What the stoics unearthed and Ferriss rediscovered was this fundamental truth: we frequently avoid making choices not because the outcome is bad, but simply because it’s unknown.

We live in a society defined by what venture capitalist Peter Thiel calls indefinite optimism. While we all sense on some level the expanding amount of possibility and opportunity available to us, you must step up to seize it. While many feel destined for something more, something bigger, few of us have taken actions to seize it. We

One common mistake early entrepreneurs make is that they think they need a business idea. That’s rarely the case: you don’t need a business idea—you need relationships. As you acquire relationships and entrepreneurial experience, ideas will become a bigger problem, but not in the way you think.

Expected Value is the sum of all possible values for a random variable, each value multiplied by its probability of occurrence. It’s what poker players use to make betting decisions and it’s how entrepreneurs think about their businesses and decisions.

The second rule of career planning: Instead of planning your career, focus on developing skills and pursuing opportunities.67

but the broadest segment of Western population is employed in the knowledge economy, and it’s that part of the economy that, over the past hundred years, has been responsible for creating most of the abundance and wealth now available.

as Steve Jobs notes: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.” 2

I had been reading their blog and listening to their podcast for over two years at that point, and I resonated with how they ran their company. I bought into the mission behind the company hook, line, and sinker. I believed in “building businesses to create more freedom and wealth in your life and the lives of those you love.”

While our first instinct is usually attempting to push harder, it’s more valuable to figure out where to push. The famous dictum, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I would spend 59 minutes asking the right questions,” recognizes that defining the system and its limit often makes the solution obvious: