“To be honest, speak without identity.”
Naval Ravikant, Medium
Identity Quotes
Jiawei Han Quote on Expectations and How To Separate The Person From The Idea Of The Person
“You just like the idea of me. You like the person I present myself under circumstances that I can control. I choose what I say and how I say things. It’s like being attracted to a fictional character in a book. They are scripted and made up. If you think about it, through writings, we all script and make ourselves up. I don’t share the person I become when I am upset. I don’t show you how I look like when I sleep. I don’t tell you about all the times I’ve made someone cry. All the guilty things I’ve done and the bad thoughts I’ve had.”
Jiawei Han
Beyond the Quote (243/365)
And so is all too often the case in today’s world. Who are we really falling in love with? Who are we idolizing and emulating? Who are we really putting on a pedestal? Is it really the person or is it really just the idea of the person? More often than not, after careful introspection, you’ll find that many people in our lives are really just a product of ideas that represent idealistic and unrealistic images of the people we wished for them to be. We don’t see them for who they are, we see them as a projection from our mind—and perception is reality.
Read More »Jiawei Han Quote on Expectations and How To Separate The Person From The Idea Of The PersonChadwick Boseman Quote on Struggles and How they Shape You For Your Purpose
“The struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose.”
Chadwick Boseman
Beyond the Quote (239/365)
Chadwick Boseman, the iconic “Black Panther” star, has died at age 43 after a 4-year battle with colon cancer. He was diagnosed with stage III colon cancer in 2016, battled it until it progressed to stage IV, and up until it ended up taking his life here in 2020. And like so many others, I knew nothing about his cancer or that he was even sick at all.
Read More »Chadwick Boseman Quote on Struggles and How they Shape You For Your Purpose“There was so much in my life I cared about—and of course I really loved being a therapist. But on another level there wasn’t anything in it I wanted just for me. It was as if my life had turned into a motel room and the truth was I could walk out of it without any sense that I was leaving anything of my own behind. A stranger could easily move into my life, and nothing would be different. I was happy as long as I didn’t think about who I was and what I really wanted for myself.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 44)
On Being “Cool” and On Being a “Dork” and Why We Get These Ideas Backwards As A Society
For anyone that wants to go above and beyond, this article might hit better if you do the following before reading:
- Make a list of the Top 3 reasons why you might consider yourself to be, “Cool”
- Make a list of the Top 3 reasons why you might consider yourself to be a, “Dork”
That is all. Once you finish with those two lists, continue below. Or, if you’re in a hurry and choose not to make the lists, feel free to continue below anyway.
Beyond the Quote (232/365)
Read More »On Being “Cool” and On Being a “Dork” and Why We Get These Ideas Backwards As A Society
John Joseph Powell Quote on Self-Worth and How Interactions Are A Mirror For What’s Within
“It is an absolute human certainty that no one can know his own beauty or perceive a sense of his own worth until it has been reflected back to him in the mirror of another loving, caring human being.”
John Joseph Powell, The Secret of Staying in Love
Beyond the Quote (214/365)
Mirrors allow us to see our external self. Human interaction allows us to see our internal self. Without mirrors, we wouldn’t be able to truly know how we looked. We can get a sense of how we look and we might be able to guess, but it is only through the reflection of a mirror that we can ever be sure. Without human interaction, how might we ever truly grasp the content of our character?
Read More »John Joseph Powell Quote on Self-Worth and How Interactions Are A Mirror For What’s WithinWitt Lowry Quote from Debt on How Things That Are Man-Made Don’t Make The Man
“I should have known that somethin’ man-made couldn’t make me /
I say I’m makin’ music, or is music what creates me?”
Witt Lowry, Debt, Nevers Road
Beyond the Quote (208/365)
Nothing man-made makes the man. It’s what the man makes that makes the man. What somebody else made is a reflection of them. You obtaining what they made doesn’t make you into any kind of different person at all. It might reveal the type of person you are but it doesn’t change who you are. To understand this is to understand the power in making and creating. To forget this is to forget and never realize who you are to yourself or the world.
Read More »Witt Lowry Quote from Debt on How Things That Are Man-Made Don’t Make The ManMichael Gerber Quote on How The Work We Do is a Reflection of Who We Are
“The work we do is a reflection of who we are. If we’re sloppy at it, it’s because we’re sloppy inside. If we’re late at it, it’s because we’re late inside. If we’re bored by it, it’s because we’re bored inside, with ourselves, not with the work. The most menial work can be a piece of art when done by an artist. So the job here is not outside of ourselves, but inside of ourselves. How we do our work becomes a mirror of how we are inside.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 200)
Beyond the Quote (198/365)
“Autograph your work with excellence,” has become a sort of mantra that I live by. Whatever I set out to do, I always try to give it my absolute best shot. And it doesn’t matter what it is. It could be something important like writing these articles or something that might be considered more menial like vacuuming the rug. The underlying idea is that all work that gets done always gets done with an autograph attached to the work. And that autograph, that work, as Gerber points out above, acts as a reflection of the person who did it. The question that you then have to ask yourself is, what does your work say about you?
Read More »Michael Gerber Quote on How The Work We Do is a Reflection of Who We Are
Michael Gerber Quote on Being Gentle With Your Spirit and How To Unite Your Spirit and Mind
“You need to be very gentle with your spirit. It needs to be free, but it also needs you to direct its attention. Too much of one, and not enough of the other, and your spirit will take off like a wild horse. That’s how you need to think of your spirit, like a wild horse. Part of it is there to serve you, and another part to serve itself. The thing you need to learn is which part is which. If you put it behind a fence, you will kill it. But if you leave it to come and go as it pleases, you will never understand it.”
Michael Gerber, The E-Myth Revisited (Page 158)
Beyond the Quote (181/365)
…And it’s not until you understand your spirit that can ever tame and unite forces with it. This is critical to understand because your spirit is one of the most powerful driving forces in your life. It’s only when your actions are backed by the power of your spirit that you can only ever realize your true potential and capability as a human being.
Read More »Michael Gerber Quote on Being Gentle With Your Spirit and How To Unite Your Spirit and Mind
“The first thing to remember is this: As long as you make an identity for yourself out of the pain, you cannot become free of it. As long as part of your sense of self is invested in your emotional pain, you will unconsciously resist or sabotage every attempt that you make to heal that pain. Why? Quite simply because you want to keep yourself intact, and the pain has become an essential part of you. This is an unconscious process, and the only way to overcome it is to make it conscious.”
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 168)
Jocko Willink Quote on How Your Greatest Strength Can Also Be Your Greatest Weakness
“As with many of the dichotomies of leadership, a person’s biggest strength can be his greatest weakness when he doesn’t know how to balance it. A leader’s best quality might be her aggressiveness, but if she goes too far she becomes reckless. A leader’s best quality might be his confidence, but when he becomes overconfident he doesn’t listen to others.”
Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership (Page 281)
Beyond the Quote (165/365)
One of my greatest strengths, I believe, is my ability to empathetically connect to and listen to others. When somebody talks to me about how upset they are that their dog died, I feel the upset. When people call me to express their frustrations towards other people, I feel their frustrations. When the people around me get angry, I can feel their anger in me. Basically, I feel like I have an uncanny ability to put myself in other people’s shoes and feel what they’re feeling even if I’ve never been in their exact situation myself. This is something that I have noticed after many years of introspection and while it can certainly be a strength, it also comes with its fair share of drawbacks and challenges that can turn it into a weakness if left unchecked.
Read More »Jocko Willink Quote on How Your Greatest Strength Can Also Be Your Greatest WeaknessNapoleon Hill Quote on Being The Master Of Your Destiny and Controlling Influences
“You are the master of your destiny. You can influence, direct and control your own environment. You can make your life what you want it to be.”
Napoleon Hill
Beyond the Quote (161/365)
Influence is the effect one person has on another person’s thoughts and actions. Influence happens every second of every day of your life. Most notably, when you are in direct communication with another person. What another person says and what they do influences you. Either you like what you hear and see and so adjust accordingly, or you dislike what you hear and see and so adjust accordingly the other way. There is no neutral when it comes to interactions because neutral would either mean that you were looking at an exact replica of yourself or that you didn’t notice the other which implies no interaction. We are all so different and unique that we can’t help but influence each other in one way or another.
Read More »Napoleon Hill Quote on Being The Master Of Your Destiny and Controlling InfluencesJordan Peterson Quote on Self-Discovery and Why You Should Come Out From Hiding To Find Yourself
“If you will not reveal yourself to others, you cannot reveal yourself to yourself. That does not only mean that you suppress who you are, although it also means that. It means that so much of what you could be will never be forced by necessity to come forward. This is a biological truth, as well as a conceptual truth. When you explore boldly, when you voluntarily confront the unknown, you gather information and build your renewed self out of that information.”
Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 212)
Beyond the Quote (155/365)
Staying in hiding doesn’t only keep you hidden from the world—it keeps you hidden from yourself. For, as long as you stay hidden from the world, the lessons of the world will remain hidden from you. I can assure you, the lessons of the world will not come knocking at your door or come waltzing into your designated place of hiding. These lessons are only to be found OUT in the world and they must be pursued and captured.
Read More »Jordan Peterson Quote on Self-Discovery and Why You Should Come Out From Hiding To Find YourselfJacob Held Quote on Perspective and How What We See Is A Reflection of Who We Are
“We can’t change what life is, but we can change how we react to and interpret it.”
Jacob Held
Beyond the Quote (148/365)
To start, a story of two dogs. Both at separate times walk into the same room. One comes out wagging his tail while the other comes out growling. A woman watching this goes into the room to see what could possibly make one dog so happy and the other so mad. To her surprise she finds a room filled with mirrors. The happy dog found a thousand happy dogs looking back at him while the angry dog saw only angry dogs growling back at him. What you see in the world around you is a reflection of who you are.
Read More »Jacob Held Quote on Perspective and How What We See Is A Reflection of Who We AreJordan Peterson Quote on The Power of Vision and Direction for Personal Development
“Don’t underestimate the power of vision and direction. These are irresistible forces, able to transform what might appear to be unconquerable obstacles into traversable pathways and expanding opportunities. Strengthen the individual. Start with yourself. Take care with yourself. Define who you are. Refine your personality. Choose your destination and articulate your Being.”
Jordan Peterson, via 12 Rules for Life (Page 63)
Beyond the Quote (141/365)
Maps are incredibly useful tools. They chart the unknown territory for us. They show us the way forward. They help us get to where we want to go. And usually, that’s one of the first things we think about when we grab a map—where they can take us. Thinking up where we want to go is easy. New York City! Yellowstone National Park! Australia! We might say. Or, if we’re thinking about where we want to go in life, we might say, “The top of the corporate ladder!” “Until I get a blue checkmark on Instagram!” “To a beautiful mansion with a white picket fence!” But, where they can take us means nothing if we don’t know where we are. And this is the imperative first question to consider—where are you?
Read More »Jordan Peterson Quote on The Power of Vision and Direction for Personal Development“It is difficult to think clearly in rooms filled with other people. It’s difficult to understand yourself if you are never by yourself. It’s difficult to have much in the way of clarity and insight if your life is a constant party and your home is a construction site. Sometimes you have to disconnect in order to better connect with yourself and with the people you serve and love.”
Ryan Holiday, Stillness is the Key (Page 215)