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What if someone despises me? Let them see to it. But I will see to it that I won't be found doing or saying anything contemptible. What if someone hates me? Let them see to that. But I will see to it that I'm kind and good-natured to all, and prepared to show even the hater where they went wrong. Not in a critical way, or to show off my patience, but genuinely and usefully." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 11.13"
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Ryan Holiday |
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207e259
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There is another apt Latin expression: Materiam superabat opus. (The workmanship is better than the material.) The material we've been given genetically, emotionally, financially, that's where we begin. We don't control that. We do control what we make of that material, and whether we squander it.
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Ryan Holiday |
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5d78768
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Watch the stars in their courses and imagine yourself running alongside them. Think constantly on the changes of the elements into each other, for such thoughts wash away the dust of earthly life." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.47"
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Ryan Holiday |
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84ae8ed
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Here's the other part: once you win, everyone is gunning for you. It's during your moment at the top that you can afford ego the least--because the stakes are so much higher, the margins for error are so much smaller. If anything, your ability to listen, to hear feedback, to improve and grow matter more now than ever before.
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Ryan Holiday |
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15852ad
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today, though, if someone were to hand you a hundred-dollar bill, you might rub it between your fingers or hold it up to the light, just to confirm it wasn't a fake. All this for an imaginary currency, an invention of society. The point of this metaphor is to highlight how much effort we put into making sure money is real, whereas we accept potentially life-changing thoughts or assumptions without so much as a question. One
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Ryan Holiday |
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9c2a041
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The most critical part of this system was the belief that you, the student who has sought out Stoicism, have the most important job: to be good! To be wise. "To remain the person that philosophy wished to make us." Do your job today. Whatever happens, whatever other people's jobs happen to be, do yours. Be good."
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Ryan Holiday |
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852852a
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If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters--don't wish to seem knowledgeable. And if some regard you as important, distrust yourself." --EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 13a"
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Ryan Holiday |
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d104d64
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The question to ask, when you feel pride, then, is this: What am I missing right now that a more humble person might see? What am I avoiding, or running from, with my bluster, franticness, and embellishments? It is far better to ask and answer these questions now, with the stakes still low, than it will be later.
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humility
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Ryan Holiday |
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a1e95ec
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Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only they truly live. Not satisfied to merely keep good watch over their own days, they annex every age to their own. All the harvest of the past is added to their store. Only an ingrate would fail to see that these great architects of venerable thoughts were born for us and have designed a way of life for us." --SENECA"
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Ryan Holiday |
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3b0f32f
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If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn't you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty ... just methodically complete your task." --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 6.26"
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Ryan Holiday |
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a5b56d0
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Man is pushed by drives, but he is pulled by values -- Viktor Frankl
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Ryan Holiday |
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679498c
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Always prepare ourselves for more difficult times. Always accept what we're unable to change. Always manage our expectations. Always persevere. Always learn to love our fate and what happens to us. Always protect our inner self, retreat into ourselves. Always submit to a greater, larger cause. Always remind ourselves of our own mortality. And, of course, prepare to start the cycle once more.
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Ryan Holiday |
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68fc59a
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When you can break apart something, or look at it from some new angle, it loses its power over you.
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break
power
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Ryan Holiday |
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3c3da96
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Yet far too many people set out to produce something that, if they were really honest with themselves, is only marginally better or different from what already exists. Instead of being bold, brash, or brave, they are derivative, complementary, imitative, banal, or trivial. The problem with this is not only that it's boring, but that it subjects them to endless amounts of competition.
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Ryan Holiday |
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ec8277b
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social media isn't a set of tools to allow humans to communicate with humans. It is a set of embedding mechanisms to allow technologies to use humans to communicate with each other, in an orgy of self-organizing. . . . The Matrix had it wrong. You're not the battery power in a global, human-enslaving AI, you are slightly more valuable. You are part of the switching circuitry.1
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Ryan Holiday |
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7951024
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How can anyone maintain their sanity when everything you read, see, and hear is designed to make you stop whatever you're doing and consume because the world is supposedly ending?
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Ryan Holiday |
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58bac00
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Understand at last that you have something in you more powerful and divine than what causes the bodily passions and pulls you like a mere puppet. What thoughts now occupy my mind? Is it not fear, suspicion, desire, or something like that?" --MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.19"
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Ryan Holiday |
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4ded57f
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When I see an anxious person, I ask myself, what do they want? For if a person wasn't wanting something outside of their own control, why would they be stricken by anxiety?" --EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.13.1"
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Ryan Holiday |
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e49c919
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There is clarity (and joy) in seeing what others can't see, in finding grace and harmony in places others overlook. Isn't that far better than seeing the world as some dark place?
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Ryan Holiday |
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2a592dd
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The more time kids spend online, studies show, the worse their grades are. According to Nielson, active social networkers are 26 percent more likely to give their opinion on politics and current events off-line, even though they are exactly the people whose opinions should matter the least.
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Ryan Holiday |
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cc6d7cd
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Talkativeness is afraid of the silence which reveals its emptiness," Kierkegaard once said. Now you know why sharing, commenting, clicking, and participating are pushed so strongly by blogs and entertainment sites. They don't want silence. No wonder blogs auto refresh with new material every thirty seconds. Of course they want to send updates to your mobile phone and include you on e-mail alerts. If the users stops for even a second, they m..
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Ryan Holiday |
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d1449c9
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Free and cheap helps." So does making the entire process as easy and seamless as possible. The more you reduce the cost of consumption, the more people will be likely to try your product. Which means price, distribution, and other variables are not only essential business decisions, they are essential marketing decisions."
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Ryan Holiday |
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7597851
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IN THE INTRODUCTION I EXPLAINED A SCAM I CALL "trading up the chain." It's a strategy I developed that manipulates the media through recursion. I can turn nothing into something by placing a story with a small blog that has very low standards, which then becomes the source for a story by a larger blog, and that, in turn, for a story by larger media outlets. I create, to use the words of one media scholar, a "self-reinforcing news wave." Peo..
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Ryan Holiday |
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b3ec48f
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When we aim high, pressure and stress obligingly come along for the ride. Stuff is going to happen that catches us off guard, threatens or scares us. Surprises (unpleasant ones, mostly) are almost guaranteed. The risk of being overwhelmed is always there. In these situations, talent is not the most sought-after characteristic. Grace and poise are, because these two attributes precede the opportunity to deploy any other skill. We must posses..
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Ryan Holiday |
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4889f3e
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When attempting to turn things around for a particularly disliked or controversial client, Sitrick was fond of saying, "We need to find a lead steer!" The media, like any group of animals, gallops in a herd. It takes just one steer to start a stampede."
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public-relations
the-media
pr
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Ryan Holiday |
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6837140
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Publishers and advertisers can't differentiate between the types of impressions an ad does on a site. A perusing reader is no better than an accidental reader. An article that provides worthwhile advice is no more valuable than one instantly forgotten. So long as the page loads and the ads are seen, both sides are fulfilling their purpose. A click is a click.
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public-relations
pr
marketing
journalism
media
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Ryan Holiday |
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3fcbfdd
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It is one of many campaigns I have done in my career, and by no means an unusual one. But it illustrates a part of the media system that is hidden from your view: how the news is created and driven by marketers,
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Ryan Holiday |
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72bb8dd
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THE FOOL WHO FEEDS THE MONSTER. I knew I had to find this century-old drawing, though I wasn't sure why. As I rode the escalator through the glass canyon of the atrium and into the bowels of the central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library to search for it, it struck me that I wasn't just looking for some rare old newspaper. I was looking for myself. I knew who that fool was. He was me. In addiction circles, those in recovery also use t..
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Ryan Holiday |
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390421b
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To borrow from Budd Schulberg's description of a media manipulator in his classic novel The Harder They Fall, I was "indulging myself in the illusions that we can deal in filth without becoming the thing we touch." I no longer have those illusions."
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Ryan Holiday |
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c2ef894
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As a general rule, however, the more accessible you can make your product, the easier it will be to market. You can always raise the price later, after you've built an audience.
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Ryan Holiday |
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5bf2530
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No one said life was easy. No one said it would be fair.
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Ryan Holiday |
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29bd692
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The more you do, the harder you work, the luckier you seem to get.
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Ryan Holiday |
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d615553
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creating more work is one of the most effective marketing techniques of all.
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Ryan Holiday |
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ea9ace3
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Advertising can add fuel to a fire, but rarely is it sufficient to start one.
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Ryan Holiday |
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8f96c14
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Working on improving your product until it screams "Share me with everyone you know"--that's less fun than buying a back-page ad that everyone (who still reads newspapers) will see."
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Ryan Holiday |
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0f109f5
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Principles are better than instructions and "hacks." We can figure out the specifics later--but only if we learn the right way to approach them."
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Ryan Holiday |
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20ad2f8
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Knowing what your goal is--having that crystal clear--allows you to know when to follow conventional wisdom and when to say "Screw it."
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Ryan Holiday |
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907c35f
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Customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen and it's harder than it looks. --Peter Thiel
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Ryan Holiday |
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a47841f
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Phil Libin, the cofounder of Evernote, has a quote I like to share with clients: "People [who are] thinking about things other than making the best product never make the best product."
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Ryan Holiday |
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ccd8a13
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As infuriating as it may be, we must be rational and fair about our own work. This is difficult considering our conflict of interest--which is to say, the ultimate conflict of interest: We made it. The way to balance that conflict of interest is to bring in people who are objective.
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Ryan Holiday |
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96dc153
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Every project needs to go through this process. Whether it's with an editor or a producer or a partner or a group of beta users or just through your own relentless perfectionism--whatever form it takes is up to you. But getting outside voices is crucial. The fact is, most people are so terrified of what an outside voice might say that they forgo opportunities to improve what they are making. Remember: Getting feedback requires humility. It ..
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Ryan Holiday |
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ef07049
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Not only should you be testing your project as you create it, you must most seriously test your creation as it begins to resemble a final product. So you know what you have--so you can improve it. So you know what you have--so that you might figure out what to do with it. So you know what you have--so you can adjust your expectations.
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Ryan Holiday |
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576957b
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So we ask ourselves: Why are things the way they are? What practices should be questioned and which should remain sound? This allows us to be both exotic and accessible, shocking but not gratuitous, fresh without sacrificing timelessness.
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Ryan Holiday |
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77004e4
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Ignore what other people are doing. Ignore what's going on around you. There is no competition. There is no objective benchmark to hit. There is simply the best that you can do--that's all that matters.
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Ryan Holiday |