Shane Parrish

You need a lot of discipline to start the rituals.

But once the rituals sort of take hold,

rituals become this powerful force where you turn your desired behavior into your default behavior.

And I've used this with kids and homework, my kids, right?

So every day after school, starting in grade seven, they would come home, they would shower, they would sit down and they would do their homework.

And every day it was a fight for about two months.

And then all of a sudden I didn't have to say anything and they still do it now.

Two years later, they come home, they shower, they sit down, they do their homework and they start working on the stuff they need to do because that becomes their ritual around getting home.

But it's also very grounding for them because I've noticed on days where we don't do that, where we have an errand to run or an appointment, they're sort of like out of sorts, right?

It's like my ritual has been interrupted and they become a little bit more emotional, which is really interesting because that's their method of decompressing the school day now.

Yeah, putting yourself in the right position is so important.

And it's a key element to sort of clear thinking, right?

So one of the most beneficial skills in life is learning to put yourself in a good position.

And think about it this way.

When you're in a good position, all of your options available are great.

And when you're in a bad position, you need like a Hail Mary, right?

You're like praying for something to work out.

You have no good options.

And if you put Warren Buffett in a consistently bad position, he's going to look very average.

But what he does, and this is sort of where this idea came from, is he's constantly in a good position.