Dan Koe
Creator/operator; systems thinking, entrepreneurship, and leadership habits relevant to early-stage CEOs.
Scrolling Hours Add Up—Enough Time to Build Anything
The 2-4 hours you spend scrolling each day (or 730-1460 hours each year) is more than enough time to write a book, build a business, or get in shape. In the moment, it seems like nothing. That's why it's so dangerous. Your time disappears without you being conscious of it.
Psychology, Not Skill, Stops Most From Building Anything
Yes, anyone can build anything now. We know. But it wasn't that hard to do before. You execute a series of steps toward a goal. The problem is psychological. Most people will still fail to start, and even more will fail...
Learn Faster: Build, Tackle Roadblocks, Iterate Forever
How to master any skill fast: - stop studying - outline a project - start building it - hit a roadblock - figure out how to overcome it - repeat 4 and 5 for the rest of your life Most people don't get past 1, the rest...
Guard Your Mind Like Your Home From Strangers
The human mind did not evolve over thousands of years to have hundreds of unfiltered opinions thrown at it every hour through a screen. You wouldn't let 100 random people break into your house, eat your food, and sleep there....
Take Extended Breaks to Reset Focus and Creativity
Normalize disappearing for an extended period of time to do a factory reset on your focus and creativity.
Embrace Failure: Badness Precedes Mastery and Long‑Term Success
Most people quit because they forget that you have to be bad at something before you can be good at it. It's so obvious. You suck. Of course you're not going to win in 2 weeks. But if you can...
Boost Luck by Trying New Side Quests Daily
You aren't going to get lucky repeating the same day. You need to go on more side quests. Weekly. Daily if you can. Even one tiny new decision can substantially increase your chances at luck.
Start Building Something to Find Direction and Purpose
If you feel lost, build something. A business. Your body. A skill set. Anything that gives you a reason to learn and focus. Don't worry about choosing the right thing. Don't think about how difficult it will be. Just start moving forward and...
Do Your Highest‑Impact Tasks First Thing in Morning
Front-load your decision-making. Write, build, lift, read, or do whatever your lever-moving tasks are first thing in the morning. Because I can almost guarantee you won't have the energy, clarity, or discipline to do them (well) at night.
Intense Focus on Passion, Stay Unfazed by Failure
The greatest trait you can acquire is to work with tremendous intensity on things that matter to you, and more importantly, be strangely unbothered when those things don't work out.
Guard Your Mind When Others Lose Self‑Belief
At some point, usually in your 20s, you'll notice that the people around you stop believing in themselves. And no matter how hard you try, you can't save them. By all means, do not let it infect your mind. Stay...
Exercise Your Mind, Avoid Mental Obesity
You need to read more, and you need to consume less. You need to set aside time to do a workout for the mind, and you need to give it time to recover. Especially now that it's so easy for...
Obsession, Not Accident, Drives Wealth and Fitness
If you want to achieve anything great, it needs to become your one true priority. The only thing on your mind. Nobody accidentally got rich from business. Nobody accidentally built a great physique. They were obsessed with it for multiple...
Busy Does Not Equal Productive: Meaningful Results Matter
A pattern I've noticed in stuck people: They're always busy. They never stop moving. They have 47 tabs open and a notebook-sized to-do list. But if you ask them what they accomplished this week that actually matters, their mind goes blank....
Write More, Think Deeper: Avoid AI Shortcuts
You need to write more. Without AI. Without templates. Without knowing what you're writing about. Just you, an idea, and enough time to do the difficult cognitive work necessary to reach true understanding. If you don't, your ability to think will...