Places I visited:

Jerusalem Robert Greene - 48 Laws of Power

• Never outshine your master.
• Win through actions never argument.
• Infection: Avoid the unhappy.
• When asking for help appeal to people’s self-interest.
• Use absence to increase respect and honor.
• Think as you like but behave like others.
• Play to people’s fantasies.
• Be royal in your own fashion.
• Preach the need for change but never reform too much at once.
• Make your accomplishments seem effortless.
• Never appear too perfect.

Tel Aviv Billionaire Maxim

A walk in Eichelsee from our home to the Mayers via Waldstrasse.

• Home: Own magic within yourself.
• Garden: Collect experiences over material items.
• Church: Failure inflates fearlessness.
• Bude: Proper use of primal power.
• Oma: Money is fruit of generosity, not scarcity.
• Thomas: Optimal health maximizes power to produce magic.
• Wald: Continue raising life standards.
• Steepness: Deep love yields unconquerable joy.
• Oliver: Heaven on earth is a state, not a place.
• Mayers: Tomorrow is a bonus, not a right.

Beirut Mental Math

Memorizing numbers as names with Tony Marloshkovips.

Cyprus How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

• What is the worst thing that can happen?
  • Grades don’t count that much
  • Giving a speech is not that bad
  • A broken washing machine is not a big deal
• The absurdity of it all
  • being beheaded is a big deal
  • start day by watching someone being beheaded
• Staying busy
  • read a book
  • go to the gym
  • cook amazing food
  • work on your own book
• Don’t collect things, but moments
  • gather a bunch of stuff like a house or a car but realize it will be worth a million
  • however, would you sell your leg for a billion?

Istanbul Thinking Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

`` Systems

• System 1: Fast, automatic thinking (lion-bird kills the kid) => stupid assumptions but allows us to run away.
• System 2: Slow but logical.

`` Biases and Fallacies

• Anchoring: is tallest redwood 180ft or 1200 ft? average guess is 282ft, respectively 844ft; we don’t know what things shall cost (microwave mrsp)
• Availability bias: don’t follow mainstream media (they sell horror), almost non-existing probability can be present (plane crash)
• Loss Aversion: playing coin tossing (win 1000/loss 1000) - people will be loss averse. Convince people by telling them what to lose (friends and family for alcoholics)
• Framing: 10% chance to die, 90% chance to live.
• Sunk cost fallacy: let past decisions affect current. If you losing 1000 in poker, you should go and leave. Throw away the candy. Throw away the stuff you do not need.
• Cognitive ease: Macchiavelli: topic of discussion is too complex to talk about. We ask simpler questions.
• Confirmation bias: Google: Is coconut oil good for you? <> Why coconut oil is good?
• The endowment effect: We value things highly if they are ours. Buyer vs. seller - is your religion/country really the best?
• Priming: If I talk about food you put so_p u into this, if I talk about cleaning you’ll but an a.
• The halo effect: Rosy glasses, I like him and everything is correct. Two women commit same crime but one is beautiful.
• The hindsight bias: be an expert after an event has occurred, stock is going to rise/fall.

Sofia Flow: Psychology of Optimal Experience

• “A person can make himself happy, or miserable, regardless of what is actually happening outside just by changing the contents of consciousness”.
• If you have a bigger house, you’d be happy but no! That is not how it works.
• Average income / percent of people who are very happy: income tripled but not more people are happy
• Happiness lies in flow:
  • be so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter. Intense concentration, no attention for problems or anything else.
  • Indians that move every 25 years to new place to encounter new challenges <> people sitting in front of TV / social media being apathetic.
• Theory:

Ohrid How to Win Friends and Influence People

• Become genuinely interested in other people: If you meet a painter ask what they paint. Most people wait creepily to voice their perspective. Stop that.
• Show respect for the other man’s opinion. Never tell a man he is wrong: Border discussion.
• Talk in terms of the other man’s interest: Don’t simply ask for subscription but ask if person wants to self-improve. Don’t fish with cherries.
• Remember that a person’s name is to them the sweetest and most important sound in any language: missing the name is awkward. Tricks: repeat name immediately, think how it is written out, think of other people with the same name.
• If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically: Mistake like driving too fast.
• Make the other person feel important and do it sincerely: Thank you for doing your job.

Athens How to be happy

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never due to the situation but what we think of it”, Eckhardt Tolle.

Stimulus -> Freedom to choose how to respond -> Response

Corfu The Way of the Superior Man

• Stop hoping for the completion of anything in life: Doing a Ph.D. for 4 years and wait until you are finished. To realize, that you will just do another job after. Pick a job you enjoy. Like engineering.
• Don’t get lost in tasks and duties: organize stuff, clean everything vs. pursuing your purpose. You don’t wanna die and want them to say: They always cleaned everything.
• Be willing to change everything in your life: Boys are scared of change, develop yourself. Andrew Carnegie: “You can take away everything, we do not care!”
• Live as if your father was dead: does not deal with respect, as a boy people tell you what to do. Superior man respects & listens but knows what he wants.
• If you don’t know your purpose, go find it: If you had all the money in the world. What would you do?
• Your purpose must come before your relationship: You must do sports to stay with her.
• Don’t force the feminine to make decisions: It does not matter, if we were red or black shoes. Just help her.
• What she wants is not what she says: No = Yes.
• You are responsible for the growth and intimacy: after a time you are losing attraction, that is normal. Hence, research, keep her interesting, hold her and lead her.

Vlore On the Shortness of Life - Seneca, the Younger

• “It is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste much of it. Life is long, and it’s been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest things…”
• At the end of their life, most people complain about too little time in their life.
• However people waste much of it:
  • being unconscious and drunk, watching TV.
  • people spend time on things they don’t even like: Facebook.
  • people work as a slave from 9 to 5 until they are 65.
  • Then, they ask: Where did it all go?
• Summing that up, it’s years.
  • Giving up time is like giving money to everyone.

• Use your time: read, sport, quality time.

• You can always make another dollar, but you will never have another hour. Use your time.

Tirana Start with Why

• I hate reading & teachers can’t inspire me <=> mentors can.
• Teachers teach:
  • “WHAT?” read the classic, it’s a good book.
  • “HOW?” That is it.
  • If student asks “WHY”?, the teacher often would get angry.
• Mentors: success in relationships and business.
  • Do you want your mails to be open?
  • Do you want a happy relationship?
  • Then, pick up a book.
• Frequently, companies advertise product specs & how well they work but they should advertise: “We value efficiency as much as you do” coz “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.”

Budva The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

• Be proactive: focus on things you can change, e.g. not inflation.
• Begin with the end in mind: You are at your funeral.
• Put first things first: difference between what we wanna do & what we do.
• Think win-win: two authors recommend each other.
• Seek first to understand, then to be understood: no one cares how much time you spent but offer value.
• Synergize: Picking apples from a tree works better together.
• Sharpen the saw: Cut the tree down faster with a saw.

Kotor The Art of War

• Know your enemy and thyself and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.
  • Business is modern day warfare.
  • Job interview - you should know who you are dealing with, the company and its industry.
  • Why shall we pick you? Don’t say I work hard, instead what you are objectively capable of.
• Avoid what is strong, attack what is weak: Don’t compete with walmart on price.
• To win 100 battles is not the height of skill, to subdue the enemy without fighting is.
  • Everybody is obsessed with suing.
  • Picking up the phone costs nothing, fighting does. Particularly time and energy.

Mostar Man’s Search for Meaning

• The pursuit of happiness: Will Smith wants to become a stock broker, i.e. Hollywood’s version of happiness.
• Happiness cannot be pursued, it is a birth certificate. Everybody has it. We just have to find it.
• Bus vs. Ferrari: It is only a different experience. However, if you are happy in the bus, you will not be happy in the Ferrari.
• If something “bad” happens we get pissed off, but we do not have to. It is always a chance to practice virtue.

Split Stoicism

• If you are renting a house, and you are told that rent will increase in a year, reaction will be okay. If it happens unplanned than most people get very negative: expectations are wrong.
• “If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it.; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
• “You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength.” -> Renting example.
• “When another one blames you or hates you, or people voice similar criticism, go to their souls, penetrate insinde and see what sort of people they are. You will realize that there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you.” => Bill Gates/Elon Musk won’t call you a loser, but you are just negative if your life sucks.
• “How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.” => My grandma was always super negative, but was all that she did alright?

Zadar The Power of Now

• Most people wake up with negative thoughts, although those won’t happen or can be overcome (a C grade does not mean that you do not not have a future)
• If you are not aware of your thinking, then your brain can be quite dangerous
• Therefore, be present, i.e. watch the thinker
• Obstacles:
  • past: What are your biggest regrets: Doesn’t matter you cannot change it.
  • future: Cannot control, hence balance powerful vision, while being present.
    • rat racer (weak vision): 2 dollar raise after 2 years to be quasi happy.
    • no more goals (too present): I’m spiritual now.
• Vision & being present: rather be a mountain climber.
  • happiness is not in the peak (Helicopter could just drop you off; or wandering around the mountain).
  • happiness is constantly climbing towards your goals.

Zagreb Antifragile

• Box that says fragile: what is the opposite? Most people say robust, i.e. neutral but it is not
• It is becoming stronger: The more you are being kicked around the more you turn into a diamond
• Being anti-fragile is being alive
• Do not be a masochist, but in the gym you also train to get better, so why not in life?
• Be anti-fragile by practicing your virtue, intellect and relationships.

Ljubljana The Four Agreements

• Be impeccable with your word.
  • Don’t critique or complain.
  • Bring people up and give value.
• Don’t take anything personally.
  • A person that hates books - can change in 2 years.
  • How people treat you is a projection of how they are.
• Don’t make assumptions.
  • Perhaps they go through divorce.
  • Turn hatred into loyalty & respect by listening.
• Always do your best.
  • No one abuses us more than we abuse ourselves.

Trieste The War of Art

• The biggest lie: “I am not scared!”.
  • Go to a random girl in a bar and ask her.
  • Basic training like jumping out of a plane.
  • Share yourself with the whole world on Youtube.
• People are scared all the time: Henry Fonder threw up every time before a broadway show.
• Be Professional: I am afraid, what needs to be done. Grow: The more, the better.

Rimini The 80/20 Principle

• About 205 of the beer drinkers, consume 80% of all beer.
• Minority of causes impacts majority of effects.
• Business: social media, reddit vs. rest (twitter, pinterest)
• Social interactions: two or three people account for good times.
• Relationship: guy spends five hours but he focuses on TV & facebook vs. making it one hour about here.

Florence The Prince

• The book is information which is not inherently wrong or right, it is, however, powerful so it is good to be aware but not live all your relationships in a Macchiavellian style.
• “How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”
  • What ought to be != what is.
  • Kim Kardashian’s butt will be watched from 20 different angles, but people tell you they actually read Voltaire.
  • Politics: you cannot be good and honest, you wouldn’t get all votes.
• “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin amongst the great number of who are not good. Hence a prince who wants to keep his authority must learn how not to be good, and use that knowledge, or refrain from using it, as necessity requires.”
  • Which politician will be votes for? The one who says: ‘If everybody works hard and reads 2 books per week, one day the economy of a country will change’ vs. ‘You all get more money’
  • People always believe they would be a better boss.
• “The vulgar crowd is always taken by appearances and the world consists chiefly of the vulgar”
  • Appear to be the good guy.
  • Are they building $100M businesses?
• “Men ought to be well treated or crushed; because the can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot, therefore, the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.”
  • Firms engage in nasty lawsuits.
  • Politicians do not care about religion but are guided by good.
• “Princes must guide difficult tasks to others, and keep popular tasks to themselves.”
  • Cesare Borgia was known for using force. People were scared when he arrested a lot of them. Then, he was cut in half on the market square, and people were not scared anymore. The winner was the prince.
  • Youtube channels with bad ads: I am really honest with you… really?

Milan Learned Optimism

• Dog 1 can escape shocks, dog 2 cannot (pavlov conditioning).
• New environment: both can escape, dog 2 will not. -> learned helplessness.
• Opposite: learned optimism: happiness, positivity and optimism need to be learned.
• Benefits of optimism: achieve more, more enjoyable life, better overall health.
• Benefits of pessimists: likely to suffer from depression, not enjoying life, likely to give up.
• It really depends on the mindset. However, balance optimism with pessimism to not become delusional.

Lyon The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

• The practice of living consciously: being unconscious vs. being present to the moment.
• The practice of self-acceptance: improve what you can, accept what you cannot.
• The practice of self-responsibility: people claim to be unhealthy because of medical condition (19 out of 20 don’t have one; they just don’t work out).
• The practice of self-assertiveness: do not drink alcohol if you do not want to. Be grounded but that depends on the context.
• The practice of living purposefully: Entrepreneur has higher self-esteem because he has a purpose.
• The practice of personal integrity: act against rules that you don’t believe in, your inner voice matters the most.

Tours Outliers

• Teacher material (4000h), good (8000h), world class (10000h)
• Hours of practice set you apart.
• Stop expecting to be good on the first few hours.
• Talent is overrated: 10.000 hours doesn’t rate you as teacher material. Talent is hours of practice that you do not see.
• As long as you are good enough, deliberate practice is what sets you apart. => solely focus on getting better at your craft.

Nantes The 4 Hour Work Week

• Is it possible to work for four hours? Yes. Can most people do it? No.
• Key is in
  • “setting deadlines”: We will always fit in something, if there is a deadline.
  • “outsourcing”: Use GPT-4 as much as possible.
  • “elimination”: Sharpen the saw, remove long processes first.

Saint-Malo The Slight Edge

• You have the choice between a lemonade and a glass of water. Most people pick the soda, because you are not going to wake up unhealthy tomorrow.
• People often believe: “It matters to do the important things right”, so we eat kale one day.
• Paradox: little decisions do not really matter (unsuccessful mindset) vs. every little decision matters completely since they compound (successful mindset).
• Apply this to everything: read 10 pages each night => 15 books a year.
• Have a vision of who you want to b e in a year.
• But then how many times is the answer no to health? - Take responsibility: choose bananas over cookies.

Paris The One Thing

• A familiar strategy: You read about personal development and realize you suck -> “I can improve” -> “I want to improve everything”: Wake up at 5am, go to gym, go to MMA, write a book.
• Outcomes:
  • (1) you won’t be able to actually do it, because willpower == battery, which can get depleted.
  • (2) You will just be average.
• The one thing, every successful person focuses on one thing: basketball, piano, or NLP.
• Forget balance - you cannot be balanced. Do focus on one thing only.

Brussels Mastery

• Gym: No more strong progress after some time.
• Reason: You get better every day, but improvements diminish in returns.
• Mastery curve: in plateaus, therefore, even if improvements are sometimes small: consistency is king.
• We all have limited power, actions to take are:
  • (1) Deep observation: How does system work? What are the successful doing? (LangChain, direct OpenAI)
  • (2) Skill acquisition: 10.000 hours.
  • (3) Transfigure the ideas: Create something great and unique.
• Find apprenticeship and mentors: Find someone to help you.
• Use social intelligence: Practice => May inspire jealousy and envy => can lead to mentor’s insecurity => Keep them helpful.
• Awake the dimensional mind: conventional mind (skill), dimensional mind (creativity) = mastery
• “The intuitive mind is a sacked gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”, Einstein.

Antwerp The Magic of Thinking Big

• Find a decent job - just a decent job - works for most people.
• Most people cannot think big -> however, that is the first step (be millionaire by mid 20s). Don’t set finish line a hundred meter apart, work hard / smart.
• Value yourself & believe in yourself, instead of thinking: I can’t / don’t deserve it -> put a low price tag on you.
• If you don’t like yourself, who else would? Not your boss, not your girl.
• Henry Ford: “The man who can, and the man who cannot are both right.”
• Excusitis: If you know all about success, why are you not? Don’t be pitied. That is too easy.

Tilburg Secrets of the Millionaire Mind

• Rich people think big, poor people think small.
  • Poor people go to different super markets to find the best deals.
  • Rich people value themselves $1000 per hour, and cultivate that.
• Rich people focus oon opportunities, poor people focus on obstacles.
  • Poor: I would start that company but there is a lot of competition.
  • Rich: Competition acknowledged but is there unique value to create?
• Rich people admire other rich people, poor people resent rich and successful people.
  • Poor: He had to kill many babies for that car.
  • Rich: I can have one, too.
• Rich people are willing to promote themselves and their value. Poor people think negatively about selling and promotion.
• Rich people choose to get paid based on results, poor people choose to get paid on time.
• Rich people manage their money well, poor people mismanage their money well.
• Rich people have their money work hard for them, poor people work hard for their money.
• Rich people constantly learn and grow, poor people already now.

Amsterdam The Millionaire Fastlane

• The side walk: living from paycheck to paycheck (match income w/ expense), can have huge income but has no financial intelligence. Screwed if they lose their job.
• The slow lane: Go to school, get a decent job, invest in stocks, with 65 you can be wealthy, sell soul for 40 years.
• The fast lane: the more value you give to the world, the richer you will become.
  • Value * people = money.
  • Most people cannot provide value.

Bremen The Science of Persuasion

• Reciprocity: Obligation to give when you receive.
• Scarcity: People want more of those things they have less of.
• Authority: People will follow credible knowledge experts.
• Consistency: Looking for and asking for commitments that can be made.
• Liking: Similarity, compliments, cooperation.
• Consensus: People will look to take actions of others to determine their own.

Hamburg Contagious

• Social Currency: people share what makes them look good (post fancy food on Social Media)
• Triggers: How are we reminded of the product?
  • A song named Friday, can be played every Friday.
  • Kitkats sales dropped so they linked it to coffee, although it tastes better with hot chocolate.
• Emotion: strong emotion = shares, but do not use negative emotions.
• Public: What is everybody else doing?
  • Neighbors drive Tesla, we gotta, too.
  • Apple logo was upside down, but public image was more important.
• Practical value: Is it really helpful?
• Stories: Blendtec in Youtube series “Will it blend?” can’t tell story without it.

Copenhagen Predictably Irrational

• The truth about relativity: everything is relative even if it should not be.
  • Only a breadmaker for $99 didn’t sell.
  • Adding another one for $199 made the first one sell, because people could relate to it. We don’t know how much things should cost.
  • Restaurants usually offer $10, $35 and $70 wine, and most people pick the $35 one.
• The cost of zero cost:
  • Free shipping of Amazon - people derive utility due to loss aversion.
  • “Free stuff” has downside due to system one.
  • People wait for free ice-cream - well, they pay with their time.
• The cost of social norms: rather meet market norms ($200/h) or social norms (appreciation)
  • car is broken: offer $5 to help but they would get offended.
  • people confuse market norms with social norms.
  • lawyers were asked to work for $30/h and rejected it, but they worked for free.
• The problem of procastination and self-control:
  • Why we can’t make ourselves do, what we need to do.
  • In a study: students were supposed to submit 3 papers at end of semester, or each after 4/8/12 weeks. The second approach was much more successful.
  • Set artificial deadlines.
  • Generate a drastic punishment => $500 to a charity you hate.

Gothenburg The Paradox of Choice

• Choices should make you better of but they paralyze you.
• Too many “breads” in store: you start to compare and people spend on average more time, get cognitively depleted.
• Restaurants: Have many offers but 5 specials of the day that have the highest margins.
• Improve life: Choose one breakfast combination, find one outfit. Make it easy.