Maxims For Living A Certain Way

115: You have to live a certain way.

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Welcome, reader! Older readers might remember that Maxims were a popular way to express ideas a decade ago on the internet. Since we are on a long flight, we decided to write a few for fun and share them with you. Readers who have been reading us for longer already know most of those. Those who are new here? We are here to give you a few tips on how to live a certain way.

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Living A Certain Way

Maxim #1: Time is your most valuable commodity.

Maxim #2: Most brilliant minds suffer from the same problem - thinking that what they do is good enough work that they will not have to market it to others. No matter how good your product is or what kind of idea you have. You will never push it past the initial stage if you don’t realize the importance of marketing and sales. This applies to all areas of your life: career, side business, and dating.

Maxim #3: Quit your 9to5. Quit your college. Quit your high school. Go all in. There are zero reasons you should do any of these. There is more than enough time in the day to come home after work and put in the few hours required to start your side business. Don't fall for this idea - having unpredictable cash flow for your business's first year or two is a burden that few will understand.

Maxim #4: There are four evergreen online business models: software, affiliate, e-commerce, and offer creation. Everything else consists of glorified jobs presented as business operations or vehicle models that will not stand the test of time. Your best bet? Stick to evergreen. Listening to gurus and what they don’t want you to know about.

Maxim #5: You can tell how far someone will go with their mission by observing how much motivation they need. The more motivation someone needs, the less likely they are to succeed. You either have or you don’t. Being motivated by external factors is not something you want, or that is sustainable.

Maxim #6: Learning to manipulate your mind into believing you have already achieved something before achieving it is an ultimate form of future programming. Take a few minutes out of your day to think about what you want and where you are heading. This is ridiculous until you realize that it works.

Maxim #7: Your goal should be to offload and remove as many cognitive tasks as possible to allow yourself a space to think. Code, virtual assistants, or employees are all tools of the trade. Implement those and emphasize focus on creativity and innovation.

Maxim #8: The ability to repackage a simple solution, put the fancy GUI on top, and persuade customers that it is what they need while charging them a premium - this is what the beauty of SaaS is all about. You strike the gold when you apply the same approach to different things. Apparent complexity and simplicity in the backend are key to a big bank account. Common SaaS misconceptions.

Maxim #9: Social skills are the most important skills you can possess for the quality of your life. Dating? Social skills. Career? Social skills. Your social circle? Social skills. The pattern repeats across all. The future? The world is full of people who cannot express themselves directly and confidently. Bet on the social skills.

Maxim #10: How you will be rewarded is the amount of value you create for others and help them improve their lives and position. The greater the value you make, the more you get in return.

Maxim #11: Most of your business questions and concerns about whether your project will succeed or fail are easily solvable. Create a landing page → drive traffic to it → test demand. All the science there is. That's how you will get all the fundamental insights you need to know whether your project has enough interest and demand.

Maxim #12: All purchases that enhance and improve your quality of life cost less than $2000. Everything else often comes down to status or material goods that don't improve your life.

Maxim #13: Your salary is your market value as decided by your employer. What matters more is your intrinsic value as decided by yourself. The sooner you realize that you are getting underpaid for your job, the sooner you will realize that you are getting underpaid. Developing a new set of beliefs that will push you to build your own business will be easier.

Maxim #14: To improve your quality of life, base your hobbies around high-net-worth individuals. Golf, sailing, skiing, tennis - they all attract the specific crowd you want to be close to.

Maxim #15: The way you dress dictates how others treat you. There is a huge difference in how you are treated when you look like you just woke up or when you are dressed sharply. The key to looking sharp is not dressing in a suit. The key is learning to look sharp in the circle you operate in, as different circles will have different dress codes.

Maxim #16: Taking care of your health, having an optimal diet, getting sleep, and doing bloodwork are more important than making money. In the first year of your side business operation, you will realize how they all suffered. By the second year, everything should be back on track. Your business should be set up so that you are not required to give all your energy to it, and you can focus on restoring your optimal routine.

Maxim #17: No one can predict the future. Yet the internet has allowed everyone access to those who bet on it. What's stopping you from observing those and their actions? Forming your view and betting with them is one of the easiest ways to ensure your position based on what is coming. How to future-proof your life.

Maxim #18: Everyone claims books are not as good as they used to be and that reading wastes time. The first step to avoiding that nonsense? Books should be vouched for. Find a credible source with similar taste and build from there. Following this principle will allow you to get months of reading material with minimal effort.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. - Joseph Brodsky

Maxim #19: Bitcoin under $30k is an opportunity that most overlook and likely will not happen again. Yet most waste that chance by buying useless coins, hoping to hit 320x instead of the guaranteed 10x.

Maxim #20: Having one rock-solid friendship you can count on 24/7 is worth more than having 50 acquaintances. Don’t take it for granted.

Maxim #21: Energy levels and the stress tolerance. These two traits are required to achieve truly high-performance levels. Both are underrated and often not talked about. You hear no one giving enough attention to those, yet without them, it would be impossible to put in all the hours necessary.

Maxim #22: The mentor-student dynamic has been poorly described in recent years. You don't go out and find a mentor... A mentor finds you. Mentors see something others don't and are ready to trade their years of experience and knowledge for potential and youthful energy.

Maxim #23: Life works so that if you are not seeking something or asking for it, you will never be given it. There is a huge difference between those who are playing the game and those who are just cruising.

Freedom lies in being bold. - Robert Frost

Maxim #24: As much as you should push in your early life, you should look forward to every opportunity for peace and silence. Those are periods of self-realization and values shift - periods that should be used to appreciate how far you have come and where you are on your journey.

Maxim #25: If you are making fun of the average person and how they spend their lives. Yet you are going to Reddit to seek feedback or advice. You are just copying average mental models and becoming one of those you are making fun of without realizing it.

Maxim #26: Next time someone makes a mean comment because you are working 9 to 5, remember that we will witness a generation of thirty-year-olds with zero transferable skills because they have spent their twenties chasing business models and following the noise. Guess who is going further? Being a professional others can count on only comes with a professional environment and experience.

Maxim #27: Your quality of life will improve once you realize that nothing in life is black or white. Patterns are present everywhere, and everyone is playing their own game. Life is grey.

Maxim #28: The Internet has allowed everyone to express their opinions and share their views. One of the best things you could do? Find a few trustworthy sources and ditch everyone else and their advice. Most of those giving you advice are not giving it to you for genuine reasons.

Maxim #29: You will never successfully run your business in the long run if you are in it only for the material outcome. Why? Running a business requires much more. After a certain point, it is impossible to be motivated by material.

Maxim #30: The fundamental principles of quality of life are based on how many lifestyle traps you avoid early in life. Debt, unnecessary relationships, wrong career choices, or wasting your precious time on low-value activities. Avoid the big ones. There is so much you will worry about. 

Maxim #31: Growing up poor creates a negative and limiting self-belief system about yourself. Everyone planting a seed of doubt over the years does damage without you ever realizing it. If you came up from that background, do yourself a favor. Start paying attention to those. That is the first step to removing limitations and reaching your full potential.

Maxim #32: The internet money-making space is like one big high school. The more someone brags about something, the less they have of it.

Maxim #33: 50% of the world population cannot talk to themselves or lead any internal monologue. If you are one of those who can do so – you are already at the top.

Maxim #34: Being positive to be around and making other people feel better. It will bring more benefits to your life than any self-help book, knowledge, or trick. People want to spend their time around other positive people.

Maxim #35: Future and changes that come with the future should be encouraged at all costs. Over the centuries, not a single thing has not been improved - health, housing, quality of life, and opportunities for those willing to work. Your only concern? Make sure you are on the right side of it. Think about it and listen to what others are saying about it.

Maxim #36: The real advantage early in your life comes from getting an internship in a big logo company - giving you the opportunity to be a mediocre performer and still get away with it for the rest of your life. The market operates on a simple principle. Company X gave you a chance, which means we should also give you a chance. Operating on the fear of missing out.

Maxim #37: Tracking your hours is critical to learning anything in life. Humans overestimate themselves and how much time they need to understand what they are doing. There is a big difference between the initial 50 and 250 hours of practice. Now imagine the 1000 hour mark and what difference that will make compared with your initial knowledge. Put in the hours and trust the process - it all comes down to consistency and repetition.

Maxim #38: The trick to becoming happy is realizing you are the creator of the value system. When you detach yourself from the pressure of society and endless pursuit of material goods. You start forming your own ideas of success and wealth. Generation Z guide to doing the opposite.

Maxim #39: Never ask someone a question that can be found on Google in under 30 seconds. We have been taught since our early days that asking questions is good. This was true when you didn’t have access to all the world's knowledge in the palm of your hand and a few clicks away.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. - Voltaire

Maxim #40: Chasing short-term gains and unnecessary hedonistic pleasures is what has kept most people in the same spot for years.

Maxim #41: The younger you are, the more you should look forward to major economic collapses. They are the easiest way to accumulate assets while everyone else is panicking. Treat them as sales with big discounts.

Maxim #42: Don’t be afraid to leave those dragging you down. This applies to your friendships, relationships, and family members. If they are having a negative influence on you and your actions - leave them. It is one of the hardest things to do in life, but it will save you from a lot of trouble. Don’t be afraid to do the opposite.

Maxim #43: No one will tell you that you are not effectively working more than four hours daily on a significant percentage of white-collar jobs. You can spend the rest of your work time on your side business or learning new skills. Make sure you understand the corporate cheat sheet.

Maxim #44: You should be selfish with your working time. No distractions, no notifications, and no interruptions. Make a routine approach out of it that works for you, and don’t let anyone interrupt your idea flow. Doing this makes you realize you can accomplish more in two hours than the majority does in the eight.

Maxim #45: Never fall for a trap that you should not check what your competitors are doing. What moves are they making, and how are they positioning themselves? You want to know what is happening to do better than them. Click on their ads, sign up for their newsletter, and don’t be afraid to buy their product. Those insights are hard to beat.

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