In the way that a good wine must be aged, or that we let meat marinate for hours in spices and sauce, an idea must be given space to develop. Rushing into things eliminates that space.
If you seek to avoid all disruptions to tranquility – other people, external events, stress – you will never be successful. Your problems will follow you wherever you run and hide. But if you seek to avoid the harmful and disruptive judgments that cause those problems, then you will be stable and steady wherever you happen to be.
If Perception and Action were the disciplines of the mind and the body, then Will is the discipline of the heart and the soul.
We underestimate our capabilities just as much and just as dangerously as we overestimate other abilities. Cultivate the ability to judge yourself accurately and honestly. Look inward to discern what you’re capable of and what it will take to unlock that potential.
If you want to be steady, if you want clarity, proper judgment is the best way.
It’s far better that we become pragmatic and adaptable – able to do what we need to do anywhere, anytime. The place to do your work, to live the good life, is here.
Customers will not come just because you build it. You have to make that happen and it’s harder than it looks. – Peter Thiel.
I cannot understand how some people live without communicating with the wisest people who ever lived on earth.
Character is a powerful defense in a world that would love to be able to seduce you, buy you, tempt you, and change you. If you know what you believe and why you believe it, you’ll avoid poisonous relationships, toxic jobs, fair-weather friends, and any number of ills that afflict people who haven’t thought through their deepest concerns. That’s your education. That’s why you do this work.
Twitter isn’t designed to help you get in and get out with the best information as quickly as possible – it’s supposed to suck you into either a contentious world of argument and debate or an echo chamber that reassures you everyone thinks like you do.
Stillness is the key to, well, just about everything.
Marketing is the art of allocating resources – sending more power to the wheels that are getting traction, sending it away from the ones that are spinning. And investing in each strategy until the results stop working. Then find the next one!
The good things in life cost what they cost. The unnecessary things are not worth it at any price. The key is being aware of the difference.
Even one minute without playing the blame game is progress in the art of living.
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.
According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND. That’s right, even your physical body isn’t completely within the circle.
Today blogs are our representatives in these degradation ceremonies. They level the accusations on the behalf of the “outraged public.” How dare you hold yourself up in front of us as a human being instead of as a caricature, they seem to say. If you don’t feel shame, then we will make you feel shame. The onlookers delight in the destruction and pain.
The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace.
Self-awareness is the ability to objectively evaluate the self. It’s the ability to question our own instincts, patterns, and assumptions.
Is there anything sadder than the immense lengths we’ll go to impress someone? The things we’ll do to earn someone’s approval can seem, when examined in retrospect, like the result of some temporary form of insanity.