Key points for navigating life & business adversity I wish I ‘d taken more seriously as a young padawan.

9 years into freelancing, 9 years of tears and joy. Here’s what I know now.

1. Take it easy, this is going to take some time. You are not running a sprint, you are running a marathon.
2. Draw clear lines, hold your ground, don’t drop your guard, build your defenses. You will not avoid being disrespected and mistreated by being smart, helpful and nice.
3. Overall, try to ignore what people say and pay close attention to what they do. Behavior inevitably reveals character.
4. Shortcomings and mistakes are part of any process, yours and others’. No big deal, acknowledge the fact, fix what needs fixing and keep going.
5. People who actually deserve a second chance will most probably never need it. Forget third chances altogether.
6. You need to know what it is that you know, what it is you don’t know and what it is that you can’t know.
7. Take others’ advice with a grain of salt — no matter the source. Everyone is biased in some way.
8. Learn to quit when its time to quit. Let me repeat this one. Learn to quit.
9. Learn to fight back when it is time to fight back, but pick your battles carefully. Because of №11.
10. There are no infinite resources. Monitor your use of available resources like time, energy and focus.
11. You can’t really learn much from reading advice on the internet. You can process and digest information, but people basically learn by doing (which brings us back to advice no.4)

Here are my 11 points and I don’t like it that they are 11.

I need a point No 12. What would you add here?