Ryan Holiday

The right question at the right time can change the course of a life, can still a turbulent mind, or heal an angry heart.

There is one quiet place left on this earth. One quiet place where there are no phones, no news tickers, no instant messages or even music.

“Don’t lament so much about how your career is going to turn out. You don’t have a career. You have a life. Do the work. Keep the faith. Be true blue. You are a writer because you write. Keep writing and quit your bitching. Your book has a birthday. You don’t know what it is yet.”

We can forget so easily, in life, the randomness and absurd yet somehow functional, coordination of this world we call home, this thing we know as existence.

Everything sucks. I know it. You know it. Let that free you.

If confidence is knowing your strength, humility is an awareness of one’s own weaknesses.

The existence of death need not be depressing. Because it’s actually invigorating.

Those two pieces of advice have shaped my career as a writer and a producer of books for other people.

As a creator, you need to actively bake the marketing into your product.

There are way too many terrible business books out there. Most business books aren’t even books—they are business cards for the writers or ego trips for CEOs.

This year I thought I might reflect on how to get to this place, how to live and approach life so that at 30, you can honestly feel like you’ve left nothing on the table.

It’s an incremental, iterative journey. You don’t magically arrive. Ever. You just strive to get closer.