It takes confidence and guts to intentionally create tension.

Just saying yes because you can't bear the short-term pain of saying no is not going to help you do the work.

Art is what we're doing when we do our best work.

Most of your competition spend their days looking forward to those rare moments when everything goes right. Imagine how much leverage you have if you spend your time maximizing those common moments when it doesn't.

And it doesn't matter to me whether you're running a coffee shop or you're an intellectual or you're in business or flying hot air balloons. People who can spread ideas, regardless of what those ideas are, win. But consumers, they got way more choices than they used to and way less time.

Developing expertise or assets that are not easily copied is essential; otherwise you're just a middleman.

The only way to get what you're worth is to stand out, to exert emotional labor, to be seen as indispensable, and to produce interactions that organizations and people care deeply about.