“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
“But what shall we think of a governor's playing such pitiful tricks, and imposing so grossly on a poor ignorant boy! It… — Sebastian Marshall 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 Career Copy Share Image
“THE STUDY OF ONESELF AND OTHERS The economists have a term called “revealed preferences” – it means that the only way… — Sebastian Marshall Education Copy Share Image
“The best CEOs I know all look for disruptions, interruptions, little risks, and existential risks and spend time mitigating them periodically. It’s… — Sebastian Marshall 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
“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
“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
“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
“On his death bed, he wrote his famous Dokkodo – final principles for the students of his school. The third principle… — Sebastian Marshall Death Copy Share Image
“From Nance-via-Stepan, I picked this behavior up too. Whenever I say I’m going to do something, I either note it in my… — Sebastian Marshall Behavior Copy Share Image
“This means troubleshooting problems when they come in, and put in long-term fixes. In other words, don’t just survive the layoff, analyze and… — Sebastian Marshall Layoff Copy Share Image
“SECOND NECESSITY FOR MENTAL TOUGHNESS: TRAINING It’s long been known that athletes and soldiers need to prepare by training the physical… — Sebastian Marshall Fitness Copy Share Image
“Your entire morning routine works this way — always drink water upon waking, always check calendar and commitments on waking, block the… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“It follows, that it must be the business of the guerrilla, and of his clandestine political organization in the cities, to destroy… — Sebastian Marshall Business Copy Share Image
“ENTRAINMENT IS STUPIDLY EASY TO DO It’s stupidly easy to start doing entrainment for yourself. You pick a single type… — Sebastian Marshall Habits 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
“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
“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
“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
“Assume your service is bad. It can’t hurt, and it will force you to improve.” – Harry Beckwith, Selling the Invisible Originally… — Sebastian Marshall Customer 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
“It really actually doesn't take much time to run small experiments, and the payoff is greater levels of energy and more thriving… — Sebastian Marshall Energy Copy Share Image
“I now track the following questions on a little spreadsheet every morning – “Did I adhere to set wake-time?” “Did I… — Sebastian Marshall Every morning Copy Share Image
“All told, this leads from going with naive intuition – which was the eventual downfall of Napoleon Bonaparte and Wilhelm II –… — Sebastian Marshall Intuition Copy Share Image
“Over time, I started to see correlations — the one that surprised me the most was that, after about three bad nights… — Sebastian Marshall Good habits Copy Share Image
“Best advice I’ve read from a nutritionist on eating better is to cover half of your plate during every meal with vegetables. … — Sebastian Marshall Eating Copy Share Image
“You have homeostatic pressures. Don’t naively assume they’re “real” – reason through them to the root cause. 2. You have default… — Sebastian Marshall Better way Copy Share Image
“you can’t fight your life as a series of moment-by-moment struggles. If you do, sometimes you’ll clean your gear and put it… — Sebastian Marshall Discipline Copy Share Image
“Things like laying out your clothes and pre-deciding what you want to wear (and doing laundry if you’re lacking clean clothes), ensuring… — Sebastian Marshall Clean clothes Copy Share Image
“life is like a giant smorgasbord of more delicious alternatives than you can ever hope to taste. So you have to reject… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“Let's sit down," said Musashi, crossing his legs and dropping to the grass. He felt a twinge of exasperation. Why did Matahachi… — Sebastian Marshall Copy Share Image
“to govern oneself, to govern and manage an institution or in business, to govern a city or country – you need to… — Sebastian Marshall Business Copy Share Image
“Seemingly random events and movements and trends gather power and momentum, unseen for long periods of time, and then bursting to the… — Sebastian Marshall Historians Copy Share Image
“For instance, I used to regularly start lifting weights, aiming for 3 times or 4 times per week, but then I’d fall… — Sebastian Marshall Exercise Copy Share Image
