Jan 25, 2026 · 37m · founders
Excellent Advice For Living: 79 Maxims from a Wise Old Man
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David Senra analyzes Kevin Kelly's book Excellent Advice for Living, exploring practical aphorisms on creativity, habits, communication, and mindset by drawing rich parallels to history's most iconic entrepreneurs and thinkers.
Statements from this episode (12)
Senra: Deadlines force differentiation by eliminating perfectionism
“Always demand a deadline because it weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. A deadline prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.”
Senra: Negotiation success requires understanding what yes means to the counterparty
“The best way to get to a yes in a negotiation is to truly understand what yes means for the other party.”
Senra: Asking Someone to Go Deeper Three Times Reveals the Truth
“To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and then once more. The third time's answer Is the one that's closest to the truth.”
Senra: The Purpose of a Habit Is to Eliminate Self-Negotiation
“The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it.”
Senra: Asking for advice creates partners, but asking for feedback creates critics
“If you ask for someone's feedback, you'll get a critic, but instead, if you ask for advice, you'll get a partner.”
Beginners should buy the cheapest tools and upgrade only high-use items
“At first, buy the absolute cheapest tools you can find. Upgrade the ones that you use a lot. If you wind up using some tool for a job, buy the very best you can afford.”
Senra built a custom AI assistant trained exclusively on his podcast notes
“I have all my notes, all my highlights and all my transcripts in this database. And I just have my own personal AI assistant that's just trained on that and only that.”
Michael Dell advises leaders to manufacture crises to drive necessary organizational change
“Michael Dell told me in the episode I did with him and on the David center feed in our conversation, he says, if you don't have a crisis, make one, you get people excited, motivated, and you drive the necessary change that you need in your business.”
Rule of seven: Referrals across seven sources can answer almost anything
“Rule of seven in research. You can find out anything if you're willing to go to seven levels. If the first source you ask doesn't know, ask them who you should ask next and so on down the line. If you're willing to go to the seventh source, you'll almost alway…”
Since meaningful work is infinite, ambitious professionals must limit their work hours
“The work on a worthy project is endless. It is infinite. You cannot limit the work. So you must limit your hours, your time, not the work is the only thing that you can manage.”
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke's independent thinking makes his answers completely unpredictable
“That was exactly my experience talking to Toby. I can't remember another conversation where if you ask him a question, it's nearly impossible to predict what his answer will be. And I think it's because he truly thinks for himself.”
Billionaire Sam Zell rented almost everything to avoid being owned by possessions
“I had lunch with Sam Zell before he died. He told me exactly this. He's like, what you own eventually owns you. And so even though he's one of the wealthiest people on the planet, he didn't own a lot of things. He had his place in Chicago, his compound in Mali…”