To succeed in the game of power, you have to master your emotions. But even if you succeed in gaining such self-control, you can never control the temperamental dispositions of those around you. And this presents a great danger.
Like everyone else, you can be quite self-absorbed and obsessed with your own agenda. With this awareness, you will not feel the need to be validated by others.
At some point, usually in your 20s, you'll notice that the people around you stop believing in themselves. And no matter how hard you try, you can't save them. By all means, do not let it infect your mind. Stay on your path.
People will betray us in life. They will take from us. We can be hurt and broken and angry about this, or we can use it as Epictetus did—as a reminder of the transient nature of possession.
Daily reminder that follower count means nothing.
You can spend years building an audience of millions and lose them all over one post.
Build your email list. It's the only asset you truly own.
It doesn't matter if it takes years.
What the fuck else are you going to do?
You aren't going to learn, create, experiment, grow, and everything that makes life enjoyable because you have something better to be doing?
Your mind is playing tricks on you.
You may have brilliant ideas, the kind that could revolutionize the world, but unless you can express them effectively, they will have no force, no power to enter people’s minds in a deep and lasting way.
In life you must be a warrior, and war requires realism.
While others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in reality, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have.
Tom Brady: "To be successful at anything, you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t: consistent, determined and willing to work for it. No shortcuts."
If you don't shamelessly promote your work, every day for the next 2-3 years, you will get stuck doing someone else's work until you realize that nobody is going to pay you if they have no idea who you are.