514. Eliminate. Less is More

"The height of Civilisation always runs to simplicity." - Bruce Lee.

Every day decrease the amount of rubbish around you. Do not add to it. Eliminate noise, ornamentation,  excess paper, fat etc from your self and your enviornment. Learn to listen. Learn to meditate - reduce the clutter of sounds and ideas rushing around in your mind. Cultivate an appreciation of the simple line drawing of Japanese Art that brings the mind to rest when you simply let your gaze fall gently on it.

513. Be exceptional

Never underestimate yourself. You are far better than you think. Competition is always fiercest at the mediocre level. It is therefore easier to do the unrealistic than the realistic. Go for it !

512.Risk

If you define risk as the likelihood of an irreversible negative outcome, perhaps the greatest risk of all is inaction. As risk is a 4 letter word ending in k, you should be as risk averse as is compatible with progress. Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without it.

511. Beware !

Beware of the company you keep. It is all too easy to become S.N.I.O.P.ed - i.e Subject to the Negative Influences of Other People.

510. Strengths and Weaknesses

It may be more fun to leverage your strengths and you should certainly do so but you should not fail to strengthen your weaknesses. From time to time, (about every 90 days) you should carry out a SWOT analysis. On a quadrant, you should list your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Keep these in front of you for the next 90 days and repeat and so on and so forth.

509. Not Playing the Game

Learn how to play the game by not playing the game - look for the loopholes.

508. Second-best

"Beware : Once you say you're going to settle for second-best, that's what happens in your life." -John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

507. Open-mindedness

Keeping an open mind means regularly replacing your assumptions. Mental cleanouts require that you replace all your out-dated and redundent assumptions when they no longer support the facts.

506. See Things as they Really Are.

One definition of a wise man is one who sees things as they really are and not how he would like them to be. This is called the faculty of discernment. Avoid fooling yourself and remember that self delusion is the worst form of delusion - you yourself will always be the easiest person you can fool. Self-delusion is the most widespread mental illness that there is and it is the root of serious loss of sanity. Strive always to see things as they really are. You should always look below the surface in any situation and try to see what's really going on. If you don't like what you see, devise methods to make things how you would like them to be, but never fool yourself into thinking that they are as you would like when in fact they are not.

505. Hold the Bucket by the Handle

It is better to own the trains and hire someone to make them run than to be the driver or the boss.

504. Methods Vs. Principles

There are millions of methods but only a few principles. "The man who tries methods and ignores principles is on his way to trouble." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

No one method is permanently infallible. Times change, methods improve or deteriorate but principles will always be true. If you choose do do something one way today because every step of the method conforms to a principle, it will not be the right way tomorrow because the circumstances will have changed. You should always adapt your methods to conform to the principle under which the task is governed.

503. The Enemy of the Best

Because the Good is so often the enemy of the Best, you can never afford to be completely satisfied with what you are doing. Every day, try to see how you can do what you did a liitle better, a little different tomorrow. That way, you can stay ahead of the game. If you do that, after 1 year you will be better by 365 points than anyone who is still doing things exactly the same way that they did them last year.