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When my brother and I were growing up, my father would encourage us to fail. We'd sit around the dinner table and he'd ask, "What did you guys fail at this week?" If we had nothing to tell him, he'd be disappointed. The logic seems counterintuitive, but it worked beautifully. He knew that many people become paralyzed by the fear of failure. They're constantly afraid of what others will think if they don't do a great job and, as a result, take no risks. My father wanted us to try everything and feel free to push the envelope. His attitude taught me to define failure as not trying something I want to do instead of not achieving the right outcome.

Sara Blakely, the founder on Spanx

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I've made it a principle not to be over-influenced by minor disappointments.

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Anytime in my life when I have managed to go from a vision to a reality, the vision has not been a plan but a practice. In other words, what matters is not having a vision, but rather making a habit of returning to and revising the vision. For the big things in my life, I'm always coming back to them week after week—sometimes day after day. As new information arrives, the vision gets updated. The dream becomes more crystallized over time. It's a habit of thinking about where you want to go with an ever-increasing degree of clarity. You do not need a vision, you need the practice of envisioning.

James Clear

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Focus is how you knit the hours of the day together. With focus, the day becomes a beautiful tapestry. Without focus, you end up holding a bundle of loose string.

James Clear

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If you feel resistance before you begin, it's usually procrastination and you need to get started. If you feel resistance after you begin, it's usually feedback and you need to make adjustments.

James Clear

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What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.

Gabriel García Márquez

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The quality of any creative endeavor tends to approach the level of taste of whoever is in charge.

John Gruber

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Some people get addicted to chain-smoking their problems. They spend all day going from sorrow to sorrow. It doesn't have to be that way. You can live each day going from joy to joy—like a sunflower that turns to face the sun as it moves across the sky. It's not about having a problem-free life, but about focusing on the light. Sunflowers still have shadows, but they are always behind them.

James Clear

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My friend, who sometimes shares his writing with me, once said my feedback always falls into three categories: 1. Make it shorter. 2. Make it more appealing. 3. How could it apply to more people?

James Clear

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A truth unsaid can still be felt. What needs to be discussed, but hasn't been said yet? Clear the air.

James Clear

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If you know something's going to work, it's not worth working on. It requires no courage. It requires no faith. It requires no skin in the game. Whether you're a spy or a teacher or a spouse or a painter or an abuela or an astronaut or a monk or a barista or a board-game designer, the bits that matter are the bits you make matter by putting yourself on the line for them. The unknown is the foundry where you forge your chips. Everything important is uncertain. Sitting with the discomfort of that uncertainty is the hard part, the wedge that can move the world.

Eliot Peper

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Sometimes being in a car, looking at the road, not having to make eye contact, is the ideal setting for heavy conversation.

Francine Prose

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How to clarify a concept you can't articulate: 1. Change mediums. Draw it. Photograph it. Sing it. 2. Change levels. Explain what is one level up (bigger picture) or one level down (finer details). 3. Change fields. What would this concept look like in different fields?

James Clear

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Flexibility alone is not a great strategy, but the lack of it can ruin one.

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The beginner chases the right answers. The master chases the right questions.

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Inspiration is merely the reward for working every day.

Charles Baudelaire

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3-2-1: On creating the conditions for joy, how to go to hell, and the simple way to clarify your thinking read on JAMESCLEAR.COM | MARCH 7, 2024 Happy 3-2-1 Thursday! Before I get into today's issue, I want to share a new project I'm excited about called Authors Equity. I want to live in a world where creators have control of their work and are rewarded for their performance. Authors Equity is a book publisher that will pay authors more profits than traditional publishers and provide better distribution than self-publishing options. (You can read the New York Times profile here.) I invested in the company because it will help authors get paid more, get paid faster, and get to create books on their own terms—all while getting the editorial skill and mainstream distribution that is a strength of traditional publishing. I'll have more to say about all of this in the future, but in the meantime… if you ever consider writing a book, I hope you give Authors Equity a look. 3 Ideas From Me I. "You can go to hell without moving an inch, just focus on what you lack. You can taste heaven without leaving earth, just rejoice in what you have." (Share this on Twitter) II. "The simplest way to clarify your thinking is to write a full page about whatever you are dealing with and then delete everything except the 1-2 sentences that explain it best." (Share this on Twitter) III. "The reason people get good ideas in the shower is because it's the only time during the day when most people are away from screens long enough to think clearly. The lesson is not to take more showers, but rather to make more time to think."