Lenny Distilled

Graham Weaver

Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business & CEO, Alpine Investors

11 quotes across 1 episode

How to break out of autopilot and create the life you want

Life is suffering. So figure out something worth suffering for. You're going to suffer either way. And that's another thing I think people don't realize, is there isn't really a path that is easy that I've ever found.

Scale your bright spots. Find what's working and do more of that. Almost all the time, we always had at least a small glimmer of a bright spot. And then we'd scale that and then we'd continue forward and we'd find some more and we'd scale those.

I think the time to quit is when you can no longer see the vision and you can no longer really believe the vision. And then when that happens for a long period of time... or maybe you're no longer even excited about the vision.

Everything that you want is on the other side of worse first. Pick anything. You want a better body? Okay, you're going to need to go to the gym. When you go to the gym the first few times, it's going to not be that fun. The first move is negative. If I'm optimizing for tomorrow and I just want to have a great day tomorrow, I'm going to stay exactly where I am.

Life is suffering. So figure out something worth suffering for. You're going to suffer either way. And that's another thing I think people don't realize, is there isn't really a path that is easy that I've ever found.

What would you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? That's the biggest question. If you didn't have to make money, what would you do? What's play for you that is work for other people?

You activate a different part of your brain when you talk. You actually activate more of your brain when you talk than when you think or write. So thinking activates the least amount of your brain. Writing is a little bit better, but talking activates a whole different region of your brain.

You're unconscious, and you may not even realize why you're doing what you're doing or even realize what you're doing. It's not a day that is intentional. It's not a day where I've said, 'Where do I want to be going with my life? What's important to me in this world?'

Life is suffering. So figure out something worth suffering for. You're going to suffer either way. And that's another thing I think people don't realize, is there isn't really a path that is easy that I've ever found.

You will get more done writing down your goal and three things you're going to do to move toward that goal, you'll get more things done in three months than you will in three years without that.

The answer is accountability. How do you keep yourself accountable to living the life you want to live? The equivalent of that in your life is an executive coach. Make space to ask yourself the big questions in life about your career, your relationships, your health, your spirituality.