To my future child,
Over the years I have collected a lot of advices and kept the ones that are quite useful. Here are some simple rules so you can navigate the boring stuff of life and enjoy the less boring parts of it.
I hope that they will help you and that you may add some more to them, pass them along so people you care about will enjoy life with you, because a life in solitary and with no one to share what you know with, is a life not well lived.
If something is old, it will probably be around for quite some time. A book that exists for 100 years will also be around in the next 100 years. This is called the Lindy effect.
When you are rude to your children, acknowledge it, respect your children and be a role model. Imagine if somebody would be rude to you, how would it make you feel.
When you have less, you are more antifragile to life. You have less to lose, less of a status quo to lose, less financial burdens, less psychological problems.
People don't want to be happy. What people actually are looking for is to have less negative emotions. They don't want to be miserable, they want to be free of pain, free of anxiety.
Ask the below question to quickly evaluate a business: 1. Did it invent a service? 2. Did it invent a formula? 3. Did it invent a delivery method? 4. Is anything what the business doing patentable or a unique user experience? 5. Did the business find an isolated market segment? 6. Is the concept branded?
There are two kinds of jobs. The ones that are affected by gravity and the ones that are not. For instance a doctor will only heal so many patients he/she has time for. A baker will create one bread for each customer. On the other hand a writer will create once the book and it will be read by thousands. The difference is the scalability of each job. You have to know in what profession you are so you can plan accordingly.
When somebody says that this never happened before is no indicator that it may not happen in the future. When white swan's are observed, doesn't mean there aren't any black.
There was a rumor going around that Aristotle Onassis would have dinner before going on a date. Be prepared and don't get angry when things don't go the way you planned on a date with your spouse.
Write down stuff that need to get done. Don't rely on other people to remind you about them.
Imagine you are in a heated argument with a coworker, your spouse, or just a friend. Be the one to keep calm, be the reasonable one, you often don't know what the other person is going through and why they are reacting badly to your argument, it could be something completely different than what the argument is about.