10 Laws of the Good Life and How You Can Apply Them to Live a Limitless Life
Law #4 – The Law of 5th-Grader “Life Formulas”
A limitless life is uncommon.
Most people only see limitations so they’re defined by them. Once you expand your mind you learn that we’re only limited by how we think. Upgrade your thinking, upgrade your life.
Once you have limitless thinking then a good life looks like this:
Free time
Less debt
Work you enjoy
Fun with friends/family
An unscheduled life (zero forced meetings)
Ways to earn extra income that 99% of people ignore
An obsession you chase (even when people call you crazy)
Saying and writing what you think without worrying about cancel culture
Laws are proven rule of thumbs that help to automate your decision-making. These are the must-have laws for a limitless good life.
Law #1 – If you focus on the problem, you get more problems
George Miller had an odd career.
Most people don’t know his name. He worked in the emergency room at a Sydney hospital here in Australia (g’day mate).
He worked out in the 1980s that he needed $400,000 to make his movie. To earn the money he took as many ER calls as possible.
The co-writer of his movie was Byron Kennedy. Bryon would drive to the site of an emergency in the ambulance, and George would treat the patient. The ideas for the film often came from the people they met in the ambulance and their crashes/accidents.
When George and Bryon launched their movie, Mad Max, it made $100M globally. It was the most profitable ROI on a film ever, until the movie Blair Witch movie stole their record years later.
These two guys could have focused on the problem of needing money and Hollywood to make their movie. But they didn’t. They focused on what they did have.
What limits you or makes you different is your superpower.
You can see problems as opportunities or roadblocks.
How to apply it:
Take a problem and dare to see it as an advantage.
Lean into your uniqueness and the career you work, and use it to make something special. Don’t just sit on your creativity and let it slowly die. Harness your creativity after hours until it becomes what you do during business hours.
Law #2 – The Golden Law of the internet
If you do anything online, you’ll have a bunch of growth bros trying to tell you to optimize everything.
It sounds smart until you do so much optimizing to gain attention that, according to writer George Mack, you end up with a p*rn site.
The most optimized thing is rarely good.Unoptimized and imperfect is what’s truly sexy, because that’s real art. The way to avoid the trap of internet optimization is to have values you don’t compromise on.
How to apply it:
Create an online goal.
Is it to write? Start a business? Grow your 9-5 career? Then write down your values as they are. What will you refuse to compromise on?
Now use this outline as your rules for whenever you feel the need to optimize. If a growth hack feels sleazy… it probably is. Trust your gut, not some butthead guru.
Law #3 – The Law of Consistency
This law says if you get 1% better each day then you’ll be 37.78x better each year.
It sounds clever and self-helpy, and being consistent at something is 100% part of the good life. But it’s not enough and James-Atomic-Habits-Clear won’t tell you.
The law of consistency is powerful, but if you take it on face value, and do the same thing over and over expecting a different result, what you get is the definition of insanity. Sh*t!
The transformation we all see in any area of life is built on a foundation of one new habit that we do daily and dare to iterate on. That means we do the habit in a small group, and we get feedback from people at our level and also a few levels above.
To do this, it requires the self-awareness to know when you’ve gone off track. Otherwise, you think your poop doesn’t smell even though it stinks like a dead kangaroo left on the road to rot.
How to apply it:
Pick a habit that aligns with your vision of the good life.
Attach the habit to a goal. Then do the habit daily in a small group and dare to get harsh feedback. Now you have guaranteed iteration that’ll lead to progress.
Law #4 – The Law of 5th-Grader “Life Formulas”
5th-grader math formulas make life simpler.
Addition, subtraction, and multiplication aren’t limited to math. They can bizarrely be used to create life formulas (example below).
How to apply it:
Implement one of the above life formulas.
Dare to turn wisdom you’ve gained into basic life math equations and post them on social media to help others (and help yourself).
Law #5 – Hofstadter’s Law
This one’s named after computer programmer Douglas Hofstadter.
His law states that any goal will take longer than you think it does. So once you adopt this wisdom you start to become more patient and stop rushing all the foundational tasks. Often…
Slowing down is speeding up in the long run.
All this urgency can often give you an anxiety disorder, like what I had 10 years ago. But when you study the greats and see that meaningful goals take at least 5 years and often decades, it puts your mind at peace.
How to apply it:
Make the default timeframe of any goal 5 years.
Then ask yourself: “Now, do I still really want this goal?” If yes, then proceed.
Law #6 – The Free Happiness Law
Happiness is hard.
When your life is at rock bottom it’s difficult to be happy. You end up dwelling on the “good ol’ days.” When my life fell apart this law saved me.
Free happiness can be created when you give others a brief moment of happiness.
How to apply it:
Message someone you haven’t spoken to in a while and give them a genuine compliment. Perhaps share a story that involves both of you too. Watch the love that comes back. Notice your smile.
Even cooler…
Randomly forgive someone who wronged you. Forget what they did or how it made you feel, and just send them an email that says, “Let’s move on. I’m sorry.”
Random Forgiveness = Freedom
Law #7 – The Law of More
Singer Elvis Presley released 313 albums.
Only a handful ever became popular. Pablo Picasso painted 13,500 paintings and made 100,000 prints. Only a handful are known worldwide.
But if you create more you eventually win more. It’s the same at the gym. The more reps you do the more muscle you build. Often, doing more of your obsession is the fastest path to mastery.
Then all you do is lower your expectation and believe that your best work will be a handful of pieces, and therefore, crap art is part of the process.
How to apply it:
Choose a goal. Ask yourself: “What if I stopped complaining and just did more of it?” Then measure your results every 90 days and see the law of more become true.
Law #8 – The Law of Insanity
(I made this law up but it’s true.)
Those who are insane are the most sane.The people you should be scared of are those living a normal, comfortable life and forgetting they have limited time. The path of mediocrity is a nightmare and has the worst rewards. Plus it’s crowded and your voice will drown out in a sea full of Titanics.
If you want to live the good life, you must be a little insane.
How to apply it:
Choose an obsession and spend an unreasonable amount of time on it.
Watch people call you crazy and say “you’ve changed.” Take it as a sign of growth that leads to the good life.
Law #9 –The Justin Welsh victimhood rule
“If it's always someone else's fault, it's probably your fault.”
Run from people who blame their misfortunes on others.
We’re all f*cking everything up every day. It’s normal. If you’re not making mistakes you’re not in the arena actually doing anything, which means you’re on the sidelines flinging poo at the gladiators while sipping a beer and munching on nuts in the peanut gallery of life.
Before long, you’ll become a lifelong victim. It sounds like this:
“The world isn’t fair”
“America is dying”
“AI will take our jobs”
“Universal basic income, now!”
“Vote red/blue in the next election. We can do this.”
How to apply it:
If you find yourself caught in this victim trap, then start taking rapid responsibility for every mistake or rejection.
What you’re responsible for you can control.
Law #10 – The Jeff Bezos Bikini Babe Law
Making hard decisions is exhausting.
You can do all the pros and cons lists you like, but often you’re no closer to a decision. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon, then left his wife for some random bikini babes (hence the rather serious name of his law for life).
His law says this: “If unsure what action to pick, let your 90-year-old self on a deathbed choose it.”
This lens through which to view life makes decisions easier to make. If you don’t give a f*ck about the outcome of a decision when you’re 90, what’s the point of caring right now?
How to apply it:
Choose a big decision. Teleport to your deathbed at 90.
What decision do you make at that late stage of life? Now make that decision today while you’re comparatively young. Life decisions are simpler at 90.
Tell me which of the 10 laws you loved the most and why in the comments.
Final note before we finish.
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I absolutely loved this post! I liked the one about randomly forgiving someone so you can obtain freedom. Sometimes you have to let go of bitterness so you can be free. I will heed this advice and message 2 people who have caused my great pain over the years so I can finally let go of the bitterness I have in my heart for them.
Mate I go with 7 The Law of More...helps me do the shit I need to do when I don't want to do it. Cheers