Mistakes from a Bestselling Author

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Something to Read: “34 Mistakes I’ve Made on the Way to 34”

The 34 year-old who wrote this goes by the name of Ryan Holiday — one of my personal favorite authors and an all around outstanding individual to follow.

Ryan writes a yearly piece around the idea of lessons learned over the past 365 days.

And this year he thought switch it up and focus exclusively on his failures and the lessons learned. Below are my top three from the list:

On the power of valuing your time:

Don’t say “maybe” when you really want to say “no.” Just say no. The only person making a big deal about it is you. Just say no. How many events/meetings/wastes of time are you going to agree to and then regret before you learn this?

On the importance of getting to know people first:

Of all the people (or types of people) I’ve had strong negative opinions or judgements about from afar, only few turned out to be even close to as obnoxious or stupid or awful as I thought. In fact, more often than not, I ended up liking them quite a bit. The world works better when we get to know each other.

On managing expectations with a significant other:

There’s a great Kurt Vonnegut story about marriage. He realized, fighting one day with his wife, that what they were really both saying was, “You’re not enough people.” You can only expect so much from a person. They can only deliver so much. When I think of relationships that have not worked out, or near breaking points of others, at the root of them was that: Expecting them to be too many people.

Wanting to read the rest? Click here

Something to Watch:

The Manipulation of US Public Opinion | Yuri Bezmenov

Some say you can’t predict the future — but after this interview I think Yuri Bezmenov can.

Bezmenov, a Soviet journalist and a former informant chimes in on how US public opinion could be manipulated.

The term to understand is ideological subversion — a tactic with an effect that takes decades to manifest.

It’s goal is to collapse societies at the psychological level in a bid to destabilize and undermine the entire ideological structure of a nation.

A Song to Listen to:

Ben Böhmer - Promise You

Put this track in the road trip hall-of-fame.

Listen to this track and many others on La Fórmula, a playlist by Modern Analects

A Quote to Think About:

“Beliefs are choices. First you choose your beliefs. Then your beliefs affect your choices.”

Roy T. Bennett

If you enjoyed something above — make sure to share with others.

Until next week,

Burak from Modern Analects