It was the moment when Martin Luther King Jr. went to jail that his followers saw he was more than just a preacher. He was with them. He risked his life for them. He was one of them. We can’t be afraid or we won’t be able to do what needs to be done. But also, by this fearlessness—willingness to represent the cause, in the flesh, against all dangers—we show everyone else that they’ll be okay as well. The leader risks themselves for us. They step to the front. They make their courage contagious.

Ryan Holiday

No one will argue that writing is an easy profession. Getting someone to pay you for your words isn’t easy. But there are strategies you can use to simplify the process and transform what you can produce.

Ryan Holiday

use writing pay

The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

Ryan Holiday

obstacles path opportunity

I run 5 miles every night. It’s where I go to digest my day, hash out the multitude of information that’s been poured into me in the last wild six months or so, and to try and condense it down to some sort of cohesive strategy to live my life by.

Ryan Holiday

running trying night

It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.

Ryan Holiday

persistence feet want

There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means.

Ryan Holiday

events perception mean

To do great things, we need to be able to endure tragedy and setbacks. We've got to love what we do and all that it entails, good and bad. We have to learn to find joy in every single thing that happens.

Ryan Holiday

tragedy joy needs

Where the head goes, the body follows. Perception precedes action. Right action follows the right perspective.

Ryan Holiday

perspective body perception

The Germans have a word for it: Sitzfleisch. Staying power. Winning by sticking your ass to the seat and not leaving until after it's over.

Ryan Holiday

ass leaving winning

Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.

Ryan Holiday

focus monsters may

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great individuals, like great companies, find a way to transform weakness into strength.

Ryan Holiday

individual weakness way

You know what’s better than building things up in your imagination? Building things up in real life.

Ryan Holiday

building-things real imagination

What is known can't jerk us around unwittingly. Before anything can be resolved, the implicit must be made into the explicit.

Ryan Holiday

explicit jerk made

Failure shows us the way - by showing us what isn't the way.

Ryan Holiday

shows way

Conning the conmen is one of life’s most satisfying pleasures.

Ryan Holiday

conning satisfying pleasure

True will is quiet humility, resilience, and flexibility; the other kind of will is weakness disguised by bluster and ambition.

Ryan Holiday

resilience humility ambition

Problems are rarely as bad as we think-or rather, they are precisely as bad as we think.

Ryan Holiday

problem thinking

Dollar for dollar there is no better investment in the world than a book

Ryan Holiday

dollars book world

The most powerful predictor of what spreads online is anger.

Ryan Holiday

most-powerful online powerful

We decide what we will make of each and every situation. We decide whether we’ll break or whether we’ll resist.

Ryan Holiday

situation break

Discipline in perception lets you clearly see the advantage and the proper course of action in every situation—without the pestilence of panic or fear.

Ryan Holiday

pestilence discipline perception