“I consider myself a student and practitioner of The Way, that elusive and grand thing, that encompasses everything. It’s” — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“It was previously understood across many cultures that your thoughts might just be enemy soldiers putting you under siege.” — Sebastian Marshall Siege Copy Share Image
“Planning the next day the night before, every single night, is one of them. If you do it enough times, it becomes… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“not enough cohesion among your actions and you get middling trivial gains. ” — Sebastian Marshall Middling Copy Share Image
“The elite performers don’t focus on the overwhelming whole – they focus on getting through the next step.” — Sebastian Marshall Elite Copy Share Image
“Third-order consequences: Toyota winds up with the highest quality rates, lowest defect rates, and most efficient factories in the world.” — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Not miscalculation, bad strategy is the active avoidance of the hard work of crafting a good strategy.” — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Sprints of massive focus are magical. There’s no United States without Washington leading those daring winter raids.” — Sebastian Marshall Washington Copy Share Image
“No matter how hard I try, I produce better work when I’m healthier, planned, and my environment is set up correctly. Yes,… — Sebastian Marshall Bad day Copy Share Image
“This means not embracing the first answer that comes to you, or any “default way of being” that you’ve been doing, even… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Mission Orientation is a way of thinking – instead of thinking merely about actions to take, you constantly think about what your intent is,… — Sebastian Marshall Goals Copy Share Image
“Do you need to do all of this? No, of course no. But as you gradually implement it, you can either bank… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“I’ll say it again – I think most people are not great at higher-order thinking, even if it “sounds obvious” at a… — Sebastian Marshall Thinking Copy Share Image
“Take the Toyota assembly line example: it’s not at all obvious that stopping the entire production line for a small defect, incurring a half… — Sebastian Marshall Assembly line Copy Share Image
“Biases the other person brings to the table: Study which ones might apply to you. It’s hard to get people to be honest… — Sebastian Marshall Biases Copy Share Image
“When things are going poorly or going excellently, one’s judgment tends to get compromised and it becomes harder to think clearly. You… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Paranoia is sort of like a forwards-looking curiosity. It’s asking, “Why could go wrong here?” “What else matters here?”… — Sebastian Marshall Curiosity Copy Share Image
“Napoleon’s intuition was a mix of homeostatic pressure – strong urges felt whenever he saw opportunity or felt threatened – followed by… — Sebastian Marshall Habits Copy Share Image
“This is unsurprising. The history of the world is the history of people investing in dying trends to follow the crowd, whereas… — Sebastian Marshall Customer Copy Share Image
“The psychologists have a term — emotional contagion. When other people are acting a certain way around you, you tend to absorb… — Sebastian Marshall Contagion Copy Share Image
“But how do we instill competence? A tough challenge. I hazard to say that there’s four steps to it – 1.… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“The vehicle will not start. (the problem) 1. Why? The battery is dead. (first why) 2. Why? The accelerator is not functioning.… — Sebastian Marshall Root cause Copy Share Image
“Umm, yes, the stock market crashes, layoffs happen, injuries happen, illness happen. That’s part of the game. You need to build your… — Sebastian Marshall Customer Copy Share Image
“A well-managed plant, I soon learned, is a quiet place. A factory that is “dramatic,” a factory in which the “epic of… — Sebastian Marshall Gardening Copy Share Image
“Intelligence is the decisive factor in planning guerrilla operations. Where is the enemy? In what strength? What does he propose to do?… — Sebastian Marshall Intelligence Copy Share Image
“As a corollary, guerrillas deny all information of themselves to their enemy, who is enveloped in an impenetrable fog. Total inability to… — Sebastian Marshall Darkness Copy Share Image
“Guerrillas fight only when the chances of victory are weighted heavily in their favor; if the tide of battle unexpectedly flows against… — Sebastian Marshall Guerrillas Copy Share Image
“For about 81 weeks as of this writing, I’ve tracked my daily habits on a “Lights Spreadsheet”; it’s got entries like —… — Sebastian Marshall Daily habits Copy Share Image
“Take very seriously your personal biochemistry, nutrition, consumption, rest, work, athletics, and environment. Experiment gradually to find out what works for you,… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“If you’re both lucky and everything runs smoothly, it will take 27 minutes to reach your destination. On average, it will… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Living systems are open systems; closed systems are non-living systems. Point: If we don’t communicate with outside world—to gain information for knowledge… — Sebastian Marshall Knowledge and understanding Copy Share Image
“Both hyper-pragmatic cost suppression (currently very normal in Beijing) and an intense devotion and care about experience and aesthetics (currently very normal… — Sebastian Marshall Beauty Copy Share Image
“Most people think they’re just marvelously terrific, and who cares if they’re on time? They’re special and lovely. The mindset shift… — Sebastian Marshall Mindset Copy Share Image
“Sun Tzu said the same thing many centuries ago: "The more possibilities you present to the enemy, the more diffuse he is… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Again, the whole point of this Upstream Effects is that I believe our moment-by-moment agency and control over our lives is a… — Sebastian Marshall Power Copy Share Image
“Situations are always fluid. Continuing your default responses to internal pressures is a very dangerous thing if your situation changes or evolves.” — Sebastian Marshall Pressure Copy Share Image
“Likewise, “Okay. Talent and hard work are critical, but not enough. I need whoever has decisionmaking authority to like me and be… — Sebastian Marshall Talent Copy Share Image
“Policy: pay money for dead cobras. First-order consequence: cobras hunted and killed, less cobras. Second-order consequence: cobra breeding starts taking place.” — Sebastian Marshall Money Copy Share Image
“Your decisions yesterday, and last week, and last year, and the year before — this effects what’s in your bank account, how… — Sebastian Marshall Bank account Copy Share Image
“That’s where operational skill comes in. It’s about those seemingly basic but utterly critical skills: scheduling, planning things out, communicating, checking and… — Sebastian Marshall Skill Copy Share Image
