“I don’t gamble. I don’t spend recklessly. But I do have an expensive habit: anxiety. It’s cost me hours of sleep, moments with my family, and opportunities I let pass because I was too caught up in my fears. It’s the vacation I didn’t enjoy, the dinner I spoiled, the car ride I spent stressing instead of being present. Seneca said, ‘We suffer more in imagination than in reality.’ Anxiety drags us into a future that doesn’t exist, forcing us to live out worst-case scenarios that rarely happen. And yet, the time and energy anxiety steals are gone forever. The good news? If anxiety comes from within us, we can choose to let it go. Marcus Aurelius put it simply: ‘Today I escaped from anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me.'”
Ryan Holiday
“At his house, George [Raveling] has these big red binders filled with notes. He calls them his ‘learning journals.’ They’re his version of a commonplace book—a collection of ideas, quotes, observations, and information gathered over time. The purpose is to record and organize these gems for later use in your life and work. It’s a habit he’s kept since 1972. To this day, he told me, ‘I go back and just read through them. I’ll just get one of the binders and I’ll sit down at the kitchen table and start reading through it. Sometimes I come across stuff that is more applicable today than it was when I wrote it in there.'”
Ryan Holiday
“Things don’t give us anxiety—we bring our anxiety to things. Think about it. What do all the things that make you anxious have in common? You. You are the common ingredient in all of them. That’s why Marcus Aurelius says in Meditations that he doesn’t escape his anxiety—he discards it because it’s within him. It’s the fault of his perceptions, nothing outside himself.”
Ryan Holiday
“Writing is a byproduct of hours and hours of reading, researching, thinking and making my notecards. When a day’s writing goes well, it’s got little to do with that day at all. It’s actually a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinking. Every passage and page has a prologue titled Preparation.”
Ryan Holiday
“Whenever I go and do something with my kids (like a trip or an activity or an errand) I try to tell myself: Success is wanting to do this again. That is to say, it’s not about accomplishing anything or checking off certain boxes—did we see all the sights, did we get what we needed to get, did we arrive on time or whatever—it’s ultimately whether we got along well enough, enjoyed the experience enough, that at some point in the future they’ll say: ‘Hey, remember when we went to that concert? Can we do that again?’ or ‘Oh, you’re driving across town to grab that thing? Can I come?'”
Ryan Holiday
“The Stoics remind us that everything has its compensation…if we choose to see it, if we choose to welcome it. The challenges we face as parents become our greatest teachers and guides. You’ll have moments at the dialysis center that years from now, you wouldn’t trade for anything. You’ll develop patience and resilience that you could have otherwise never imagined—and they will too. You’ll learn how to advocate for yourself and for them. You’ll come face to face with this thing called acceptance. You will understand what it means to love, to really love unconditionally.”
Ryan Holiday
“To the right of my computer monitor, between two photos of my boys, is a picture given to me by the sports psychologist Jonathan Fader. It’s the famed Dr. Oliver Sacks and behind him is a large sign he kept in his office that just said NO! By saying no—to interviews, to meetings, to ‘Can I pick your brain for a minute?’—I was saying yes to what matters: my family. My work. My sanity.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 307)
“Precisely when we think we’ve earned the right to relax our discipline is exactly when we need it most. The payoff for all our efforts? So much more temptation. So many more distractions. So many more opportunities. The only solution? Even more self-mastery! Achieving things is great. Becoming a selfish jerk because you accomplished them? Thinking you’re suddenly better or matter more than anyone else? C’mon.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 292)
“Queen Elizabeth inherited the monarchy. Marcus Aurelius was selected for the purple as a boy. But it wasn’t the throne that made either of them kingly, it was their behavior. They were what the ancients called first citizens, for their character as much as their rank. As Marcus said, his aim was never to be the most powerful king, never to conquer the most territory, or build the most beautiful buildings. Instead, he was after ‘perfection of character: to live your last day, every day, without frenzy or sloth or pretense.’ It just happens that wonderful external accomplishments, like those achieved by Elizabeth and Marcus, can come out of internal endeavor. They are not the goal, they are the byproduct.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 283)
“In the end, it’s not about what we do, it’s about how we do it and, by extension, who we are. Too often, we find people choosing to be great at their profession over being a great human being, believing that success or art or fame or power must be pursued to the exclusion of all else. Does it have to be that way? Does being loved have to be at odds with being lovely?”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 282)
“We keep on dumbly doing the same things we’ve always done… under the illusion it will someday bring about different results. We think it’s a sign of character that we won’t give in, when it may well be stupidity or weakness. Or we think that we can continue going forward forever, when in fact it is exactly this insatiability that often leads us right into the trap that the enemy laid for us. Hope is important but it is not a strategy. Denial is not the same thing as determination. Delusion is destruction. Greed will get you in the end.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 273)
“The person who can only go forward… who never backs up, who has no escape plan, who is not brave but reckless. They are not self-controlled, they are stuck in one gear. You don’t win everything, every time—not in war, in life, or in business. A person who doesn’t know how to disengage, to cut their losses, or to extricate themselves is a vulnerable person. A person who does not know how to lose will still lose… only more painfully so.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 272)
“We have to show, not tell: first in line for danger, last in line for rewards. First in line for duty, last in line for recognition. To lead, you have to bleed. Figuratively speaking. But sometimes also literally. Is it really unfair? Or is it what you signed up for? And by the way, isn’t it also what you get paid the big bucks for? That’s the privilege of command.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 256)
“It’d be wonderful if power or success exempted us… from everything time-consuming, pedestrian, inconvenient, difficult. In practice, it obligates us to those things even more. It demands more of us. That’s just how it shakes out. Can you handle that? The leader shows up first and leaves last. The leader works hardest. The leader puts others before themselves. The leader takes the hit. Everything else is just semantics and titles.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 255)
“‘You don’t have to turn this into something,’ [Marcus Aurelius] reminded himself when someone did something wrong or said something untrue about him. When he lusted after something, he stopped himself, turning those desires to stone before they burned through him and he did something he’d regret. He tried to make beautiful choices, tried to look for the best in people, tried to put himself in their shoes, tried to lead by serving. It was the pride of Marcus’s life that he not only didn’t need to ask anyone for favors but that anytime anyone asked him for something—money, advice, a hand—he could be generous.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 234)
“It was said that the true majesty of Marcus Aurelius was that his exactingness was directed only at himself. He did not ‘go around expecting Plato’s republic.’ People were people, he understood they were not perfect. He found a way to work with flawed people, putting them to service for the good of the empire, searching them for virtues that he celebrated and accepting their vices, which he knew were not in his control.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 232)
“You don’t have to end up number one in your class. Or win everything, every time. In fact, not winning is not particularly important. What does matter is that you gave everything, because anything less is to cheat the gift. The gift of your potential. The gift of the opportunity. The gift of the craft you’ve been introduced to. The gift of the responsibility entrusted to you. The gift of the instruction and time of others. The gift of life itself.”
Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 212)