There is nothing more important than understanding how reality works and how to deal with it. The state of mind you bring to this process makes all the difference. I have found it help to think of my life as if it were a game in which each problem is like a puzzle I need to solve. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the form of a principle that helps me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. By solving the puzzle, I get a gem in the principles that help me avoid the same sort of problem in the future. Collecting these gems continually improves my decision making，so I am able to ascend higher and higher levels of play in which the game gets harder and the stakes becomes ever greater.
All sorts of emotions come to me while I am playing and those emotions can either help or hurt me. If I can reconcile my emotions with my logic and only act when they are aligned, I make better decisions.
Learning how reality works, visualizing the things I want to create, and building them out is incredibly exciting to me. Stretching for big goals puts me in the position of failing and needing to learning and come up with new inventions in order to move forward.
I find it exhilarating being caught up in the feedback loop of rapid learning -- just as a surfer loves riding a wave, even though it sometimes leads to crashes. Don't get wrong, I am still scared of crashes and I still find it painful. But I keep pain in perspective, knowing that I will get through these setbacks and that most of my learnings will come from reflecting on them. Just as the long-distance runners push through pain to experience the pleasure of "runner's" high, i have largely gotten past the pain of my mistake making and instead enjoy the pleasure that comes with learning from it. I believe that with practice you can change your habits and experience the same "mistake learner's high".
1.1 Be a hyperrealist.
Understanding, accepting and working with reality is both practical and beautiful. I have become so much of a hyperrealist that I've learned to appreciate the beauty of all realities, even the harsh ones, and have come to despise impractical idealism.
Don't get me wrong, I believe in making dreams happen. To me, there's nothing better in life than doing that. The pursuit of life is what gives life its flavor.My point is that people who create great things are not idle dreamers：they are totally grounded in reality. Being hyperrealistic will help you choose your dreams wisely and then achieve them. I have found the following to be almost always true:
a. Dreams+Reality+Determination = A successful Life.
People who achieve success and drive progress deeply understand the cause-effect relationships that govern reality and have principles for using them to get what they want. The converse is also true: the idealist who are not grounded in reality causes problems, not progress.
What does a successful life look like? We have our deep-seated needs, so we each have to decide for ourselves what success is. I don't care whether you want to be a master of the universe, a couch potato, or anything else ---- I really don't. Some people want to change the world and others want to operate in simple harmony with it and savor life. Neither is better. Each of us needs to describe what we value most and choose the paths we take to achieve it.
Take a moment to reflect on where you are on the following scale, which illustrate on overly simplified choice you should think about. Where would you put yourself on it?
The question is not how much of each to go after, but how hard to work to get as much as possible. I wanted crazy amount of each, was thrilled to work hard to get as much of them as possible, and found that they could largely be one and the same and mutually reinforcing. Over time I learned that getting more out of life wasn't just matter of working harder at it. It was much more of a master of working effectively, because working effectively could increase my capacity by hundreds of times. I don't care what you want or how hard you want to work for it. That's for you to decide. I'm just passing along to you what have helped to me get the most of each hour of time and each unit of effort.
Most importantly, I've learned that there is no escaping the fact that:
Truth -- Or more precisely, an accurate understanding of reality- is the essential foundation for any good outcome.
Most people fight see what's true when it's not what they want to be. That's bad, because it is more important to understand and deal with the bad stuff since the good stuff will take care of itself.
Do you agree with that, if not, you are unlikely to benefit from what follows. If you do agree, let's build on it.
1.3 Be radically open-minded and radically transparent.
None of us is born with knowing what is true, we either have to discover what's true for ourselves or believe and follow others. The key is to know which path will yield better results. I believe that:
a. Radical open-mindedness and radical transparency are invaluable for rapid learning and effective change. Learning is the product of continuous real-time feedback loop in which we make decisions, see their outcomes, and improve our understanding of reality as a result. Being radically open-minded enhances the efficiency of those result, because it makes what you are doing and why, so clear to yourself and others that there can't be any misunderstandings. The open-mindedness you are, the less likely you are to deceive yourself --- and the more likely it is that others will give you honest feedback. If they are believable people (and it's very important to know who is "believable", you will learn a lot from them.
Being radically transparent and radically open-minded accelerate this learning process. It can also be difficult because being radically transparent rather than more guarded exposes one to criticism. It is nature to fear that. Yet if you don't put yourself out there with your radical transparency, you won't learn.
b. Don't let fears of what others think of you stand in your way.