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A mind that isn't in control of itself, that doesn't understand its power to regulate itself, will be jerked around by external events and unquestioned impulses.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Cut flowers can outlast movies that people have poured millions into.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Life without a design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you'll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort." --SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.46"
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Ryan Holiday |
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If you should ever turn your will to things outside your control in order to impress someone, be sure that you have wrecked your whole purpose in life. Be content, then, to be a philosopher in all that you do, and if you wish also to be seen as one, show yourself first that you are and you will succeed." --EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 23"
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Ryan Holiday |
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Remember that it's not only the desire for wealth and position that debases and subjugates us, but also the desire for peace, leisure, travel, and learning. It doesn't matter what the external thing is, the value we place on it subjugates us to another . . . where our heart is set, there our impediment lies.
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Ryan Holiday |
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You will be unappreciated. You will be sabotaged. You will experience surprising failures. Your expectations will not be met. You will lose. You will fail. How do you carry on then? How do you take pride in yourself and your work? John Wooden's advice to his players says it: Change the definition of success. "Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the ..
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Ryan Holiday |
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We're all full of anxieties, doubts, impotence, pains, and sometimes a little tinge of crazy.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Receive feedback, maintain hunger, and chart a proper course in life.
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Ryan Holiday |
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I am going to be myself, the best version of that self. I am in this for the long game, no matter how brutal it might be.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Ego is more than just off-putting and obnoxious. Instead, it's the sworn enemy of our ability to learn and grow.
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Ryan Holiday |
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we're the only ones who can evaluate and set the terms of our lives. Far too often, we look at other people and make their approval the standard we feel compelled to meet, and as a result, squander our very potential and purpose.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Find out why you're after what you're after. Ignore those who mess with your pace. Let them covet what you have, not the other way around. Because that's independence.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Yes, there are legitimate stresses and anguish that come with the responsibilities of your new life. All the things you're managing, the frustrating mistakes of people who should know better, the endless creep of obligations--no one prepares us for that, which makes the feelings all the harder to deal with.
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Ryan Holiday |
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It is not enough to have great qualities; we should also have the management of them. --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
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Ryan Holiday |
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His job was to set the priorities, to think big picture, and then trust the people beneath him to do the jobs they were hired for.
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Ryan Holiday |
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As you become successful in your own field, your responsibilities may begin to change. Days become less and less about doing and more and more about making decisions. Such is the nature of leadership.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Yes, we are small. We are also a piece of this great universe and a process.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Remind yourself how pointless it is to rage and fight and try to one-up those around you. Go and put yourself in touch with the infinite, and end your conscious separation from the world. Reconcile yourself a bit better with the realities of life. Realize how much came before you, and how only wisps of it remain.
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Ryan Holiday |
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You thought it would get easier when you arrived; instead, it's even harder--a different animal entirely. What you found is that you must manage yourself in order to maintain your success.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Who knows--maybe a downturn is exactly what's coming next. Worse, maybe you caused it. Just because you did something once, doesn't mean you'll be able to do it successfully forever. Reversals and regressions are as much a part of the cycle of life as anything else. But we can manage that too.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Almost without exception, this is what life does: it takes our plans and dashes them to pieces. Sometimes once, sometimes lots of times.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Yes, it would feel much better in the moment to be angry, to be aggrieved, to be depressed or heartbroken. When injustice or the capriciousness of fate are inflicted on someone, the normal reaction is to yell, to fight back, to resist. You know the feeling: I don't want this. I want ______. I want it my way. This is shortsighted.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Think of what you have been putting off. Issues you declined to deal with. Systemic problems that felt too overwhelming to address. Dead time is revived when we use it as an opportunity to do what we've long needed to do.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Most trouble is temporary . . . unless you make that not so. Recovery is not grand, it's one step in front of the other. Unless your cure is more of the disease.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Hate defers blame. It makes someone else responsible.
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Ryan Holiday |
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People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul--especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being..
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Ryan Holiday |
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freedom isn't secured by filling up on your heart's desire but by removing your desire." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.1.175"
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Ryan Holiday |
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It's a common attitude that transcends generations and societies. The angry, unappreciated genius is forced to do stuff she doesn't like, for people she doesn't respect, as she makes her way in the world.
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Ryan Holiday |
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There's one fabulous way to work all that out of your system: attach yourself to people and organizations who are already successful and subsume your identity into theirs and move both forward simultaneously. It's certainly more glamorous to pursue your own glory--though hardly as effective. Obeisance is the way forward.
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Ryan Holiday |
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It means you're the least important person in the room--until you change that with results.
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Ryan Holiday |
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The unrestricted person, who has in hand what they will in all events, is free. But anyone who can be restricted, coerced, or pushed into something against what they will is a slave." --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.1.128b-129a"
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Ryan Holiday |
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On tough days we might say, "My work is overwhelming," or "My boss is really frustrating." If only we could understand that this is impossible. Someone can't frustrate you, work can't overwhelm you--these are external objects, and they have no access to your mind. Those emotions you feel, as real as they are, come from the inside, not the outside. The Stoics use the word hypolepsis, which means "taking up"--of perceptions, thoughts, and jud..
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Ryan Holiday |
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4.3.1
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Ryan Holiday |
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The only real failure is abandoning your principles. Killing what you love because you can't bear to part from it is selfish and stupid. If your reputation can't absorb a few blows, it wasn't worth anything in the first place.
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Ryan Holiday |
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How much more tolerant and understanding would you be today if you could see the actions of other people as attempts to do the right thing?
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Ryan Holiday |
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Whenever someone has done wrong by you, immediately consider what notion of good or evil they had in doing it. For when you see that, you'll feel compassion, instead of astonishment or rage. For you may yourself have the same notions of good and evil, or similar ones, in which case you'll make an allowance for what they've done. But if you no longer hold the same notions, you'll be more readily gracious for their error." --MARCUS AURELIUS, ..
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Ryan Holiday |
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Is that to say that managing your image isn't important? Of course not. Early in your career, you'll notice that you jump on every opportunity to do so. As you become more accomplished, you'll realize that so much of it is a distraction from your work - time spent with reporters, with awards, and with marketing are time away from what you really care about. Who has time to look at a picture of himself? What's the point?
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Ryan Holiday |
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Leaders like Belichick and Merkel know that steak is what wins games and moves nations forward. Sizzle, on the other hand, makes it harder to make the right decisions.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Reversals and regressions are as much a part of the cycle of life as anything else.
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failure
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Ryan Holiday |
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Blank spaces, begging to be filled in with thoughts, with photos, with stories. With what we're going to do, with what things should or could be like, what we hope will happen. Technology, asking you, prodding you, soliciting talk.
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Ryan Holiday |
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At the beginning of any path, we're excited and nervous. So we seek to comfort ourselves externally instead of inwardly. There's a weak side to each of us, that--like a trade union--isn't exactly malicious but at the end of the day still wants to get as much public credit and attention as it can for doing the least. That side we call ego.
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Ryan Holiday |
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We seem to think that silence is a sign of weakness. That being ignored is tantamount to death (and for the ego, this is true). So we talk, talk, talk as though our life depends on it.
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Ryan Holiday |
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Easier in the sense that you know now what it is you need to do and what is important to you. The other "choices" wash away, as they aren't really choices at all. They're distractions. It's about the doing, not the recognition. Easier in the sense that you don't need to compromise. Harder because each opportunity--no matter how gratifying or rewarding--must be evaluated along strict guidelines: Does this help me do what I have set out to do..
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Ryan Holiday |
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The purpose of Shamrock's formula is simple: to get real and continuous feedback about what they know and what they don't know from every angle. It purges out the ego that puffs us up, the fear that makes us doubt ourselves, and any laziness that might make us want to coast. As Shamrock observed, "False ideas about yourself destroy you. For me, I always stay a student. That's what martial arts are about, and you have to use that humility as..
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Ryan Holiday |