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    “Toni Morrison came home one day complaining about her job cleaning someone’s house to her father. She expected him to get angry on her behalf or to pity her. Instead, he said, ‘Listen. You don’t live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.’ What he was teaching her, Morrison later wrote, became a set of principles she based her life around. (1) Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself. (2) You make the job; it doesn’t make you. (3) Your real life is with us, your family. (4) You are not the work you do; you are the person you are.”

    Ryan Holiday

        “Some ask, What is the reward for all this labor? They are incorrect if they think it’s awards and fame and weeks on the bestseller list. Others want a guarantee: If I put in my ten thousand hours, then I’ll get the job? Then I’ll be able to go pro? Then I’ll be rich? No, that’s not how this goes. Always and forever, the reward is the work. It is a joy itself. It is torture and also heaven—sweaty, wonderful salvation. And that’s how you manage to do prodigious amounts of it—not grudgingly, but lovingly.”

        Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 64)

          “Doing things badly does not give you the right to demand haste from the person who does them well.”

          Juan Ramón Jiménez, poet, via Discipline Is Destiny (Page 57)

            “She was no longer a child, and yet for all her responsibilities, everything was quite simple: Her kids needed her to be an adult. So did her unfinished novel. Wake up. Show up. Be present. Give it everything you’ve got.”

            Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 19)

              “As a rookie, Joe DiMaggio once asked [Lou] Gehrig who he though was going to pitch for the opposing team, hoping perhaps, to hear it was someone easy to hit. ‘Never worry about that, Joe,’ Gehrig explained. ‘Just remember they always save the best for the Yankees.’ And by extension, he expected every member of the Yankees to bring their best with them too. That was the deal: To whom much is given, much is expected. The obligation of a champion is to act like a champion… while working as hard as somebody with something to prove.”

              Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page 7)

                “There is a part of us that celebrates, perhaps envies, those who let themselves get away with more, who hold themselves to lower standards—the rock stars, the famous, the wicked. It seems easier. It seems like more fun. It might even be the way to get ahead. Is that right? No, it is an illusion. Under closer inspection: No one has a harder time than the lazy. No one experiences more pain than the glutton. No success is shorter lived than the reckless and endlessly ambitious. Failing to realize your full potential is a terrible punishment. Greed moves the goalposts, preventing one from ever enjoying what one has. Even if the outside world celebrates them, on the inside there is only misery, self-loathing, and dependence.”

                Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny (Page xxiii)

                  “Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.”

                  Derek Sivers

                    “To succeed in the ‘outer world,’ you must discipline yourself to focus and concentrate, work hard at your job, take continuous action toward your goals, and become better and more capable as you move onward and upward in life. To succeed in the ‘inner world,’ however, requires almost the opposite abilities. To achieve inner peace, you must discipline yourself to let go of everything that can disrupt your sense of inner peace and contentment.”

                    Brian Tracy, No Excuses! (Page 286)

                      “I try to remind myself that having to stay late at the office to write, trying to push through on no sleep, is disrespectful to the craft. When I spend that extra time on my phone instead of going to bed, when I plan a trip or a week poorly, I am cheating my work, cheating my family. I’m doing something unfair to the stranger I happen to bump into. Mostly, I am cheating and harming myself. A 2017 study actually found that lack of sleep increases negative repetitive thinking. Abusing the body trains the mind to abuse itself.”

                      Ryan Holiday

                        “When I finish the day’s work, I turn my mind off. The office is closed. The work has been handed off to the Unconscious, to the Muse. I respect her. I give her her time. If I see family or friends, I never talk about what I’m working on. I politely deflect any queries. But beyond not talking with others, I refuse to talk to myself. I don’t obsess. I don’t worry. I don’t second-guess. I let it rest. The office is closed.”

                        Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 79)

                          “Here’s my frame of mind as I sit down to work: This is the day. There is no other day. This is the day. In other words, I release every thought that smacks of, ‘Maybe we can do this some other time.’ There is no other time. Today is the Superbowl. Today is the day I give birth. Today is the day I die.”

                          Steven Pressfield, Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be (Page 74)

                            “Work is love made visible.
                            And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
                            For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.
                            And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine. And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.”

                            Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (Page 26)

                              “Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone notices she’s in the building, everyone can up their game. And some musicians wait eagerly for A&R person to be in the crowd. If they really kill it tonight, a record deal might ensue. The most resilient approach, of course, is to act as if. What if this is your most important post, or your last one? What if the email you’re sending is going to be forwarded to your boss? What if… We can’t know for sure. But we can act as if it’s going to happen.”

                              Seth Godin