Ryan Holiday Quotes

The work I do is not exactly respectable. But I want to explain how it works without any of the negatives associated with my infamous clients. I’ll show how I manipulated the media for a good cause. A friend of mine recently used some of my advice on trading up the chain for the benefit of the charity he runs. This friend needed to raise money to cover the costs of a community art project, and chose to do it through Kickstarter, the crowdsourced fund-raising platform. With just a few days’ work, he turned an obscure cause into a popular Internet meme and raised nearly ten thousand dollars to expand the charity internationally. Following my instructions, he made a YouTube video for the Kickstarter page showing off his charity’s work. Not a video of the charity’s best work, or even its most important work, but the work that exaggerated certain elements aimed at helping the video spread. (In this case, two or three examples in exotic locations that actually had the least amount of community benefit.) Next, he wrote a short article for a small local blog in Brooklyn and embedded the video. This site was chosen because its stories were often used or picked up by the New York section of the Huffington Post. As expected, the Huffington Post did bite, and ultimately featured the story as local news in both New York City and Los Angeles. Following my advice, he sent an e-mail from a fake address with these links to a reporter at CBS in Los Angeles, who then did a television piece on it — using mostly clips from my friend’s heavily edited video. In anticipation of all of this he’d been active on a channel of the social news site Reddit (where users vote on stories and topics they like) during the weeks leading up to his campaign launch in order to build up some connections on the site. When the CBS News piece came out and the video was up, he was ready to post it all on Reddit. It made the front page almost immediately. This score on Reddit (now bolstered by other press as we

To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.

Be fully present.
Empty our mind of preconceptions.
Take our time.
Sit quietly and reflect.

This is what the best journals look like. They aren’t for the reader. They are for the writer. To slow the mind down. To wage peace with oneself.

Be quiet, work hard, and stay healthy. It’s not ambition or skill that is going to set you apart but sanity.

Failure really can be an asset if what you’re trying to do is improve, learn, or do something new.

We think that courage means being unbreakable.
Nah.
It means getting back up when you've been broken.

Because your kids are watching.
Because the cause needs you.
Because you won't let evil triumph.

Getting upset is like continuing the dream while you’re awake. The thing that provoked you wasn’t real — but your reaction was. And so from the fake comes real consequences. Which is why you need to wake up right now instead of creating a nightmare.

There a really simple way to feel better in these crazy times: Do something nice for someone else.

You are what you won't do for money.

Stop wasting your time on these 6 things:

1. Worrying about other people’s opinions
2. Judging other people
3. Putting things off to the future
4. Holding onto the past
5. Arguing with reality
6. Thinking you are going to live forever

you must reclaim the ability to abstain because within it is your clarity and self-control.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Titles feed the ego. Effort feeds the soul.

There is clarity (and joy) in seeing what others can’t see, in finding grace and harmony in places others overlook. Isn’t that far better than seeing the world as some dark place?