Overview & Impressions

Excellent Advice for Living is a collection of aphorisms from writer, editor and photographer Kevin Kelly. The book is packed full of timeless advice that covers an astonishing range, from right living to setting ambitious goals, optimising generosity, and cultivating compassion. Kevin has lots of wise, practical advice for career, relationships, parenting, and finances, and gives guidance for practical matters ranging from travel to troubleshooting. This book is super digestible and easy to read, and the fact the it is essentially a collection of proverbs makes it effortless to put the book down and pick up where you left off. The title pretty much sums up this book.

Summary, Quotes & Notes

Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.

Don’t measure your life with someone else’s ruler.

Collecting things benefits you only if you display your collection prominently and share it in joy with others.

A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

You can’t reason someone out of a notion that they didn’t reason themselves into.

Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.

When you are anxious because of your to-do list take comfort in your have-done list.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

A great way to understand yourself is to seriously reflect on everything you find irritating in others.

We lack rites of passage. Create a memorable family ceremony when your child reaches legal adulthood between eighteen and twenty-one. This moment will become a significant touchstone in their life.

Don’t be the best. Be the only.

Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them; they are waiting for you to send them an email; they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

To be interesting, be interested.

When you are young, spend at least 6 months to 1 year living as cheaply as you can owning as little as you possibly can eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent. That way any time you have to risk something in the future, you won’t be afraid of the “worst-case” scenario.

If you ask for someone’s feedback you’ll get a critic. But if instead you ask for advice you’ll get a partner.

The Golden Rule will never fail you. It is the foundation of all other virtues.

To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it redo it, redo it. The secret to making fine things is in remaking them.

It’s hard to cheat an honest person.

Expand your mind by thinking with your feet on a walk or with your hand in a notebook. Think outside your brain.

At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job buy the very best you can afford.

Shorten your to-do list by asking yourself “What is the worst that will happen if this does not get done?” Eliminate all but the disasters.

Don’t take a job because it pays the most money.

Separate the processes of creating from improving. You can’t write and edit or sculpt and polish or make and analyse at the same time.

the more you give to others the more you’ll get. Understanding this is the beginning of wisdom.

99% of success is just showing up. In fact, most success is just persistence.

Almost anything money can do friends can do better.

Be more generous than necessary. No one on their deathbed has ever regretted giving too much away.

There is no limit on how much we can improve what we start with.

Nobody talks about the departed’s achievements. The only thing people will remember is what kind of person you were while you were achieving.

You really don’t want to be famous.

Art is in what you leave out.

If you are not embarrassed by your past self you have probably not grown up yet.

Don’t reserve you kindest praise for a person until their eulogy.

Learn how to tie a bowline knot. Practice in the dark. With one hand. For the rest of your life you’ll use this knot more times than you would ever believe.

The greatest rewards come from working on something that nobody has words for.

On the way to a grand goal celebrate the smallest victories as if each one were the final goal. That way, no matter where it ends you are victorious.

Don’t aim to have others like you; aim to have them respect you.

Just because it’s not your fault doesn’t mean it’s not your responsibility.

Compliment people behind their back. It’ll come back to you.

Most overnight successes—in fact, any significant successes— take at least 5 years.

Your best response to an insult is “You’re probably right.”

If you can avoid seeking the approval of others your power is limitless.

Your passions should fit you exactly but your purpose in life should exceed you. Work for something much larger than yourself.

Recipe for success: underpromise and overdeliver.

Work to become, not to acquire.

Your purpose is to discover your purpose.

If you can’t tell what you desperately need it’s probably sleep.

Avoid hitting the snooze button. That’s just training you to oversleep.

The work on any worthy project is endless, infinite. You cannot limit the work so you must limit your hours. Your time, not the work is the only thing you can manage.

When you are stuck, sleep on it. Give your subconscious an assignment while you sleep. You’ll have an answer in the morning.

You can eat any dessert you want if you take only three bites.

Bad things can happen fast but almost all good things happen slowly.

If your goal does not have a schedule, it is a dream.

Do something a future generation will thank you for. A simple thing is to plant a tree.

To be remarkable, read books.

Finite games are played to win or lose. Infinite games are played to keep the game going. Seek out infinite games because they yield unlimited rewards.

A problem that can easily be solved with money is not really a problem because its solution is obvious. Focus on problems with non-obvious solutions.

Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about. It won’t be obvious and your job is to discover what it is.

Cultivate an allergy to average.

To combat an adversary become their friend.

You don’t marry a person you marry a family.

About 99% of the time the right time is right now.

All guns are loaded.

Cultivate 12 people who love you because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.

Always be quick to give credit and to take blame.

Be frugal in all things except in your passions. Select a few interests that you gleefully splurge on.

Dance with your hips.

No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.

Don’t ever work for someone you don’t want to become.

No secrets. You are much better off delivering unwelcome news to someone yourself directly.

To achieve greatness requires a long view. Raise your time horizon to raise your goal.

Most wonderful things quickly become unwonderful if they are repeated too often. Once-in-a-life is often the optimal interval.

If you stop to listen to a musician or street performer for more than a minute you owe them a dollar.

The consistency of your endeavours (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity.

Efficiency is highly overrated; goofing off is highly underrated. Regularly scheduled sabbaths, sabbaticals vacations, breaks, aimless walks and time off are essential for top performance of any kind. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.

Don’t aim for better ways to get through your tasks as quickly as possible. Instead aim for better tasks that you never want to stop doing.

Your enjoyment of travel is inversely proportional to the size of your luggage.

Don’t keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.

Don’t buy anything late at night.

In a genuine survival situation, you can go 3 weeks without food and 3 days without water but only 3 hours without warmth or shade. So don’t worry about food. Focus on temperature and water.

When you feel like quitting just do five more: 5 more minutes, 5 more pages 5 more steps. Then repeat. Sometimes you can break through and keep going but even if you can’t, you ended five ahead.

Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.

When speaking to an audience pause frequently. Pause before you say something in a new way pause after you have said something you believe is important and pause as a relief to let listeners absorb details.

You’ll get 10 times better results by elevating good behaviour rather than punishing bad behaviour especially in children and animals.

Don’t wait for the storm to pass; dance in the rain.

Keep all your things visible in a hotel room, not in drawers and all gathered into one spot.

Denying or deflecting a compliment is rude.

To keep young kids behaving well on a car road trip, have a bag of their favourite unwrapped candy and throw a piece out the window each time they misbehave.

If you’re doing something that you are hiding from others it’s probably not good for you.

90% of everything is crap.

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade.

Let someone know you remembered their name and they won’t ever forget yours. To help remember their name repeat it on first hearing.

Your best job will be one that you were unqualified for because it stretches you. In fact, only apply to jobs you are unqualified for.

The only productive way to answer “What should I do now?” is to first tackle the question of “Who should I become?”

Not all prices appear on labels.

It’s thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.

Take note if you find yourself wondering “Where is my good knife?” or “Where is my good pen?” That means you have bad ones. Get rid of those.

For the best results with your children spend only half the money you think you should but double the time with them.

Looking ahead, focus on direction rather than destinations. Maintain the right direction and you’ll arrive at where you want to go.

Art is whatever you can get away with.

Backups are cheap compared to regrets.

Remove, give away, throw out anything that no longer gives you joy in order to make room for those that do.

Don’t compare your inside to someone else’s outside.

Spend ⅓ of your time on exploring and ⅔ on optimising and deepening. As you mature it is harder to devote time to exploring because it seems unproductive but aim for ⅓.

You need to get all the obvious ideas out of the way.

Don’t bother fighting the old just build the new.

Do more of what looks like work to others but is play for you.

Pay attention to what you pay attention to.

Reading to your children regularly is the best school they will ever get.

Rather than steering your life to avoid the unexpected aim directly for it.

When you are presented with a task that could be completed in 2 minutes or less do it immediately.

The stronger your beliefs, the stronger your reasons to question them regularly.

For every good thing you love ask yourself what your proper dose is.

To be interesting just tell your own story with uncommon honesty.

When sharing, one person divides the other chooses.

Pay attention to who you are around when you feel your best. Be with them more often.

The very best thing you can do for your kids is to love your spouse.

Five years from now you will wish you had started today.

Your heart needs to be as educated as your mind.

Travel to passions rather than destinations.

Let your children choose their punishments. They’ll be tougher than you will.

For lofty goals, measure your progress from where you started rather than where you need to finish.

When you find something you really enjoy do it slowly.

Your flaws and your strengths are two poles of the same traits. For instance, there is only a tiny difference between stubbornness and perseverance or between courage and foolishness. The sole difference is in the goal.

The end is almost always the beginning of something better.

It is impossible for you to become poor by giving. It is impossible for you to become wealthy without giving.

Try hard to solicit constructive criticism early.

To get better at speaking watch a recording of yourself speaking. It is shocking and painful but an effective way to improve.

Worry is ineffective. It is certain that 99% of the stuff you are anxious about won’t happen.

If nobody else does what you do you won’t need a resume.

Read the books that your favourite authors once read.

Trust the 3-star product reviews because they tell both the good and the bad, which is the real state for most things.

An honest friend is someone who wants nothing at all from you.

Only watch trailers for movies you are unsure of, or unlikely to see.

The greatest killer of happiness is comparison.

If you are stuck in life travel to a place you have never heard of.

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go further, go together.

Commit to doing no work no business no income one day a week. Call it a sabbath (or not). Use that day for resting, recharging, and cultivating the most important things in life. Counterintuitively, this sabbath will prove to be your most productive act all week.

Choose to believe that the entire universe is conspiring behind your back to make you a success.

Aim to die broke. Give to your beneficiaries before you die; it’s more fun and useful to them. Spend it all. Your last check should go to the funeral home and it should bounce.

The chief prevention against getting old is to remain astonished.

Life lessons will be presented to you in the order they are needed. Everything you need to master the lesson is within you. Once you have truly learned a lesson you will be presented with the next one. If you are alive that means you still have lessons to learn.

Very few regrets in life are about what you did. Almost all are about what you didn’t do.

Your goal is to be able to say on the day before you die that you have fully become yourself.

You Might Also Like...