How Your Mind Hijacks Your Life

People like to make themselves sound smart. They like to talk about how many books they've read and other things that they have learned ... It's all a bunch of crap. It's not real. It isn't truth. It's all the words of others. It is regurgitation, and it is derivative. It is not true. It is not genuine. It is not art. It is not sincere.

Mental models are empty prescriptions. They are not the truth ... They are just constructs. And if you get nothing else out of this talk, understand this—and you don't have to believe me, examine it for yourself: All constructs fail.

All constructs fail. No matter how wonderful the idea seems, it fails. It leaves you stranded in the Sahara every single time. As a result, one approaching any issue from the standpoint of behaviors is doomed for failure. Behaviors are cosmetic.

A leader who truly wants to make something highly unique and artful will treat his business as an autocracy. The stupidest thing you can possibly do, if you have any sense of genius within you, is to make it a democracy.

Whenever something is pursued in a way that isn't based upon reality, then mistakes are a natural consequence. They have to be. Whenever something is pursued based upon an understanding of how things really are, then one no longer makes mistakes.

Everything that a life consists of is, essentially, stories upon stories upon stories. And our moods and the things that we succumb to emotionally are all based upon the complexity of the fabricated stories.

All of the complexity and miasma that is the mind, only once one overcomes all of that does the possibility of arriving at true freedom or truth even become remotely possible.

It really isn't the fault of human beings that they seek prescriptions. That's the only loudspeaker that's been playing in their ear. That's the only tune that they've heard.

The only place to actually live is in the moment.