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Blog postIt was a rough year.
All of us were tested. Many of us failed.
Those failures were big and small. 2020 made some of us callous. It infected others with conspiracy theories. Others gave into apathy and chaos, losing all sense of routine and structure. Some of us spent hours watching Netflix. Others far too many hours glued to the news and twitter.
Now, with a new year in front of us—one that has already revealed that challenges don’t simply stop or reset when the ca1 week ago Read more -
Blog postThis article was originally published in February 2017. Richard Overton passed away on December 27th, 2018 at age 112. R.I.P.
Richard Overton is the oldest living veteran in the United States. 110 years old. He was drafted at age 36 in 1942 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. He fought in the Pacific—Hawaii, Guam, Palau and Iwo Jima—in World War II. He also happens to live down the street from me. Still.
When I saw online that he was having trouble affording the cost of2 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postThere’s nothing like a global pandemic to obliterate your habits.
When you’re locked in your house, working from home, when your routine is disrupted, when everything that’s happening in the world seems to be negative, it’s easy to say screw it. Or, it’s easy to tell yourself—as I wrote about recently—that you’ll get back on track when things go back to normal.
It’s understandable. It’s widespread. We’ve all made compromises in the last year—we’ve had to. The problem is3 weeks ago Read more -
Blog postWe are doing a 2021 New Year New You Challenge. Please join us!
Man. What a year.
There’s not much you can say about 2020 that doesn’t include some curse words, but I will say this: It provided plenty of time for reading. It provided plenty of things that needed to be read about—from leadership to pandemics to civil rights to elections—this was one of those years that sends you to… well, I would say “the bookstore,” but that was hard, too.
Anyway, I read a lot. A1 month ago Read more -
Blog postWe’ve heard it.
We’ve said it.
When things go back to normal.
I found myself thinking that this very morning as I took my sons for our morning walk. How much longer is it going to go on like this?
It’s understandable of course. This all feels very strange. A pandemic that has disrupted our lives. Everything seems so polarized. The election is still being contested. This is not how stuff usually is, right?
But of course, that’s not true at all. Any1 month ago Read more -
Blog postIn his letters—the pre-digital medium for distant long-form conversation—Seneca instructs his friend Lucilius to find one thing each day that will fortify him against death, despair, fear, or adversity. Just one thing. One nugget. And that’s what most of Seneca’s letters to his friend are about. They have a quote in them. Or a little prescription. Or a story. But in each case, Seneca is explicit. Here’s your lesson for the day, he says. Here’s your one thing.
Obviously that’s the logi2 months ago Read more -
Blog postI found out a few days ago that a friend caught the virus.
I was worried. I felt sorry for them. I was also frustrated. Because it wasn’t COVID they had been infected with, but a different virus related to it: the virus of conspiracy.
Its symptoms presented almost immediately. Along with delusions were the corresponding symptoms of callousness and selfishness and deliberate ignorance.
I was sad.
This was a smart person. A good person!2 months ago Read more -
Blog postThe modern practice of this Thanksgiving holiday here in America is that we are supposed to take the time to think about what we’re grateful for. And the candidates are usually pretty obvious: We should be grateful for our families, for our health, that we live in a time of peace, for the good laid out in front of us. All the usual suspects.
I agree, these are important things to recognize and appreciate. It’s also good to have a specific day dedicated to that occasion. So by all mean2 months ago Read more -
Blog postIt was a dark time for the Republic.
Institutions had stopped working. Interminable foreign wars dragged on. Norms—the old way of doing things—seemed to have broken down. There had been election fixing and the passage of preposterous legislation. Corruption was endemic.
So when a certain popular politician reached out to a senator on the other side of the political aisle to dangle an offer that might make both of them more powerful, it might have seemed like more o2 months ago Read more -
Blog postIt’d be wonderful if it were true.
If we could, by the power of our thoughts, shape the world around us.
If we could manifest the reality we wanted, if “like attracted like” in our lives, just as opposites attract in magnets.
Needless to say, this is not true.
Actually, not “needless to say,” because the “Law of Attraction” is something that millions of people do believe in, despite that fact that it is, to put it mildly, complete horseshit. A3 months ago Read more
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From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a beautiful daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller.
Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise.
The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms.
By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.
#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller
The Obstacle is the Way has become a cult classic, beloved by men and women around the world who apply its wisdom to become more successful at whatever they do.
Its many fans include a former governor and movie star (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a hip hop icon (LL Cool J), an Irish tennis pro (James McGee), an NBC sportscaster (Michele Tafoya), and the coaches and players of winning teams like the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Cubs, and University of Texas men’s basketball team.
The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Ryan Holiday shows us how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.
If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages. And along the way it will inspire you with dozens of true stories of the greats from every age and era.
In The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, bestselling author Ryan Holiday made ancient wisdom wildly popular with a new generation of leaders in sports, politics, and technology. In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead.
All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness--to be steady while the world spins around you.
In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus.
Holiday also examines figures who exemplified the power of stillness: baseball player Sadaharu Oh, whose study of Zen made him the greatest home run hitter of all time; Winston Churchill, who in balancing his busy public life with time spent laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate managed to save the world from annihilation in the process; Fred Rogers, who taught generations of children to see what was invisible to the eye; Anne Frank, whose journaling and love of nature guided her through unimaginable adversity.
More than ever, people are overwhelmed. They face obstacles and egos and competition. Stillness Is the Key offers a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever.
The instant Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestseller
“While the history books are filled with tales of obsessive visionary geniuses who remade the world in their image with sheer, almost irrational force, I’ve found that history is also made by individuals who fought their egos at every turn, who eschewed the spotlight, and who put their higher goals above their desire for recognition.” —from the prologue
Many of us insist the main impediment to a full, successful life is the outside world. In fact, the most common enemy lies within: our ego. Early in our careers, it impedes learning and the cultivation of talent. With success, it can blind us to our faults and sow future problems. In failure, it magnifies each blow and makes recovery more difficult. At every stage, ego holds us back.
Ego Is the Enemy draws on a vast array of stories and examples, from literature to philosophy to history. We meet fascinating figures such as George Marshall, Jackie Robinson, Katharine Graham, Bill Belichick, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who all reached the highest levels of power and success by conquering their own egos. Their strategies and tactics can be ours as well.
In an era that glorifies social media, reality TV, and other forms of shameless self-promotion, the battle against ego must be fought on many fronts. Armed with the lessons in this book, as Holiday writes, “you will be less invested in the story you tell about your own specialness, and as a result, you will be liberated to accomplish the world-changing work you’ve set out to achieve.”
A New York Times Noteworthy Pick and a "stellar work" by Publishers Weekly
From the bestselling authors of The Daily Stoic comes an inspiring guide to the lives of the Stoics, and what the ancients can teach us about happiness, success, resilience and virtue.
Nearly 2,300 years after a ruined merchant named Zeno first established a school on the Stoa Poikile of Athens, Stoicism has found a new audience among those who seek greatness, from athletes to politicians and everyone in between. It's no wonder; the philosophy and its embrace of self-mastery, virtue, and indifference to that which we cannot control is as urgent today as it was in the chaos of the Roman Empire.
In Lives of the Stoics, Holiday and Hanselman present the fascinating lives of the men and women who strove to live by the timeless Stoic virtues of Courage. Justice. Temperance. Wisdom. Organized in digestible, mini-biographies of all the well-known--and not so well-known--Stoics, this book vividly brings home what Stoicism was like for the people who loved it and lived it, dusting off powerful lessons to be learned from their struggles and successes.
More than a mere history book, every example in these pages, from Epictetus to Marcus Aurelius--slaves to emperors--is designed to help the reader apply philosophy in their own lives. Holiday and Hanselman unveil the core values and ideas that unite figures from Seneca to Cato to Cicero across the centuries. Among them are the idea that self-rule is the greatest empire, that character is fate; how Stoics benefit from preparing not only for success, but failure; and learn to love, not merely accept, the hand they are dealt in life. A treasure of valuable insights and stories, this book can be visited again and again by any reader in search of inspiration from the past.
Hailed as "astonishing and disturbing" by the Financial Times and "essential reading" by TechCrunch at its original publication, former American Apparel marketing director Ryan Holiday’s first book sounded a prescient alarm about the dangers of fake news. It's all the more relevant today.
Trust Me, I’m Lying was the first book to blow the lid off the speed and force at which rumors travel online—and get "traded up" the media ecosystem until they become real headlines and generate real responses in the real world. The culprit? Marketers and professional media manipulators, encouraged by the toxic economics of the news business.
Whenever you see a malicious online rumor costs a company millions, politically motivated fake news driving elections, a product or celebrity zooming from total obscurity to viral sensation, or anonymously sourced articles becoming national conversation, someone is behind it. Often someone like Ryan Holiday.
As he explains, “I wrote this book to explain how media manipulators work, how to spot their fingerprints, how to fight them, and how (if you must) to emulate their tactics. Why am I giving away these secrets? Because I’m tired of a world where trolls hijack debates, marketers help write the news, opinion masquerades as fact, algorithms drive everything to extremes, and no one is accountable for any of it. I’m pulling back the curtain because it’s time the public understands how things really work. What you choose to do with this information is up to you.”
How did the movie The Shawshank Redemption fail at the box office but go on to gross more than $100 million as a cult classic?
How did The 48 Laws of Power miss the bestseller lists for more than a decade and still sell more than a million copies?
How is Iron Maiden still filling stadiums worldwide without radio or TV exposure forty years after the band was founded?
Bestselling author and marketer Ryan Holiday calls such works and artists perennial sellers. How do they endure and thrive while most books, movies, songs, video games, and pieces of art disappear quickly after initial success? How can we create and market creative works that achieve longevity?
Holiday explores this mystery by drawing on his extensive experience working with businesses and creators such as Google, American Apparel, and the author John Grisham, as well as his interviews with the minds behind some of the greatest perennial sellers of our time. His fascinating examples include:
• Rick Rubin, producer for Adele, Jay-Z, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who teaches his artists to push past short-term thinking and root their work in long-term inspiration.
• Tim Ferriss, whose books have sold millions of copies, in part because he rigorously tests every element of his work to see what generates the strongest response.
• Seinfeld, which managed to capture both the essence of the nineties and timeless themes to become a modern classic.
• Harper Lee, who transformed a muddled manuscript into To Kill a Mockingbird with the help of the right editor and feedback.
• Winston Churchill, Stefan Zweig, and Lady Gaga, who each learned the essential tenets of building a platform of loyal, dedicated supporters.
Holiday reveals that the key to success for many perennial sellers is that their creators don’t distinguish between the making and the marketing. The product’s purpose and audience are in the creator’s mind from day one. By thinking holistically about the relationship between their audience and their work, creators of all kinds improve the chances that their offerings will stand the test of time.
"Forget everything you thought you knew about marketing and read this book. And then make everyone you work with read it, too." —Jason Harris, CEO of Mekanism
Megabrands like Dropbox, Instagram, Snapchat, and Airbnb were barely a blip on the radar years ago, but now they're worth billions—with hardly a dime spent on traditional marketing. No press releases, no TV commercials, no billboards. Instead, they relied on growth hacking to reach users and build their businesses.
Growth hackers have thrown out the old playbook and replaced it with tools that are testable, trackable, and scalable. They believe that products and businesses should be modified repeatedly until they’re primed to generate explosive reactions.
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday, the acclaimed marketing guru for many successful brands, authors, and musicians, explains the new rules in a book that has become a marketing classic in Silicon Valley and around the world. This new edition is updated with cutting-edge case studies of startups, brands, and small businesses.
Growth Hacker Marketing is the go-to playbook for any company or entrepreneur looking to build and grow.
Como expone Ryan Holiday en este revelador volumen, los obstáculos no son sólo instancias en el camino que debemos vencer: también pueden ser una fuente de inspiración y, aún más, una herramienta para convertir las crisis en oportunidades, y los reveses en escalones para el éxito.
A partir de las ideas de los filósofos estoicos, y basado en historias de grandes personalidades de la historia —desde Pericles a Steve Jobs, pasando por Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart y Mahatma Gandhi—, El obstáculo es el camino presenta de manera clara, amena y práctica un conjunto de principios para vencer la adversidad y crecernos ante ella. En el desarrollo de las tres disciplinas fundamentales de la percepción, la acción y la voluntad está la clave para sobreponernos a los miedos y dificultades y alcanzar nuestras metas, incluso cuando más lejanas parecen.
Es frecuente ver en el entorno los obstáculos para lograr nuestras metas. Sin embargo, hay un poderoso enemigo interior que es en realidad la causa que nos impide avanzar en muchos sentidos: el ego. Al inicio de nuestras carreras, el ego nos impide aprender y desarrollar talentos. Si logramos el éxito, nos ciega al punto que negamos nuestras propias falencias; y ante el fracaso, el ego magnifica cualquier falla y hace más difícil recuperarnos. El ego, en cualquier etapa, es la verdadera traba para nuestro crecimiento personal y profesional. De ahí que en este libro Ryan Holiday nos lleve por poderosas lecciones, tácticas y estrategias de cómo personalidades de diversas ocupaciones y campos consiguieron aplacar su ego (esa versión distorsionada que habían creado de sí mismos) como el primer paso para alcanzar niveles más altos de autoconocimiento e influencia. En una época en la que se privilegia la individualidad y la autopromoción, es necesario entender qué es el ego y cómo dominarlo antes de que domine nuestras vidas. “A menudo se nos dice que para lograr el éxito, necesitamos confianza. Con una franqueza refrescante, Ryan Holiday desafía esa suposición, destacando cómo podemos ganar confianza buscando algo más grande que nuestro propio éxito”. –Adam Grant, autor de Originales “Este libro nos da una receta: la humildad. Está lleno de historias y citas que le ayudarán a salir de su propio camino. Ya sea que esté empezando o comenzando de nuevo, encontrará algo que sacar de aquí”. –Austin Kleon, autor de Roba como un artista “De una manera inspiradora y práctica, Ryan Holiday nos enseña cómo manejar y domesticar nuestro ego, esta bestia insaciable que vive dentro de nosotros para que podamos concentrarnos en lo que realmente importa y producir el mejor trabajo posible”. –Robert Greene, autor de Las 48 leyes del poder
A stunning story about how power works in the modern age--the book the New York Times called "one helluva page-turner" and The Sunday Times of London celebrated as "riveting...an astonishing modern media conspiracy that is a fantastic read." Pick up the book everyone is talking about.
In 2007, a short blogpost on Valleywag, the Silicon Valley-vertical of Gawker Media, outed PayPal founder and billionaire investor Peter Thiel as gay. Thiel's sexuality had been known to close friends and family, but he didn't consider himself a public figure, and believed the information was private.
This post would be the casus belli for a meticulously plotted conspiracy that would end nearly a decade later with a $140 million dollar judgment against Gawker, its bankruptcy and with Nick Denton, Gawker's CEO and founder, out of a job. Only later would the world learn that Gawker's demise was not incidental--it had been masterminded by Thiel.
For years, Thiel had searched endlessly for a solution to what he'd come to call the "Gawker Problem." When an unmarked envelope delivered an illegally recorded sex tape of Hogan with his best friend's wife, Gawker had seen the chance for millions of pageviews and to say the things that others were afraid to say. Thiel saw their publication of the tape as the opportunity he was looking for. He would come to pit Hogan against Gawker in a multi-year proxy war through the Florida legal system, while Gawker remained confidently convinced they would prevail as they had over so many other lawsuit--until it was too late.
The verdict would stun the world and so would Peter's ultimate unmasking as the man who had set it all in motion. Why had he done this? How had no one discovered it? What would this mean--for the First Amendment? For privacy? For culture?
In Holiday's masterful telling of this nearly unbelievable conspiracy, informed by interviews with all the key players, this case transcends the narrative of how one billionaire took down a media empire or the current state of the free press. It's a study in power, strategy, and one of the most wildly ambitious--and successful--secret plots in recent memory.
Some will cheer Gawker's destruction and others will lament it, but after reading these pages--and seeing the access the author was given--no one will deny that there is something ruthless and brilliant about Peter Thiel's shocking attempt to shake up the world.
Controla tus percepciones. Dirige tus acciones adecuadamente. Acepta con voluntad lo que escapa a tu control.
¿Por qué las mentes más grandes de la historia como George Washington, Ralph Waldo Emerson, los directores de grandes compañías y entrenadores deportivos han adoptado el pensamiento de los antiguos estoicos? Es sencillo: todos ellos se han dado cuenta de que la sabiduría más valiosa es atemporal, y que la filosofía es un camino para mejorar nuestra vida día a día.
Estoicismo cotidiano ofrece ideas y citas de Marco Aurelio, Séneca, Cicerón, Diógenes y Epicteto, entre otros pensadores, para todos los días del año. Aquí encontrarás frases de gran alcance, anécdotas históricas y comentarios provocativos para afrontar la adversidad y dar lo mejor de ti mismo.
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