Dan Sullivan

Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” –Anne Sweeney, American businesswoman and former co-chair of Disney Media

People who spend most of their time putting out fires are usually also the arsonists.

Questions are infinitely superior to answers.

He even thought about his love for skating itself, and how much skating had done for him as a person.

However, for many people, their lives are all experience and no learning.

No one can replicate you when you’re in the GAIN, because no one has the same experiences you’re having — and no one can transform your experiences into GAINS the way you do. You’ve already made it this far. Look back at where you were when you started. What are you going to do now? How far are you going to go? You get to decide that.

You can start every day from now on by identifying a specific danger to eliminate, a specific opportunity to capture, and a specific strength to maximize.

Ideals are like a horizon in the desert. No matter how many steps you take forward, the horizon continues to move out of reach. Psychology has a term for this moving horizon, hedonic adaptation. It’s the tendency of humans to quickly adapt to where they are and what they’ve got. It leads to never being satisfied, and to constantly seeking the next thing.

All too often, there is a lack of commitment to results and an over-infatuation with “process” or “hard work.

You’re playing your own game. You’re seeing new progress every day. You’re defining what your own experiences mean. You’re loving your life.

If you’re in the GAP and think that “happiness” and “success” are something you “pursue” and will have in your future, then you’re in trouble. You’re making yourself miserable. And just as bad, you’re actually making everyone around you miserable with your GAP-thinking. When you’re in the GAP, you see everything through your GAP-lens. Nothing is ever enough. Nothing ever will be enough. You can’t see the GAIN in yourself or others. And until you do, you’ll never be happy. Plain and simple.

To make a goal effective, you’ve got to test its outer-limits. Push it out as far as you can. Only once you make your goal impossible will you stop operating based on your current assumptions and knowledge.

happiness is where you start, not where you finish.

I’ve discovered that when something very emotional happens to me, it stays with me until I’ve converted it into lessons.

If greatness is your goal, it can only be achieved today.