3-2-1: On the importance of beauty, fixing silent complaints, and a simple rule to make life easier

Six years ago I celebrated my 68th birthday by gifting my children 68 bits of advice I wished I had gotten when I was their age. Every birthday after that I added more bits of advice for them until I had a whole book of bits. That book was published a year ago as Excellent Advice for Living , which many people tell me they read very slowly, just on... See more

The way to live a full life is to act quickly.

Particularly as you grow older, it’s alarmingly easy to let a year or two (or five) slip by without doing the big things you always felt like doing. You get into a rhythm—not necessarily one you love, but one you become comfortable repeating—and the grooves of your daily routine become deeper and more

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• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.

• No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.

• Dont ever work for someone you dont want to become.

• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.

• Dont keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.

• If you stop to listen

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"Be guided by beauty. I really mean that. I think pretty much everything I've done has had an aesthetic component—at least to me. Now, you might think, "Building a company that's trading bonds? What's so aesthetic about that?" What's aesthetic about it is doing it right. Getting the right kind of people, and approaching the problem, and doing it ri... See more