Principles: Life and Work

However, you will never handle them all well: mistakes are inevitable, and it’s important to recognize and accept this fact of life. The good news, as I have mentioned, is that most learning comes through making mistakes—so there is no end to learning how to play the game better. You will have an enormous number of decisions to make, so no matter how many mistakes you make, there will be plenty of opportunities to build a track record of success.

You’ll see that excuses like “That’s not easy” are of no value and that it pays to “push through it” at a pace you can handle. Like getting physically fit, the most important thing is that you keep moving forward at whatever pace you choose, recognizing the consequences of your actions. When you think that it’s too hard, remember that in the long run, doing the things that will make you successful is a lot easier than being unsuccessful.

Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it does when getting fit).

Darwin described, adaptation—i.e., adjusting appropriately to changes in one’s circumstances—is a big part of the evolutionary process, and it is rewarded.[

Look at what caused people to make a lot of money and you will see that usually it is in proportion to their production of what the society wanted and largely unrelated to their desire to make money. There are many people who have made a lot of money who never made making a lot of money their primary goal. Instead, they simply engaged in the work that they were doing, produced what society wanted, and got rich doing it.

unhappiness and inaction, so it’s silly, pointless, and harmful to be upset at the problems and choices that come at you (though it’s understandable);
· We all evolve at different paces, and it’s up to you to decide the pace at which you want to evolve;[48]
· The process goes better if you are as accurate as possible in all respects, including assessing your strengths and weaknesses and adapting to them.

Life is like a game where you seek to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of achieving your goals;
· You get better at this game through practice;
· The game consists of a series of choices that have consequences;
· You can’t stop the problems and choices from coming at you, so it’s better to learn how to deal 
with them;
· You have the freedom to make whatever choices you want, though it’s best to be mindful of their consequences;
· The pain of problems is a call to find solutions rather than a reason for

Having a weakness is like missing a sense—if you can’t visualize what it is, it’s hard to perceive not having it.
For these two reasons, having people show you what you are missing can be painful, though its essential for your progress.

Most people don’t go looking for their weaknesses because of “ego barriers”

everyone has weaknesses. The main difference between unsuccessful and successful people is that unsuccessful people don’t find and address them, and successful people do.