'm a more creative person. Um, right now I'm working on a documentary, I'm working on creating music, I'm working on this podcast. And so my whole goal is what am I putting my love into? And, you know, I love that people listen to this podcast. And one of the people that I actually make this podcast for is myself because I wanna be able to listen to this in a couple years and think, wow, I'm, a lot farther ahead than I was at that point. And I actually am doing this for myself in the sense of I want to look back and just think about, oh, this is a really good quote, or this is lessons that I was learning. This is almost like, um, my own way of making a story, um, through each podcast episode. So when I think about this, you've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully. I'm never going to stop doing this podcast even if You know, I might not record for a couple weeks or I might, um, be putting work into other things, but I wanna make sure that this is the key thing that I'm putting my time into because I really care about everyone listening to this and also just the knowledge that still needs to be pursued out in the world. There are so many different books and people to learn from, and I have literally just scraped the top of the iceberg in terms of learning from people. I have a lot more learning to do and I'm really excited going into this next year. So when I read this quote, you've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully. It is really interesting because you got to, you have to manage your time well. There are so many things that you could be saying yes to. And David Sinero said this, the reason why successful people are successful is because they know how to say no to things. So they know. What to say no to and what to say yes to because of time management. Buying back your time like Dan Martell talks about. I just listened to his book and read it, and one of the interesting things is buying back your time. What does that really mean to buy back your time? Well, it means to hire people out, to delegate your tasks, to have more time with your family, to spend time with the people that truly matter, but also doing things that you really love to do. And that is ultimately the goal that you want to— and this quote isn't just for me, but for anyone listening to this, you've got to choose what you put your love into really carefully because when you do that, it will determine where you're going with your life. And just, just think about that as this is a great quote from Steve Jobs. The next quote is actually another quote from Steve Jobs, and it is really interesting. He says, simplicity. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. This is interesting because it gets lost in so many business circles, because what happens is that people think, well, if I make this process and this process, and I integrate that with this process, and then I do this, this, and this, that then this complex— this complex problem will be solved. And really, it just needs to be simple. With Steve Jobs, all of his phones were like, how can we dig— like, how can we take away one feature or take away one part and still, if it does, still see if it does the same functions? So simplicity is really the ultimate sophistication. It's almost like a contradiction because simplicity, it's like saying simplicity is the ultimate complexity. When really simplicity is what it— being able to distill things down to its essence is actually the best you can do in terms of being sophisticated and complex. I, and I know it sounds weird or contradicting or contradictory to what, um, most people say, but this is Steve Jobs. And this is his experience. So he— there's countless books I actually want to read just talking about what makes the Apple design so effective from the box, like the simplicity of the box to the phone, to the phone case, like all these different things and the MacBook Pro and the Mac and all these things that Steve Jobs created. There is a science behind all of it. And when he is saying simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, that is something that you really want to take in as like, oh my goodness, this guy is actually saying this. And I should listen to him because I've seen this work out in many, um, just in the circles that I'm in where people can over, um, make it, make something too complex that they don't need to make it complex. And if you can really scale it back and say, no, we're going to try to make this as simple as possible, but also as direct as possible. That is the ultimate key of winning with your product, with people, whatever it is. I love that quote and I think Steve Jobs is truly genius when you really look at that. The next one is actually from Jocko Willink and I love Jocko Willink's book Extreme Ownership. He has the dichotomy of leadership. He has so many different good books that I've read and I've learned from. And one of the things he says is that people who are successful decide they are going to be successful. They make that choice. When you think about it, there's this whole idea of like a victim mindset. What do I mean by victim mindset? Well, when I look at this quote in particular, you really see that the people who are successful— I was going— I'm going to do a podcast episode on Li Lu at some point in the future. I don't know when, but one of the things that he talked about is that He grew up dirt poor in China and he came over to the US and all of a sudden he was like, it wasn't an option for me. I had to be successful. And so from that point, he decided that he had to be successful. There are a lot of different entrepreneurs like Elon Musk that are like, I don't care if I fail hundreds of times, I am going to get this right. And so that is really one of the keys where it's like the people who are successful, they ultimately decide that they make that choice and it doesn't have to be money. Monetarily, or you have this much wealth, or you have this house, or this car, or whatever. It could be in your own personal life. So just daily commitments like, I'm going to read 10 pages every day, that is success. Or I'm going to be a good parent, or I'm going to be, um, good at this business, or I'm going to be good at hiring. Whatever it is, when you make the decision, um, there was actually a quote that I didn't put in here, but someone said that showing up Um, it's actually from Li Lu. Um, he said that Woody Allen, uh, wouldn't— sorry, Woody Allen was right. 90% of success is just showing up. So this is when you make that decision, you are showing up for yourself, and every time you show up, you are winning, and that is why you will be successful. The next quote is, the most important aim of any of the fine arts is to get a purely emotional response from the beholder. This is from Walt Disney, and this is an interesting quote because he really talks about the idea of what does it mean to be successful— or not successful, but when you're creating a piece of art, what does that look like? And this is really interesting because I've dealt with this over the last couple weeks and ultimately last month of how can I make something that's moving or inspirational or some— something that makes people like break down in tears, or how do I, how do I get that emotional response from the beholder? And it has to be purely emotional. It can't be monetary, like monetarily emotional. Um, it can't be anything. It has to be pure emotion. And really, that is the key when you're making a song. Does it make someone feel like they want to, um, like when you're making a song, does it make you feel like you want to just go full force and like you're grinding? Or, um, or not even that, where like you're going really hard with work or just anything else. It really shows that you— it, it's really just down to details at that point. You, if you're a creative person or you're a person working on art, music, uh, movies, directing something, whatever it is, you need to be able to get that purely emotional response from the beholder. And I love that quote from Walt Disney, and I think he is 100% right when looking at just how on the— like, just on the granular detail levels of everything. Um, the next quote is, it is the cause that is represented by the company brand, product, or person that inspires loyalty. I think it's a really interesting idea because you, when you listen to people, they talk about Apple or certain companies like Disney as like a cult in the way of like they've managed to foster a type of love that people want to support them even if they go off the rails or even if something happens, you want to support them or you want to see them do well and make better things. So with Disney's company, you have like they captured the hearts of so many younger people in the, in the beginning of their company, whether it was through animation or through theme park, the Walt Disney theme park, or you look at just other people like Apple, where it's sophistication. And even if it's not objectively the best iPhone, or just best phone in general, that it actually— there's a loyalty to the brand. And I think that was because of Steve Jobs. And when you look at it, is it is the cause that is represented by the company, brand, or product. You cannot limit— you cannot limit the success of your brand to just monetary. Like, you can't make it monetarily, um, like viable in some sense. You can't say, oh, I only want it for the money. You actually have to make a cause out of it. And from that cause, that will inspire loyalty from the consumer or user or whoever is buying the product or loves the brand or is working in the company. You have to have a— you have to foster a relationship with everyone in every aspect, whether it's in the company, whether it's outside of the company. Whether it's clients, whether it's non-clients, that feeling of I trust this company, there's loyalty that will win over just monetary services any time. The next quote is concentrate on what will produce the results rather than on the results, the process rather than the prize. This is from Bill Walsh, and he was actually the head coach of Joe Montana of the 49ers, legendary coach. They won a lot of Super Bowls. But what he says here is really interesting. And I— when I've talked to people, this is something they really struggle with because the interesting thing here is that they want to concentrate on the results. They want to say, well, if I only had this million-dollar company, or if I had this $10 million company, or if I had this or this or this. But really, you got to fall in love with the process. You got to fall in love with doing the hard things over and over again. And through that, that is when you will get the prize. When you stop caring about the prize is when you will get the prize. You have to concentrate on the, the, just the process, the progress through, um, pain. And when you do that, the results will come, you know, quickly. Um, it, or, you know, they might not even come, but at least You can't fail if you've already said, I love the process. So ultimately you could get paid, you, you could not get like, you might not want to get paid for something you love doing, and that is the situation you want to be in. I don't need to get paid to do this podcast. I love doing it. I'm going to put time into it, and if you focus on the process, I'm making the podcast, I'm making it the best it can be, then results will come. You focus on the process first and then you go into results. This next quote is actually by Bill Walsh again, because I just love these sports, um, coaches and players' mentalities when it comes to making a successful company or business or just successful people in general. He says that champions behave like champions. Before they are champions. This shows that it's, again, focus on the process. Champions are, you know, they don't just win and then they win again. Like, they don't win and then all of a sudden they're champions. They've been champions for those years leading up to that championship or years before their business was noticed. You have to behave like a champion. Before you become one. It's the whole idea of the same thing. Focus on the process rather than the prize. If you focus on the championship, you're probably not going to get it. I mean, it'll be a lot better, but if you focus on the championship rather than the process of trying to get there to the level of, oh, how could I actually win this? Let's focus on the process. If you just dream without any action, you're going to get nothing. The next quote is actually from Michael Jordan, and Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players in history, ever alive, and truly just amazing at what he did. And I, I've posted this quote so many different times, but what he says is, I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. This is a really interesting quote because I, I've thought about this, like, what if I fail? What if I do this? You can't accept failure. You, you, or he, he can't accept failure, but he can't accept not trying. And this is a really good quote, especially for me. Um, because if you fail, you know, there's always that fear of failure. What if I don't do this? And what if this happens? And what if this happens? And the fact is, but you haven't tried. You haven't tried to do that. How do you know you're going to fail? And that is something that when studying founders, they're almost like they love risk. And this is the whole idea of risk. You might, you know, you might be allergic to failure. You might just say, well, what if this happens? What if this happens? But the thing is, you don't know until you try. And there's a 50-50 chance that it might go good or it might go bad, but you don't know until you try. And I love that Michael Jordan has honed in on that again, where he just talks about it over and over and over again. And it's ultimately what makes someone successful. The next quote is, it's better to be slightly understaffed. A team that is appropriately lean has a more concentrated focus and gets more done. This is a quote from Brad Jacobs again. And this whole concept is about A-players. We've talked about this a lot. And actually one of the top episodes is the Uncommon Moments episode where I hone in on A-players. And the whole idea is that if you have one C player or a couple of C players that are toxic to the company or just a team, that will lower the team down to that level. But if you have a team of A players, they will go a lot higher. And so that's why— and Elon Musk says this— it's better to be understaffed because if you're understaffed but you have a really good team, they can actually get more done and they actually can focus better. Because you don't have all these distractions from a C player. And so it's a really good idea to eliminate C players out of your life and out of your company, um, mostly your company. Also, if you have any people in your life that are, um, just pulling you down to their level, you want to go up, you want to be higher. Um, and again, and I think I've said this in past episodes, you never want to cut people out of your life. But you got to reckon with reality in the sense that if someone is dragging you down and keeping you at their level, you have to rise above. And if that means severing ties with that person, or if that means just distancing yourself so that way, you know, um, this is what I need to do. This is the goal that I need to accomplish. This person can't help me get to that level. Or that person actually doesn't like what I'm doing, it's better to, you know, just go farther in the sense of you're going to have this lonely chapter. And I've mentioned this multiple times, but Chris Williamson says that the lonely chapter is when you've gotten ahead of your friends and you're in this chapter of loneliness where it might be a couple of years before you find your key friend or a couple of good friends. But you've left behind these older friends and you're going to a new set of friends. And this happens with everyone because, you know, you're going to graduate or you're going to do things that, um, are going to get you with a new group of people and you can't stay behind because if you do, unless they grow with you, you're, you're like a speeding bullet. And if they're slower than you, they're just gonna end up pulling you back. So that's just something to keep in mind. And I, I really like this quote. Of like just being a lean team that really focuses on getting more done. Haruki Murakami has this great quote, "Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional." And I have this saved as a wallpaper on my phone because of how good it is. And I actually have done a couple episodes on him. He's a famous writer who loves to run. And so he wrote a memoir on like his running and just his life. But I love this quote because he says pain is inevitable. Pain is going to happen to you. Troubles and trials and storms are going to come against you, but how you respond to that is really optional. You can suffer through it or you can be grateful and thankful for it. And it is a really good reminder because it is hard sometimes where you really focus on just the pain. You focus on the suffering. And suffering is optional. You know, pain is going to happen, trials, troubles, all this stuff, but suffering is truly optional. And you have the power to decide whether or not you can let that affect you.

And so the next quote that we are going to be going over, and, uh, this is really a key part, is Theodore Roosevelt's quote. And I'm actually going to be reading a couple of his books in the next upcoming year. Um, because he is just really smart and genius. But he says, in the moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. And that was by Teddy Roosevelt. And I think the key here is that the moment of decision is the most important thing, because if you stay in the middle and you do nothing, that is the worst. So either you make a decision and it puts you a step forward or a step backwards, that's better than doing nothing at all. And I love that reminder by Teddy Roosevelt because he has this idea that just has you keep, like, you, you should always be making a decision, even if it's the wrong one, because even if it's wrong, you're failing forward. And even if you're making the right one, at least you're doing the right thing. So in both ways, it's at least a win-win in some capacity. But when you do this, uh, and you don't make a decision or you're indecisive, that is the worst thing you can do. And now the next thing that I want to go into is, uh, and this is a great quote from Charlie Munger and tying this into the first part of the episode with the books, um, just with his quote about the books, but he said, I didn't succeed by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span. It's a really good quote because it captures everything that has happened in our culture today. I was listening to an episode of Joe Rogan and Tristan Harris, and Tristan Harris has this idea that social media and all these platforms that we're on are actually shortening attention span. I, I have to agree with him because you notice that, um, with YouTube or all these platforms, they've gone from long videos, so like 20, 30, 40-minute videos where people got sucked into that. Now it's like 1-minute video clips that is like eating candy every time you watch one single video and anyone can fall into that trap. But that's not the bad thing about that. It's actually that it's shorter attention spans. So even watching a longer video or a longer movie or a TV series or reading a book, which I would argue is the hardest thing you can do, is just sitting down and reading a book. And I've found, I've found it challenging in some capacity. But I think that with Charlie Munger, he's saying, I succeeded because I have a long attention span. And he didn't succeed by intelligence. He's actually gotten intelligence, but it's long attention. Like, can you persist through the boring of a couple hours or 3 or 4 hours or sitting down and reading that book for however many hours it takes instead of just scrolling and watching a minute video clip or less? We've been programmed in our society to kind of think like that, and it's actually a destructive mindset in the sense that it's very, um, it, it, it's detrimental to our economy and just everyone around, um, in our lives. So I would argue that read books, do more like that. And I love that he says, I'm a voracious reader. When he is talking about intelligence, it's not intelligence from just his own personal experiences. It's actually from reading and getting that long attention span. And this next quote is from Marcus Aurelius, and this is where I'm gonna end the episode with this quote. And I have been working on a documentary. I'm not gonna say what it is yet, but I've been working on a documentary. That's why it's taken me probably, you know, the last 3 or 4 weeks before posting an episode. But I've been really trying to make this the best thing I can, so I have to really focus on that. I mean, I'm really excited to get back to podcasting in the sense that I can really just work on all the things I'm working on. But this documentary is amazing. But we start off the documentary with this quote, and it says, "It is not death that a man should fear, but never beginning to live." And it kind of just gets you in this mindset of, and I'll give a little bit of hints in the sense of Um, people in this space think that you might live forever or, um, you might be able to do all these things and you, it might, you know, you, you might live 500 to 1,000 years or never die. And this is really interesting that he says this because it is not death that a man should fear, but it's never beginning to live. You can do all these things, but eventually if you don't step out into the real world and just live your life. That is the most detrimental thing. And I think it's just a perfect quote. You can do all these things with reading or learning or all this stuff and man, it's death. Oh no. Uh, death is going to end my life, all this stuff, but really it's truly just living a full life of happiness, content, all this stuff, living a full life. And then that is what you should be looking forward to, not Oh no, it's death, fearing death. It's that you should fear never beginning to live. And that's truly the root of it all. And I wanted to end this quote or end this episode on this quote, because I think it's just super important that you understand this as you go into your next year.

And so it is not death that a man should fear. It is never beginning to live.

And you can be so caught up in trying to be perfecting all these little things. And if you don't perfect this one thing, then, oh no, everything else is going to fail.

If you live in fear of failing, then you're never going to start to live at all.

You want to take risks. You want to push yourself to your limits in a healthy way. And this is just a really good idea because it is not death that a man should fear. It is never beginning to live. And I want to end this episode on that quote. And I really hope that these quotes help you. Um, memorize them if you can, get Readwise. Um, just start investing time in yourself today to really just grow and learn mentally, physically, all this stuff. And, um, I'm excited to see where we go next year. Thank you guys for listening to this.

Um, and I'm excited to see, uh, where I am in a year from now.

And I can't wait to keep doing this podcast. I'm already preparing for the next episodes. And, uh, just thank you guys for your support this year. And I, uh, posted some of the Uncommon Excellence podcast wrapped on my Instagram, so you can go check that out. I don't know if it's still up there. Um, but the amount of support has just been amazing this year.

I'm really thankful and grateful for everyone that has listened to this.

So thank you for listening to this. I hope these quotes really helped you, and I'm going to keep making these episodes. I'm really excited for some of the future books I have. I'm going to try to get a lot of reading done this next year. Um, I, I think I have right now 38 books done of this year and almost done with the year, so might try to hit 40, but as of right now, 38 books done out of the 24 books goal, which means I surpassed it. So next year I'll probably aim for 40 or 60, somewhere in that range. And I'm really excited and I can't wait to keep going and I'm just really appreciate Um, almost the 1-year anniversary of this podcast, which is, is crazy how fast time has flown by. So I really thank you guys. Um, thank you for the support and everything. Um, and I'll talk to you guys again soon.