“Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A core practice I recommend for everyone is thinking about, writing down, and continuously evolving the guiding principles you live your life by.
These principles become your personal code, a simple framework and navigational system for your life.
A few of mine:
– Everything furthers
– Action creates clarity
– You’re stronger than you think
– Follow the energy
– Do less, better
I won’t explain what each of them mean, right now (though I cover a few in The 9th Law)…
But I do want to zoom in that last one today:
“Do less, better.”
It feels like I’ve spent a lifetime learning this one the hard way, and I still trip myself up on the regular.
But the simple fact remains:
For me, progress happens through reduction, not addition.
In basketball, I made my best progress when I distilled my training down to the essentials:
5-6 skill workouts, 3 lifting sessions, and a few scrimmages per week.
(while eliminating all excess like track work, olympic lifting, bodybuilding splits, “functional” training, etc).
In business, I made the most money when I focused on optimizing one product through one marketing channel.
(and made the least money when I built a huge team, sold ~20 products, and tried to scale three funnels on multiple platforms at once)
In my meditation practice, I make the most progress when I focus on doing one core technique extremely well, over a long period of time.
(and hit a wall when I try to combine multiple techniques inside of multiple practices)
And the same seems to be true for nearly everyone I work with.
Maybe Elon has figured the complexity thing out.
(thanks Neuralink!)
For us humans, simplicity almost always is the way forwards.
The fewer things you’re focused on, the more energy and attention you can give to the things that really matter, and the better you can get at those things.
And guess what:
Very few things really matter.
But the things that matter, matter a lot.
Figure out what those are for you, put the full force of your focus on them, and ruthlessly eliminate the rest.
– T
P.S. You can find a great example of a well-designed set of personal principles in the book Principles by Ray Dalio.
Just remember:
The magic happens by actively thinking about and developing your own set of principles — not by copying his (or mine).
Would love to hear what they are, if you feel like sharing.
