Ryan Holiday's Blog, page 30

The Overthinker’s Guide To Launching Your Next Project Without Wanting To Kill Yourself

It’s the eve of a big launch.

Maybe a year went into this project. Maybe ten years. Your life savings or your entire reputation could be on the line.

Maybe you’re launching a book (as I did recently). Or a startup. Or a course. Or you work for a company that is rolling out a new product that they’ve put you in charge of.

Whatever it is, the reality is that you’re stressed, worried and overworked. And the closer you get the launch, the harder it is to have any idea of how this whole thing is going to come off. Less than half of all Kickstarter projects are successful. 93% of companies accepted by Y Combinator fail. Most books sell less than 250 copies (to say nothing of getting any significant attention). It’s impossible to tell whether a launch will be a success or not. And even if everything goes exactly as you hope—the results could still be disappointing.

So no wonder it can feel like you’re going to crack up, fall apart and die.

Every person who’s ever been there before you has felt this way at some point.

I’ve done my share of launches—under my own name and for other people. Some have been very successful (millions of dollars in sales, bestseller status, mainstream press and media recognition). Others have been catastrophic failures.

Staying sane is hard, but not impossible. Here are some things to keep in mind as you approach a launch:

-You’re not going to die. Whatever happens, it’s almost certain that the result—good or bad—will not be a matter of life or death. So calm down.

-Friends will let you down. It’s what happens. They’ve promised to help and they won’t. Others will decide this is the time to hem or haw, or nickel and dime you. Don’t take it personally. If it’s egregious, cut them out of your life. If it’s not, just forget it. They don’t know what they’re doing—they’ve never been where you are.

-Just don’t be that guy when it’s other people’s turn. “The best revenge is to not be like that.”

-Hire professionals and support—whatever you can afford and then spend a little more. You will regret cheaping out at this moment in time. You will not regret investing in your project.

-Don’t wait until the last minute. If you did, I have no sympathy for you. You just set yourself up to fail. That was dumb.

-Do your research. Figure out what has worked for other products in your space. For everything people try during a launch, the 80/20 principle still applies: most things don’t move the needle much. Use that knowledge to find leverage for your own launch to create big results. You aren’t reinventing the wheel here, doing your homework will save you time and stress. It will prevent fruitless chasing of vanity metrics.

-Have you run a premortem? In a premortem you look to envision what could go wrong in advance, before your launch. Today everyone from startups to Fortune 500 companies and the Harvard Business Review are using it to find big mistakes (and to prepare for unpleasant surprises) before they launch a product. The premortem goes back to the ancient Stoics, who had an even better name for it: premeditatio malorum(premeditation of evils). We can do the same for our launches, not only to find mistakes before they happen, but prepare ourselves mentally to expect the unexpected.

-You don’t control the results, only the effort.

-You don’t control the results, only the effort you put in. I’m saying that twice. I would actually say it more times if I had the space. Repeat it to yourself over and over again. Intention and effort are what matters. A million variables outside your control rest between you and a successful launch.

-But speaking of results, limit your real time accounting as much as possible. I’ve probably refreshed the Amazon rank for the book I am launching this month 250 times. That’s about 10% as much as I would have if I wasn’t restraining myself. Don’t waste time checking how far you’ve come or how far you need to go. Stay in the moment and work.

-Plan.

-Despite the narrative in your head, you’re not releasing a blockbuster movie. I repeat, this is not a Hollywood launch. For some reason we all fall into this temptation and it clouds our priorities and prevents success. You don’t need to get all your customers packed into a single week — no newspaper is going to be printing the scores the following Monday. Instead, focus on what matters: attracting the right people early and satisfying them. More will come if you do this right. Think soft opening, not grand opening.

-Make sure you have something else that you can channel your anger, anxiety, and excess energy into like exercise. This way it doesn’t matter how the launch is going, you know you had a good day at the gym, or in the pool or on your bike. Extra benefit: good ideas will come to you here.

-Remember, all’s well that ends well.

-Having a dog or an animal or something totally carefree that you can focus on is nice too. I am going to go water my lawn in a few minutes. It will help.

-Ask questions from the best people in business. Short questions — mostly about what was most effective and least effective. Don’t ask them to do your job. Just help prevent you from fucking up.

-Know that your life will be a mess. Now is not the time to move, to start a new relationship, to finally address some problem you’ve been putting off. Life goes on hold.

-Hey guess what, launching/promotion/marketing isn’t someone else’s job. It’s your job. Even if you hired other people to help, it’s still on you. No one cares about this project more than you. No one is a better spokesperson for it than you. If you think you can hand all this off to someone and still get amazing results, you’re wrong.

-Do crazy things. I’ve vandalized my own billboards. I’ve had clients give away enormous chunks of their own product. I lied to the New York Times, ABC News and the Today Show. Launches are nuts. The ends—almost any ends—justify the means.

-No one else understands what you’re going through. Launches are unique, even people that have been through them have trouble remember just how crazy they make you feel. Accept it and power through.

-Knock as much easy stuff as you can early. Have interviews? Pre-record them. Articles you’re writing? Do them in months in advance. Have travel? Book it. The fewer decisions you have to do while you’re in the shit, the better. Don’t sit around now when you have free time and then complain to everyone else when you’re overwhelmed later. Take advantage of the downtime.

-If you need a favor, ask. Ask people how they can help you. You’d be surprised how much good stuff comes from this.

-Relax man. If it fails, you’ll survive. If it succeeds, you’ll be happy — but don’t let that go to your head either. Because you should remember how easily it could have gone the other way.

Here are some resources on having a killer launch. Read them.

*The Right (and Wrong) Way To Market A Book – Ryan Holiday

*The Growth Hacker Wake Up Call – Slideshare

*Hacking Kickstarter: How to Raise 100,000 In 10 Days – Tim Ferriss

*How to Create a Million-Dollar Business This Weekend – Tim Ferriss

*4 Hour Chef Launch: Summary of Week One – Tim Ferriss

*How We Got Our First 2,000 Users Doing Things That Don’t Scale – Fast Company

*How To Self-Publish A Bestseller: Publishing 3.0 – James Altucher

*What Are Key Strategies To Acquire Your First 100K Users With Zero Marketing Budget? – Quora

Look, if you’re about to ship a product or launch a new company, open a restaurant, or make your debut on stage, you’re already ahead of 99% of the population. People would kill to be where you are.

So there’s no reason to add unnecessary stress or be so hard on yourself. If you approach a launch from the right perspective, you will better be able to remain calm and be successful. You won’t be able to control the obstacles that come your way during a launch, but how you approach and view them will determine how hard they’ll be for you to overcome. The important thing is to learn to be comfortable with the inevitable uncertainty and focus on the present. If you keep your head down and only focus on what you can control (your effort) you’ll be able to deal with the results, good or bad.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can be seen there.

Here’s a Quick Productivity Secret: Don’t Buy Wifi on Flights

I have a productivity secret. It’s a simple one, but it works.

It’s this: I just don’t buy WIFI when I fly. Not at the airport and not in the air.

I didn’t intend for it to be one either. It happened because I was being cheap.

Whether I’m traveling for business (which I do a lot) or pleasure, I deliberately pass on the pretty unbelievable technological breakthrough that makes it possible to connect to the internet at 30,000 feet. That’s it. And it makes me amazingly productive.

Tim Ferriss is right. Email received is a function of email sent. Take yourself off the grid for a second—stop the bleeding—and then go through your inbox offline. You’ll be amazing at how quickly you start banging them out, how many emails you’d saved for later you are now fine with deleting, how easy it is to get back to Inbox zero.

In the air, free of distractions, I have ideas. I have the patience to deal with that problem email I’ve been putting off. I can reflect. It occurs to me to send my girlfriend a nice note. I put together tomorrow’s To Do list. I am re-energized. I have a clear head. (Extra tip: I usually listen to the same song over and over while I do this.)

Of course it’s not just email and planning. I’ve edited books in the air. I’ve filled out Q&As. I’ve written articles. I am writing this article right now, in the air between Dublin and New York. The map on the screen tells me I have about two hours to wrap it up before I land.

I read too. I’m like a binge reader and air travel is my enabler. Give me a cross country (or god forbid, an international one) and I’ll burn through everything I’ve been meaning to read.

But of course, none of this is possible if I am on Gchat or getting hit with real time emails. Or if I’m checking out articles designed deliberately to push my buttons. The whole equation falls apart if the endless choices of the internet are available.

This productivity zone is possible for $9.99-14.99 free. That’s why you shouldn’t fight Airplane Mode. Embrace it. Let it be your friend.

I’m not the only one to do this. In fact, I’ve found it’s a trick shared by some of the busiest people I know. Some of us even plan travel if we feel stuff piling up. It brings new meaning to the advice of the writer John Fante: “When stuck, hit the road.”

The new version: When email is piling up, when you have a bunch of boring things you don’t want to do, when you need edit/write/create, book a long flight.

Everyone knows that reading is important, and most of us wish we did more of it.

If you want a satisfying feeling, here it is—opening up the laptop when I get to the hotel or back to my house and seeing the outbox launch a hundred emails one right after another, like paratroopers out of the back of a transport plane.

How much have I actually saved doing this? I don’t know—a thousand dollars over the last five years? But that’s pennies compared to the work I got done.

Next time you fly, treat yourself to not getting WIFI. You’ll thank me.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can bee seen there.

Reading Isn’t A Race: How Speed Reading And Spritz Completly Miss The Point

Reading is good. So reading faster must be better right?

This is the well-meaning logic behind every person who googles “speed reading” and all the recent excitement about the Spritz speed reading app that makes it possible to read 1,000 words per minute. It’s one of the reasons people like ebooks so much too.

The problem is that it’s wrong. Not stupid wrong, it just misses the point.

I took a speed reading course and read “War and Peace” in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. —Woody Allen

Reading is the quiet time in which you reflect and learn, it is not a race. It is where you teach yourself that which you don’t know—it is your time with some of the smartest (or at least different) people who’ve ever lived. This is not something to be rushed through, but enjoyed, savored and done deliberately.

In fact, smart readers do more than just comprehend words. They ask questions, they take notes, they look things up, they make connections, they produce marginalia. People who read a lot of books spend a lot of time reading. There’s no way around this.

But still, everyone asks how to do it faster. Let me tell you why this is so short sighted:

-If you find yourself wanting to speed up the reading process on a particular book, you may want to ask yourself, “Is this book any good?” Life is too short to read books you don’t enjoy reading.

-Yes some people read faster than others, just like some people eat faster or walk faster. But when you ask, almost all of them don’t think or know that they read fast. In other words, it’s not conscious. We all have our own pace.

-The best way to read quickly is to be smart and, paradoxically, well-read. Like anything, you get faster at reading the more knowledge and experience you bring to the table. You can guess where things are going, you don’t need to double back to check things, and you won’t get caught by surprise. It’s how you build up cumulative advantage.

-Seriously, give me some examples from history of greats who were “speed readers.” I can name many who were dyslexic and struggled through books anyway like Alexander Graham Bell, Leonardo Da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg and Richard Branson, but I can’t think of a speed reader. I’ll say it again: People who read a lot do it because they love it and put time towards it.

-I like to remind myself that no matter how fast or how many books I’ll read in my life, I’ll never have or surpass a small branch public library. And this thought calms me. Who am I trying to beat? The only thing that matters is if you’re getting smarter and better.

-How many books do you really need or want to read in a week? The most I’ve ever done was 7 (some were short, reading was all I really did that week). I’ll be honest: I don’t remember ONE of those books.

-Let’s say it again once more: if a book is skimmable, skip it altogether. You don’t get a prize for completing it. And there are better ones out there.

-Tackle the big books that will take you a while. No one speed reads The Power Broker. But if you make a go at it, it may just change your life.

-On the other hand, if you find yourself hitting a wall with a book and start to feel the Resistance, don’t feel ashamed to jump to another book to keep the chain going. I also apply this to my work life so I’m never stuck and always have something productive to do.

-Also ask yourself, “Am I reading slowly on this book because it’s poorly written?” You have paid the author once for the book and again with your attention. If they haven’t delivered value back to you in the form of a clear, coherent and masterful book then put it down and find someone else who can. The author is also supposed to pull the reader from page to page.

-An important part about reading is taking notes, marking the passages and quotes that you find to be important. Tell me how you plan to do that with an app that turns your book into a series of flashcards.

-Reading, especially reading physical books, is about seeing a concept laid out in front of you. It’s seeing the paragraph, the sentence, the page. As the great literary critic Northrop Frye once said, “The most technologically efficient machine that man has ever invented is the book.” I’m with Northrup, I don’t anticipate any technology, especially Spritz, beating a book anytime soon.

-This is an issue I don’t think Spritz can solve. They know that sometimes books have charts right? And what about the translator’s introduction, footnotes, and editors notes? All of this is important and I never skip them because this information adds context and sets the stage for the text you’re reading.

-Doing this is akin to cutting out establishing shots in movies. What about all those downs in football where they aren’t throwing the ball? Or the set up and communication in baseball before a pitch? Don’t ever tell me why you came to think something, just tell me your final conclusion with no context. Life would be so much better without all that “waste” wouldn’t it?

-I like Richard Feynman’s line about how if you can’t explain something in a simple straightforward way then you probably don’t understand it yourself. This is unfortunately true for far too many books. If you’re reading a book where the writing is obtuse or the author can’t easily explain what they claim to be an expert about, they’re probably a charlatan. Put the book down—that will save you some valuable time.

-What are you going to do with this time you “save” speed reading? Work more? Watch more TV? Respond to email? Ugh. By doing this you miss out on all the ancillary benefits of reading: peace, quiet and concentration. Don’t toss that out.

-I’ll put it another way: Why is this the area in your life you’re trying to optimize? I’m laughing thinking of the time we waste in meetings, in traffic, in restaurants waiting for the check, on projects we’ll quit halfway through, on small talk and a million other ridiculous, preventable things. But reading books is the wasteful part we need to address. Be serious.

-I think I know why people focus on speed reading. They want the results without the work. There is and never will be a substitute. Put the time in, you’ll get the results.

I promised myself I wouldn’t end this with a cliche as simple was “quality over quantity” but I think you know that it’s true. The same applies for working out—there are tricks and strategies that could help you get most of the effects of a full workout in just 15 minutes. But I’ll tell you what: is that even worth putting your gym clothes on for? Are you actually decompressing and getting your mind off work in that short of time? Do you really want to be the person who crams a leisurely but important process down into mere minutes and loses the intangible benefits in the process?

Because that’s what speed reading does.

Reading is a ritual thousands of years old. One partaken in by some of the smartest, wisest and most accomplished people who ever lived. And you want to rush it so you can get back to TV or Twitter?

There’s a better way: Take it slow and do it a lot.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can be seen there.

Print Out Good Advice And Put It Where You Work (You Won’t Be Able To Run Away From It)

 

I’m not sure where I stole the idea from, but I am a big proponent of printing out good advice and putting it right in front of your desk, or wherever you work everyday. So you cannot run from the advice, so you see it enough times that it becomes imprinted in your mind.

The first quote I ever did this for was an admonishment from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I was 19 years old and it was exactly what I needed to be told.

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

–But it’s nicer here…

So you were born to feel ‘nice?’ Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands?

–But we have to sleep sometime…

Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don’t love yourself enough. Or you’d love your nature too and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash and eat.

At the time, it was how I reminded myself to get off my ass, to stop being lazy, and to work hard. I’m sure if you recall back to your college days you can relate–not wanting to get up for class, the first time in your life no one could tell you what to do. It was so much nicer to blow everything off.

This advice helped me. I had that exact conversation with myself many morning–and that was possible because I’d memorized the script.

But one day a few years later, I realized: This is not my problem anymore. This is not what I need to be reminded about. And that’s when the rotation began.

I remember which came next. It was something Robert Greene said to me over lunch. I was working full time at American Apparel but planning my next move, saving my money and thinking about writing a book. He told me, Ryan while people wait for the right moment, there are two types of time: Dead time—where they are passive and biding and Alive time—where they are learning and acting and getting the most out of every second. Which will this be for you?

That went right up on the wall: “Alive Time vs Dead Time”

When I caught myself sitting on my hands or goofing off as I waited, that jolted me back into line. When I got distracted with silly politics or wanderlust, I came back to it. It helped me make the most of my time as I was preparing for my next move. Even now I think of it when I get complacent. But eventually, I internalized it and could move on.

Today, I have three quotes printed and framed above my desk. Well, technically on the side of my desk right now because I built it into a closet, but I stare at them everyday.

One of these dates back to New Orleans (taped to a window in the tiny room of the old mansion we lived in), another to my time in New York (where I hung them on the wall by the desk under the loft bed) and now one came from my time in Austin (as I said, to the left of the desk on the closet wall).

One reminds me about how to live, one reminds me what to think about as a businessman and entrepreneur, the other reminds me what to think as a writer. At different times they have meant different things to me but they are reminders I need always. You’ll see from the photos that they are nothing fancy. Index cards, tape and a frame from WalMart, actually.

Quote #1:

“Some lack the fickleness to live as they wish and just live as they have begun.” -Seneca

The line from Seneca is in line with my theory on dropping out. It’s from his excellent essay On The Shortness of Life. The point is, sometimes you have to quit. Just because you started something, just because you’re good at something, doesn’t mean you must continue. Sometimes you have to make hard right turns. Fickleness is a good thing. It means you’re being picky with your time. Life is too short to be anything but.

Quote # 2:

“A sustained interest, a constant variety, a consummate blend of humor and pathos, of narrative and argument, of description and declamation; while every part is subordinated to the purpose of the whole, and combines, despite its intricacy of deal, to form a dramatic and coherent unit.” H. Grose Hodge.

The line is a quote about one of Cicero’s great speeches from his translator the Loeb/Harvard series. Cicero’s defense of Cluentius (accused of parricide) checks about every box that a writer or a speaker must check and Hodge’s description provides a pithy summary of the duties of a writer. I printed this quote out when I was struggling with my first book and trying to figure out the tone and voice I needed to be successful. I still think of it often because it reminds me, as a writer, how to regard my audience, how to think about my style and my approach. This stays on the wall because I’m not sure I’ll ever really master it.

Quote # 3:

In today’s global economy here is what is scarce:

1. Quality land and natural resources

2. Intellectual property, or good ideas about what should be produced.

3. Quality labor with unique skills

Here is what is not scarce these days:

1. Unskilled labor, as more countries join the global economy

2. Money in the bank or held in government securities, which you can think of as simple capital, not attached to any special ownership rights (we know there is a lot of it because it has been earning zero or negative real rates of return).”

-Tyler Cowen, Average Is Over

The line from Tyler Cowen is a new one, but it makes me both optimistic and on guard for the future. It comes from one of my favorite books of 2013. I know that I am primed and poised to obtain some of the scarce resources Cowen discusses. Others? I’m not so sure. So I need to see this to remind me to get working.

These quotes are a little peculiar, I know. They have saved me countless troubles, helped me with untold opportunities.

I’m sure as time goes by, these quotes will change. The one about writing is already showing signs of wear—literally and figuratively. I hope to one day earn the opportunity to upgrade to different advice. Something that pushes me to apply myself in different ways and improve my craft. Thankfully, I have a book of quotes to choose from.

But so far nothing has struck me. Choosing the right quote for your desk is very much an inspired-moment-stars-aligned-epiphany kind of thing. You’re reading a book or talking with someone and BAM it hits you…that’s exactly what I needed to hear, you think. Or, I believe that thing to be true in my very soul. And so you take the step to memorialize it.

What quotes make sense for your? No one can say. But choose wisely–not what you want to hear but what you need to hear. And maybe it doesn’t need to be on your desk. Perhaps your nightstand, your bathroom mirror or tattooed on your body.

The point is: find the advice you need and put it where you will see it. Then listen to it.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can be seen there.

A Winner Does…

We all have our own definition of winning. But as Aristotle famously said, excellence is not an end but a habit. It is a series of standards and defaults that one must continually meet. In other words, just because you’ve won something, doesn’t mean you’re a winner. It just means you’ve won. There is still work left to be done.

With that in mind, these are the standards I aspire to, that I have seen and admired in other winners past and present. I’m sure you have your own.

*A winner can communicate.

*A winner was once an apprentice (even if only from afar). They do their best to honor that debt.

*A winner values time over money.

*A winner studies what they do. Their own personal experience is not enough.

*A winner reads (at the very least, biographies or audiobooks).

*A winner is decent to strangers—answering questions, giving directions, picking up stuff that’s dropped, opening doors.

*A winner takes pain, maybe even delights in it a little.

*A winner doesn’t “exercise,” they train in something (martial arts, running, swimming, biking, cross fit, boxing, weights, whatever).

*A winner can influence through silence.

*A winner controls—or at least can articulate—their vices. Particularly those that may conflict with their craft or competition.

*A winner picks up the check.

*A winner travels light.

*A winner has a routine. Maybe they get up early, maybe they work late into the night. But they have a routine.

*A winner doesn’t get distracted by outrage porn—they’re busy dealing with their own problems.

*A winner has a working knowledge of history (particularly what relates to their field).

*A winner respects other winners and relates to them.

*A winner pays people to do what they can’t do. Winners are part of—or rather, leaders of—a team..

*A winner has their own moral code (in a good way: they adhere to a set of principles).

*A winner doesn’t recognize “weekends.” They often forget what day it is…because it doesn’t matter.

*A winner turns procrastination and other such weaknesses to a motivating advantage.

*A winner doesn’t need credit, it is enough to see his work out in the world.

*A winner doesn’t get flustered, they remain calm in the face of adversity and stress. They are the calm.

*A winner doesn’t talk about their plans, they keep them to themselves and then do it.

*A winner doesn’t stop—neither at success or after failure.

*A winner wants other people to be successful too. Often, they want this more than the other people want it for themselves.

*A winner has an outlet other than work.

*A winner can be anyone. Why not you?

What else does a winner do? You tell me.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments Can be seen there. Thanks to Edward Druce for this inspiration on the format of this post. 

Stoicism: Practical Philosophy You Can Actually Use

When most people think of “philosophy,” their eyes glaze over. It’s the last thing they want, let alone something they need.

But this, as you already know, is silly and naive.

Philosophy is not just about talking or lecturing, or even reading long, dense books. In fact, it is something men and women of action use—and have used throughout history—to solve their problems and achieve their greatest triumphs. Not in the classroom, but on the battlefield, in the Forum, and at court.

It was jotted down (and practiced) by slaves, poets, emperors, politicians and soldiers, as well as ordinary folks to help with their own problems and those of their friends, family and followers. This wisdom is still there, available to us.

Specifically, I am referring to Stoicism, which, in my opinion, is the most practical of all philosophies.

A brief synopsis on this particular school of Hellenistic philosophy: Stoicism was founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd century BC, but was famously practiced by the likes of Epictetus, Cato, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. The philosophy asserts that virtue (such as wisdom) is happiness and judgment be based on behavior, rather than words. That we don’t control and cannot rely on external events, only ourselves and our responses.

But at the very root of the thinking, there is a very simple, though not easy, way of living. Take obstacles in your life and turn them into your advantage, control what you can and accept what you can’t.

In the words of Epictetus:

“In life our first job is this, to divide and distinguish things into two categories: externals I cannot control, but the choices I make with regard to them I do control. Where will I find good and bad? In me, in my choices.”

Amazingly we still have access to these ideas, despite the fact that many of the greatest Stoics never wrote anything down for publication. Cato definitely didn’t. Marcus Aurelius never intended for Meditations to be anything but personal. Seneca’s letters were, well, letters and Epictetus’ thoughts come to us by way of a note-taking student.

And so it was from their example, their actions, we find real philosophy.

Because other than their common study of the philosophy, the Stoics were all men of action—and I don’t think this is a coincidence. Marcus Aurelius was emperor of the most powerful empire in the history of the world. Cato, the moral example for many philosophers, defended the Roman republic with Stoic bravery until his defiant death. Even Epictetus, the lecturer, had no cushy tenure—he was a former slave.

And this shouldn’t really be that surprising…

The modern day philosopher and writer Nassim Nicholas Taleb defines a Stoic as someone who, “transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation and desire into undertaking.”

Using this definition as a model we can see that throughout the centuries Stoicism has been a common thread though some of history’s great leaders. It has been practiced by Kings, presidents, artists, writers and entrepreneurs. Both historical and modern men illustrate Stoicism as a way of life.

Prussian King, Frederick the Great, was said to ride with the works of the Stoics in his saddlebags because they could, in his words, “sustain you in misfortune”.

Meanwhile, Montaigne, the politician and essayist, had a line from Epictetus carved into the beam above the study in which he spent most of his time.

The founding fathers were also inspired by the philosophy. George Washington was introduced to Stoicism by his neighbors at age seventeen, and afterwards, put on a play about Cato to inspire his men in that dark winter at Valley Forge. Whereas Thomas Jefferson had a copy of Seneca on his nightstand when he died.

The economist Adam Smith’s theories on the interconnectedness of the world—capitalism—were significantly influenced by the Stoicism that he studied as a schoolboy, under a teacher who had translated Marcus Aurelius’ works.

The political thinker, John Stuart Mill, wrote of Marcus Aurelius and Stoicism in his famous treatise On Liberty, calling it “the highest ethical product of the ancient mind.”

But those influenced by the Stoics goes on…

Eugène Delacroix, the renowned French Romantic artist (known best for his painting Liberty Leading the People) was an ardent Stoic, referring to it as his “consoling religion.”

Toussaint Louverture, himself a former slave who challenged an emperor by leading the Haitian revolution, read and was deeply influenced by the works of Epictetus.

Theodore Roosevelt, after his presidency, spent eight months exploring (and nearly dying in) the unknown jungles of the Amazon, and of the eight books he brought on the journey, two were Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations and Epictetus’ Enchiridion.

Indeed, Teddy seems to represent the temperance and self control of the philosophy beautifully when he said, “What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice”. Likewise he expressed the necessity of action advocated by the Stoics when he famously remarked,

“We must all wear out or rust out, everyone of us. My choice is to wear out”.

Today’s leaders are no different, with many finding their inspiration from the ancient texts. Bill Clinton rereads Marcus Aurelius every single year, while Wen Jiabao, the former prime minister of China, claims that Meditations is one of two books he travels with and has read it more than one hundred times over the course of his life.

You see, Stoicism—and philosophy—are not the domains of idle professors. They are the succor of the successful, and the men and women of action. As Thoreau put it: “To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school…it is to solve some of the problems of life not only theoretically, but practically.”

The mantle is ours to pick up and carry and do with what we can.

This column originally appeared on Classical Wisdom Weekly. Comments can bee seen there.

What Matters: Information vs. Knowledge vs. Experience

@gapingvoid

There’s no question that self-education has never been easier.

We can consume countless blog posts, articles, books, videos, TED talks, and Reddit AMAs. We take MOOCs, and can study along with course syllabuses from Ivy League universities. It’s awesome. And best of all, no one can criticize effort spent on becoming informed.

But there is a dark side to this glut of free information. It’s enabled a whole industry of self-help gurus, life coaches, and social media marketers to sell snake oil to the masses, tricking people–people who genuinely want to improve their lives–into thinking they can get something for nothing.

I would never discourage someone from learning, especially extra-curricular learning. I’ll just say that it’s only an education (in the schooling vs. education sense of the word) if that learning is turned into knowledge.

And knowledge requires more than just books and instruction. It requires experience. It needs the interplay–the back and forth feedback loop–between theory and practice, hypothesis and results, ideas and action. Reading case studies and listening to the latest social media gurus isn’t going to get you very far unless you have something practice the lessons on. Education without experience is masturbation. As the saying goes, non scholae, sed vitae discimus—not for school but for life we learn.

So how do you do it? How do you turn you turn lessons into action? Information into insight?

First, you have to just start. As Austin Kleon put it “Don’t wait until you know who you are to get started.” That’s the whole point—you figure it out by doing. So none of this nonsense about “being ready.”

This is both the simplest and hardest way to separate yourself from your peers. Why? Because while everyone else is studying, you’re working. What makes it hard is that we’ve been told our whole lives is that you need a degree, you need prerequisites, you need to be properly trained. Drop out, get started.

Of course, your education is never over. Doing and learning feed into each other and the sooner you start, the better. As Plutarch puts it, “I did not so much gain the knowledge of things by the words, as words by the experience of things.”

So don’t hold out for your dream job or the perfect opportunity. The perfect opportunity is the one that exists, that gives you any kind of experience, the one that allows you to put anything you’ve learned into practice. The perfect opportunity you keep picturing in your head? That’s your ego protecting you from change — the feeling of pain and failure that is deliberate practice and experimentation.

Don’t wait to be paid for it either. The opportunity is the payment. You want a good job for purely selfish reasons here—you want a place where you can experiment with your ideas and theories. Think about it like being a grad student, you want access to the laboratory where you can run experiments (that they pay you a little bit is a bonus). For some more thoughts on this, check out my piece on mentorships, Charlie Hoehn’s Recession Proof Graduate, or Robert Greene’s chapters on apprenticeships in Mastery.

Second, process. It’s very easy for learning to go in one ear and out the other. Making a concerted effort to record and process what you’re observing and being taught helps prevent that.

If you read a lot, take notes on what you read and transfer those notes into a commonplace book, where you can organize your thoughts. Repeating and reiterating what you’ve learned helps make connections and improve memory. Organizing it into a system means it will be so much easier to retrieve when you need it. There’s a reason that smart people often carry around a notebook.

Writing articles is my favorite. I am always looking for ways to take interesting things I’ve seen, heard or read and see how I can write about them. Using a quote you like forces you not only to recall it better, but means you have to add analysis and interpretation to it. If I experience someone provocative, I try to write about that too. I can still remember snippets and pieces advices I was given (and studies, anecdotes and examples) that I mentioned in blog posts five or six years ago.

It doesn’t have to be writing though. You can process by talking, teaching, or a lot of other means. Struggling to explain what you’re working on feels painful, but it helps. By the end of it, you understand it better. Trust me, it also helps with your sanity.

The point is you have to articulate and analyze what you are seeing. It’s the only way to take the sparks of thought in your brain and turn them into a coherent understanding that you can use for other things, whatever it may be (explaining it to others, writing an article about it, solving a personal problem, etc). Don’t worry about form over function here. It doesn’t matter if no one reads your blog posts, if your girlfriend/boyfriend only half understands your breathless explanations. Just do it.

Third, expose, then apply. Analogous thinking (where thinking from one domain is applied to another) is incredibly powerful—it’s where real creative breakthroughs happen. But you know, there are two critical ingredients there. An interest in something, and the initiative to try to translate it.

I remember exactly how I got into marketing. Before I worked for Tucker, before American Apparel, I had a job working at a restaurant between high school and college. I had developed a relationship with the owner, who could see I was more than just a kid. And I had been avidly reading these local political blogs and noticed that the bloggers would talk about stuff other than politics. I suggested that the guy offer a few of them free meals if they would come in and review the place. The bloggers gave him a bunch of free press. I think he paid me $250 for this idea. Even in my wildest expectations, I never would have guessed I would I later write a book about these exact kinds of transactions.

I was working as a server but I had learned and studied something on the side. I combined the two. My career followed. Connections between ideas don’t magically happen. Knowledge doesn’t become action on it’s own. You have to do it. But my idea was only possible because of step one and two—I’d taken some crappy job rather than sitting at home and I’d been fooling around learning and writing. Then I connected the two.

Read and learn widely, but apply those lessons to whatever you happen to be doing. Make connections–however absurd they may seem. You never know where it will lead.

“Many who have learned from Hesiod

the countless names of gods and monsters

never understand that night and day are one” – Heraclitus

The bottom line is that you can read the best books, have the best teachers and go to the best schools in the world, but compared to people who do things for a living, you’ll still be a fool. I love reading more than almost anything, probably more than I should. But even I’ll admit that it would be a waste of time if I just let it all accumulate in my head. More than that, I wouldn’t truly know what I’d read because I’d never put myself out there, applied it or made connections.

You can’t put your stamp on the world being a passive student. The proving grounds are in the real world. This means taking risks, it means exposing yourself to new things and putting your own spin on them.

So get going.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can bee seen there.

How To Beat Procrastination

Being productive is really a battle. It’s the worst kind of battle: a battle against yourself.

When most people talk about productivity they miss the point. They talk about external distractions and minimizing those influences. They encourage all sorts of external productivity tools and services. That’s all great but it sort of shifts the blame from where it rightly lies: on us, on our tendencies.

The author Steven Pressfield calls this the Resistance. When we sit down to do any important project whether it’s writing a book or a business plan, we face Resistance. The bigger the project, the more vulnerable or creative it forces us to be, the stronger the resistance.

We’re not productive because of the Resistance. In other words, productivity is not a matter of organization or distractions, it is primarily a matter of dealing with and redirecting the Resistance.

I’ll give you an example. I am working on a book proposal right now that requires me to examine some uncomfortable stuff. I also don’t totally have a handle on the concept as a whole, which basically means that every second I work on it is excruciating and difficult.

This is the reason I seek the relief of distractions. It’s definitely not because I’m unorganized. So I pop open Facebook, I come up with reasons to call people, I go around and bother my animals. I say, “Hey, let’s go out to breakfast, I’ll work there,” even though I know that I won’t.

Now, I could eliminate those particular problems or throw away my car keys, but like any addict I’d just find a new one. You’d find me doing whatever the productivity-equivalent of drinking rubbing alcohol is. Anything to take the edge off.

God knows how much energy is wasted by creative people this way. It’s a nervous energy, a pain-driven energy that must be channeled and sloughed off. White knuckling it? Well, that’s not exactly a solution.

I’m reminded of a quote from the dog trainer Cesar Millan, “Never work against Mother Nature. You only succeed when you work with her.” But how do you work with something that tries to distract and undermine what you’ve set out to do?

The key is to find some way to harness and redirect that negative energy.

When I find myself looking for an escape–I have a list of activities I can do that are productive ways to channel the resistance:

-I will take notes on a book I read for my commonplace book.

-I will go through my starred emails in my inbox (emails that didn’t immediately require a response which I’ve marked from the last 7 days or so).

-I will cross the business items off my to do list (review 15five reports, edit documents or research my team did, etc).

They are little pieces of big, never-ending projects that I can always make a little contribution to. They are always there–no matter what else I happen to be working on. This means I can always turn to them and use them as a productive excuse.

As Jerry Seinfeld put it, you want to find the pain you’re comfortable with. That’s the secret. Those are all activities I hate, but can tolerate. It puts me right between the horns of a dilemma. Work, or different work–and either one I choose moves me forward.

This is also where being good at more than one thing can help you. If all you do is write, then the opposite is not-writing. But if you write and consult, well you can run from writing into the arms of consulting or vice versa.

(On a side note, I think this is why creative people spend a lot of time thinking/producing work on being creative. It’s a way to work and practice their craft even though deep down they know they’re putting off a harder version of it.)

The real benefit of those tasks isn’t just setting up some sort of Sophie’s choice. It’s that when I put off writing or thinking about something and cross those other items off the list, I start to accumulate some momentum. When I switch tracks again, that momentum carries over. It makes it easier to get through whatever Resistance was holding me back.

So that’s my productivity secret. It’s not about systems. It’s not about technology–you don’t need Evernote or 37Signals to do it.

It’s about having a set of tasks that you can always do when you feel like procrastinating. This way you turn your least productive habit–running away from your work–into a potent motive force.

All that’s left to decide is what that happens to be for you.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can bee seen there.

Stoic Lessons From The Front: How To Turn Obstacles Into Opportunity

The history of war and combat is filled with stories of men (and women) snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. Impossible circumstances, unfavorable odds, somehow they still lead to almost miraculous triumphs. What I set out to do with my latest book was study the traits that make this possible and how they can be applied to life, across disciplines.

It turns out that there is one philosophy—battle tested at the front—that shows us the way: Stoicism. Best articulated by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (who spent 17 years of a 19-year reign at war) with the simple line:

“The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.”

A parade of military legends followed his example—Frederick the Great, George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and James Stockdale. Not to mention the countless (and nameless) brave men and women who served with and after them. They all figured out how to turn obstacles upside down—how to turn what was in the path, into the path. What follows are three examples of how to follow this formula in our own lives, to turn any and every obstacle we face into opportunity.

Steady Your Nerves

During the Civil War, Union troops were unloading a steamboat near Union headquarters outside Richmond when it suddenly exploded. Everyone hit the dirt as debris and shells and even bodies rained down—everyone but Ulysses S. Grant who, as the leader of the Union forces, was seen running toward the scene of the explosion. Grant’s nerve is an example of someone who has steadied himself with grace and poise to persevere through the trial that was the Civil War.

We can learn from Grant. His choice—and make no mistake, it was a choice—to run toward the chaos was just one of many similar instances over the course of the greatest trial in American history in which he steadied himself with grace and poise in order to persevere. In our normal daily lives things are going to happen that catch us off guard—surprises are almost guaranteed. Regardless of how much actual danger we’re in, stress puts us at the mercy of our baser, fearful instincts for self-preservation. This prevents us from acting with what the English call a “cool head,” or even acting at all. Talent is not what is needed here. It is grace and poise, for they are the two attributes that give us the opportunity to reliably deploy any other skill in our arsenal. Like Grant, we can refuse to be intimidated, and use our steady calm to act boldly and overcome the obstacles that inevitably come our way. There is almost no situation in which a strong nerve does not help.

Work For Something Larger Than Yourself

When United States Navy fighter pilot James Stockdale was captured by the North Vietnamese in 1965, he knew (even as his parachute was deploying) that he would be the highest-ranking Navy POW they had ever taken prisoner. He knew he couldn’t do anything about his fate, but as a commanding officer he knew he could provide leadership and support and direction for his fellow prisoners (who included future senator John McCain). Stockdale made this his cause, and he acted with it at the forefront of his mind for the next seven years; two of which were spent wearing leg irons in solitary confinement.

There are times when we feel helpless, as if there is nothing we can do for ourselves because of the obstacles we face, like the world is against us. That may be true, but when we choose to focus on others—by providing assistance or being a good example—our own personal fears and troubles inevitably diminish. Stockdale gave his fellow POWs a mantra: Unity over Self. Put that in the forefront of your mind.

When it comes to obstacles we face in life and the reactions they provoke—boredom, hatred, frustration, or confusion—we have the power to submit to a greater, larger cause in our most difficult times. To wrest an opportunity from the difficult circumstances we find ourselves in. Like Stockdale, by thinking how we can make it better for other people—wherever we happen to be working, whatever we happen to be doing—we can create a mission for ourselves and get unstuck.

Find The Opportunity Within The Obstacle

The German Blitzkrieg was one of the most intimidating forces in modern warfare. During World War II, opposing commanders simply surrendered rather than face what felt like a terrifying monster bearing down on them. But General Dwight D. Eisenhower took a different tack after the invasion of Normandy. At Allied headquarters in Malta, Eisenhower told his deflated generals: “The present situation is to be regarded as opportunity for us and not disaster.”

Instead of flinching, Eisenhower searched and found the opportunity inside the obstacle rather than allow himself to become overwhelmed by the obstacle that had threatened the Allied forces for years. What Eisenhower discovered was that the Blitzkrieg strategy left their flanks exposed. This allowed the Allied forces to attack from the sides and encircle the enemy from the rear.

This is a textbook example of the role our own perceptions play in the success or failure of those that oppose us. Whether it’s a boss we dislike or a friend that has wronged us, we have the ability to push aside our preconceptions and look for the opportunity in the trials that come our way. When someone is causing problems for you—they are likely also offering you up opportunities. It’s all a matter of how you’re looking at the situation. Eisenhower recognized that the Allied lines were getting demolished by the Blitzkrieg. Well, what if we let them through? A-ha! And thus opportunity was born. It’s an important skill we can all develop, to mentally flip our obstacles on their head and find the opportunity within them. Where is your A-ha! moment?

–

Late in his reign, sick and possibly near death, Marcus Aurelius received some surprising news. His friend and most trusted general, Avidius Cassius, had rebelled against him. Instead of getting angry or taking it personally, he turned his friend’s betrayal into an opportunity to promote peace and practice forgiveness. He wouldn’t kill Cassius for his treachery, but would instead capture him and forgive him, “to continue to be faithful to the one who has broken faith.” He would use it as an opportunity to teach the Roman people and the emperors who came after him. The obstacle became the way.

As you can see, there is a pattern in these examples. A terrifying obstacle stood in the way of each of these great men, but they didn’t flinch or get intimidated. As soldiers, they had no choice. They leaned into the problem and gave it everything they had. It is an art we can bring to our own lives, in business, and in relationships, turning our obstacles into the way.

This post originally appeared on RangerUp.com. Comments can be seen there.

My Creative Secret: Quantity Over Quality — And Commitments

I promise I’m not writing this because I have a deadline.

Or, well, I actually kind of am.

See, I’ve found that my output depends almost entirely on my level of commitments (either internal or external).

Consider it kind of a reverse Parkinson’s Law. Parkinson’s Law states that a task will take exactly the amount of time you have budgeted. In this version, I posit that: You will write, produce, do, and turn in more if you have regular, standing commitments that you’d feel bad about breaking.

In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene talks about the “death ground strategy” — that when soldiers have no escape, or are backed into a corner, they fight better and are often impossible to defeat. In it he quotes Sun-Tzu, author of The Art of War: “When warriors are in great danger, then they have no fear. When there is nowhere to go, they are firm, when they are deeply involved, they stick to it. If they have no choice, they will fight.”

This is something we can recreate in our own life. We can make big commitments to produce work — commitments that might seem beyond our limits — and use our desperation as a fuel to power their fulfillment.

The question is: why would you make commitments that stretch your capabilities in the first place? Well that ties into the second thing I have learned. Quantity increases quality.

With creative work, we can get bogged down with perfection — endlessly tinkering and improving, but only as an excuse to delay publishing. Steve Jobs, on the other hand, was notorious for demanding perfect products but also backing the projects against hard ship-dates. In other words, he put his engineers on a Death Ground and they had to fight for their survival — accomplishing more than they thought possible in the process.

We can and should tap into that with our own work, whatever we happen to do.

On my blog, where I can publish as much or as little as I like — I barely squeeze out a post a month. I never feel inspired, I never feel like I have time, I make a million excuses. For Thought Catalog, where I’m asked to contribute one article per week, I almost always hit my mark (and end up with ideas I never would have written otherwise). If I sell a book proposal, I’m going to find time to work on the book — even if I had otherwise felt that my schedule was booked. If I put a writing project on my to do list and schedule the time, I’m going to get a lot more done than if I just waited for inspiration to strike. These external deadlines remove the resistance that may otherwise prevent me from getting stuff done.

At the end of the day, to get good at what you do you have to put thousands and thousands of hours in. But those thousands of hours can’t all happen hidden in your cave like Demosthenes (the Athenian Orator who shaved half his head so he’d be too embarassed to do anything but practice alone). Ultimately, putting your work out — in front of people — is how you grow the most. You get feedback, you develop an intuition for the audience, you learn about your own tastes and preferences.

This is a hurdle young creatives must learn to get over. Ira Glass’ (from This American Life) quote is so good here, I’ll post it in full:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

The same goes for marketing and consulting work: If I sell a certain amount of time or a set of a services, I’ll make it work. If I am just sitting here, thinking about how much time I have for stuff, I feel like I’ll never get it all in. I actually prefer to have someone sell my services for me on commission, because they’ll always push harder than I will. And I will get better and grow in my struggle to meet all those demands.

The point is: our limits are often illusionary. Slovenian cyclist Jure Robic, who may been the world’s greatest endurance athlete, is proof of this. He was also “insane,” which may have contributed to his ability to train 335 days a year in addition to his races.

According to The New York Times, researchers in the 1800s began noticing a link between mental disorders and greater-than-ordinary athletic feats. The German surgeon August Bier once found the long jump of a mentally ill patient measured up near the then-current world record. In the years since, scientists have found links that show that fatigue is at least partially controlled by the brain and central nervous system — and that our actual physical capabilities stretch beyond this.

This is all to say — that resistance you’re feeling? Part of it is just in your head. We have to put ourselves in a position to challenge it. We have to create situations which force us to do more and more and more to see what we’re really capable of. The result is that we’ll improve with each attempt, and like Ira Glass explained, our output will begin to approach our demanding tastes over time.

You can be good at more than one thing. Or you can get really good and master one thing. But either way, the path is clear: lots and lots of work. Think quantity before you give yourself the cop out that “quality” often is.

It’s something I’ve learned over and over again. The more deadlines I set for myself–both internal and external, the more I’m able to produce. It’s the best way I’ve found to prevent lame excuses like “lack of inspiration” or “lack of time” from creeping in. So give yourself some deadlines or force others to set them for you, and when you feel the resistance coming on, think of what Jure would do and sign yourself up for more than you think the body is even capable of taking.

This column originally appeared on Thought Catalog. Comments can be seen there.