"The Art Spirit", by Robert Henri is about creativity through the lens of an art student.  The book starts, "Art, when really understood, is a province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things - anything. Well, it is not an outside extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature. He opens ways for better understanding." Startups are interesting to others. They don't have to be painters to be artists. They can work in any medium.

Startups are like artists

It's not just how important the end product is but the actual craft of doing the work, inventing within the work. Few have the courage and stamina to see it through. You have to make up your mind to be alone in many ways.

Learn how important the work is

The old masters did know how they compose their pictures. Do not fall into the conventions they established. These conventions were right for them.  It's easy to fall in the footsteps of others, to do what they do because you think it's the right way. You may think if they've had success, you can copy that success. Yet, you have to find your own path to be successful.

Do what has not been done before

An art student must be a master from the start. He must be a master of his own tools. That mastership is not a destination. It is a process and constant practice. It is not enough to think of great things. What really matters is the work. To implement those ideas. Other's success seems like it happened in just a moment, but it takes years and years of patience.

Be a master of your own tools

If you don't have purpose that is shared between everyone, you will not do anything that is timeless. You must focus on building what you want to see in the world. When you have a passion for building for yourself, that' will draw other people to your cause and your team.

You cannot do anything without a shared sense of purpose 

Bill Walsh took a football team near the bottom and brought them to the top. He focused entirely on a new standard of performance. The most challenging transition for an entrepreneur is going from individual action to leading a team. First, start with an idea and a philosophy of purpose, then find people to help you implement it.

The Score Takes Care of Itself, by Bill Walsh

<ol><li>Start with a comprehensive recognition of reverence for identifying the specific actions and attitudes relevant to your team's performance.</li><li>Be clear on your expectations of effort and execution of your standard.</li><li>Let all know that you expect them to possess the highest level of expertise in their area.</li><li>Teach your beliefs, values and your philosophy.</li><li>Teach connection and extension. You don't want independent contractors, you want people who feel connected that can expand the organization.</li><li>Make the expectations and metrics of competence.</li></ol>

Establish a standard of performance

<ol><li>Be yourself</li><li>Be committed to excellence</li><li>Be positive</li><li>Be prepared to recognize fortunate situations and act on them immediately. Good luck is a product of good planning.</li><li>Act professional. Push in your chairs, tuck in your shirts. If you build an organization that does that, you build an organization that cares about itself.</li><li>Be organized.</li><li>Be accountable</li><li>Be near-sighted and far-sighted.</li><li>Be firm</li><li>Be flexible</li><li>Believe in yourself</li><li>Be a leader. Ensure to show and not tell.</li></ol>

Habits of a leader

<ol><li>Exbihit paralyzing patience.</li><li>Engage in massive delegating. </li><li>Act in a tedious, overly cautious manner.</li><li>Become best buddies with certain employees or play favouritism.</li><li>Spend excessive time socializing with superiors or subordinates</li><li>Fail to continue performance evaluations of long-time or tenured staff members.</li><li>Fail to actively participate in efforts to praise and acquire new hires.</li><li>Trust others to carry out your fundamental duties.</li><li>Find ways to get out from under the responsibilities of your position.</li><li>Promote a laid-back organisational environment.</li></ol>

What not to do

<ol><li>Praise is more valuable than blame.</li><li>Set expectations. Use every means before and after comment to tell troops what they're going to do and what they have done.</li><li>Discipline is based on pride in the profession of arms, meticulous attention to detail, and mutual respect and confidence.</li><li>Officers must assert themselves by example.</li><li>General officers must be seen in the front line during action.</li><li>There's a tendency for the chain of command to overload junior officers with excessive requirements in the way of training.</li></ol>

How General Patton ran his army during World War One

<ol><li>Formally celebrate and observe the momentous achievement and ensure everyone feels ownership of it.</li><li>Allow pats on the back for a limited time.</li><li>Be apprehensive about applause.</li><li>Develop a plan for your staff that gets them back into the mode of operation that produced success.</li><li>Address specific situations that need shoring up. </li><li>Be demanding. Do not relax.</li><li>Don't fall prey to overconfidence. Make change for the sake of change.</li><li>Make hard decisions immediately after success.</li><li>Never fall prey to the belief that getting to the top makes everything easy. It doesn't.</li><li>Mastery is a process, not a destination.</li></ol>

How to protect against the success disease

Keep a list of everything that you want to do every day and a list of things that you don't want to do. This will help to establish patterns for yourself. Every day for a week, wake up to this note. Check it throughout the day and before you fall asleep.For example:Do's<ul><li>Stay present.</li><li>Be vulnerable. Show people your mistakes and fears.</li><li>Drink only lemon water and red wine.</li><li>Exercise.</li></ul> Don't's<ul><li>Don't avoid eye contact.</li><li>Don't be late.</li><li>Don't set expectations for someone and not meet them.</li><li>Don't eat sugar.</li><li>Dont drink hard liquor or beer on weekdays.</li></ul>

Keep daily notes

How to Start a Business: A Startup Guide for Entrepreneurs

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Startups

entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship

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Business

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

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Money & Investments

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Personal Development

The Startup Masterclass

Jack Dorsey at Startup School 2013. Startup School is YC's free online program for founders. Sign up to access the full curriculum and over $100k in deals! https://www.startupschool.org/

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Jack Dorsey at Startup School 2013

Jack Dorsey at Startup School

Human capital is the potential within each individual. Human capital accounts for two-thirds of the average individual's wealth. Half of that value is linked to work experience.  The development continues after formal education, as people gain new skills and capabilities in the workplace. Therefore, organisations that prioritize learning and development can have a significant impact on whether or not an individual reaches their potential.

Meaningful work experience is vital to human capital development

For workers with less education, adding learning and skills through work experience is an important strategy to get ahead in the labour market. People without college degrees who start in low-wage jobs rely more on work experience. They continue to accumulate experience and skills with each role they perform.

Work experience is a more important driver of incomes

Data shows that skills gained through experience account for 60 - 80% of lifetime earnings for those who move up but only 55% for those who stay in one position or drop down. The upward groups changed roles more frequently and made bolder moves that stretched their skills.

Changing roles can pay off, particularly when people make bold moves

Employers who pay attention to organizational health, training, and internal advancement seem to propel people forward. Their employees are more likely to be upwardly mobile. However, 80% of job changes involved people moving to new employers. This points to a missed opportunity. Workers increasingly feel empowered to move to employers that will give opportunities to gain new skills and move up. This calls for a renewed emphasis on coaching and designing internal career paths.

 Individuals get a lift from early experience in effective organizations

3 ways work experience outsmarts formal education for professional development

Human capital is the most important resource in any organisation, meaning the collective knowledge, attributes, skills, experience, and health of the workforce.  Each person in the group has a unique set of capabilities, and the individual decides where to put them to work. Moving to a new role pays off when the position stretches the capabilities of employees or better use their skills.

Human capital

From the McKinsey data sample, roughly a third of US, German, and UK workers, and almost a quarter of Indian workers, are moving one or more quintiles up in their estimated lifetime earnings from their career starting points. This is because they continuously upgrade their skills, raise their income, and build track records that translate into value. But individuals can't make these bold moves unless an employer sees their potential and takes a chance on hiring them.

Increasing lifetime earnings

Work experience builds on the foundation of formal education and increases the value of human capital. Workers not only earn wages but gain knowledge and new capabilities that they carry with them. Someone who starts out taking orders in a fast-food restaurant learns the art of handling difficult customers and staying cool under pressure. Someone who starts in IT by answering questions on a help desk absorbs technical knowledge to use later as a network administator.

Work experience adds to the value of human capital

<ul><li>People who start in occupations with higher educational qualifications earn more than other workers over their lifetimes. Entry-level skills contribute a larger share of those earnings.</li><li>The reverse is generally true for people who start in occupations with lower educational requirements. They often earn less over a lifetime, with the greater share driven by work experience.</li><li>Someone who attended poor-quality schools and lacked any postsecondary education or training is starting from behind in the labour market as employers often rely on college degrees.</li></ul>

Work experience in occupations with higher educational barriers

In advanced economies such as the United States,<ul><li>28 per cent of high school graduates have higher earnings potential than the median holders of associate degrees</li><li>37 per cent of associate degree holders could earn more than median bachelor's degree holders over their lifetimes.</li></ul> The upwardly mobile group appears to be amassing work experience in an effective way that gives real benefits for 60 to 80 per cent of lifetime earnings. However, many people can't make these leaps because of structural and social barriers.

Educational disadvantage does not have to lock in destiny

The average person switches roles every two to four years. These role moves enable people to build or demonstrate their skills. Moves can involve<ul><li>employees assuming new roles within their current company,</li><li>changing workplaces</li><li>changing specialities or occupations</li><li>pursuing a combination of these strategies.</li></ul> Each move increased wages by 6 to 10 per cent on average. Individuals who want to reinvent themselves and take on more senior roles often have to move to a new environment.

Building skills

Those who take on new roles involving bigger changes or challenges receive bigger rewards. When someone made a move for higher pay, their new job typically involved a more significant share of skills and responsibilities that were not part of their previous job. For example, a German worker who started as a welder then changed jobs twice. When he became a maintenance supervisor, the move involved a skill distance of 33 per cent; when he later became a production manager, the move involved a skill distance of 47 per cent. His average skill distance is therefore 40 per cent.

The bolder the move, the bigger the boost

Movement patterns and outcomes of people with more than ten years of work history: <ol><li>Experience seekers start with lower-than-average wages but drive themselves upward by moving roles more frequently and stretching their capabilities.</li><li>Early movers make bigger leaps in the first part of their career. Someone may start in one field, and then realize that their passion lies elsewhere.</li><li>Late movers stay put or make more incremental moves in the early stage of their career but eventually take a bolder step.</li><li>Lock-ins change jobs less frequently because they pursued what suited them from the start.</li></ol>

‘Experience seekers’ and ‘early movers’ boost their earnings through effective career moves

Companies that offer more structured training for their employees and provide more opportunities for internal advancement seem to stand out. Three priorities stand out for companies that help individuals grow.<ol><li>Understand the potential in people as well as their current knowledge and skills.</li><li>Embrace mobility. Employers can attract the best candidates among the big talent pool and boost the productivity and engagement of valued employees who stay.</li><li>Strengthen coaching, particularly early in an employee’s tenure as skills development happens day to day on the job.</li></ol>

Employers can attract and retain talent

humanresources

Human Resources

Human capital at work: The value of experience

Entry-level workers have always required a high level of training and supervision, but many companies have been unable to successfully adapt these employees' onboarding processes for a remote environment. By incorporating intelligent AI solutions during onboarding, HR teams can streamline these processes and redefine how they train employees-helping workers go above and beyond what's expected from an entry-level role.

The Entry Level Role

<ul><li>In-person onboarding improves retention and productivity by 82% and 70% respectively</li><li>Virtual onboarding makes employees feel isolated and bogged down by logistics</li><li>A solution may be to thoroughly evaluate your onboarding program and implement AI coaching tools</li></ul>

A Cog In The Wheel

<ul><li>Candidates who have little industry experience but have proven themselves to be "quick learners" and "problem solvers" in other roles can be quickly upskilled and equipped to succeed in roles that previously required years of industry experience</li><li>AI and machine learning can serve up previously successful responses to the objection, allowing the new salesperson to successfully handle the pivot.</li><li>Tech creates more engaged new hires: When employees have the ability to participate in meaningful work right out of the gate, they are more likely to remain with the organization over the long term.</li></ul>

Hire From A Bigger Pool

Gryphon.ai EVP Greg Armor believes that employers should be streamlining processes to help workers go above and beyond what’s expected from an entry-level role.  


career

Career

Could redefining the entry-level worker be the answer to the Great Resignation?

In a world where information is freely available, focus becomes one of the most valuable commodities in the workplace. Productivity is not about getting more things done; it’s about getting the right things done.The core idea is a productivity system to help you focus on working on the right things. First, you’ll stop and define what productivity means to you by formulating, evaluating, and reformulating. Then, you’ll cut the nonessentials by eliminating, automating, and delegating. Finally, you’ll act by consolidating, designating, and activating.

The Premise Of The Book

Formulate: Decide What You WantTrue productivity starts with being clear on what you truly want. The objective of productivity shouldn’t be efficiency or success, but freedom. Productivity should ultimately give you back more time, not require more of you.Freedom to:<ul><li>Focus</li><li>Be Present</li><li>Be Spontaneous</li><li>Do Nothing</li></ul>You should design your life first and then tailor work to meet your lifestyle objectives.

The Free to Focus productivity system: Stop

Start by defining what your productivity ideal looks likeThen break it down into a few powerful and memorable wordsFinally, clarify the stakes by outlining exactly what you stand to gain if you achieve that vision and what you will lose if you don’t

Free To Focus: How To Formulate

You can evaluate tasks, activities, and opportunities based on two key criteria:
<ul>
<li>Passion: work you love and energizes you</li>
<li>Proficiency: how well you actually do something that generates results that other people can measure and reward</li>
</ul>
To determine where you are right now use a tool called the Freedom Compass.

Evaluate: Determine Your Course

<ul>
<li>Desire Zone. Where your passion and proficiency intersect. Here is where you make your most significant contributions.</li>
<li>Distraction Zone. Things you are passionate about but have little proficiency for.</li>
<li>Disinterest Zone. Things that you’re proficient at but aren’t that passionate about. </li>
<li>Drudgery Zone. Tasks for which you have no passion and no proficiency. </li>
<li>Development Zone. How to gauge work outside your Desire Zone but potentially moving toward it. </li>
</ul>
True productivity is about doing more of what is in your Desire Zone and less of everything else.

The 5 Zones of Productivity

<ul>
<li>Sleep. 7-10 hours per night. Turn off screens an hour before bedtime.</li>
<li>Eat. Eat natural foods such as vegetables, fruits, nuts, and meats. Be mindful when eating out. </li>
<li>Move. Exercise itself is an energizer. Physical activity primes our brains to operate at a higher level.</li>
<li>Connect. Some people charge you up while others drain you. </li>
<li>Play. You need regular injections of recreation, exercise, and outright play into your busy schedule.</li>
<li>Reflect. Strive to make time for reflection every day by journaling or meditating.</li>
<li>Unplug. Create rules to help you disconnect during nights, weekends, and vacations.</li>
</ul>

Rejuvenate: Reenergize Your Mind and Body

If we want to be free to focus, we must eliminate everything standing in our way. That doesn’t mean simply saying no to a lot of bad ideas; it also means turning down a ton of good ideas.Everything outside your Desire Zone is a possible candidate for elimination.The yes-no-yes strategy to give a “positive no”:<ol><li>Yes. Say yes to yourself and protect what is important to you. </li><li>No. The answer continues with a matter-of-fact no that is clear and sets boundaries. No wiggle room or ambiguity.</li><li>Yes. End the response by affirming the relationship again and by offering another solution.</li></ol>

Cut: Eliminate To Flex Your “No” Muscle

<ul><li>Take responsibility for making the commitment</li><li>Reaffirm your willingness to honour your commitment</li><li>Explain why honouring your commitment is not the best outcome for the other party</li><li>Offer to help solve the problem with them</li></ul>How to create a Not-To-Do List:<ul><li>Start with the obvious candidates for elimination</li><li>List the meetings, relationships, and opportunities you should never pursue</li></ul>

The Not-To-Do List: Renegotiate Existing Commitments

<ul>
<li>Self. Use rituals to make it easier for you to follow through on your highest priorities. The 4 Foundational Rituals: morning, evening, workday startup, and workday shutdown.</li>
<li>Template. Automate repetitive tasks with templates.</li>
<li>Process. Write an easy-to-follow set of instructions for performing a job or sequence.</li>
<li>Tech. Focus on the type of tool you need more than which tool you use. The 4 essential tools: email filtering, macro-processing, text-expansion, and screencast</li>
<li>To streamline your tasks, mark candidates for automation and pick one to tackle today. </li>
</ul>

Automate: Subtract Yourself from the Equation

Delegation means focusing primarily on the work only you can do by transferring everything else to others who are more passionate about the work or proficient in the tasks.Some of us refuse to delegate by convincing ourselves we can’t afford it.But the hours you spend on Desire Zone tasks will always be more profitable than the time you’re wasting anywhere else, so the cost of delegation pays for itself—and then some.

Delegate: Clone Yourself—or Better

<ul><li>Decide what to delegate.</li><li>Select the best person.</li><li>Communicate the workflow.</li><li>Provide the necessary resources.</li><li>Specify the delegation-level</li><li>Give them room to operate.</li><li>Check in and provide feedback as needed.</li></ul>

How to delegate:

<ul>
<li>Level 1. You want the person to do exactly what you’ve asked them to do—no more, no less.</li>
<li>Level 2. You want the person to examine or research a topic and report back to you.</li>
<li>Level 3. You’re giving the person more room to participate in the problem-solving process but you are still reserving the final decision for yourself. </li>
<li>Level 4. You want the person to evaluate the options, make a decision on their own, execute the decision, and then give you an update after the fact.</li>
<li>Level 5. You hand the entire project or task over to someone else and exit the decision altogether.</li>
</ul>

The 5 Levels of Delegation

Design your work to focus on just one thing at a time.
<ul>
<li>Batching: lumping similar tasks together and doing them in a dedicated block of time</li>
<li>MegaBatching: organizing entire days around similar activities to enable you to stay focused and build momentum.</li>
</ul>

Act: Consolidate and Plan Your Ideal Week

<ul>
<li>Front Stage. The tasks for which you’re hired and paid. The key functions, primary deliverables, the line items on your performance review. If it delivers the results for which your boss and/or customers are paying you, that’s Front Stage work.</li>
<li>Back Stage. Includes elimination, automation, and delegation plus coordination, preparation, maintenance, and development. The tasks necessary for Front Stage performance.</li>
<li>Off Stage. Refers to time when you’re not working. Off Stage is crucial to restoring your energy so you have something to offer when you come back to the stage.</li>
</ul>

The 3 Categories Of Activity

<ul><li>Stages. Decide for each day if you’ll be Front Stage, Back Stage, or Off Stage. Reserve at least two days for Front Stage.</li><li>Themes. Indicate what type of activities you’ll do on individual days during certain blocks of time. An easy way to start is to think of the morning, workday, and evening.</li><li>Activities. Group the individual activities that will fall into those themes.</li></ul>

How to Plan Your Ideal Week in 3 Steps

You need to systematically decide what deserves your attention now, what deserves your attention later, and what doesn’t deserve your attention at all.How to do a weekly review:<ul><li>List Your Biggest Wins</li><li>Review the Prior Week</li><li>Review Your Lists and Notes</li><li>Check Goals, Projects, Events, Meetings, and Deadlines</li><li>Designate Your Weekly Big 3 Things to Accomplish</li><li>Plan Your Rejuvenation</li></ul>

Designate: Prioritize Your Tasks

Spend 95% of your time on Quadrant 1 and 2 activities. Clear Quadrant 3 tasks quickly (delegate what you can) and eliminate all Quadrant 4 tasks.How to design your day:Plan days solely focused on tasks and refuse any meeting requests for that dayShoot for three, and only three, key tasks each day (your Daily Big 3). Let your Weekly Big 3 inform your Daily Big 3.Schedule time to do your Daily Big 3 on your calendar

The Eisenhower Matrix

<ul>
<li>Limit instant communication. Turn off your notifications and opt for delayed communication whenever possible.</li>
<li>Proactively set and enforce boundaries. Inform the relevant people you’re going offline for a period to focus on by setting an autoresponder for your email. Sell your boss why you need time for deep, focused work.</li>
</ul>

Activate: Beat Interruptions

<ul>
<li>Fight technology with technology. Example: _Freedom _lets you customize what apps and websites you can access during dedicated periods of deep work.</li>
<li>Listen to the right music. Background music that’s familiar, repetitive, relatively simple, and not too loud can aid focus.</li>
<li>Take charge of your environment. Make your workspace work for you. Optimize your current workspace for focus by eliminating distracting items.</li>
<li>Declutter your workspace. Make an appointment with yourself on your calendar to organize your office.</li>
<li>Increase your frustration tolerance. Train yourself to focus with hard tasks.</li>
</ul>

How to beat distractions:

True productivity is about doing more of what is in your desire zone and less of everything else.

Everyone gets 168 hours a week, but it never feels like enough, does it? Work gobbles up the lion's share--many professionals are working as much as 70 hours a week--leaving less and less for rest, exercise, family, and friends. You know, all those things that make life great. Most people think productivity is about finding or saving time. But it's not. It's about making our time work for us. Just imagine having free time again. It's not a pipe dream. In Free to Focus, New York Times bestselling author Michael Hyatt reveals to readers nine proven ways to win at work so they are finally free to succeed at the rest of life--their health, relationships, hobbies, and more. He helps readers redefine their goals, evaluate what's working, cut out the nonessentials, focus on the most important tasks, manage their time and energy, and build momentum for a lifetime of success.

productivity

Productivity

books

Books

Everyone gets 168 hours a week, but it never feels like enough, does it? Work gobbles up the lion's share--many professionals are working as much as 70 hours a week--leaving less and less for rest, exercise, family, and friends. You know, all those things that make life great. Most people think productivity is about finding or saving time. But it's not. It's about making our time work for us. Just imagine having free time again. It's not a pipe dream. In Free to Focus, New York Times bestselling author Michael Hyatt reveals to readers nine proven ways to win at work so they are finally free to succeed at the rest of life--their health, relationships, hobbies, and more. He helps readers redefine their goals, evaluate what's working, cut out the nonessentials, focus on the most important tasks, manage their time and energy, and build momentum for a lifetime of success.

Michael Hyatt

Free to Focus

Through the ages, people have relied on the philosophy of Stoicism to conquer their difficulties. In addition to ancient Greeks and Romans, proponents included Frederick the Great, Michel de Montaigne, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Adam Smith and Theodore Roosevelt. Every year, former US president Bill Clinton studies the writing of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, a well-known Stoic philosopher. Stoicism – an operating manual for life – is a pragmatic philosophy that helps people overcome their difficulties.

Stoicism: Overcoming Obstacles

<ul><li>Stoicism rests on three primary disciplines: “perception, action and the will.”</li><li>Perception is the way you see the world. Viewing it realistically or with a bias can help or hinder you.</li><li>The right action is always directed, deliberate, bold and persistent.</li><li>The world can break your body, but thanks to willpower, it can never break your spirit and mind. You control your will.</li><li>Obstacles that stand in the way of progress can actually promote progress.</li><li>People improve by facing and meeting challenges head-on.</li><li>The obstacles you overcome provide benefits you could not otherwise realize.</li></ul>

The Key Takeaways

An ancient Zen parable features an almost identical line of thinking, stating: The obstacle in the path becomes the path…Within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

Parallels With Zen Philosophy

Nothing we’ll experience is likely without potential benefit.

Stoicism and Marcus Aurelius’s wisdom motivated men and women throughout history, helping to spark the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the US civil rights movement and Silicon Valley’s amazing high-technology advances.Stoicism addresses real-life issues that confront everyone: “Are you worthy?” “Can you get past the things that inevitably fall in your way?” “Will you stand up and show…what you’re made of?”

The Wisdom Of Aurelius

Obstacles can provide benefits. First, you must move beyond typical responses to trouble, including “fear, frustration, confusion, helplessness, depression” and “anger.” Marcus Aurelius’s courage and self-knowledge enabled him to transform trouble and tragedy into triumph. Achieve similar results by adopting the vital Stoic lesson: “The obstacle is the way.”Marcus defined the methods to overcome obstacles: “Objective judgment, now at this very moment. Unselfish action, now at this very moment. Willing acceptance – now at this very moment – of all external events. That’s all you need.”

Move Towards The Obstacle

<ul><li>How you see the world provides meaning to the events of your life. Don’t assign “good or bad” labels to events.</li><li> Put aside your fears and prejudices. See things for what they are. See the truth, not a biased interpretation of it.</li><li>How you think about and react to obstacles while maintaining your composure defines you.</li></ul>

The Discipline of Perception

Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.

The American industrialist John D. Rockefeller once worked for just 50 cents a day as a bookkeeper in Cleveland, Ohio. As an investor, he rode out major national financial crises in 1857, 1873, 1907 and 1920. Where others saw catastrophe and chaos, the objective, unemotional Rockefeller saw valuable lessons and opportunities. So much so, that by 1877, his perception and his nerve helped him corner “90% of the oil market.”

Story: Altering Your Perspective

During the 1960s, Rubin “Hurricane” Carter was a leading middleweight title contender. Carter was unjustly convicted in a triple-homicide case. In jail, he never ceded power to the warden or guards. He maintained his independence and his identity. Carter – and not the authorities – held control over his mind and spirit. He spent his time in prison working on his legal case. After 19 years, Carter got his verdict overturned. Once released from prison, he never looked back.

Story: Recognize Your Power

During the US Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant always seemed completely nerveless. Once, a shell exploded near him, and killed a horse right next to him. Unfazed, Grant calmly surveyed the battlefield through his field glasses. He saw that his troops were removing supplies from a steamship when it exploded. Everyone ducked for cover except Grant, who ran toward the shattered steamboat to help the survivors.

Story: Steady Your Nerves

NASA trained America’s first astronauts to remain cool under pressure and to avoid panic. The agency had the astronauts practice every aspect of their space flight “hundreds of times,” until the routines became commonplace. Comprehensive training eliminated the unfamiliarity of spaceflight.

Story: Control Your Emotions

Tommy John pitched in Major League Baseball for an astonishing 26 seasons. John always asked himself: “Is there a chance?” “Do I have a shot?” “Is there something I can do?” When he was 45 years old, the Yankees cut John. Unfazed, he appeared as a walk-on at the team’s next spring training. He worked hard, made the team and pitched the season opener, a win over Minnesota.

Story: Stay Aware And Curious

Stay objective. When necessary, change the way you interpret what you see. Don’t agonize over the past or worry about the future. Focus your thoughts and actions on the present. Find the good in the bad. Stay bold.

The Discipline Of Perception: Lessons Learned

When you are deliberate, bold and persistent, you are better prepared to take “right and effective” actions. Use the “creative application” of action to dismantle obstacles.Set out to develop the “Minimum Viable Product,” as identified by Silicon Valley’s iterative MVP philosophy. Remember the engineering touchstone: “Failure is a feature.” Learn from every failure. Treat your job like the most important work in the world. Stay aware that sometimes a flank attack will work better than a head-on charge.

The Discipline Of Action

The world can knock you down and break your heart. But if you harness your willpower, no knockdown blow can deter you. Your will – not anyone else’s – puts you firmly in charge of your life and accomplishments. Proper willpower is steady, not blustery. You connect to your internal power without braggadocio; the best strength of will springs from “humility, resilience and flexibility.”Postmortems are useful; so are pre-mortems – thinking in advance about “what could go wrong.” Sometimes you must simply acquiesce when things don’t go your way.

The Discipline Of Will

Across the centuries, academics in their ivory towers tried to assume ownership of philosophies such as Stoicism and tried to guard it as part of their exclusive domain. As developed by Seneca, Zeno and others, the philosophy of Stoicism was never intended to be isolated as remote, sterile intellectualization. Those sages first promulgated Stoicism as “an operating system for the difficulties and hardships of life,” and that is how it should remain.

Stoicism: The Operating Manual

Don’t let the force of an impression… knock you off your feet; just say to it: Hold on a moment; let me see who you are and what you represent. Let me put you to the test.

Media strategist Ryan Holiday explains how contemporary people can utilize some venerable Stoic principles to turn obstacles into advantages. 

We give up too easily. With a simple change of attitude, what seem like insurmountable obstacles become once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Ryan Holiday, who dropped out of college at nineteen to serve as an apprentice to bestselling 'modern Machiavelli' Robert Greene and is now a media consultant for billion-dollar brands, draws on the philosophy of the Stoics to guide you in every situation, showing that what blocks our path actually opens one that is new and better.If the competition threatens you, it's time to be fearless, to display your courage. An impossible deadline becomes a chance to show how dedicated you are. And as Ryan discovered as Director of Marketing for American Apparel, if your brand is generating controversy - it's also potentially generating publicity.The Stoic philosophy - that what is in the way, is the way - can be applied to any problem: it's a formula invented more than 2,000 years ago, whose effectiveness has been proven in battles and board rooms ever since. From Barack Obama's ability to overcome obstacles in his election races, to the design of the iPhone, the stoic philosophy has helped its users become world-beaters.

philosophy

Philosophy

#1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller The Obstacle is the Way has become a cult classic, beloved by men and women around the world who apply its wisdom to become more successful at whatever they do. Its many fans include a former governor and movie star (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a hip hop icon (LL Cool J), an Irish tennis pro (James McGee), an NBC sportscaster (Michele Tafoya), and the coaches and players of winning teams like the New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks, Chicago Cubs, and University of Texas men’s basketball team. The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”  Ryan Holiday shows us how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck. If you’re feeling frustrated, demoralized, or stuck in a rut, this book can help you turn your problems into your biggest advantages. And along the way it will inspire you with dozens of true stories of the greats from every age and era.

Ryan Holiday is media strategist for notorious clients like Tucker Max and Dov Charney. After dropping out of college at 19 to apprentice under the strategist Robert Greene, he went on to advise many bestselling authors and multi-platinum musicians. He is the Director of Marketing at American Apparel, where his work in advertising was internationally known. His strategies are used as case studies by Twitter, YouTube, and Google, and have been written about in AdAge, the New York Times, Gawker, and Fast Company. He is the author is *Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator*, which is due out in July. He currently lives in New Orleans, with his rebellious puppy, Hanno.

Ryan Holiday

The Obstacle Is the Way

The Obstacle is the Way

Negotiation is at the heart of human interaction. Negotiation is not a battle. It’s a process of better relating to people in all kinds of circumstances.Common enemies bring parties closer together and make the negotiation easier.Some legitimate common enemies in business relationships are loss of profit, loss of time, failure to retain good people, and inability to capitalize on opportunities.

Negotiation: A Primer

With persistence comes self-confidence: the belief that you can do it.It doesn’t matter how many times the other person says no, or disagrees with you, or gives you a hard time. Keep asking, stay focused on your goals (without making yourself the issue). Persistence, after all, is a focused effort, over time, to meet your goals.In negotiation, persistence is key. Keep finding ways to get more information and unlock new value levers for both parties. Your persistence will pay off in the long run.

Persistence

People do some of the most important things in life not for money, not for rational benefits, but for how it makes them feel.As much as economists want us to believe that people are hyper-rational actors that consider all angles of every decision they make, they’re not. Most of the things we do are because of some feeling we have, not because we have weighed the rationality of a particular course. More often than not, we rationalize our decisions after they’ve been made.

Emotions Have More Value Than Rationality

A key to getting other people to give you what you want is to value the other party.People like to give things to others who listen to them, who value them, who consult with them.Listen to and value the other party. It will improve your outcomes.

Value the Other Person

What is the other person feeling? How do they perceive the situation? What are the pictures in their heads?” Thinking from the other person’s point of view often turns up surprising results. Your outcomes will be improved once you start thinking from the other person’s perspective. What are their needs or fears? How are they approaching the situation? These are critical pieces of information for any successful negotiation.

Understanding The Other Person

You make small talk. Not just because you read somewhere that it’s smart to make small talk. You do it because you are interested in them. Because you want to try for a point of connection with other people. It’s a way of approaching life.”Small talk helps open up and deepen connections. Don’t be above it.

Make Small Talk

Trust is a feeling of security that the other person will protect you. With some trust, another person will help you until it’s too risky for them or a better opportunity comes along. With a lot of trust, the other party will help you even if it harms them. It is very important to understand the trust dynamic.”Trust can carry you further than most other things.

Trust

Perhaps the biggest cause of negotiation failure, worldwide, is communication failure. And the single biggest cause of communication failure is misperception.This means that their perceptions are more important than your proposals; that is, if you want to persuade them.Most communication failures stem from misperception. So before jumping to conclusions, do your research and try to understand the other party as best you can.

Misperception and Communication

When someone is interrupted, the tapes are still playing in their head. It’s so easy to interrupt someone once you understand what they are saying or have your response ready to go. But it’s a terrible habit. Because once you interrupt someone, they aren’t listening to you. They are thinking about finishing the point they wanted to make.

Don’t Interrupt Someone

Making an exception requires the other person to candidly reflect on whether or not they have treated someone differently in the past, and often, they have. Once they realize this, it’s more likely that you’ll become one of the exceptions as well.

Making An Exception

Standards are especially effective with hard bargainers. With difficult people, use standards. It is a fundamental tenet of human psychology that people hate to contradict themselves. So if you give people a choice between being consistent with their standards—with what they have said and promised previously—and contradicting their standards, people will usually strive to be consistent with their standards. Knowing that people hate to contradict themselves is a key part of understanding the power of standards and why you should leverage them.

The Power Of Standards

It is much more persuasive to let others make the decision, instead of telling them what the decision should be. You want to lead them to where you want them to go, through framing and by being incremental.  Framing and being incremental are two of the hardest things for people to learn. Most people want to rush ahead, and find it hard to break things up into smaller steps. Also, it takes time to get just the right framing; many people don’t have the patience. But great framing can immediately conclude a negotiation in your favor.

Frame and Be Incremental

In much of business, money is not the most important item of importance to either side, regardless of what they say. The price has to be reasonable, but so much more is required. Intangibles can bridge the gap between seemingly inflexible positions. It’s rarely just about maximizing the monetary outcome. Look for trades of unequal value. There are things that I have that cost me very little, but that you value highly. Identifying these levers is essential for maximizing the value of the negotiation for both parties.

The Intangibles

The best negotiators are dispassionate, and continue to ask for information.  Emotion destroys negotiations and limits creativity. Focus is lost. Decision-making is poor. Retaliation often occurs. Your goal is not to be “right;” it’s to get the outcome you desire. Leave the emotions and ego at the door, and you will make fewer bad decisions. You’ll keep your eye on the prize.

Be Dispassionate

A fantastic introduction to negotiation and learning how to get more as a way of life.

Explains how to interact with real-world, unpredictable people in order to achieve desired goals, providing coverage of such topics as avoiding miscommunication and making unequal trades.

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