The single most important practice in Stoic philosophy is differentiating between what we can change and what we can’t. What we have influence over and what we do not.
“Steve didn’t just challenge others; he insisted that they challenge him back.”
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
“In order to build a great team, you need to understand how each person’s job fits into their life goals. You need to get to know each person who reports directly to you, to have real, human relationships—relationships that change as people change. When putting the right people in the right roles on your team, you’ll also have to challenge people even more directly than you did with guidance—and in a way that will impact not just their feelings but also their income, their career growth, and their ability to get what they want out of life. Building a team is hard.”
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
“When Steve Jobs was a kid, his neighbor showed him a rock tumbler—a can that spun on a motor. The neighbor asked Steve to gather up some ordinary rocks from the yard. He took the stones, threw them into the can, added some grit, turned on the motor, and, over the racket, asked Steve to come back two days later. When Steve returned to the noisy clatter of the garage, the neighbor turned off the contraption and Steve was astounded to see how the ordinary rocks had become beautiful polished stones. Steve would later say that when a team debated, both the ideas and the people came out more beautiful—results well worth all the friction and noise.5 Your job as a boss is to turn on that “rock tumbler.”
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
“But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future. When they come to the end of it, the poor wretches realize too late that for all this time they have been preoccupied in doing nothing.”
― On the Shortness of Life
― On the Shortness of Life
“loud listening is about saying things intended to get a reaction out of them. This was the way Steve Jobs listened.”
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
― Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
Brian’s 2024 Year in Books
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