I've been into examining my beliefs ever since I started paying attention to how much they silently run our lives. We say things in passing, "I'm this way," "I can't do that," "that's not how it should be," and we don't realize those are beliefs. Once you have a belief, you forget you have it and your brain is conditioned to re-confirm it. You think you suck at things? Your brain will be very good at seeing the things you suck at. You think everyone is going to reject you? Your brain will find the hostile faces in a crowd and miss the friendly ones.

This isn't "I believe in unicorns" territory. It's an understanding of your life and the world and constructing beliefs around that deliberately. Here are the ones that have shaped how I live.

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1. Pleasure without sacrifice or pain is negative.

A sauna is a perfect example. You get an endorphin boost after you suffered spending 20 minutes in 180-degree heat. That's how I want to construct my life. We suffer when we get pleasure without effort. The ready availability of pleasures without effort is one of the main reasons for the explosion of anxiety, depression, and attention disorders. Pain often precedes things that we like.

2. Humans were made to work our bodies and minds.

3. This too, shall pass.

4. Easy choice, hard life. Hard choice, easy life.

Do hard things if you want a good life. Do easy things if you want a bad life. Every cheat meal, missed workout, and night out getting four hours of sleep is one more day you'll spend sick when you're dying. Every workout is one less day I'll spend sick in a bed when I'm old.

5. Going into the discomfort is more comfortable than avoiding it.

Otherwise you'll always have a monster under your bed. Noticing restlessness subside is one of the most powerful realizations you can have. And after you have it, it's a skill you can develop far more than most people think.

6. Seek to understand, not to change.

The world is what it is, and us trying to bend it to what we think it should be is the problem.

7. To be wise when you're old means to endure pain when younger.

8. There ain't no crying in business.

9. Curiosity is more important than intelligence after the age of 22.

Being ambitious and relentless is far more important to success than being smart. Most people think entrepreneurship is a battle of intellect when it really just requires a baseline level of intelligence. It's more about courage and will than anything else. Follow your curiosity. When you have inspiration, act on it immediately.

10. Discipline allows me to do anything I want.

Discipline is freedom. Sometimes the discipline comes before understanding, sometimes after. Either way, to persist you eventually need to come to the understanding that discipline does really equal freedom. Freedom from self.

11. Our beliefs have real effects on our lives.

Life is self-fulfilling. Pessimism is self-fulfilling, but so is optimism. If you're optimistic, good things happen. If you're pessimistic, nothing happens.

12. Most of the problems we face are beliefs we never examine and see as truth.

13. Status symbols only impress the people who are easy to impress.

14. Make decisions based on the mantra "healthy, wealthy, wise."