Ryan Holiday

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.

It’s not a way to live. It’s not a way to do big things. It’s a way to fail big.

Nobody grows by flattery. No one benefits from chasing down a flawed dream they are not suited for or can’t properly defend.

Reading is like eating, sex and meditation. The whole point is that it’s pleasurable and meaningful. It’s like listening to music. You’re not supposed to rush through it.

Not everything that’s hard is good of course, but almost everything good is very hard.