• People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture.
• for most people, somewhere between six and seven billion of them, the perfect job is the one that takes the least time.
• Reality is negotiable. Outside of science and law, all rules can be bent or broken, and it doesn’t require being unethical.
• An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.

D for definition

• The New Rich can be separated from the crowd based on their goals, which reflect very distinct priorities and life philosophies.
• The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. Feynman
• Being financially rich and having the ability to live like a millionaire are fundamentally two very different things. Money is multiplied in practical value depending on the number of W’s you control in your life: what you do, when you do it, where you do it, and with whom you do it. I call this the “freedom multiplier.” Options—the ability to choose—is real power.
• Everything popular is wrong. Different is better when it is more effective or more fun.
  • **1. Retirement Is Worst-Case-Scenario Insurance.
  1. It is predicated on the assumption that you dislike what you are doing during the most physically capable years of your life.**
  • 2. Interest and Energy Are Cyclical.
  • 3. Less Is Not Laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.
  • 4. The Timing Is Never Right. For all of the most important things, the timing always sucks.
  • 6. Emphasize Strengths, Don’t Fix Weaknesses.
  • Too much, too many, and too often of what you want becomes what you don’t want.
• Relative income uses two variables: the dollar and time, usually hours. The whole “per year” concept is arbitrary and makes it easy to trick yourself. Let’s look at the real trade. Jane Doe makes $100,000 per year, $2,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, and works 80 hours per week. Jane Doe thus makes $25 per hour. John Doe makes $50,000 per year, $1,000 for each of 50 weeks per year, but works 10 hours per week and hence makes $100 per hour. In relative income, John is four times richer.
• Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.
• There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens.
• Nine to five for your working lifetime of 40–50 years is a long-ass time if the rescue doesn’t come. About 500 months of solid work.
• Usually, what we most fear doing is what we most need to do. It’s lonely at the top. Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time-and energy- consuming. There is just less competition for bigger goals. Most people will never know what they want.
• opposite of happiness is— here’s the clincher—boredom. What would excite me? Remember—boredom is the enemy, not some abstract “failure.”
• I felt that if I could help students overcome the fear of rejection with cold-calling and cold e-mail, it would serve them forever.

E is for elimination