Ryan Holiday

Or so the efforts to suppress his influence would have us believe. (The USSR, for instance, cleared out Khan’s homeland in Mongolia and forbade any mention of him.) But I’m here to tell you that we can learn more about leadership and getting things done from Genghis Khan than just about any other historical figure. Because almost everything you know about him is wrong…

An essay is a lot like a military operation. It takes discipline, foresight, research, strategy, and, if done right, ends in total victory.

People always ask me if the books I carry around are for school because they’re full of notes, flags and folded pages–why would anyone work so hard on something they were doing on their own? Because I enjoy it, because it’s the only thing that separates me from ignorance.

I’m going to talk about research. No, research is not very fun, and it’s never glamorous, but it matters.

Space is recoverable. The status of a college degree, the income from a job — recoverable. Time is not. This time you have now is it. You will not get it back.

It goes like this: You’re scared but overconfident, clueless but eager to learn, just glad to be given a shot and you don’t want to screw it up. I tried to think of a few things I wish I’d been told when I was just starting, things that would have saved me some tough lessons. These are the things I still tell myself.