Ryan Holiday

The world would be a better place if artists, entrepreneurs, executives and creative types got better at explaining and selling what they do. More great stuff would break through in this attention economy we live in.

Especially if you work on anything remotely internet related. Because the amount of people making obscene, life-changing amounts of money doing what appears to be very little work is essentially infinite. Let me tell you, it doesn’t matter how well you’re doing, these people can make you feel like a chump.

“The worst thing in life that you can have is a job that you hate, that you have no energy in, that you’re not creative with and you’re not thinking of the future. To me, might as well be dead.” — Robert Greene

What should you do?

Sometimes you have to be dumb enough to be wrong. Really wrong. Because that’s ultimately how you turn out to be right.

These are books I loved so much that I read them in marathon sittings, wanting to get to the end but hoping they never finished.

Let yourself be gutted. Let it open you. Start here.

I’ll read book after book in a series in an author’s bibliography. In that moment, I’ll even read The Hunger Games if it’s the only thing in reach (or worse, as a kid, I once made it several books deep into the Babysitter’s Club series when I ran out of stuff to read). And then, just like that, the urge is relieved and normal life resumes until the cycle starts again.

There is a solution. The next time you are frustrated, the next time you feel acute pain or resentment or unfairness, all you have to do is remember one thing.

Sometimes there is nothing like a 900-page biography. Most of the time though, nobody has time for such a thing. Especially with many modern biographers who refuse to take a stand that resembles judgement towards their subjects.

It’s the question you’re asking yourself…and now, pretty regularly, you’re asking me because my article on leaving school somehow became #1 Google result for “dropping out of college.”

There is a moment in the book early in Grant’s career as a soldier where he was sent to hunt down a band of guerrillas, shaking with fear as he arrived at their camp only to find they had run away. It was then that he realized the enemy was often as scared of you as you were of them. It changed his approach to battle forever.

The perfect opportunity you keep picturing in your head? That’s your ego protecting you from change — the feeling of pain and failure that is deliberate practice and experimentation.

Being productive is really a battle. It’s the worst kind of battle: a battle against yourself.

Strategy isn’t something that’s taught well in school. Hell, most people probably couldn’t tell you the difference between “strategy” and “tactics” (or even know there is a difference.)

I won’t say that I present the picture of mental health or anything, but most people would be surprised to find out I harbor a habit that hints at deep insanity.

This isn’t the perfect system. It might not work for you. All I can say is that since learning it about 7 years ago, it has totally transformed my process and drastically increased my creative output.

Obsessing about winning is a loser’s game: The most we can hope for is to create the best possible conditions for success, then let go of the outcome. The ride is a lot more fun that way.