On Learning: 23 Things I Think I Think to Wrap 2023

The end of the year is always a time of reflection for me. A time when I allow myself time to perform my annual review.​

Evaluating the year gone by, looking forward to the year ahead, and determining the lessons learned and the next steps.

One of the many lessons I’ve learned in my life is that the more I learn the less I know. When I was a teenager I was an overconfident, zealous young man who thought he had all the answers.

The more I’ve committed to learning the more I’ve realized how much there is to learn, and how little I know for certain. Or put more aptly:

With that theme in mind I wanted to share, not 23 lessons, but rather 23 things I think I think to end the year. If I continue learning, a few years from now surely there are many on this list I will no longer believe, as I will have learned a better version / way / iteration / etc…

1. Success is more about the right systems than it is discipline, willpower, or circumstance.
2. Words have power, good and bad.
3. Independent thought is freedom.
4. Reading is one of the best ways to improve your life that is entirely within your control.
5. You’ll read more and learn more if you read what interests you rather than what you think you “should” read (My 2023 Reading List).
6. Your relationships are more important than anything else.
7. Forecasting anything is hard, it’s better to focus on what you can control.
8. All choices are sacrifices (everything is priorities).
9. Suffering is inevitable, a happy life embraces suffering rather than trying to avoid it (embrace the suck).
10. The world continues to get better, as it always has, but human nature is to amplify the problems at present and conclude things are worse than they have always been.
11. We don’t have to make our own mistakes to learn.
12. We don’t need a lot to be happy.
13. Life is short.
14. The fastest way to get rich is to go slow. The best way to get rich is to create equity.
15. The key to a happy life is simple, yet most of us fail to grasp it
16. It’s imperative to find our blind spots… they are easy to see in others, but they only matter when we find them in ourselves.
17. Humility is uncommon and admirable, vanity is prevalent and deplorable.
18. You have to be prepared for the unexpected.
19. Authenticity is the most attractive quality a person can have (lean into your quirks).
20. The people we admire are people whose lives we would not trade with.
21. You get what you think you deserve. When you take time to realize your worth, you get what you actually deserve, which is so much better than you think.
22. It’s okay to let your guard down.
23. The best moments in life are the simple ones.

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Thanks for reading, and joining me on this journey in 2023. Happy New Year.

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As always, thank you for reading, I hope you have a great week.

Gratefully Yours,

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