Even if you’re not the most naturally gifted, you can often win by being the best in a very narrow category.

When you can’t win by being better, you can win by being different.

The work that hurts you less than it hurts others is the work you were made to do.

At some point, you need to make sure you’re playing the right game for your skillset.

When a habit is easy, you are more likely to be successful. When you are successful, you are more likely to feel satisfied.

Pick the right habits and progress is easy. Pick the wrong habit and life is a struggle.

In theory, you can enjoy almost anything. In practice, you are more likely to enjoy the things that come easily to you.

Choose the habit that best suits you, not the one that is the most popular.

You don’t have to build the habits that everyone tells you to build.

Our deeply rooted preferences make certain behaviors easier for some people than for others.

Genes do not determine your destiny; they determine your areas of opportunity.

If you want to be truly great, selecting the right place to focus is crucial.

The people at the top of any competitive field are not only well trained, they are also well suited to the task.

Our environment determines the suitability of our genes and the utility of your natural talents.

The secret to maximizing your odds of success is to choose the right field of competiton.

Knowing that someone else is watching you can be a powerful motivator.

Behavior only shifts if the punishment is painful enough and reliably enforced.

To be productive, the cost of procrastination must be greater than the cost of action.

We’ll jump through a lot of hoops to avoid a little bit of immediate pain.

We repeat bad habits because they serve us in some way, and that makes them hard to abandon.