10 Einstein Life Philosophies That Can Improve Your Life

Hello,

Happy Tuesday,

I have started writing on Medium again. It's a new account. I share deep essays about learning and thinking clearly every day. If you are already on Medium, you can follow my Medium account to get updates. Each essay will be fresh and worthy of your attention. I promise. You can start here: If You Want to Learn From The Smartest Minds, Read Biographies.

Now, onto this week's post.

Albert Einstein's discoveries revolutionised our understanding of the universe. His brilliance has been an inspiration to many people. Throughout his life, Einstein pursued harmony, not only in science but also in life.

His ideas and philosophies made him the most influential physicist of the 20th century. The practical life lessons and philosophies below reveal Einstein’s way of thinking and perception about life and living it.

1. Strive to provide value for others and success will grow organically

“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”

When it comes to money and wealth, the only way to become richer is to create more value for others. Real success is about how much value you provide for your followers, audience or customers. With value comes better connections, organic and lasting success and ultimately happiness.

2. Success eventually comes to those who are willing to change their minds or adapt

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”

Change is an opportunity to grow, adapt and become a better version of yourself. In a rapidly changing world, the ability to change your mind or adapt is an indispensable skill. How much have you changed in the past 12 months? What new habits, practices and routines have you embraced in the last 6 months? What actions are you taking today to become smarter than you were this time last year?

3. A long-term goal that excites you is one of the sources of happiness

“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”

Your happiness is your personal responsibility. Many people wait for something to happen or someone to make them happy. Don’t make those mistakes. Explore your values, priorities, and the lifestyle you want and adopt habits and routines that can help you design your own happiness. To achieve a noble goal in life is true happiness.

4. To fully succeed in life you must ultimately follow an audacious path

“Only those who attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible.”

Real success favours the unconventional thinker. Every ridiculous idea, path, project is absurd in the beginning until you prove others wrong. Don’t be subject to the tyranny of “how things have always been done”. Find your true north and push past the default.

5. Smart people don’t close themselves off to new opportunities to improve

“A true genius admits that he/she knows nothing.”

Socrates once said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” By opening yourself to understanding new ideas, perceptions, beliefs, values and new areas that are of interest to you, you will have a chance to authentically define who you are and get smarter. If you want to find success, you must first acknowledge you don’t know everything and be willing to learn.

6. Don’t spend your life preparing for life

“Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none.”

Life unfolding, but we are too occupied to notice. We are too busy worried about the past and the future that we let the present slip away, allowing time to rush past unobserved and unseized. You can only live one moment at a time, choose to live in the moment.

7. The foundation for any successful career is centred on intellectual growth

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”

The ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge is the key to long-term career success. Invest in your intellectual growth — your success depends on it. You can only grow your career to the extent that you grow yourself. To improve your life and career, embrace lifelong learning.

8. Imagine more. Ask more questions. Imagine more for yourself

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.”

You can have more than you have right now if you can imagine what’s possible tomorrow and work towards it. Imagine your life with more — more time, more contribution, more value, more happiness and a better career. And do everything in your power to pursue what you are capable of.

9. Life is never boring for a curious mind

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.”

Activate and follow your curiosity. Curiosity led Einstein to the Theory of Relativity. Without curiosity, Isaac Newton would not have discovered the Laws of Physics, and Alexander Fleming probably wouldn’t have discovered Penicillin. Your insatiable drive to learn, invent, explore, and improve deserves to have the same status as every other drive in your life.

10. You can learn anything faster if you enjoy the process

Einstein explains in his letter to his 11-year-old son.

"I am very pleased that you find joy with the piano. This and carpentry are in my opinion for your age the best pursuits, better even than school. Because those are things which fit a young person such as you very well. Mainly play the things on the piano which please you, even if the teacher does not assign those. That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes."

Thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of your week!

These are books I have launched this past month: Rapid Learning, Deep Thinking, Principles for Living Your Best Life, Productive by Design, Rules For a Better Life, Kaizen Habits, Career Rules, Habits That Determine 80% of Your Success and Good, Better, Best. 

To our common journey,

Thomas