|
f6c920e
|
But in our lives, when our worst instincts are in control, we dally. We don't act like Demosthenes, we act frail and are powerless to make ourselves better. We may be able to articulate a problem, even potential solutions, but then weeks, months, or sometimes years later, the problem is still there. Or it's gotten worse. As though we expect someone else to handle it, as though we honestly believe that there is a chance of obstacles unobstac..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
eca3a60
|
Being trapped is just a position, not a fate. You get out of it by addressing and eliminating each part of that position through small, deliberate actions--not by trying (and failing) to push it away with superhuman strength. With
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
41dd4b1
|
The reality is that while the Internet allows content to be written iteratively, the audience does not read or consume it iteratively. Each member usually sees what he or she sees a single time--a snapshot of the process--and makes his or her conclusions from that.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9adcb77
|
He was patient because he knew that difficult things took time.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
d4e1a1d
|
We're all just humans, doing the best we can. We're all just trying to survive, and in the process, inch the world forward a little bit.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
a27e3c9
|
Blogs are assailed on all sides, by the crushing economics of the business, dishonest sources, inhuman deadlines, pageview quotas, inaccurate information, greedy publishers, poor training, the demands of the audience, and so much more. These incentives are real, whether you're at The Huffington Post or some tiny blog. Taken individually, the resulting output is obvious: bad stories, incomplete stories, wrong stories, unimportant stories.
|
|
journalism
reporting
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
aef8717
|
See things for what they are. Do what we can. Endure and bear what we must.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
0da2f36
|
The ways this separation manifests itself negatively are immense: We can't work with other people if we've put up walls. We can't improve the world if we don't understand it or ourselves. We can't take or receive feedback if we are incapable of or uninterested in hearing from outside sources. We can't recognize opportunities--or create them--if instead of seeing what is in front of us, we live inside our own fantasy.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
eed1464
|
Doing great work is a struggle. It's draining, it's demoralizing, it's frightening. We talk to fill the void and the uncertainty. The greatest work and art comes from wrestling with the void, facing it instead of scrambling to make it go away. The question is, when faced with your particular challenge, do you seek the respite of talk or do you face the struggle head-on?
|
|
work-ethic
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
e998cde
|
Appearances are deceiving. *Having* authority is not the same as *being* an authority. *Having* the right and *being* the right are not the same either. Being promoted doesn't necessarily mean you're doing good work and it doesn't mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies). *Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.* To be or to do - life is a constant roll call.
|
|
the-power-of-choice
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
95fc6a0
|
You rush in to stamp out the sparks and end up fanning them into flames. This is the risk.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
8ca3143
|
Knowledge--self-knowledge in particular--is freedom.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
42243e5
|
Ego needs honors in order to be validated. Confidence, on the other hand, is able to wait and focus on the task at hand regardless of external recognition.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
da9ca07
|
Let's make one thing clear: we never earn the right to be greedy or to pursue our interests at the expense of everyone else. To think otherwise is not only egotistical, it's counterproductive.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9840dba
|
It's the logic of two campers and the bear--you don't need to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other camper.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
850f2d2
|
More than purpose, we also need realism. Where do we start? What do we do first? What do we do right now? How are we sure that what we're doing is moving us forward? What are we benchmarking ourselves against?
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
a9204f9
|
No matter what you've done up to this point, you better still be a student. If you're not still learning, you're already dying. It is not enough only to be a student at the beginning. It is a position that one has to assume for life. Learn from everyone and everything. From the people you beat, and the people who beat you, from the people you dislike, even from your supposed enemies. At every step and every juncture in life, there is the op..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
62ccd6f
|
Reminding ourselves each day that we will die helps us treat our time as a gift. Someone on a deadline doesn't indulge himself with attempts at the impossible, he doesn't waste time complaining about how he'd like things to be.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
3463f9a
|
What happened yesterday--what happened five minutes ago--is the past. We can reignite and restart whenever we like. Why not do it right now?
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
a57e20f
|
Have you taken the time to get clarity about who you are and what you stand for?
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
a5b56d0
|
Man is pushed by drives, but he is pulled by values -- Viktor Frankl
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9615d4a
|
At twenty-one, Richard Wright was not the world-famous author he would eventually be. But poor and black, he decided he would read and no one could stop him. Did he storm the library and make a scene? No, not in the Jim Crow South he didn't. Instead, he forged a note that said, "Dear Madam: Will you please let this nigger boy have some books by HL Mencken?" (because no one would write that about themselves, right?), and checked them out wit..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
c969a88
|
As Sean Ellis, one of the first growth hackers--he coined the term with Patrick Vlaskovits--puts it: "Focusing on customer acquisition over 'awareness' takes discipline. . . . At a certain scale, awareness/brand building makes sense. But for the first year or two it's a total waste of money." --
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
3fc4fdd
|
10. What books would you recommend to an aspiring entrepreneur? Some quick favorites: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing: Violate Them at Your Own Risk! by Al Ries and Jack Trout The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Fish That Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America's Banana King by Rich Cohen Wikinomics: How Mass Collabor..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
3573957
|
There is a moment in The Great Gatsby when Jay Gatsby introduces Nick Carraway to Meyer Wolfsheim, mentioning offhandedly that he is the man who fixed the 1919 World Series. The idea staggers Gatsby's idealistic young friend. Of course, Carraway knew the series had been thrown. But "if I had thought of it at all," he says, "I would have thought of it as a thing that merely happened, the end of some inevitable chain." It was unbelievable to ..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9e843cd
|
Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people. But if you deem as your own only what is yours, and what belongs to others as truly not yours, then no one will ever be able to coerce or to stop you, you will find no one to blame or accuse, you will do nothing against your will, you will have no enemy, no one will h..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
5b2089e
|
A growth hacker is someone who has thrown out the playbook of traditional marketing and replaced it with only what is testable, trackable and scalable
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
e19d8ff
|
Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties--hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure." --SENECA, ON TRANQUILITY OF MIND, 10.4b"
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
57e7f54
|
If you're like me, you've sat and stared in fascination at the pictures of the ruins of Detroit that get passed around the internet.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
91b6cc3
|
Only in struggling with the impediments that made others quit can we find ourselves on untrodden territory--only by persisting and resisting can we learn what others were too impatient to be taught.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9131468
|
But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate." --SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 13.12b"
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
543d4d2
|
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
7ca396e
|
Hopelessness, despair--these drive us to do nothing. Pity, empathy--those drive us to do something, like get up from our computers to act. But anger, fear, excitement, laughter, and outrage--these drive us to spread.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
5b4bbfc
|
It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth, for then you won't tire and give up, if you aren't busying yourself with lesser things beyond what should be allowed." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.32b"
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
2aa7081
|
The fundamental purpose of most people at Facebook working on data is to influence and alter people's moods and behaviour. They are doing it all the time to make you like stories more, to click on more ads, to spend more time on the site.
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
e0d490f
|
No one is crushed by Fortune, unless they are first deceived by her ... those who aren't pompous in good times, don't have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible, for it's precisely in the good times they prove their strength against adversity." --SENECA, ON CONSOLATION TO HELVIA, 5.4b, 5b-6"
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
b8352f4
|
I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune. You have passed through life without an opponent--no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you." --SENECA, ON PROVIDENCE, 4.3"
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
b5865f8
|
What does not kill me makes me stronger," Nietzsche said."
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
9fcfe1a
|
Whatever your current state is, it can be better
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
d474970
|
Growth HAcking is more of a mindset that a tool kit
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
270b4e3
|
The focus needs to be in improving customer retention
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
f42e08a
|
The more your users stick, the more it will spread
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
d418c4b
|
This insight lives on today in Warren Buffet's famous adage to
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |
|
6c780c6
|
The line attributed to the management guru Peter Drucker is that culture eats strategy. It's a truism that applies as much to conspiracies as it does to businesses. It doesn't matter how great your plan is, it doesn't matter who your people are, if what binds them all together is weak or toxic, so, too, will be the outcome--if you even get that far. But if the ties that bind you together are strong, if you have a sense of purpose and missio..
|
|
|
Ryan Holiday |