bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

In a joint Q&A with Bill Gates at Washington University in the 90s – Warren shared some of his great wisdom to the students. Here are my top takeaways:

1) Developing great habits
He says  “the chains of habit are too light to be felt till they’re too heavy to be broken”. Re-iterating that it’s vitally important to develop productive habits when you’re young, as when you’re old they’re much harder to change.

2) Focus on moving forward

You should “never look back, don’t worry about anything”, you can’t change that, focus on where you’re going. Don’t be wed to the past – it’s already the past.

3) Play the hand you get

“You play the hand you get, play it as well as you can and be thankful enough”.

4) Turning horsepower into output

He talks about converting all your horsepower into output, that is spending your time meaningfully, on the things you’re good at, Bill Gates chimes in about how he gets Ballmer to look at his calendar and critique as to whether he’s doing that.

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I’ve included the full interview below.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldPh0_zEykU