John Stephenson

Every now and again, I share this with my kids, but it provides a roadmap of joy for anyone.

Shohei Ohtani, the greatest baseball player ever, sleeps a minimum of 10 hours every day. Let this be a reminder to get your rest when you're up late at night scrolling 😴

Everything you need to know to: start a business, become an artist, build trusting relationships, make money - you’ve either heard or already know. Don’t get addicted to “insight porn.” Push through, start now. “Every passing second is another chance to turn it all around”

One of the great political moves by the left in recent years has been convincing a large portion of America that "the rich" don’t pay taxes and it’s all poor people, when the exact opposite is true. The Top 1% pay 46% of all income taxes. The Top 10% pay 76% of all income taxes.

The utopia that lied. Here's the truth...

Humanity has run the experiment of communism & socialism many times. It always leads to *shared* misery (N. Korea still running its field trial). "Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

Zohran Mamdani says NYC will begin programs for government-run grocery stores where everything is cheaper: “It is time for a grand experiment.”

This is known as bulverism. It’s the nasty human tendency to regard an opposing argument not as a different perspective, but as a symptom of madness, stupidity, or evil. So, instead of addressing the argument on its own merits, we jump to diagnosing the "malady" that produced it.

Biden was clearly suffering from greater cognitive decline than Trump currently is. Trump's decline has more to do with deterioration in impulse control (which was never a strong suit of his to begin with) than in intellectual ability (also never a particularly strong suit of his). This makes him a less pathetic figure than Biden, but arguably a more dangerous one. Bottom line: People this old have no business being president of the world's most powerful country.

Play the long game and competition evaporates. Human nature selects for the Ego over Patience. It’s beyond our control.

When you’re in the game, the only thing that matters is the next play.

Focus on what you can control

“When we resist difficult emotions they go to the basement and lift weights.” ~ Chris Germer

Ego motivation is the enemy: “Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint, is bound to end in disaster. When you climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do, it’s a hollow victory” ~ Robert Pirsig

Greatness is about being so committed to your own standard that everyone else has to recalibrate what "trying hard" even means.