Daniel-isms: 50 Ideas for Life I Repeatedly Share (part 2)
This is a sequel to Daniel-isms: 50 Ideas for Life I Repeatedly Share. Together, these two posts have been my favourite content I’ve ever written — I strongly encourage you to try to create your own list of your frequently shared life wisdom.
It's very easy for analytical people to notice problems and find things to complain about. But it's important to figure out: is the thing you're complaining about a 1/10 issue or a 6/10? There's no such thing as a perfect environment, and if you are constantly complaining about 2/10 issues, that's actually a good thing—it means there are no more substantive issues, otherwise you'd be focused on them. I personally don't allow myself to get bothered by anything less than a 4/10.
Recognize when "not working" means "needs more scale," not "bad idea." A tiny effort might be useless (damp twig), while a medium one shows promise but isn't successful (smoking twig). Real success often requires critical mass (bonfire). Don't discard the "smoking twig" – understanding it just needs more fuel (scale), not a different method. Being able to identify when something that works only requires more scale is an underappreciated perspective and often just as important as the invention itself. If you watch a serial entrepreneur, it's not that they are doing things you didn't know how to do, it's that they really believe doing those things will work, so they do them more intensely and with greater commitment.
It doesn't matter if you want to dance at your friend's wedding; if you think the wedding would be "better" if more people danced, and you dancing would meaningfully contribute to others being more likely to dance, you should be dancing. You should incorporate the positive externality of the social contagion effect of your actions for most things you do (eg if should you drink alcohol, bike, use Twitter etc.).
Simulating other identities in your mind is a powerful way to break through constraints. Asking yourself: "What would Tyler Cowen advise me to do here?" or "What would a person who is 2x as ambitious as me do (or 10x)?" is enough of a prompt to radically alter your behaviour. Set a calendar reminder every week until it becomes routine to prompt yourself to do things like that for whatever in life you are currently navigating. (*)
Often the smartest/best people succeed by employing the simplest models most effectively, and truly, truly grasping and understanding their implications.
[“I'll make a comment about that. It's funny that I think the most important thing to do on data analysis is to do the simple things right. So, here's a kind of non-secret about what we did at renaissance: in my opinion, our most important statistical tool was simple regression with one target and one independent variable. It's the simplest statistical model you can imagine. Any reasonably smart high school student could do it. Now we have some of the smartest people around, working in our hedge fund, we have string theorists we recruited from Harvard, and they're doing simple regression. Is this stupid and pointless? Should we be hiring stupider people and paying them less? And the answer is no. And the reason is nobody tells you what the variables you should be regressing [are]. What's the target. Should you do a nonlinear transform before you regress? What's the source? Should you clean your data? Do you notice when your results are obviously rubbish? And so on. And the smarter you are the less likely you are to make a stupid mistake. And that's why I think you often need smart people who appear to be doing something technically very easy, but actually usually not so easy. - Nick Patterson”](*)
Life planning with long time horizons is too constraining with too slow feedback loops and reality is just too messy. Instead, follow the idea of AI and gradient descent: take the next small step that reduces your internal 'error' (bad feelings, stagnation), observe, and repeat. Your feelings are the feedback loop. And just like AI, you will come out ahead vs. if you tried to design the end strategy from the beginning.(*)
People often think that if they can't create something original from scratch, they can't create value. In reality, some of the most important forms of value come from connecting or amplifying what already exists. You may never write a brilliant essay yourself, but if you compile and share the work of an underappreciated writer with a new audience, you might create even more value than the original author. Same goes for connecting ideas, potential friends, opportunities etc. Creation isn't the only way to add value; curation and connection can be equally powerful.(*)
Don't mistake accumulating facts or curated opinions on reddit/twitter for genuine understanding. True insight requires 'intellectual dark matter' – the deep, often invisible context, background knowledge, and systemic understanding that gives isolated information its real weight and meaning. Sadly, there is no short cut; you still need to read constantly.(*)
It's more important than you might think to share your actual preferences and speak in your own voice, because so much of what looks like the majority opinion is really just preference cascades at work—a loud minority counting on everyone else to stay quiet so they seem like the consensus view. When you put your real voice out there, you disrupt that process and make it harder for a small group to rule over everyone while pretending they represent what everyone thinks.
No matter how mediocre your year is or how much you are floundering, when you are 70, 80, 90 etc. years old, you will wish so badly you could be back in your situation today. I'm not saying your current situation is better than you think, but being older is probably much worse than you think, so cherish the lack of oldness now.
Don’t use your emotions as an emotional support dog, but rather as a seeing eye dog. Spend time with them, let them guide you forward, not just comfort you or keep you where you are.
Criticism is often a flashlight; most use it to blind others, not illuminate paths forward. Redirect the beam so it serves your interest.
Most things in life are mirrors disguised as windows. If you don't like what you see, it's probably because you don't like how you actually are. This means that most criticism of others is actually a reflection of ourselves. Recognizing this projection may be the first step to genuine self-awareness and more constructive action.
Most people want to be singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing. This distinction shows up everywhere. Some skateboarders love the feeling of skateboarding itself, while others are drawn more to the identity, community, or just being seen as someone who skates. When someone says they’re interested in the same thing as you, they might love the hobby, crave the status, or simply like being part of the scene. Paying attention to these differences in motivation helps you find people whose commitment truly matches yours, and explains why people with the “same” interest often don’t actually value the same things you do.(*)
Each time you gossip about someone or criticize something needlessly, its like pushing a button that makes you dumber and less happy. Stop pressing the button.(*)
It’s more pleasant to spend a day in even the most mediocre apartment than on the most expensive first-class flight. One of the great sins of the modern world is conflating exclusivity with luxury. Vanilla used to be considered a rich and intense flavour, but is now seen as a synonym for bland. Experiencing more luxury is typically not about spending more, but about changing your mindset to one of appreciation and attention. As Chris Alexander advised, slice your strawberries fine.(*)
Give your best work the respect and attention it deserves by spending even more time on it. Listen to Trey Anastasio's advice when working on things you truly care about: "This is so good, it deserves to be so much better."(*)
There are people like the drummer Joe Russo, who when you listen back now to when they were 20 years old, they were essentially as great and unique as they are today. Most people think that you start out mediocre and age into greatness, coping for their own mediocrity, but most greats are noticeably great and doing something distinct from the very beginning. If you don’t feel like what you are doing now is already in some sense “great”, you likely will not be great. You've got to really believe and lean into what you are doing. Be more ambitious and daring in your work.
You can't know if you are good or bad at something unless you've actually spent time trying to master that thing. Your ability to doodle is not predictive of your potential as an artist.
You should live your life building a reputation that signals to everyone that you will always cooperate and do the right thing in prisoner's dilemmas, collective action problems, and situations requiring social trust. The efficiency gains from positive-sum cooperation and solving collective action problems represent some the highest returns of any activity.
The ideas in people's heads are usually far less clear than they think, and it's only by writing out every part of the idea that they realize how much of it was vague, unfinished or just plain wrong. Putting your thoughts into writing forces you to confront all the wrinkles in the concept blob that lives in your mind.
To help add variance to your life or simply be more at one with the universe, give weights to certain options you are considering based on your preferences (eg, I want to go to restaurant 1 with 50% preference, restaurant 2 with 40% and restaurant 3 with 10%) and use a random number generator to let the universe decide for you.
If you think being slightly richer, more successful or beautiful will satisfy your desire for more wealth, status, or beauty, consider this: supermodel Miranda Kerr dated [chubby and awkward] fraudster Jho Low while even Leonardo DiCaprio courted him as a friend, all because of his appearance of incredible wealth. It doesn't matter if you're already a supermodel or a famous wealthy actor; the hunger for more power/optionality/status never disappears because you simply change your reference class and develop new desires. You'll never feel like you have "enough," so you might as well hop off the status-climbing carousel now.(*)
Most people avoid starting tasks on their to-do list because their body calculates the energy expenditure of doing the entire task and wants you to run away from this. However, once you've started something, it's very easy to continue. if you say you will only work on this task, say, for 5 minutes, you can bypass this natural blocker, and then rely on the inertia of actually having started to keep going.
Most things in life would be better off if you surrendered to whatever that thing was, in the moment it exists for. Feel the joy and happiness of that thing. Or if it's frustrating, you can complain about it later. But surrender, surrender, surrender.
One way to spot a phony is if they like all the "good things." Liking things which are highly regarded is correlated with good taste, but liking everything that's highly regarded is actually negatively correlated with having good taste. Good taste mostly comes from passionate curiosity, consuming a huge amount, and building the self-confidence to trust your own preferences, not from only watching the greatest hits.
There's often more room at the front of the concert than you would expect, as well as better value in more desirable real estate, as most people automatically head for the periphery, assuming the centre is overcrowded or inaccessible to them, without realizing that everyone else is thinking the same thing and actually crowding the periphery.
I know you think that fixing or improving that one thing will make all the difference, but truly, don't count on it. Most improvements fail to actually make things better because most systems are governed by a quasi thermostatic equilibrium where any gains you make tend to be offset elsewhere, with the benefits repurposed or eaten up by increased costs. Consider that restaurants awarded Michelin stars are more likely to go out of business than otherwise similar restaurants that aren’t awarded one — because the seemingly good thing leads to subtle changes, like a change in clientele, higher expectations, landlords and suppliers that think they can now charge more, staff that can go elsewhere. (*)
Most books you read are okay, but some you can't put down and entrance you. Most movies won't move you but some will crush your soul. Most of life is doing enough of the mediocre to enable you to experience the things that truly resonate with you and can change your life.
Music is made in the brain, not in your fingers, yet the instrument you choose to learn and play profoundly shapes what your brain creates. We like to imagine our minds function independently—like brains in vats—but in reality, our environment, tools, and conversation partners deeply influence what thoughts form and what comes out of our mouths or keyboards. The environment shapes the message more than we realize.
If you want to gain power or influence, it's often much easier to latch onto something already big and leverage it than to create something from scratch. Imagine if Elon Musk had stayed in South Africa. Vienna is just another city now, but think how powerful it would be if Austria had led the German empire. Movements like YIMBY would likely have far more impact if advocates focused on steering existing political parties, rather than trying to convince everyone individually.
It's not enough to take risks where things could go wrong. You actually need to do things that do go wrong. That's the only way to realize it's okay and to calibrate your sense of risk properly. Most people think they're risk-neutral, but in reality, they're still far too risk averse. It's okay to cross the line. It's okay to break things. Often, it's only when things start to break that you actually learn what's most important or can finally make the changes that are needed. You can almost always recover and turn things back on.
For many things, it's better to focus on process over outcomes, and it is unjust to hold people accountable for things outside of their control. BUT, when you empower people to own outcomes, irrespective of what happens, their resourcefulness and commitment can suddenly approach superhuman levels. When you consider the success of China under Deng Xiaoping’s rule by target framework, this may be the most impactful “lifehack” in modern history.
The fact that imposter syndrome is so widespread is a major issue in our society. The sad reality is that many people feel like imposters because most people genuinely don't know what they're doing. If you find yourself going into new environments and actually understanding what's going on and why things are so sub-optimal, realize how exceptional this is and take advantage of it. Most people are fundamentally non-serious, so if you are a serious person, it's important to update your self-perception accordingly.
Be wary of being overly accepting of those who are directionally aligned with you on things you are complaining about/opposed to. Be careful not to dismiss those arguing a differing view than yours just because in some capacity, they are hypocritical, said something wrong or did something bad. You are not right or justified, just because a perceived opponent is wrong about some particular thing.
You have no idea how much you can get just by asking. Most businesses value customers far more than you think, and the people you interact with are often incentivized to make you happy even more than doing right for the business. Keep asking for things and you'll be surprised by how much you receive.
When asking people for favours, don’t just give a general plea for help—request something specific and let them say no. It’s much easier for people to say yes to a concrete request than to come up with the suggestion themselves. When working on a project with lots of blockers, say you will do X by Y date, unless they tell you otherwise. Essentially, shift the onus: make your desired path easy, and make resistance or inaction harder for others.
If you take one route to the grocery store versus another, your life 20 years from now will likely be exactly the same. Think about decisions in terms of how they'll actually impact your life decades later. Imagine reading a comprehensive summary of your life from 20 years in the future, which of today's choices would require significant, or even any, edits to that page? As few things genuinely matter long-term, focus on the ones that will and be more relaxed about the ones that don't. Think of decisions like you're playing a video game simulation of your life: does your action lead to a higher score at the end, or will it not even register?
A lot of people think that if others wanted to do what they are doing (eg wake up at 7am and go for a run, make their bed every day, keep their home tidy, study hard etc), they could, but they just don’t want to. But the wanting/will part is actually the key skill and many people can't do it so don't take it for granted. I assure you that while in theory, I could fold my clothes nicely, in practice, I simply cannot. You should appreciate the things you have the will and capacity to do that others seemingly cannot.
We are often poorly calibrated when it comes to the gravity of our language. Two people might both believe there’s a 20% chance of war breaking out, a flight being cancelled, or the end of democracy in their country, but one will speak about it with alarm while the other is calm and dismissive. Many people assume that because their tone matches or doesn't match someone else's, they are aligned or misaligned on a topic. It’s important to be clear about actual probabilities and possible outcomes, because tone alone rarely tells you what someone really believes.
Words are lossy representations of complex inner reality. They can never fully capture the emotions you feel. Even worse, your own understanding of your emotions is often based on outdated 'cached' memories or superficial labels you once used. Actively re-engage and introspect on your feelings; emotions evolve constantly, and the labels you first give them quickly become misleading.
A lot of things in life are experienced in the body and soul and cannot be understood abstractly in the mind. It doesn't matter how much you read about Abbey Road, analyze other people's reviews, or study the sheet music, actually listening to Abbey Road is an entirely different experience. Love, great beauty, and many other things have a fundamentally different quality when you experience them directly versus when you merely think about them.
They say MDMA therapy works because endorphins let people confront difficult thoughts without being overwhelmed. I've found you can leverage this same principle for everyday thinking, even when you're not facing any challenges. When I'm biking, hiking, or at a concert, my mind gets space to wander, but the natural high makes me much more willing to wade through all my thoughts and plans. It's remarkably more pleasant and productive than trying to process the same thoughts in a neutral environment.
The more you learn and experience, the more pieces of the puzzle you fill in. The main benefit of an experience like reading a book or traveling somewhere new isn't what you notice today—it's that each experience becomes part of your training data for making future connections. Each new thing you learn doesn't just add value for the future; it makes everything you've previously learned more valuable by creating new connections. Your knowledge compounds over time as each new experience both enriches what you already know today and serves as a node for future experiences to connect with, even if you don't see the impact right away.
Look at what was trendy twenty years ago and is still around, and experience that. It was popular for a reason, but now you can enjoy it without all the hype and nonsense.
Silence isn't always neutral feedback. In social contexts where positive affirmation is expected (like receiving a gift or being hosted), the absence of praise often signals unmet expectations more strongly than lukewarm compliments.
Most of succeeding in life is just having the courage to do things in the real world. Most people never get started because doing anything feels scary when you’ve never done it before. That’s why experiences like doing silly projects with friends, being in a band, or making skateboarding videos as a teenager are more important than you might imagine. These give you the experience of actually doing things without real risk, making it all feel less intimidating. All those silly reps build the confidence and momentum you’ll later use for everything that matters.
The executive assistant for the 30 year old chief of staff to the CEO at a Silicon Valley tech company makes more money than nearly every tech CEO or CTO in Europe. Most career success isn’t just about talent—it’s about being in the right funnels and with legible credentials/experience. The US sorts aggressively through high school, university, and early career, but if you’re not in those lanes—or you’re outside the US—you’ve probably never even had the chance to be sorted. There’s tremendous hidden talent and opportunity outside these funnels, but nobody is coming to discover your brilliance if you’re on the outside.
Conversations about money, like negotiations or collecting debts, often create awkward, heated, and zero-sum dynamics. But if you genuinely enjoy donating to high-impact causes, you can use this as a social lubricant: when someone owes you money or you're negotiating a price, suggest they donate your target amount to a high-impact charity (like one on GiveWell's list) rather than paying you directly. This reframes the entire interaction: they feel good (often giving more than they’d concede in a direct transaction), you avoid an awkward adversarial conversation, and they’re introduced to the rewarding experience of donating to great causes. The psychological shift from "paying someone" to "helping others" transforms a contentious situation into a genuinely positive-sum one.
Even when you are absolutely sure you're right, it's almost always worth having more humility. Many people think they're proven right just because they have strong arguments, or have an authority side with them, or can show their opponent is wrong about something. But consider Supreme Court cases decided by narrow 5-4 splits—there are brilliant justices and compelling arguments on each side, often after a lower court has already decided differently. Always consider that you might be on the "4" side of a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court—many persuasive arguments in your favour, authorities who agree with you, and critical points your adversary is wrong about, yet still, you are wrong in the end, despite everything pointing in your favour.
If people haven't read what you've read, or had the experiences you've had, then it makes sense why they don't arrive at the same views as you, even if you are right and they are wrong.
If you explored everyone’s views with endless hypothetical questions and thought experiments, you’d discover that almost everyone holds positions you find monstrous. If you find yourself hating people today for holding certain views, remember that nearly everyone is carrying some set of beliefs you’d consider just as bad. Rather than letting this turn into blanket hatred for others, it’s better to recognize this dynamic and try to see past judging people solely on their moral views.
Dick Cheney, a standard Republican on all issues, adopted a different stance than other Republicans in 2004 on one single issue: gay marriage, seemingly only because his daughter is gay. Often, growing up in one community, or having those close to you greatly affected by something has a significant impact on your views. Having a child with a disability will almost certainly change your views on disability issues. The actual insight of this is: whenever there is someone you disagree with and are angry about, just imagine if their personal circumstances were different. Surely then, they would have views you find more compelling.
Many arguments aren't actually about facts but about unspoken values or assumptions about how the world works. I share almost exactly the same understanding of the world as Tyler Cowen, but he's a longtermist (valuing future people, like those born 1000 years from now as much as people alive today). This means we disagree on nearly every single issue, despite having a near identical worldview, just due to this one small difference in values. Yet when Tyler writes, there's no disclaimer saying "I'M A LONGTERMIST, INTERPRET ACCORDINGLY." When you find yourself disagreeing with someone, ask whether you might actually share the same understanding of the facts, but differ on some fundamental value or assumption that neither of you has made explicit.
A lot of gold in there, thank you. I wrote many of them down in my quote google doc that I've been keeping for 15+ years. I'll revisit them periodically.
Cheers 💚 🥃
Bravo! These are really incredible.