"Begin with where you are." Everyone is looking to get ahead, but you get ahead by doing well at the things that are immediately in front of you.Start with the people around you, learn from them, and invest in them.

For the last several decades, there was a prevailing belief among traditional economists that the markets were rational and self-correcting. Alan Greenspan advocated this view. But the 2008 financial crisis showed that this view is incorrect, and Greenspan eventually admitted as much.

Albert Murray's The Omni-Americans is the most valuable non-business book because it discusses how you have to draw upon everyone's creativity. America is a mash-up of cultures and traditions, and great businesses know how to tap the strengths of all their employees, whatever their background may be.

We are privileged that the dollar is the "currency of last resort" and the most important currency in the world. Global commodities are priced in dollars. Central banks in other countries hold great quantities of dollars. The dollar was the safe harbor, the port in the storm during the credit crisis.

All organisms rely on exchange. They form symbiotic partnerships in order to obtain the energy that they need to survive. Energy is the currency of nature.

Money is becoming increasingly plastic and digital. If there is a major disaster, let's say an asteroid strike, we'll go back to trading meats and furs. We won't need an abstraction, a dollar bill, but real tangible goods to survive.

Just the idea of making money can increase your skin conductancy, meaning there's a current of excitement.