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    “In our culture we tend to equate thinking and intellectual powers with success and achievement.  In many ways, however, it is an emotional quality that separates those who master a field from the many who simply work at a job.  Our levels of desire, patience, persistence, and confidence end up playing a much larger role in success than sheer reasoning powers.  Feeling motivated and energized, we can overcome almost anything.  Feeling bored and restless, our minds shut off and we become increasingly passive.” ~ Robert Greene, Mastery

      “Self-discipline is an act of cultivation.  It requires you to connect today’s actions to tomorrow’s results.  There’s a season for sowing and a season for reaping.  Self-discipline helps you know which is which.” ~ Gary Ryan Blair

        “Improvement at anything is based on thousands of tiny failures, and the magnitude of your success is based on how many times you’ve failed at something.  If someone is better than you at something, then it’s likely because she has failed at it more than you have.  If someone is worse than you, it’s likely because he hasn’t been through all of the painful learning experiences you have.” ~ Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

          “I grew up in a wealthy family.  Money was never a problem.  On the contrary, I grew up in a wealthy family where money was more often used to avoid problems than solve them.  I was again fortunate, because this taught me at an early age that making money, by itself, was a lousy metric for myself.  You could make plenty of money and be miserable, just as you could be broke and be pretty happy.  Therefore, why use money as a means to measure my self-worth?” ~ Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

            “Research shows that once one is able to provide for basic physical needs (food, shelter, and so on), the correlation between happiness and worldly success quickly approaches zero.  So if you’re starving and living on the street in the middle of India, an extra ten thousand dollars a year would affect your happiness a lot.  But if you’re sitting pretty in the middle class in a developed country, an extra ten thousand dollars per year won’t affect anything much—meaning that you’re killing yourself working overtime and weekends for basically nothing.” ~ Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

              “Freedom is born of self-discipline. No individual, no nation, can achieve or maintain liberty without self-control. The undisciplined man is a slave to his own weaknesses.” ~ Alan Valentine

                “My will shall shape my future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.” ~ Elaine Maxwell

                  “Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There’s plenty of movement, but you never know if it’s going to be forward, backwards, or sideways.” ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

                    “Who wouldn’t want to write a best-selling book or lose weight or earn more money? Everybody wants to achieve these goals.  The real challenge is not determining if you want the result, but if you are willing to accept the sacrifices required to achieve your goal. Do you want the lifestyle that comes with your quest? Do you want the boring and ugly process that comes before the exciting and glamorous outcome?” ~ James Clear, Blog

                      “Success for me has little to do with money or possessions or status.  Rather, success is a simple equation: Happiness + Growth + Contribution = Success.  That’s the only kind of success I know.  Hence, I want to partake in work that makes me happy, work that encourages me to grow, work that helps me contribute beyond myself.  Ultimately, I want to create more and consume less.  Doing so requires real work.” ~ The Minimalists, Everything That Remains

                        “Success is intoxicating, yet to sustain it requires sobriety.  We can’t keep learning if we think we already know everything.  We cannot buy into myths we make ourselves, or the noise and chatter of the outside world.  We must understand that we are a small part of an interconnected universe.  On top of all this, we have to build an organization and a system around what we do – one that is about the work and not about us.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy

                          “Why is success so ephemeral? Ego shortens it.  Whether a collapse is dramatic or a slow erosion, it’s always possible and often unnecessary.  We stop learning, we stop listening, and we lose our grasp on what matters.  We become victims of ourselves and the competition.  Sobriety, open-mindedness, organization, and purpose – these are the great stabilizers.  They balance out the ego and pride that comes with achievement and recognition.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy

                            “Christians believe that pride is a sin because it is a lie – it convinces people that they are better than they are, that they are better than God made them.  Pride leads to arrogance and then away from humility and connection with their fellow man.  You don’t have to be Christian to see the wisdom in this.  You need only to care about your career to understand that pride – even in real accomplishments – is a distraction and a deluder.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy

                              “Appearances are deceiving.  Having authority is not the same as being an authority.  Having the right and being right are not the same either.  Being promoted doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing good work and it doesn’t mean you are worthy of promotion (they call it failing upward in such bureaucracies).  Impressing people is utterly different from being truly impressive.” ~ Ryan Holiday, Ego is the Enemy