I read this quote today:

You don’t look like your goals; you look like your habits. Effort doesn’t lie.

– Unknown

I totally agree. Your habits, not your goals, shape you and your outcomes.

This week, I listened to two founders debate a well-known quote:

How you do one thing is how you do everything.

~Unknown

One founder thought the saying holds true and means you should do everything to the best of your ability, regardless of how big or small the task is. The other founder thinks you should be selective. He believes you have limited bandwidth, and you should allocate it accordingly based on the importance of the task. Some things don’t require perfection. Done is better than perfect for things that don’t require perfection. But for items of high importance, a high level of execution is required.

Two interesting perspectives.

I’m a fan of systems over goals. Today I shared a quote with someone to explain my thinking on this:

Goals are for people who care about winning once. Systems are for people who care about winning repeatedly.

~ James Clear

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A friend sent me a quote that had reminded them of me and my reading habit:

If you do something like read a lot of books and talk to a lot of people, you can learn almost anything.

~ Elon Musk

I totally agree. Many people think that structured learning (i.e., school) is the only way to learn. The reality is that nothing stops people from learning (almost) anything they want to learn. They just need to grab some books and talk to knowledgeable, credible people. And then put in a lot of effort.

This week I read a quote from a surprising source that I really like:

 Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but doing it like you love it.

~ Mike Tyson

I like this quote because discipline is what leads to consistency. And consistency compounds over time and can lead to outsize outcomes.

I like to think of discipline as the superpower that anyone can leverage. Most people won’t, though, so the small percentage of people who are disciplined have a huge advantage.