In his 112-page manifesto titled Do the Work, Steven Pressfield writes “when an idea pops into our head and we think, ‘No, this is too crazy,’… that’s the idea we want.”

A perfectly reasonable person might ask the perfectly reasonable question: “why on Earth would someone pursue an idea so crazy that most people wouldn’t bother giving it the time of day?”

Rory Sutherland, who serves as Vice Chairman and head of the behavioral sciences group at Ogilvy, writes the perfect response in his book Alchemy: “the fatal issue is that logic always gets you to exactly the same place as your competitors. Our mantra [at Ogilvy] is, ‘Test counterintuitive things because no one else ever does.”

To be the same, do the thing that everyone will.

To be different, be willing to try the thing that excites you that no one will.

The problem isn’t how to build a model, it’s figuring out how to keep your customers happier so they’re less likely to churn.

The problem isn’t poor prioritization or a cluttered calendar, it’s figuring out how to achieve a result or level of performance that you aren’t achieving yet.

The…

agitation isn’t always a negative trait; acceptance isn’t always a positive trait.

the kind of person willing to move mountains to make a change isn’t going to be the one comfortable sitting still — it will always be the one who physically can’t.

your restlessness may not be something to…

In an investor panel that I recently attended, every panelist emphasized two pieces of advice on succeeding in an endeavor:

1. Don’t try to do all everything at once: when you have 20 things to do, figure out how to pick 10; from 10 figure out how to pick 1 or…

Marie Forleo wrote a great book titled ‘everything is figureoutable’.

I love the title because it captures the punchline of the book perfectly:

However intimidating or confusing something might be, you can figure it out.

When you can approach a problem with full confidence in your ability to find a…

We have some foresight.

We can think about and anticipate some problems and address them.

We can’t, however, anticipate everything.

Trying to do the latter is easily one of the top reasons why a) we take too long to try something or b) worse — we never try at all.

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