"All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there." - Charlie Munger

Inversion is a mental model that flips the script on traditional problem-solving.

Rather than look at a problem in a linear, forward, logical manner, you think about it in reverse.

It forces you to think differently about the problem—to see it from a new angle, from a fresh perspective. It provides a unique lens to simplify the complex.

Well, there is one complex, foundational problem that is truly universal:

How do you live a good life?

Let's harness the power of inversion to address it:

Here are 20 ways to live a miserable life...

You chase every short-term pleasure.

Instant gratification will kill your dreams.

You have to sacrifice short-term freedom in order to earn long-term freedom.

Every single thing you want in life is on the other side of something that sucks. That suck might be 100 hard workouts, 100 bland meals, 100 hours of focused work, or 100 hard conversations.

Stop pressing the eject button as soon as it gets hard. Sacrifice is the cost of entry. Embrace the suck. Delayed gratification is the key to the life you want.

You lack the courage to act

The worst prison in the world is having the talent and intelligence to achieve something great, but lacking the courage to go out and do it.

Talent and intelligence are abundant, courage is not.

Your entire life will change when you realize that your fear comes from inexperience, not incapability. You're afraid because you haven't done it yet, not because you can't do it. Inexperience is the problem to be solved—and it's solved through having the courage to act.

You only show up when you feel like it

My grandfather once told me that you'll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary.

People who only show up when they feel like it are destined for failure at worst, mediocrity at best.

The key to life: Show up. Show up when it’s hard. Show up when it’s messy. Show up when no one’s watching. Show up when you don't feel like it. Show up when the rewards are uncertain. Just show up. You can never bet against the person who just keeps showing up.

You allow idleness to dominate your life

Stress and anxiety feed on idleness. They take hold while you sit and scroll on your phone, while you overthink your situation, while you compare yourself to others, while you try to create the perfect plan.

When you take action, you starve them of the oxygen they need to survive. The answer is found in the action. Remember that.

You fear uncertainty

There is no such thing as the clear, linear path to a good life. It does not exist. The reality: Long periods of stagnation, where the outcomes feel completely unpredictable.

If you fear uncertainty, you'll never make it to the other side.

The most dangerous person in the world is the one who shows up every single day even when the rewards are uncertain. The one who can tolerate the most uncertainty is the one who will eventually win.

You get your dopamine from information gathering

Dopamine from information gathering is a dangerous drug. That's the dopamine you get when you read the personal development book (or this newsletter!), even though you haven't acted on any of the insights from it.

The most successful people in the world have a razor-thin gap between gathering information and acting on that information.

Your entire life will change the moment you stop looking for more information and start acting on the information you already have. Get your dopamine from action.

You allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial

Ambitious people have a bad tendency to think like this:

• I don't have an hour to work out, so I just won't go.
• I don't have two hours for deep work, so I'll do email instead.
• I don't have 30 minutes to call my mom, so I won't call at all.

When you allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial, you ignore the most powerful principle in life:

Anything above zero compounds.

A little bit is always better than nothing. Tiny wins stack over long periods of time. Small things become big things.

You make your happiness conditional

The most significant lie you tell yourself: "When I get [X], then I'll be happy."

Over and over again, you recite some version of this lie. And every single time you do, you make your own happiness conditional on some external event, achievement, or timeline.

One of my favorite quotes comes from the movie Cool Runnings:

"A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

If you convince yourself that your satisfaction is contingent upon the next achievement or milestone, you'll never find it. Real happiness is an inside job: Find it on the journey—or you won't find it at all.

You worry about the opinions of the crowd

There are two big mistakes in life:

1. Worrying about what other people think about you
2. Believing that other people think about you in the first place

You aren't really afraid of failure. You're afraid of what other people will think of you if you fail. Here's the truth: Nobody is thinking about you. They're too busy thinking about themselves. So go do the damn thing.

You chase novelty

Social media has rewired us to constantly seek novelty. You swipe until you find the fresh, new thing that grabs your attention. But unfortunately, that obsession with novelty is the single greatest risk to building the life you want.

The most meaningful things in life are built through the consistent execution of the very boring basics. Businesses are built through years of pounding away on a core, central idea. Careers are built through years of showing up and doing what you say you're going to do. Relationships are built through years of presence. Bodies are built through years of basic daily movement and nutrition.

If you seek novelty in these areas, you'll never allow the magic of compounding to do its thing. Find joy in the boring. Show up, do the work, repeat.

You wait for the perfect moment

"Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant. If they watch every cloud, they never harvest." - Ecclesiastes 11:4

There is no such thing as a perfect moment. There are just moments—and your actions determine what you make of them.

Stop overthinking, start acting. Go make some imperfect moments perfect through your actions.

You wait for permission to live your life

Misery loves those who wait. It loves those who look around waiting for other people to come tap them in, to give them permission to do the things they want to do.

Your entire life will change when you stop waiting for permission to live the life you want. Good things don’t come to those who wait. Good things come to those who have the courage to act.

The life you want is on the other side of the permission you give yourself to live it.

You avoid hard conversations

When you avoid a hard conversation, you're taking on a debt. That debt has to be repaid, with interest, at a date in the future.

Time doesn't heal anything when it comes to relationships. Make the minor repairs along the way, or you'll be forced to deal with the major repairs later. The choice is yours.

You complain about things outside your control

When you complain about something, you give too much power to that thing.

Don’t complain about anything. If it’s within your control, go and do something about it. If it’s not, you’re just wasting energy thinking about it.

One of my favorite ancient parables:

"He who blames others has a long way to go on his journey. He who blames himself is halfway there. He who blames no one has already arrived."

Take back that power.

You treat your house like crap

In 2022, I asked an 80-year-old man what advice he'd give to his younger self. His response: "Treat your body like a house you're going to have to live in for the next 70 years."

It hit me hard. Your body (and mind) are, quite literally, the house you have to live in until the end of your days. And yet, how often do you make decisions that treat that house like crap?

Treat your house with reverence: Build a solid foundation, embrace the daily investments, and make the minor repairs along the way.

You allow negative people to drain your energy

Here's a harsh truth: A person is either holding you back or pushing you forward. There is no in between.

When we allow negative people to drain our energy, we have less of it to offer the positive people that lift us higher. Stop allowing these people to drain your energy. Give everyone a second chance, but never a third.

You compare yourself to others

The best way to ruin something good is to compare it to something else. And yet, that is exactly what you do when you spend hours scrolling on social media, obsessing over someone else’s highlight reel and ignoring what you have right in front of you.

Jean de La Fontaine once wrote, “How many folks, in country and in town, Neglect their principal affair; And let, for want of due repair, A real house fall down, To build a castle in the air?”

Stop worshipping a castle in the air at the expense of the real house right in front of you.

You obsess over speed

We live in a speed obsessed world. Everything is about getting to Point B faster and more efficiently. You need to get Forbes 30 Under 30, make your first million by 30, make senior manager by 35, get a house by 40, and so on. Everything is about accomplishing something on a completely arbitrary timeline.

The truth: Life is about direction, not speed. It's much better to climb slowly up the right mountain than to climb fast up the wrong one.

Sapere Aude is the Latin phrase meaning dare to know. It's a call-to-action for independent thinking—the courage and willingness to question the defaults you've been handed and form your own perspectives and opinions. Dare to question the definition of success. Dare to ask what you truly want out of life. Dare to slow down in a world that tells you to speed up.

You expect someone to come save you

There are people who will support you and provide love and comfort on your journey, but at the end of the day, you cannot expect anyone to save you.

Your entire life will change the day you realize that it's all on you.

No one is coming to save you. No one will fix your problems. No one will change your mindsets. No one will hand you the things you want in life. It's just you. It's all on you. There's a power in that.

You ignore the precious nature of time

95% of the time you have with your children is over by the time they turn 18.

Writer and philosopher Sam Harris once said, "No matter how many times you do something, there will come a day when you do it for the last time."

There will be a last time your kids want you to read them a bedtime story, a last time you’ll go for a long walk with your sibling, a last time you’ll hug your parents at a family gathering, a last time your friend will call you for support.

How many moments do you ­really have remaining with your loved ones? It’s probably not as many as you’d like to believe. All the tiny moments, people, and experiences that we take for granted will eventually be ones we wish we had more of.

Time is your most precious asset and the present is all that’s guaranteed. Spend it wisely, with those you love, in ways you’ll never regret.

Note: This is an excerpt from the Time Wealth section of my NYT bestselling book, The 5 Types of Wealth. The book has 10+ systems and actions to gain control of your time today.

Order The 5 Types of Wealth Now!

How to Live a Good Life

"It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent." - Charlie Munger

Sometimes in life, the key to unlocking the good is as simple as avoiding the bad.

Consider this piece as your manual to doing just that...