Here's what I've learned - pretty much all the hard way.

I guess most people will focus on business facts, but underneath all those are human facts… and those lessons are what I consider the most valuable.

1a. Life is suffering. No, really. Accept it and then you realize that basically to have a body & a consciousness is to suffer, and a lot of it is unavoidable. Then you don't feel like just cuz something hurts, you have to change it. Nerves will always hurt. Once you can accept it, you can stop wasting your time on the pointless shit.

1b. Emotions are like weather, sometimes they don't mean anything… and just because you feel something, doesn't make it true. (Good OR bad.) Just because you feel like something is happening TO you, doesn't make that true, either. It's usually not actually about you. And if you assume that good feeling = good thing/I'm right, or that bad feeling = bad thing/this is wrong, you'll be analytically hobbled.

(These sounds harsh, but think about it.)

2. Most people don't live their lives by deliberately examining their actions & beliefs and deciding what they want to live up to. If they have integrity, it's often by 'accident,' not design, so if you deal with a person who works with integrity once, they may not next time. There's no point in blaming them if you assume wrongly about them.

3. Some people think on, & play, a meta-game. If you don't, you have to learn, because there will be people around you playing at 30 levels deep and if you just believe the surface level, you will come away with an incomplete picture.

4. Really failing, getting kicked in the face by life, is awesome, because you can only know how much you can do when you have to crawl up from rock bottom. I could go broke and become homeless tomorrow, and it would suck, but I wouldn't be afraid. I could work my way up (again). But before the 1st time, I was terrified all the time by nameless middle class angst about the silliest little things, because I had never been tested, and I had never proven myself.

5. We're all human, so we all have the same basic flaws. People live locked up in their own little heads, thinking they are better or worse than other people, not realizing that's just a trick of being only aware of your own consciousness. It's also easy to look at other people who have a great-looking or terrible-looking life on the surface, and make incorrect assumptions about what's going on inside them, and how they got there. Your problems, flaws, limitations, are not special, and neither is your defense of them. (And neither are other people's.)

6. Being true, having integrity, and loving people are the best things in life. Consciously deciding to have integrity and take responsibility for my life was the most important thing I ever did. Consciously deciding to stop letting my fear of social situations conquer me, and go out there, and expose myself, and be the friend I wanted to have, led to the first true friends I'd ever had (and many more after that). And consciously deciding to stop beating myself up over mistakes I'd made, to look at them, accept them, and understand that I'm only human, made a huge difference in my well-being.

7. When you've suffered, don't look at other people suffering and say "Well, I did it, why shouldn't they?" -- think expansively, givingly, compassionately. Everyone will be happier.

8. It's almost impossible to help people if you don't understand people. But truly understanding yourself, 100%, and being mindful in your daily life, will help you understand what it is to be human, because you will see all your little evasions, flaws, wiggling -- and your pleasures, joys, and little moments of happiness and insight.

9. (And, by the way, the best products show a true understanding of what it means to be human.)

I consider people my mission.