The professional loves it so much he dedicates his life to it. He commits full-time. That's what I mean when I say turning pro. Resistance hates it when we turn pro.
The professional loves her work. She is invested in it wholeheartedly. But she does not forget that the work is not her.
The professional keeps his eye on the doughnut and not on the hole. He reminds himself it's better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lo...
The artist and the fundamentalist arise from societies at differing stages of development. The artist is the advanced model. His culture possesses affluence, stability, enough excess of resource to pe...
The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome.
The Principle of Priority states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what’s important first.
THE HUMAN CONDITION The Daily Show reported recently that scientists in Japan had invented a robot that is capable of recognizing its own reflection in a mirror. When the robot learns to hate what it...
Stay Stupid The three dumbest guys I can think of: Charles Lindbergh, Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill. Why? Because any smart person who understood how impossibly arduous were the tasks they had set the...
Someone once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. I write only when inspiration strikes, he replied. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o'cloc...
Socrates demonstrated long ago, that the truly free individual is free only to the extent of his own self-mastery. While those who will not govern themselves are condemned to find masters to govern ov...
Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our soul's evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.
Persian envoy our arrows will black out the sun... Dienekes of the Spartans..Good, then we'll fight in the shade.
Once we turn pro, we're like sharks who have tasted blood, or renunciants who have glimpsed the face of God. For us, there is no finish line. No bell ends the bout. Life is the pursuit. Life is the hu...
On the field of the Self stand a knight and a dragon. You are the knight. Resistance is the dragon.
Of any activity you do, ask yourself: If I were the last person on earth, would I still do it?
No matter how great a writer, artist, or entrepreneur, he is a mortal, he is fallible. He is not proof against Resistance. He will drop the ball; he will crash. That’s why they call it rewriting.
Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.
Like our IQ, talent is a gift from our ancestors. If we're lucky, we inherit it. In the fortunate talented few, the dark dimension of their natures will first resist the labor that creativity demands,...
Leonidas’s and Dienekes’ quips draw the individual out of his private terror and yoke him to the group.
Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only ha...