Right then, my next creative mountain appeared
In the summer of 2019, my wife and I took our two sons for a hike in the Lost Pines Forest in Bastrop, Texas. It was a Saturday or a Sunday. …
Or how I’ve been able to write 12 books in a decade
This week, I announced on Instagram that my newest book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors The Brave, is available for preorder. …
There’s a better way
“If I don’t believe in myself, who will?”
It’s a good question.
A seductive one. An empowering but innocuous phrase has been inscribed on a million inspirational quote images, been the subject of countless self-help books and TED Talks.
Believe in yourself! Fake it until you make it!
The problem…
Why it’s so hard for us to understand this
It is with some pride that I can think of some “big” things I have passed on doing.
Tickets to the Super Bowl.
A trip to Necker Island.
More than a few different book deals.
I’m not proud because I think I am better than those things, it was just…
A list of things I’ve learned the hard way
The great Admiral Hyman Rickover used to say that success teaches nothing; only failure is educational. I don’t know if that’s completely true, but I will say that my own short time on this planet has had its share of teachable moments rooted in mistakes, usually of my own making.
…
There’s nothing like a global pandemic to sap your motivation. When you’re locked in your house, working from home, when your routine is disrupted, when everything that’s happening in the world seems to be negative, it’s easy to say, screw it. Or, it’s easy to tell yourself that you’ll get…
The best pieces of wisdom gathered from a body of work that spans 2,000 years
What is the job of a philosopher?
“When the standards have been set,” Epictetus said, “the work of philosophy is just this, to examine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them.”
Pretty straightforward then: Define your…
If you’re wondering why you’re not happy, why things are always hard, try this thought experiment from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius
We can imagine that Marcus Aurelius was a busy man, perhaps the busiest man in the world. He had 14 children. He was living through a pandemic. He had a nagging stomach ailment. He was taking philosophy classes.
Oh, and he was the emperor of Rome. His domain stretched some…
A list for anyone struggling to see beyond this pandemic moment
Over the past year, we’ve all been tested. Many of us have failed.
The pandemic made some of us callous. It infected others with conspiracy theories. Too many of us gave into apathy and chaos, losing all sense of structure (and spending who knows how many hours watching Netflix). Now…
Stress is part of life. But suffering because of stress? To the Stoics, that was a choice.
“It’s normal to feel pain in your hands and feet, if you’re using your feet as feet and your hands as hands. And for a human being to feel stress is normal — if he’s living a normal human life. And if it’s normal, how can it be bad?” …
Ryan Holiday
Bestselling author of ‘Conspiracy,’ ‘Ego is the Enemy’ & ‘The Obstacle Is The Way’ http://amzn.to/24qKRWR
