Title: Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier

Author: Kevin Kelly

Completed: June 2023 (Full list of books)

Overview: This is a long collection of short pieces of advice (don’t go in excepting stories or any sort of narrative). Some are obvious, some are insightful, and some will probably be much more meaningful to me at other stages in life. There are around 450 total quotes and below are the handful that are most meaningful to me currently. If you like these, the book is worth a read. You can probably get through the whole thing in an hour or dwell on each and draw it out.

Highlights:

• Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.
• Prototype your life. Try stuff instead of making grand plans.
• Collecting things benefits you only if you display your collection prominently and share it in joy with others. The opposite of this is hoarding.
• We lack rites of passage. Create a memorable family ceremony when your child reaches legal adulthood between eighteen and twenty-one. This moment will become a significant touchstone in their life.
• If you ask for someone’s feedback you’ll get a critic. But if instead you ask for advice you’ll get a partner.
• To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it redo it, redo it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.
• At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot.
• Friends are better than money. Almost anything money can do friends can do better. In so many ways, a friend with a boat is better than owning a boat.
• When someone is nasty, hateful, or mean toward you treat their behavior like an affliction or illness they have. That makes it easier to have empathy toward them which can soften the conflict.
• To quiet a crowd or a drunk, just whisper.
• Don’t create things to make money; make money so you can create things.
• Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand. For the rest of your life you’ll use this knot more times than you would ever believe.
• Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.” Often they are.
• If your goal does not have a schedule, it is a dream.
• Finite games are played to win or lose. Infinite games are played to keep the game going. Seek out infinite games because they yield unlimited rewards.
• If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute you owe them a dollar.
• Always read the plaque
• You can be whatever you want to be so be the person who ends meetings early.
• Purchase the most recent tourist guidebook to your hometown or region. You’ll learn a lot by playing the tourist once a year.
• You will thrive more —and so will others— when you promote what you love rather than bash what you hate. Life is short; focus on the good stuff.
• To get your message across follow this formula used by ad writers everywhere: simplify, simplify, simplify, then exaggerate.
• As long as an idea stays in your head it is perfect. But perfect things are never real. Immediately put an idea down into words or in a sketch, or as a cardboard prototype. Now your idea is much closer to reality because it is imperfect.
• Invent as many family rituals as you can handle with ease. Anything done on a schedule—large or small, significant or silly—can become a ritual. Repeated consistently small routines become legendary. Anticipation is key.