30 Days of Genius- Kevin Kelly

Kevin's words are in bold. My own comments are in italics

• Technology is part of a long tradition, dating back to the big bang
• Technology is a useful tool. It has been used since the start of time, and is nothing new. What is new is humanity's challenges in coping with it's rapid growth rate within our own lives, and facing the challenges in finding balance between us using it and it owning us.

• Today, there is a young person whose genius is waiting for a technology to be invented right now
• We need to constantly keep innovating. There is a genius somewhere who cannot perform because another genius (maybe you) has not worked hard enough to bring the tools into existence that the former needs. Isn't that a fun thought? Your work today can, through its application by another, change millions of lives.

• Make as many mistakes as possible, and just keep doing it again and again and again and again. Try to fail.
• Do we see a theme among these genius? Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, learn. Try, fail, succeed. Try, fail learn.

• 1000 true fans
• You only need 1000 true fans of your work to live a financially and emotionally fulfilled life. Think about it. 1000 fans who appreciate your work so much they put out $100 a year for it. Bam- that's comfort of the 3%. 

• "The next thing is going to be a collaboration engine"
• The future is about working together better than we currently do. As people create platforms and technologies to unite designers in Poland with engineers in Australia, crossing barriers of distance, profession, and language, the world will leap forward.

• Technology is additive
• Technology is built off of itself. Nothing is new- *poof* it exists. Everything is in steps. So if you want to look forward, first learn to look backward. 

• "Creativity begets creativity" 
• There is not an "amount" of creativity that gets used up over time. The more creative work you do in any discipline, the more creative it makes you in any other.
• Chase's example is "taking pictures with your iPhone can make you a better brain surgeon." How? I have no idea. Ask him, he's the genius. 

• "Any job measured in productivity should be done by robots. Humans should be doing jobs that are inefficient." 
• Yes, technology takes away jobs. Yes, it forces people out. But out of what? Out of jobs that do little of value beyond provide money. There are other, better ways to create the emotional satisfaction of being a part of something. There are better ways to spend time, at any level, then screwing in 100 nails/minute. Once money is taken care of, the challenge becomes how to get people to partake in fulfilling work.
• I've had this thought for a long time. In a utopia, we all live comfortably and work solely on our passions. If, for some, that means sitting on their couch doing nothing, great. That makes differentiating those who care about they do much easier. The difficult part is the transition. If 1 million people in labor-intensive work lose their jobs to go pursue "something higher," how do you pay them, motivate them, support them.

• "Answers are cheap. What is valuable? Questions."
• Answers mean little, because every answer in the world already exists. What doesn't exist, and what can't be "discovered," are questions. Learning to ask the right questions is the most powerful skill to be acquired. 

30 Days of Genius- Lewis Howes

Lewis' words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "There could always be something worse"
• Any time you're feeling down, think of what could be worse. The answer is, almost always, a lot. You are never at the bottom of the barrel, and you always have a lot to build off of to move forward.

• "It’s crazy how many options there are to make money"
• You are never limited. The Internet has created a world in which every interest, passion, and idea is an opportunity to make money. Don't minimize their value, and don't tell yourself that you can't make money.

• "Create a challenge with a deadline and a date"
• Very much Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, set specific challenges and specific deadlines. That is how you get yourself to work towards success. Don't be general, don't be loose with yourself. Make commitments, and stick to them.  

• "What can you achieve in 6 months?"
• 3-6 months is only real amount of time in which you can envision your future and see quick results. 5 and 10 year plans are great. But it's the 6 month timeline on which real progress is made. 

• "Have a team. It’s not fun building something meaningful on your own."
• Boy, do I know it. Teams make successes fun. Teams make ideation fun. Teams make anything fun. Even if your team isn't a set of employees, you can find advisers, supporters, or anyone to be on your side and on your team.

• "Everything stems from a vision."
• Nothing just happens. Everything starts from an idea with a vision, and a lot of work goes towards building it up (and understanding the areas in which the vision will and will not exist).

30 Days of Genius- Ramit Sethi

Ramit's words are in bold. My personal comments are in italics.

• "What’s something you claim you want to do that you don’t actually do?"
• Jeez, this hit me hard. There are so many things we say we want to do, either to ourselves or others. And once we say it, it seems like we're halfway to accomplishing it. But so often, we just don't. For whatever reason, we live a life of excuses. But I know there are things I said I would do that I never did. And what's important is to be honest to oneself about what we are or are not doing. Not critical, just honest.

• "Instead of going 1 to 1000, go from 1 to 1.1"
• Start somewhere, don't expect everything all at once. Doing something is the first step to whatever your end goal is.

• "Losers have goals, winners have systems" -Scott Adams
• Quoting the Dilbert cartoonist, Ramit says that goals are important, but what really matters is processes. If you create systems around your life, the successes will come.

• "There's a game being played around us."
• Yes! The whole world is made up. Everything is a construct of somebody's imagination. Why not make your life built off of what you believe to be true? Do what you want, because the rest of life is built by what others wanted to do, often decades before.

• "Should I do a or b? Yes."
• When faced with two options, the best people excel at both. Should I focus on academics or build a business? Yes. Should I work out or read more? Yes. Don't compromise one passion for another- excel at them both. 

• "Information is useful not in the novelty, but in the utility"
• Education for education's sake is awesome. But what is really most important is the knowledge we can apply to our lives. 

• "Be a value, not a commodity."
• Don't sell yourself short. Come off as someone with enough value to leverage getting what you want. Don't give discounts, don't give yourself away. You are valuable, and you should sell yourself as such.

30 Days of Genius- Sir-Mix-a-Lot

Sir's words are in bold. My own comments are in italics.

• "I just went nuts, chasing it chasing it chasing it. Not trying to monetize anything, just chasing what I wanted to do"
• You've got to want what you want, and you've got to want it bad. As long as you can make ends meet, you should be chasing your passion. Money comes second, passion comes first.

• "Work is my break"
• If you love what you do, you don't need breaks or vacations. You go back to work, and that in itself is relaxing.

• "Hard work is merely preparation for a lucky day"
• I believe in luck. And I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it. Thomas Edison, biotch.

• "When you’re out of things to chase, you’re done."
• Nothing original here- just affirmation of what everyone with any success tells you. You've got to remain hungry. There is always improvement to be found, progress to be made.

• "No matter how much money you have, we’re all buried in the same dirt"
• Rings of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations." Money is nothing at the end. Pay the bills, have a bit of comfort. Beyond that, focus on what you enjoy.

• "Do what you truly love, not what you think you’re supposed to do because you made it"
• Mr. Baby Got Back is all about passion. He knows plenty of people with plenty of money who are not in the field that they love. They chase the money, not the dream.

• Stay hypersensitive to opportunity. People think they never get the opportunity, but they’re just blind to what’s in front of them. 
• Opportunity does not present itself with a ribbon and a chorus of angels. Anything can be an opportunity, and it is important to be ready for it at all times. 

30 Days of Genius- Gabby Bernstein

Gabby Bernstein's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "The wound is the place where the light enters me"
• Quoting someone wise and probably religious, Gabby references her dark past and history with drugs as a time in which she was able find within herself an opportunity to clean her life up. You can't be in the clouds without sometimes being in the dirt.

• "The only way to survive sometimes is to have a meditation practice" 
• As a society, we're hitting our wit's end. Competition is getting harder, people are working more, and the pressure on us to succeed is getting higher and higher. We need to appreciate the value of not-doing something in the moment in order to manage a life of constantly doing things.

• "Do something, not nothing"
• Not related to the last quote- this is about how to work. If you want to succeed, or experiment, or anything, you need to be doing something. Act. Do. Create. Put it out there. And then you learn, fix, and repeat. 

• "Keep it simple, but be consistent" 
• Don't try to take on a challenge all at once. Do small things, over and over and over. 
• "I'm more impressed with someone who meditates for 1 minute a day for a year than with someone who does an immersive 3 day meditative retreat and doesn't ever do it again." 

• There are so many people trapped in the cycle of what other people want for them. Trust your intuition.
• Don't do what others tell you is the right thing for you. Listen to their advice, but don't take it unless your intuition guides you toward it. Your intuition is what tells you what will make you happy.

• I’m seeking creative solutions
• Make that phrase your mantra. Constantly repeat it to yourself, and soon creative solutions will begin to manifest in your mind and your life.

• When the time is on you, the pressure will be off
• Amazing thought. Get into the battle, and you will be ready to face the challenges that arrive.

30 Days of Genius- Jared Leto

Jared Leto's words are in bold. My comments are in italics.

• "Don’t wait for permission to jump into action"
• Just do the things you want to do. Today, as opposed to the last hundred thousand years of our existence, we can do things without permission from others. Screw it, just do it.

• "We all have the ability- and the right- to succeed gloriously and fail gloriously"
• Failing is a theme of this series. We can all be as high or as low as we want to be. And often, we are both. But we have the ability to do anything as well as we want to! BAM! INSPIRATION!

• "The deeper that you dive, the greater everything will be. The reward, the contribution that you’re able to make, the truth, the authenticity"
• Commitment to somethings makes you greater at it. Jared was talking about acting, but applied it more broadly. Anything you fully commit to, you will find an honest passion and truth within that activity.

• "You don’t have to do things well for them to be worthy"
• Don't let barriers to greatness act as barriers to experimentation. Do things that are fun, or interesting, or different just because you feel like it. You will learn something.

• "I only succeed a little bit because I fail a lot" 
• No surprises there for anyone who has listened to any of these sessions. Success is the opposite end of the hourglass from failure. One does not live without the other. 

• "Just keep making art. Let other people decide if it’s good or bad. And while they’re deciding, just keep making art"
• At Andy Warhol’s first show in Los Angeles, he sold 0 works. He then went on to be the best known and most successful artist of the last 100 years. 
• Do what you love to do. Experiment, create, put things out there. Do not think about judgement or feedback, just explore the limits of your art.

30 Days of Genius- Kelly Starrett

Kelly Starrett's words are in bold. My comments are in italics. 

• "What does it mean to be human?"
• This is Kelly's "physic's first" question when it comes to understanding how to take advantage of the human body. Being human means moving. It means constant changes in body position. It means loose limbs and active lifestyles. It means going back to the human of the year 1800, because that is the real human- the one of our first 100,000 years, not our most recent 200.

• "The body influences the mind"
• Smile. Do you feel better? Stand up tall. Do you feel more confident? Slow your breathing. Do you feel more relaxed? Understanding the body- and maintaing it- is important to keeping the mind sharp.

• :Physical literacy in movement"
• Understanding how movement works helps to maintain bodily health. A basic understanding of the muscular structure of the human body makes stretching, running, walking, or sitting more thoughtful and valuable.

• "I can contribute to the health of this system"
• Two takeaways to 80% of health improvements. Move more, and drink more water. Your body is a system, but your actions and decisions can improve it.

• "If you stand at work, you burn as many calories as you would running 33 marathons in a year"
• Umm. No comment needed?

• "If you need to sit, sit correctly. If you can stand, do that." 
• Standing permits movement, and movement is what it means to be human. Sitting has to happen at times- but at all others, take initiative and stand. Walking meetings. Standing desks. Eat standing up (when not at a black tie fancy restaurant).

• Don’t be heroic, be consistent
• You don't need to be running Iron Mans or trying out for the NBA. You don't need to be at 8% body fat and modeling for magazines. You need to do the little things for a very long time, and you'll see some of the greatest results of your life.