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RyanHoliday.net - Meditations on strategy and life
Blog

This is the copy you want.

I finally tracked down the right copy of The Meditations on Amazon. I’ve bought 4 of this version. I’d been having trouble coming up with anything but the hardcover. This is the one we’re using in the Rudius Media Book Club next Sunday.

Instead of describing it myself, I’ll let this email I got do it for me:

I got the Hays translation of The Meditations and read the entire thing as the Subway made a loop around my city- it was that fucking good. Ive never been so moved by a book in my life. Thank you.

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May 1, 2007by Ryan Holiday
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Schools and Creativity.

If you aren’t doing this already, you ought to be monitoring the Del.icio.us bookmarks of the preeminent web leaders. For instance, Steve Rubel’s feed is a good place to catch web news the day before it breaks. Normally, he’s tagging articles that will likely make the rounds in the next few hours–plus you get a glimpse into the media he’s consuming. I make this suggestion reluctantly, however, after being take aback a bit after I discovered a few people doing that to my feed.

In the spirit of the pot calling the kettle black, I stole this from Tucker’s. He’ll probably write more about it later, but in the meantime, enjoy.

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April 28, 2007by Ryan Holiday
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Fatblogging

Calacanis has been “Fatblogging” excessively and I wish I could say I relate. I’m shedding so much weight on such a regular basis that I think I might have cancer.

I’ve gone through my 3rd wardrobe overhaul since Thanksgiving. I’m down to a 30 waist. And let’s not pretend I eat healthily. Yesterday, I had Oreos for breakfast. You can find me in Carl’s Jr at least 4 times a week. My favorite foods ranked, in order, go as follows:

1) Chicken Fried Steak

2) Movie Popcorn

3) Nachos

None of this is to brag. It’s just the truth. There’s this part of The Secret–and yes, the majority of the book is just retarded–where they talk about the dichotomy between the attitudes of fat people and those of fit people. You hear “I try and eat healthy all the time and just keep putting on weight” and “I do whatever I want and I haven’t gained a pound” respectively. At some point you have to consider that attitude is a factor–that it influences reality. But what The Secret doesn’t understand, which is why it resonates with lazy people so much, is that there is a second step. You can do whatever you want when you put in the work that justifies it.

I don’t want to call out Calacanis because all I have is respect for the guy, in all likelihood I wouldn’t be blogging without him. At the same time, why even bother walking for 30 minutes on the treadmill? Let’s just save society the electricity and not bother. I have Oreos for breakfast because I promised myself that I’d be running 4-5 miles within the next few hours. I know that like clockwork, at least 5 days a week, I’ll be running and finishing with situps until I can’t even bend over. So that 24/7, I can eat as I please. It’s a simple as that: Do the work, reap the benefits.

School works the same way. You can sit in lecture and ask annoying questions until the crowd threatens to kill you, or you can hone your mind to a point where a cursory read is all that is required. Yes, you can analyze the etymology of each word in the study guide, or if you’d laid the foundations for college properly, you’d have already read and owned the texts before you’d even considered taking the course.

Like Tim Ferriss says, there’s working and there is being busy. There’s exercise and then there is physical exertion. The marginal return on eating a salad and counting calories is well…marginal. Understand that if you suck it up and pour some true energy into it, you’ll be able to move on. I’m not sure if he wants to be outed, but someone ridiculously important in Hollywood gave me this advice last week: “Set goals, listen and learn, but understand the concept of The Commander’s Intent and the fluidity of randomness in the real world. Adjust and get it done and off your list.“

When you focus on the chickenshit details you’re going to end up with chickenshit results. Of course, that’s not always true, but as far as self-improvement goes, it is. It must become “This is my new lifestyle, this is how I am.” Embody that ethic and it will become reality. This is what I was trying to say before, envision how you want to be, insert it into your consciousness and then you won’t have to worry about it. And with that freedom you can move on to the next thing.

Sidenote: There are some downsides. Like the fact that I am increasingly looking like a little kid and that I’m tired of going shopping.

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April 27, 2007by Ryan Holiday
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“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” - Murakami

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