Twenty-five hundred years ago, Thucydides would say that the three strongest motives for men were fear, honor, and self-interest. Fear. Honor. Self-interest. All covered. Which is the truest of them f...
This is why we can’t let externals determine whether something was worth it or not. It’s on us.
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 simulta...
There’s no time off. There aren’t even weekends. We are always preparing for what life might throw at us—and when it does, we’re ready and don’t stop until we’ve handled it.
There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.
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...
The world is, after all, indifferent to what we humans want. If we persist in wanting, in needing, we are simply setting ourselves up for resentment or worse.
The philosophy asserts that virtue (meaning, chiefly, the four cardinal virtues of self-control, courage , justice , and wisdom) is happiness, and it is our perceptions of things— rather than the thin...
The person who has practiced philosophy as a cure for the self becomes great of soul, filled with confidence, invincible—and greater as you draw near. SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 111.2
The orator Demosthenes once said that virtue begins with understanding and is fulfilled by courage.
The only relationship between work and chatter is that one kills the other. Let
The next time someone gets upset near you—crying, yelling, breaking something, being pointed or cruel—watch how quickly this statement will stop them cold: I hope this is making you feel better.
The more skilled you become seeing things for what they are, the more perception will work for you rather than against
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.
The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. In
The founding of a company, making money in the market, or the formation of an idea is messy. Reducing it to a narrative retroactively creates a clarity that never was and never will be there. When
The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out.There are brambles in the path? Then go around.That’s all you need to know. — MARCUS AURELIUS
The Discipline of Perception (how we see and perceive the world around us) The Discipline of Action (the decisions and actions we take—and to what end) The Discipline of Will (how we deal with the thi...
That’s Stoic joy—the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty. It’s a serious thing—far more serious than a smile or a chipper voice.
That is, when you can break apart something, or look at it from some new angle, it loses its power over you.