Summary: Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier by Kevin Kelly

In the following book summary, you’ll learn timeless advice for living a happy and productive life.

“Whenever you can’t decide which path to take pick the one that produces change.” – Kevin Kelly

Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine and trusted advisor to tech leaders, has been dubbed the “real-life Most Interesting Man in the World” by Tim Ferriss. Kelly lived with the Amish, biked across America twice, built a two-family home from scratch, created a music video 12 years before MTV, maintained a daily blog for 20 years, and authored several bestselling books.

Excellent Advice for Living (2023) is a collection of 450 aphorisms that will help you start living a better life. Covering everything from parenting and travel to survival and success, it invites you to pick and choose from a plentiful feast of bite-size wisdom.

After reflecting on 70+ years of living, he has collected 450 bits of timeless knowledge he wished he’d known sooner:

Master something

• Do something loosely related to an unusual childhood interest. “The thing that made you weird as a kid could make you great as an adult.”
• “Do what looks like work to others but is play for you.”
• Take on projects and roles that are hard to describe. Podcaster was a hard profession to explain 20 years ago. Data scientist was a difficult profession to describe 10 years ago.
• Instead of making grand plans, do stuff. “Doing” is life’s great teacher.
• Build a business that helps others succeed – helping people succeed is the surest path to financial success. The people who got rich during the goldrush were entrepreneurs who served the miners.
• Help people succeed by seeing the world from their point of view – empathy is the key to great design.
• Only work for people you want to be like and shamelessly copy those you admire. Transcend your heroes by mastering their ways – this is the way of all masters.

As you master something, don’t strive to be the best; strive to be the only. Carving out a niche for yourself will take time and discipline, so don’t rely on inspiration. Instead, rely on good habits.

Rely on good habits

A person with good exercise habits will work out when they don’t feel like it – good habits ensure you make progress on your bad days. The purpose of a habit is to eliminate self-negotiation. “To cultivate a habit, switch your language from ‘I can or can’t do’ to ‘I do or don’t do’ (to) shift the weight from a wavering choice to an unwavering identity.”

Here are five productive habits to start building today:

1. The 15-minute minimum habit: “Spend as little as 15 minutes (1% of your day) on improving how you do your thing.” Study, experiment, or refine a process so you’re just a tiny bit better than the previous day.
2. The redo habit: After you’ve completed your first draft, redo it from memory to see if better ideas find their way to the page. “To make something good, just do it. To make something great, just redo it, redo it, redo it.”
3. The imperfect deadline habit: Set and honor tight deadlines so you don’t have time to make your work perfect. If you can’t make something perfect, you must make it different. “Different is better.”
4. Work hard – rest hard habit: When work ends, completely disconnect so you can completely recover for your next work session. The best work ethic requires a good rest ethic.
5. The “change choice” habit: When faced with a difficult decision, take the path that produces the most change. Change is the catalyst for personal and professional growth.

Stay patient

“Most overnight successes – in fact, any significant successes – take at least 5 years. Budget your life accordingly.”

It’s easy to stay patient if you stay in a good mood. When you get angry, jealous, or frustrated, remember:

• “If we all threw our troubles into a big pile and saw everyone else’s problems, we would immediately grab ours back.”
• “Unhappiness comes from wanting what others have. Happiness comes from wanting what you already have.”
• “Measure your wealth not by the things you can buy but by the things that no money can buy.”
• “Writing down one thing you are grateful for each day is the cheapest possible therapy ever.”

Be kind

Much of your pain will be emotional pain from interpersonal conflicts. When someone is nasty, hateful, or mean, see their behavior as an unfortunate illness. And when someone turns you down, don’t take it personally. “Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later.”

Prevent interpersonal pain from lingering by forgiving quickly. Forgive by accepting an apology you will never get. “Forgiveness is not something we do for others; it is a gift to ourselves.”

Introduction: Dodge common pitfalls on the path to a better life.

When Kevin Kelly turned 68, he sat down to curate a collection of pithy life advice he wished he’d encountered earlier. He intended to gift this informal compendium to his young adult children. However, over the following years, his treasure chest of aphorisms grew and took on a life of its own. Today, it contains 450 “bits” – a selection of which we’ll explore in this summary.

Some of these bits are well-known and widely spouted. Kelly makes no claim of ownership or originality. Instead, he offers us a glimpse into the trove of maxims he’s accumulated from a vast array of sources on his journey to date. Perhaps most crucially, he offers an insight into the advice he believes best paves the way to a better life.

Just as a tiny acorn contains a giant oak, each of these bite-size bits could grow into a lengthy book in its own right. But rather than dictate how to apply the wisdom presented, Kelly invites you to expand on each bit to fit your life and experience. And if a bit doesn’t resonate? Simply set it aside and move on to the next.

So, fill your pockets with the proverbs that feel true to you at this moment in time. You can always return to this summary as you venture further down the path to an excellent life.

Excellent advice for relating

Unless you choose a monastic existence tucked away on some remote mountain, you’ll spend a significant slice of time interacting with your fellow human beings. As a result, learning how to relate well with others can make your path to a better life much smoother.

When you first meet a stranger, let them know you’ll remember their name. Making someone feel seen and heard is one of the greatest – and cheapest – gifts you can bestow. A simple way to do this is to include their name in your reply after they’ve introduced themselves. You could frame this as, “Nice to meet you, John,” or, “Hi, Maria.”

Conversely, when meeting someone for a second or third time, be gracious and introduce yourself to them again. A straightforward “Hi Anna, Kevin Kelly” is often all that’s needed.

To be an exceptional conversationalist, focus on listening – to the subtext just as much as the words themselves. Talk less than you feel tempted to. That’s usually the right amount.

When you do speak, make sure that what you say checks three criteria: it’s true, necessary, and kind. Life will become lighter if you prioritize being considerate over being correct in your conversations with others.

Finally, while generosity is a great virtue to pour into your relations with others, stinginess is best when accepting engagements and making promises. Ultimately, people would prefer you didn’t commit in the first place than have you say yes initially, only to pull out at the last minute. You can provide a reason if you’d like, but remember that a polite “no” is a perfectly valid response in and of itself.

Excellent advice for parenting

To parent, or not to parent. That is one of life’s biggest questions.

Raising children is equal parts challenge and reward. If you already have kids or are looking to start a family soon, here are some lessons Kelly learned while bringing up his own.

To start with the counterintuitive, one of the best things you can do for your children is to prioritize your relationship with your partner. As the leaders of your family, the love and respect you show for each other provides a powerful model and fosters an atmosphere of psychological safety. Both are tremendously influential.

Equally counterintuitive – and critical – for psychological safety are rules. Kids actually crave clearly defined boundaries. A few explicit statements framed as “Our family has a rule for XYZ” can be worth their weight in gold.

From this foundation, start to build a handful of family rituals into your days and weeks. The size or significance of these routines is irrelevant. What counts is their consistency and the meaning you imbue them with. Dinners together, for instance, may seem like a trivial commitment. But in practice, these meals can offer monumental nourishment – both physically and emotionally. Just make sure it’s designated device-free time!

Similarly, strive to double the amount of time you think you should spend with your children – and cut the amount of money you spend on them in half. As with any significant relationship, it’s your presence they’ll remember, not your presents. Reading to or with your kids is one example of a low-cost activity with a high return on investment.

On those rare occasions your child comes to you wondering what they should do, put your own preferences on hold and first ask what they want. More often than not, the best advice is to advise them to do just that.

Excellent advice for traveling

Travel is one of life’s greatest joys. Few experiences can claim to be such a feast for the senses or so effectively reconnect us back to the world.

When deciding on your next vacation, let your interests guide you rather than a country’s cachet. If you love calligraphy, for example, why not head to China or Japan? Learning French? Choose from one of the 29 countries where it’s the official language. Have a Harry Potter-obsessed child? Spend some time in Scotland and England.

Conversely, pick a place you know nothing about. What better way to experience a land, culture, and people than with zero expectations? Heed government-issued safety notices, of course – but otherwise, dive headfirst into the unknown!

See if you can start your adventure with a remote stop and end in a bigger city or town. Doing so will make your first exposure all the more profound and your transition back home far less jarring.

When it comes time to pack, always throw in a few warmer items. The tropics get colder overnight than most expect, and you’ll never regret having an extra layer in more arctic climes.

To avoid the annoyance of leaving things behind while on the road, keep your possessions visible and grouped together where possible. If you need to place an item elsewhere – say to charge a device on the opposite wall – put a few larger pieces next to it. It’s much harder to forget three separate items than a lone one.

It’s also worth highlighting that travel doesn’t have to be expensive or extravagant. Why not pick up the latest guidebook on your city or town, and spend a weekend exploring it through the eyes of the tourist? The newfound appreciation this can generate for your own backyard is just as valuable as any exotic introduction.

Excellent advice for surviving

Survival – it’s what our species is hardwired to do. For many of us, this looks drastically different from what it did for our prehistoric ancestors. Nowadays, it’s more about attaining social validation than outrunning saber-toothed tigers. But no one’s immune to random acts of God, so it’s wise to learn a handful of best practices.

Before we look at a couple of emergency contexts, let’s start with a more everyday occurrence: sleep.

We all know sleep is critical to surviving, let alone thriving, as a human being. Current general guidelines recommend eight hours of sleep per night – one-third of our day. So invest in as good a bed as you can afford. After all, it’s where you’ll spend a third of your life!

Sleep should also be your first port of call if you find yourself feeling out of sorts during the day. There’s no shame in taking a 20-minute nap if you need one. Any raised eyebrows you might incur are a small price to pay for the rest and energy you’ll receive in return.

When out and about in the world, take a few seconds to identify the emergency exits in any new room, building, or transport you’ll spend more than a few minutes in. Should disaster strike, those few seconds could save your life.

In the aftermath of such a disaster, remember the rule of three for attracting attention: three shouts, whistles, or horn blasts. If cars are involved, keep people in their respective vehicles if possible. Standing by the collision site is more dangerous than remaining put.

Just as counterintuitive is monitoring temperature in pure survival-mode scenarios. We’re quick to jump to finding food and water, but it’s actually a lack of shade or warmth that will get us first. Memorize the rule of three here too: you can last three weeks without food, three days without water, but only three hours without temperate shelter. Prioritize accordingly.

Excellent advice for succeeding

If pursuing survival is our hardwiring, chasing success is our operating system.

For Kelly, succeeding isn’t about being the best at something. It’s about being the only of something. The most abundant opportunities – and rewards – lie in yet-to-be-charted territories.

So how do you uncover what this might be for you? Think about what made you unusual as a kid. Would you go days without leaving your bedroom if you had a new Lego set? Were you constantly getting told off for doodling anytime you had a pen in hand? Could you name every constellation visible from your backyard?

Your flavor of childhood “weird” won’t be the ultimate answer, but it can certainly point you in the right direction. Dig deeper and explore overlooked nuances, unexpected intersections, and unconventional conversations within this narrow field. Ironically, it’s the “strange” that often makes one popular.

If specializing in the esoteric doesn’t feel right for you, consider prototyping versions of more conventional approaches. Stay open to trying things, and set aside any pressure to hold tight to a singular definition of success. After all, our first ideas are rarely the best. Great is frequently found only after wading through swamps of bad and mediocre.

Of course, this necessitates an unwavering commitment to doing the work – hypothesizing, trialing, failing, adjusting, and repeating ad nauseam. So much so that simply showing up on bad days is worth far more than superhuman efforts on rare good days.

What can be a support here is to think of your progress in terms of the distance already covered rather than the distance you still have to go. It can be demoralizing to focus only on the mountaintop. So, every now and then, turn around and acknowledge how far you’ve come. An excellent life is more a journey than a destination.

Summary

While today’s world frequently feels chaotic and confusing, there are simple truths that can help cut through the clutter and complexity.

The path to a better life won’t always be easy, but you can dodge some of the common pitfalls by absorbing a few bits of wisdom along the way.

Return to this summary as often as you need, and consider it one of your trusty companions. Until then, bon voyage!

About the author

Kevin Kelly helped launch and edit Wired magazine. He has written for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. His previous books include What Technology Wants and The Inevitable, a New York Times bestseller. He is known for his technological optimism. Currently he is a Senior Maverick at Wired and lives in Pacifica, California.

Genres

Self Help, Philosophy, Psychology, Productivity, Personal Development, Business, Health, Success, Motivation and Self-Esteem, Relationships Personal Growth, Motivational Self-Help, Personal Transformation Self-Help, Success Self-Help

Review

The book is a collection of 450 pieces of advice that the author, a leading technology thinker and writer, has learned from his own life and research. The book is intended as a gift for his young adult children, but also speaks to readers of all ages who are seeking wisdom and guidance for living a better life. The book covers topics such as:

• How to learn from those you disagree with or offend you
• How to deal with stress, anxiety, and negative emotions
• How to set and achieve ambitious goals
• How to optimize your generosity and compassion
• How to cope with uncertainty and change
• How to cultivate curiosity, creativity, and optimism
• How to improve your communication and social skills
• How to find your purpose and passion
• How to live in the present and enjoy the journey

Review:

The book is an informative and engaging resource that offers valuable insights and tips for living a meaningful and fulfilling life. The book is written in a clear, concise, and friendly tone that makes it easy to read and understand. The book also uses vivid examples, anecdotes, humor, and emotion to convey its messages and invite its readers to reflect and relate. The book does not impose any judgments or prescriptions on its readers but rather encourages them to explore their own paths and perspectives.

The book is not only a guide but also a source of inspiration and enlightenment. It helps readers understand the essence and spirit of living well, and how to apply it to their own lives. It also helps readers develop their skills, abilities, and potential, and achieve their goals. It motivates readers to pursue excellence, seek challenges, and overcome difficulties. It also urges readers to share their knowledge and experience with others who may benefit from them.

Overall, I think the book is a valuable addition to the literature on personal development and life advice. It is suitable for anyone who wants to learn more about living well or improve their skills and results in it. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in this topic.