You'll see I wear only gray or blue suits. … I'm trying to pare down decisions. I don't want to make decisions about what I'm eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. … You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can't be going through the day distracted by trivia.
In the last five years, what new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?
Question
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
Craft & work
Question
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success? Do you have a favourite failure?
Failure & regret
That night, I realized there are no warmups, no practice rounds, no reset buttons. Every day we're writing a few more words of a story. And when you die, it's not like “here lies Drew, he came in 174th place.” So from then on, I stopped trying to make my life perfect, and instead tried to make it interesting. I wanted my story to be an adventure — and that's made all the difference.
MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013 source ↗
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Barack Obama
44th President of the United States, 2009–2017; United States Senator from Illinois 2005–2008
Michael Phelps
United States swimmer, 2000–2016
One thing that I went through and I was able to understand is: It's OK to not be OK. Right? Like nobody's perfect.
Tim Cook
Chief executive of Apple
No big challenge has ever been solved and no lasting improvement has ever been achieved unless people dare to try something different. Dare to think different.
Sheryl Sandberg
Former chief operating officer of Facebook; founder of LeanIn.org
Finding gratitude and appreciation is key to resilience. People who take the time to list things they are grateful for are happier and healthier. It turns out that counting your blessings can actually increase your blessings. My New Year's resolution this year is to write down three moments of joy before I go to bed each night. This simple practice has changed my life. Because no matter what happens each day, I go to sleep thinking of something cheerful.
Recorded
University of California, Berkeley Commencement, Los Angeles Times, 14 May 2016
source ↗
More from Drew Houston
View profile →I was going to say work on what you love, but that's not really it. It's so easy to convince yourself that you love what you're doing — who wants to admit that they don't? When I think about it, the happiest and most successful people I know don't just love what they do, they're obsessed with solving an important problem, something that matters to them.
Recorded
MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013
source ↗
No one has a 5.0 in real life. In fact, when you finish school, the whole notion of a GPA just goes away. When you're in school, every little mistake is a permanent crack in your windshield. But in the real world, if you're not swerving around and hitting the guard rails every now and then, you're not going fast enough. Your biggest risk isn't failing, it's getting too comfortable.
Recorded
MIT 147th Commencement, MIT News (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), 7 June 2013
source ↗
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