Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.
I really hope I’m not a member of the awkward teenagers who ask Ryan for advice club.
Thanks Ryan, very insightful, feeling this myself:
“I realized for the first time that no matter what happens to me, I’m going to be ok. That my happiness or even credibility wasn’t dependent on my jobs or my stuff. That I could get fired, give up my apartment, my bear and go back to where I started a few years and I would still be good.”
God forbid you lose the bear.
Trust me Ryan, your ‘Ah ha!’ moments may seem obvious and silly to you in retrospect, but it’s truly incredible how far ahead of your peers and indeed the aggregate population you are. Most people never really ‘free their mind’.
The point you made that PCD quoted is something I tell myself every time I get angry, anxious, nervous, or worked up about something. Small or large: especially “where I’m going with my life,” etc.
I wrote a long comment but at the end my question, in essence, was: Why do you feel such a disconnect with your redearship?
You see the same thing with Tucker. Is it just a matter of intelligence, experience?
I don’t think it has anything to do with intelligence. I’m sure many of the kids are much smarter than I am.
It’s a wavelength thing and not many people are on it. It’s not like I go around look or judging people by it but you can tell when someone doesn’t have it.