if you've been following my channel for
any length of time then you probably
know already that I am a sucker for a
good quote I love putting them in my
scripts I love building little
animations for them so today I'm going
to double down on that love of quotes
and share five quotes that are very very
meaningful to me some of these quotes
come from people that I know personally
some come from just public figures and
famous people that I admire but each
quote on this list represents an idea
that has helped me to make a big
improvement to some area of my life to
get to my work ethic or my ability to
make decisions or my ability to update
my beliefs these are all things that I
try to live by and that's why I want to
share them with you today and to start
things off let's just jump immediately
to my favorite quote of all time which
comes from Bruce Lee in his book the Dow
of GT kundo research your own experience
absorb what is useful reject what is
used less and add what is essentially
your own this quote from Bruce Lee is a
constant reminder of the fact that as we
go through life we are essentially
building a library of stuff that works
in our brains which means that not all
the advice we received from other people
as we go through life is going to be
useful to us not all advice is
applicable in every single situation or
to every single person and if you want a
great example of this picture the CEO of
a giant corporation like Marc Benioff of
salesforce.com or Jeff Bezos talking to
a brand-new entrepreneur somebody who's
maybe 19 years old just getting their
start if Jeff Bezos or Marc Benioff said
the best thing you can possibly do right
now to help your company grow is hire a
bunch of assistants so you can delegate
all your work well that would be
terrible advice for that person who is
just getting started because somebody
like Jeff Bezos has a lot of money has a
lot of capital resources but doesn't
have a whole lot of personal time given
all the responsibilities and projects
he's got going on
so for Jeff Bezos or Marc Benioff or
some powerful CEO delegation hiring
people that makes a lot of sense but for
that scrappy first-time entrepreneur
who's just trying to get their business
off the ground they probably don't have
a whole lot of capital in the bank but
what they do have is time maybe some
time after work every single night where
they can work on their thing so for them
being scrappy and having that DIY
mindset is a much better course of
action to take than to attempt to use
what little funds they have to hire
someone all right so the second quote on
my list actually comes from my friend
Charley Hooper - runs the excellent
channel charisma on command and it's
very very simple he told this to me I
think two years ago at VidCon he simply
said what is your art and what is your
ego and he said this in response to me
kind of telling him how I was having
trouble delegating the editing duties on
my channel which I have since done but
back then I had a lot of work on my
plate editing videos took way more hours
than it should have and I had other
projects that I was kind of letting kind
of go to the back burner and I had this
feeling at the time that me editing my
own videos and basically you know having
my hand in every single element of the
production of my videos was what made my
channel successful but of course this is
entirely ego talking I'm not the only
person in the world who can edit video
and in fact there are many more talented
editors out there than myself and that
is a statement that is true for
basically every other part of the
production and process there are better
writers there are better hosts there are
better editors animators whatever role
you can think of there's somebody out
there more talented than me and Charlie
understood this before I did and better
than I did which is why he told me ask
yourself what is your art what is the
thing that you can contribute the best
to the thing that you're creating and
what is just your ego what elements in
the process are you doing just because
you have this false belief that you need
to be doing them and I sat back and
asked myself what is my image what is my
ego and I came to the conclusion that -
well what I really contribute what I
really bring to the table more than
anything else is my ability to do
research to maybe combine it with jokes
and references and things that make the
overall script entertaining and then my
hosting the actual filming of the video
so those the areas where I should really
be focusing my time and energy and
attention and anything else should be
outsourced to somebody who could do it
better than me now if you're not an
entrepreneur if you're not running your
own business then you might be asking
yourself how does this apply to me
because I have a boss who delegates
things to me I have to do what they say
and that's true but you might have built
this identity up for yourself that
you're the best person for your
particular role and a lot of people get
this into their heads and then they
don't actually want to move up or branch
out or accept new responsibilities
because they think that they're the only
person who can deal with the current
thing that they are doing in their job
so this isn't advice that's only for
entrepreneurs or business owners this is
really for anybody because we can all
come to conclusions we can all hold
ideas in our head that are in fact
supported only by our egos so when we
really challenge the foundation of those
ideas we may realize that what we're
doing actually isn't the best use of our
time or attention or energy and speaking
of time and energy the third quote on my
list is one that comes to mind anytime
that I'm feeling lazy and it's the one
that has I think more than any other
helped me to develop a strong work ethic
so this quote is from the actor Will
Smith and it goes the only thing that I
see that is distinctly different about
me is I'm not afraid to die on a
treadmill I will not be outworked period
you might have more talent than me you
might be smarter than me you might be
sexier than me you might be all those
things you got on me in nine categories
but if we get on the treadmill together
there's two things you're getting off
first or I'm going to die so this isn't
one of those quotes that doles out some
sort of wisdom you never really knew
about before it's kind of obvious we all
know we need to work hard but I love
having reminders the fact there are
people out there who understand that
hard work beats talent when talent
doesn't work hard your high school
coaches probably told you that a zillion
times I know my wrestling coach told me
that but I have to be reminded of it
every so often because sometimes I find
myself leaning on my talents or leaning
on what I've already built in the past
and I realized that that is just resting
on my laurels and I need to actually be
working furthermore this is a reminder
of what we can actually control even if
you start from a less advantageous place
even if you come from a less wealthy
background or you have less innate
talent quote unquote you're not as
good-looking as somebody out there what
you can really control is how hard
you're willing to work how much you're
willing to focus how much you're willing
to push out distractions how much you're
willing to prioritize what you really
want these the things you truly have
control over so there are things that
you should focus on improving all right
that brings us to quote number 4 on the
list and this comes from my previous
boss at Iowa State University back when
I was a student but also a new Student
Orientation assistant and she was
basically the director of the entire new
student programs department and I
remember this very distinctly we were
getting ready to build this entire event
for all the new freshmen coming into
campus and we were writing in a golf
cart over to the next thing we needed to
do and we happen to start talking about
this whole idea of it's the thought that
counts right the actual gift you give
somebody or the presentation or whatever
it doesn't matter so much as the thought
right and I will never forget this she
turned to me and she said it's not the
thought that counts presentation matters
and then she continued to tell me that
if I couldn't wrap a present correctly
than I needed to go learn how to do it
my grandma was good at it and it would
be unacceptable for me to be terrible at
it and for most of my life I never
thought this way I did think it was the
thought that counts it doesn't matter if
I wrap a present terribly I'm giving a
present to the person that I like which
means that I love them right they should
know that it's the thought that counts
but listening to her I realized it's the
thought that counts is kind of like the
whole saying like that person has a
heart of gold it's an excuse for what
would be considered unacceptable
behavior by people who don't already
maybe know you or love you or excuse
that behavior because of that foundation
of love so this really stuck with me
it's not the thought that counts the
presentation matters and in fact if you
love somebody if you're giving them a
gift or doing something to show your
appreciation for them then it should be
immediately apparent from the
presentation of that gift from the gift
itself that you do care you shouldn't
have to make an excuse like oh it's the
thought that counts
it should be readily apparent so anyway
her telling me that much like Charlie
telling me to examine my ego was
something that made me really challenge
my beliefs and I had to change them
afterward because I knew what she said
was true and that actually brings me to
my fifth and final quote on this list
which comes from the artificial
intelligence researcher and rationality
writer eliezer yudkowsky do not flinch
from experiences that might destroy your
belief
the thought you cannot think controls
you more than thoughts you speak aloud
submit yourself to ordeals and test
yourself in the fire relinquish the
emotion which rests upon a mistaken
belief and seek to feel fully that
emotion which fits the facts to put this
in some simpler words essentially think
like a scientist in everything you do
scientists follow the scientific method
where they form hypotheses but then they
test those hypotheses and they use the
evidence they gather to update their
beliefs they don't fall victim to dogma
but instead they are constantly seeking
objective truth now this specific quote
from you'd Kowski was something that I
came across a little bit after I really
started to learn about rationality and
about these ideas
my original exposure to them was his fan
fiction called Harry Potter and the
methods of rationality which is frankly
a pretty well written story at least for
fanfiction standards but it's also a
pretty thinly veiled attempt to teach
people about rationality and heuristics
and biases and all these kinds of things
and I read this back in I think 2013
right around the time I was about to
graduate from college and it was kind of
a revelation to me I mean in the past I
had always thought of myself as rational
but really digging into these ideas and
challenging some of my long-standing
beliefs asking myself why was I afraid
to go down certain avenues of inquiry
really showed me that I wasn't quite as
rational as I had thought and this is
now sort of part of my core beliefs of
how I should act as a human being I
should constantly be seeking out points
of view or perspectives or avenues of
inquiry that do challenge my beliefs
that have the potential to shatter them
because if my beliefs aren't rooted in
truth then I shouldn't have them in the
first place now if you're also
interested in learning about human
rationality and heuristics and biases
well you are in luck and I've got two
specific recommendations for where you
might want to start one is something
written by eliezer yudkowsky himself and
for a really long time he really only
wrote directly about these topics on
less wrong word in blog post form but he
recently took all those blog posts and
turned them into a book called
rationality from AI to zombies now while
I have benefited greatly from many of
the essays in that book I will say that
if you were to say listen to it it is 49
hours long and it's still not the most
cohesive thing in the world
so there's some real gems in it but if
you want a really good place to get
started to start learning about these
topics then I would suggest Dan Ariely
Zook predictably irrational and the
great thing is you can start listening
to either of these titles completely
free today by starting a free 30-day
trial on audible and you can do that by
going to audible.com
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come across a great quote that you want
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big thanks as always to audible for
sponsoring this week's episode being a
huge supporter of my channel and as
always thank you guys so much for
watching as well you can subscribe right
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better grades you can also watch one
more video on this channel right here or
you can listen to a podcast episode that
we did a few weeks ago which inspired
this video on six very powerful quotes
that changed our lives I highly
recommend going to listen to that one if
you enjoyed this video so that's it hope
you found something useful in this video
and I will see you in the next one