Tight Aggressive Entrepreneurship

I started reading the book a few times but never made it past the first few pages. But this time for whatever reason it “clicked”.
If the timing is right, it’s one of these books that fit Kafka’s description of books as “the axe for the frozen sea within you”.
Overall a 9/10 for me.

Upstream Productivity - or the day you stopped caring about productivity advice

Motivation hacks, building a second brain, ... everyone is happily eating it up.

Play the long lead generation game

Hardly any business has their shit together.

Follow Curiosity

Suddenly, ambition becomes the driver, or money, or doing something that sounds cool. And then things start to go downhill.

Progress is not automatic

You can't just keep doing the exact same thing and expect wildly different outcomes.

Obvious Adams - my notes

The only problem is that often the obvious doesn’t appear so obvious because people are searching for complexity.

Howl with the wolves

He's a complete lunatic. But what makes him so entertaining is that he accepts all offers.

Thinking harder doesn’t work (or how I learned to love the right half of my brain)

But if you never look up from the map and act only using what you see on it, well, you’re in trouble.

Expansion, always, in all ways

I once read that for addicts reality distorts so that only once choice is left.

Letting Now Jakob make decisions for Future Jakob

I’ve tried many times to give my days more structure but always felt as if I’m building a prison for myself.

Focus on impressive quality, not performative activity

If you deliver what you promised, no updates are necessary.

I'm fine building a normal business

Who doesn't want to earn money while they sleep?

You need to neglect mostly everything to win big

What can you remove? What can you neglect?

The truth about performance-based agencies

performance-based

Improv Sales

You can't listen and think about things to add at the same time

My Productivity Protocol

I decide what's important. I do it. I stop.

Immediate Retirement

For me a rich life consists of four core elements.

B2B Sales is Different

Oh yeah, last month we tested X for one of our clients who also targetes Y. We noticed Z.

What I learned from Mike Michalowicz about entrepreneurship

These 95 percenters are kind of buried inside long books. So this is my attempt to distill them.

Smooth Entrepreneurship

As the owner I should remove myself from the nitty gritty daily tasks faster.

Trim the fat

A few weeks ago my local gym removed the sauna.

My themes for 2024

optimism, congruence, presence, and intention

Run more. Seriously.

Don't let silly excuses get in the way of your wellbeing.

Don't ask yes/no, ask A/B

Option "no" is not part of the equation.

Patterns and Frames - some thoughts on meditation, improv, therapy, and the nature of conciousness

Regardless of what path you picked, always start with whatever step is most likely to fail next

An Algorithm For Success

Regardless of what path you picked, always start with whatever step is most likely to fail next

Monk Mode Doesn't Work

It would be nice to escape all the noise, all the chatter, for a while and just focus on getting some seriously deep work done.

Against Cheap Pleasure

Short term pleasure but long term pain.

Defining Good

What would make today a good day? What would make this project a success?

Workaholic

When all the important work is already finished, I can't stop.

If they don't care, they don't care

No there are no magic words that make people suddenly care about your offer

Fixing the Friendship Equation

Let's call a friend someone you can comfortably call at 11 pm on a Tuesday to ask if you can crash on their couch for the night since you've locked yourself out of your apartment

Charisma = Congruency

Charisma is not some extra skill you have to learn.

Idea Habits

Because it brings into existence the kind of world I want to live in.

Always start with the hardest part

Before you start, write down all the necessary puzzle pieces and rank them from hardest to easiest. If you’re unsure how to rank certain parts, replace “hardest” with “scariest” or “most uncomfortable”. Then start with the hardest, scariest, most uncomfortable one.

Entrepreneurship is not a thinking game

Business plans have become kind of a joke in the startup world. Rightfully so.

What I learned from Peter Crone about "mind architecting"

Ego is addicted to being right even if it means continuing living in suffering.

McGregor Forever - my notes

Focus on one specific process where you can provide amazing value, where your clients are most happy with your work. Then double down on it. Develop a repeatable, teachable process. Focus on that and decline all other work.

The 3 Alarms by Eric Partaker - my notes

Pick a new identity in each life domain you want to improve and then establish champion proofs to help you stick to it.

Magic doesn't work that way

Maybe rune casting is a psycho-technology as powerful as meditation?

I'm 100 failed experiments away from reaching my goals

Instead of focusing on successes and positive replies, I have to start hunting failures and rejections.

⭐️ The simple framework I’m using to make progress towards my goals

A tight positioning is like rocket fuel. Once you have a solid fire going on, it’ll help you get to the next level.

⭐️ You don't need anyone's permission to succeed

All of my big successes had one thing in common. I acted without asking for permission.

🧠 Focus

It’s painfully obvious if you take a step back.

🧠 Use fear as your compass

How can you possibly ever pick something out of this infinite menu?

🧠 Why most indie makers fail

80%+ of all startup founders fail but from what I've seen the number for indie makers is much, much higher.

🧠 Content is not the solution to any of your problems

The basics are always simple and can be learned in an hour or so. Anything beyond that is just a waste of time.

⭐️ Only listen to people who are winning at the game you’ve decided to play

For example, unless you’ve decided to play the tech startup game, Paul Graham's advice will most likely do more harm than good.

🧠 You have to pick a game before you can win

You may still fail but at least you gave yourself a real chance at winning.

⭐️ Stop wasting time and work on things that serve a purpose

This is not a fun exercise. Oftentimes you find that you wasted a lot of time on stuff that has no real place in your game plan.

⭐️ You need a game plan

It’s very unlikely that you’ll reach your goal by always going with your gut.

⭐️ Explore vs. Exploit

We’re definitely going to make a billion dollars.

🧠 What really matters is getting into the right state of mind

It is futile to tell people to mimic outward manifestations.

⭐️ I need to stop sabotaging myself

Each of these self-sabotaging actions is just a symptom, not the root cause. And to really solve the problem, I need to tackle this root cause, not just fight the symptoms.

⭐️ Overcoming limiting scripts through agency expanding experiments

The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

⭐️ How to win the metagame (in real life)

This is how you stay ahead of the curve and ultimately win.

🧠 Why I don't work where I think

Unlike in a normal job, the hours I sit at my desk don’t matter. All that counts is my output.

🧠 Don't read this

Why did you open this essay? Do you even have a reason? Did you even think about it? I bet the answer is no. And that, my friend, is a problem.

🧠 Breaking Mimetic Chains

I know zero people personally who want to change the world. I don’t know anyone in real life who is on a non-standard path. No one who wants more out of life than anyone else and is fighting tooth and nails for their dream.

🧠 I'm awake

I’ve been asleep. Drifting. Pushing buttons for 10 hours every day but not accomplishing anything.

🧠 What I really learned at university

You know the “And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt” meme right? My personal variant is:

🧠 Coming up with a learning challenge as an aspiring entrepreneur

A huge challenge everyone who decides to be self-employed needs to face is that there are suddenly no constraints. At school, university, or work, there are always deadlines and you had to carry pre-specified work using a pre-defined toolbox. But if you’re self employed, you can build anything, work on any project, using any tool, framework, or programming language.

🧠 My Principles and Practices of Personal Education

One area of my life I struggled with for a long time is education. I love to learn but what I’ve been doing for a long time was far from systematic. I picked books at random. I mostly restricted myself to purely passive reading. I didn’t interact with other people that are interested in the same topic.

Legend

⭐️ Essays I put serious effort into

🧠 Raw brain dumps