My highlights from The Obstacle is the Way. Had no clue my thought process aligns so closely with stoicism and now I can’t get enough of Ryan Holiday and Daily Stoic. Worth checking out.
Great individuals find a way to transform weakness into strength.
Don’t just “be positive” but learn to be ceaselessly creative and opportunistic.
The things which hurt, instruct. -Benjamin Franklin
Does getting upset provide you with more options?
Real strength lies in the control of one’s emotions, not in pretending they don’t exist.
The observing eye sees simply what is there. The perceiving eye sees more than what is there.
Focusing exclusively on what is in our power magnifies and enhances our power. But every ounce of energy directed at things we can’t actually influence is wasted—self-indulgent and self-destructive.
Though our doubts and self-doubt feel real, they have very little bearing on what is and is not possible.
In life, it doesn’t matter what happens to you or where you came from. It matters what you do with what happens and what you’ve been given.
All the greats we admire started by saying “yes, let’s go”. And they usually did it in less desirable circumstances then we’ll ever suffer.
Genius often really is just persistence in disguise.
Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles.
Failure shows us the way by showing us what isn’t the way.
Think progress, not perfection.
When we want things too badly, we can be our own worst enemy. In our eagerness, we strip the very screw we want to turn and make it impossible to ever get what we want.
Ordinary people shy away from negative situations, just as they do with failure. Great people are their best in these situations. They turn personal tragedy or misfortune—really anything and everything—to their advantage.
Will is our internal power, which can never be affected by the outside world. It is the one thing we control completely, always.
You don’t have to like something to master it, or to use it to some advantage.
We don’t get to choose what happens to us, but we can always choose how we feel about it. And why on earth would you choose to feel anything but good?