Sahil Lavingia quotes on life

Being a founder is hard. Being an early employee is hard. Being a VC is hard. Being a politician is hard. Being an engineer is hard. Being a writer is hard. Being a friend is hard. Being a partner is hard. Being a parent is hard. It's all hard. Life is hard, and then you die.

You’d be surprised how far you’ll get by just doing what you say you’ll do.

People spend years looking for a shortcut.

Everyone's life is harder than it looks from the outside.

Education is about problem-solving, not test-passing.

The best jobs require no past experience.

Build the necessary first, then the useful, then the nice.

It takes years to become a great engineer, designer, writer, painter. But it only takes days to become communicative, reliable, and nice to be around — which will put you above 90% of your peers.

Listen as if you’re wrong.

Investing advice: only buy something when you can afford two of it. Buy the product, then buy the company's stock.

Compliment people behind their backs.

Give more than you take, and you’ll get more than you give.

It takes years to get to the point where it takes an hour.

You’ll get it when you no longer want it.

Worse writers than you have written and published books. Worse founders than you have built successful businesses. If they can do it, you can too.

Suffer the pain of discipline now to avoid the pain of regret later.

When you spend a lot of time alone, you realize how much your thoughts matter. Then you spend a lot of time improving your thoughts. Then you get happy.

If you think every stance except yours is evil, you may be in a cult.

Do something before there's a name for it.

Put your money where your mind is.

Better to try 100 times and succeed 10% of the time than try ten times and succeed 50% of the time.

Before you ask someone for advice, spend a few hours seeing how far you can get by yourself. Either you’ll get to the answer yourself, or you’ll be able to frame your situation in a way that will yield better, more specific advice - and earn you more of their respect.

I read somewhere that there are only two reasons we give feedback: - To cut someone down - To help them grow I try and go through that mental check each time I give someone feedback.

Do a thing a day that makes your heart beat faster.

If you want to be an artist, be a capitalist first.

No one pays any attention to your mistakes. They are focused on their own.

How to be happy: find a few people you really care about and make them really happy.

Nothing will make you happier than an ego death.

You won't get lucky if you don't have skin in the game.

You can learn more from watching what people do than listening to people talk.

Everything you make is informed by everything else you have made. Your last blog post, video, or painting did not take a few hours. It took your whole life!

The longer you wait, the more likely you won’t.

"Nothing in life is free." Sure there is! It's free to be nice to everyone you meet. It's free to assume someone's good faith. It's free to forgive someone.

I'd rather fail doing what I love than succeed doing what I hate.

If someone makes something that feels unachievable to you, find the earlier work they did to lead them there. It’ll show you the way.

Growth is outsmarting yourself.

If you have enough curiosity you won’t need as much discipline.

Your life is your thoughts.

The best way to signal your belief in someone is to give them your money and time.

You don’t have to be right but you do have to be certain.

Someone's favorite book has yet to be written. Someone's favorite painting has yet to be painted. Someone's favorite movie has yet to be made. It could be yours.

Breakthroughs follow breakdowns.

Freedom is not needing anything from anyone. Peace is not wanting anything from anyone.

Not sure if people change, or if they progressively discover deeper levels of themselves.

If you help without expecting anything in return, you will eventually get something in return.

Being funny is harder than being smart.

Everything you do should help people enjoy life, or help people endure it.

Too many people want all the answers before they begin. You won’t even know all the questions years after you begin!

If someone really believes something, they wouldn’t just be talking about it, they would be doing it.

Distract yourself from rejection with another rejection.