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    “[Lou Gehrig] knew that getting comfortable was the enemy, and that success is an endless series of invitations to get comfortable. It’s easy to be disciplined when you have nothing. What about when you have everything? What about when you’re so talented that you can get away with not giving everything? The thing about Lou Gehrig is that he chose to be in control. This wasn’t discipline enforced from above or by the team. His temperance was an interior force, emanating from deep within his soul. He chose it, despite the sacrifices, despite the fact that others allowed themselves to forgo such penance and got away with it. Despite the face that it usually wasn’t recognized—not until long after he was gone anyway.”

    Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 9)

      “For writers and artists, the ability to self-reinforce is more important than talent. What exactly is reinforcement? It’s when your coach or mentor tugs you aside and tells you how well you are doing, how proud of you they are, and how certain they are that ultimate success will be yours if you just stay who you are and keep doing what you’re doing. That’s reinforcement. Can you tell yourself that? Without a coach? Without a mentor? Can you be your own coach and mentor? That’s self-reinforcement. When we say, ‘Put your ass where your heart wants to be,’ we also mean keep it there. Self-reinforcement keeps us there. It keeps us committed over the long-haul.”

      Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 95)

        “She had a fire inside her.
        She wondered if the fire was to warm her or destroy her.
        Then she realized.
        A fire had not motive.
        Only she could have that.
        The power was hers.”

        Matt Haig, The Midnight Library (Page 164)

          “At times, I wish I were better at moderation. But, to be honest, it’s just not the way I’m wired. I came into this world hungry and I’m going to die hungry and my hunger is going to make me wildly successful and ultimately lead to my demise and I’m okay with that. I don’t want to be full.”

          Cole Schafer (January Black), One Minute, Please? (Page 168)

            “‘If I am more successful, I’ll be happier, and people will love me more.’ I was trying to fill an internal emotional hole with external, material achievements. Ultimately, this kind of obsession is insatiable. The more you get, the more you want, all the time never quite scratching the itch. You end up with a mind consumed by what it doesn’t have and what it didn’t get, and in a spiraling inability to enjoy what it has.”

            Will Smith, Will (Page 333)

              “For some people, I guess, it might be hard to stay sharp once you’ve reached the pinnacle. Not for me, though. It was never enough. I always wanted to be better, wanted more. I can’t really explain it, other than that I loved the game but had a very short memory. That fueled me until the day I hung up my sneakers.”

              Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality (Page 125)

                “The OG greats won’t hang around you if you don’t display the same passion as they do. They won’t share their time and memories with you if you don’t display the same effort and drive for excellence that they did. Even though I was only 17 when I became a Laker, I felt like a member of the family from day one. I think I was accepted so quickly because everyone saw how hard I worked, saw how badly I wanted to fulfill my destiny and return L.A. to its championship ways.”

                Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality (Page 91)

                  “From the beginning, I wanted to be the best. I had a constant craving, a yearning, to improve and be the best. I never needed any external forces to motivate me.”

                  Kobe Bryant, Mamba Mentality (Page 22)

                    “Human beings change through study, habit, and stories.  Through my story you will learn what the body and mind are capable of when they’re driven to maximum capacity, and how to get there.  Because when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

                      “Drive is fueled by desire, belief, and expectation that we can achieve something extraordinary through our efforts.  It feeds on discipline in that it becomes stronger as we commit ourselves at deeper levels to our pursuits.” ~ Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

                        “Sure I am that this day we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond my endurance.  As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.” ~ Winston Churchill

                          “A near win shifts our view of the landscape. It can turn future goals, which we tend to envision at a distance, into more proximate events. We consider temporal distance as we do spatial distance. (Visualize a great day tomorrow and we see it with granular, practical clarity. But picture what a great day in the future might be like, not tomorrow but fifty years from now, and the image will be hazier.)” ~ Sarah Lewis, The Rise

                            “One of the most common mistakes and one of the costliest, is thinking that success is due to some genius, some magic something or other which we do not possess.  Success is generally due to holding on and failure to let go.  You decide to learn a language, study music, take a course in reading, train yourself physically.  Will it be a success or failure?  It depends upon how much pluck and perseverance that word ‘decide’ contains.  The decision that nothing will overrule, the grip that nothing can detach will bring success.” ~ Maltbie D. Babcock, Clergyman and Author

                              “In everybody’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.” ~ Albert Schweitzer

                                “The successful person has formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. Successful people don’t like doing them either, necessarily. But their dislike is subordinated by the strength of their purpose.” ~ Stephen Covey, The 8th Habit