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Cicero is believed to be the greatest speaker that ever lived. So eloquent that Caesar--often the victim of the man's words and redresses--considered Cicero's achievements to be greater than his own; once remarking that it was nobler to "extend the frontiers of the mind" than it was to the "boundaries of the empire." As I read his work over the weekend I was struck by the clarity of his teachings--that moral goodness is the only source of happiness and that can happiness prevail even as you're being drawn and quartered. From that I jotted down his principles for becoming the perfect speaker from his discussion "On the Orator" and translated them into the principles for becoming the perfect writer. You can take the passion and eloquence that carried him from humble origins to two millenniums of posterity and tweak them to apply them to your writing. So here are 6 (of the many) Things that Cicero Can Teach You About Writing and hopefully, life too:

Master the Subject: All of It
There is no way around this. He writes that unless a speaker truly "grasps and understands what he is talking about, his speech will be worthless." That is clever word play or eloquence never trumps the material. In Rome the finest speakers were at an age that today we consider elderly--because they'd spent a lifetime acquiring knowledge. Cicero likens the study of a subject to a lawyer taking on a case for a client. They must know everything. They must be acutely aware of the nuances of the material, the theory and its precedents. Vincent Bugliosi as he tried Charlie Manson would approach witnesses with literally dozens of legal pads filled with questions. And he did the interrogations himself so he could absorb not just the victim's words but their feelings, emotions and tone.

This is what separates a rhetorician from an orator according to Cicero. The former knows language and the latter knows the truth. It is what separates a newspaper reporter who plugs quotes into the story format and the author who has dedicated years to the material at hand. And I think you need to ask yourself, who do we remember and who do we respect? The transient compilation of information of a text book or the holistic study of a book like Moneyball or Liar's Poker that makes you feel like you lived it?

Understand Human Nature: Psychological Warfare
It's very easy to think that knowledge of the details of the discussion at hand is enough. They are not. Cicero wrote that the speaker will never find the right words without a "thorough understanding of human nature and psychology." Through that alone can they derive what is appropriate and most effective for the audience. Not to mention, their opinions lack a foundation of reality if they are not solidly based on the human tendencies and beliefs. People respond to symbols, alliteration, and allusions. You know this, use them. We're self-interested--appeal to it. We're proud--capitalize on it.

If his first rule was details, this is the philosophy. You must know the canon.You can't debate politics without The Republic or military affairs without Von Clausewitz and an intricate study of history. Or discuss love and romance without poetry, observance and first hand-experience. You can't advocate policy or gives advice unless you've sat down and truly watched people--not as you'd like them to be but as they are. Writing is the same way. Your characters feel like cardboard if they were created shut up in your house or your wisdom falls flat without an understanding of what people want to hear about. For this reason the books of most professor's fail to sell: the writer spent all their time teaching about life instead of living it.

Focus on What Matters: Be Concrete
Cicero said that the difference between a philosopher and an orator is that a philosopher speaks generally in empty classrooms while an orator debates matters of national importance on the floor of the Senate. A writer of value, according Cicero, would be someone who takes the broad strokes of the thinker and translates them into the specific, applicable language of the doer. Without concreteness we have audible masturbation--onanism. What we need is someone who combines theory with practicality and a laser-focus on the stuff that matters. How else, he says, are you qualified to attack the actions of a general without knowledge of military theory? And conversely, what good is that theory if you cannot tie it to his actions?

Use Fear: Be Human to Reach Humans
Shamelessness is the fastest way to alienate your audience. So even if you feel no fear in front of a crowd, Cicero thinks you ought to at least keep up the pretense--to show that you are human. He claims that Crassus, another great speaker, feigned diffidence each time he approached the podium so he could connect with the audience instead being foreign or above them. Writers who show no shame, he said will be "rebuked" and "heavily penalized" by the reader. So that garbage about seeing the audience naked to calm your nerves is all wrong--you have the nerves for a reason, acknowledge them, embrace them even. If you're unsure of something, admit it and make it an asset instead of a weak spot in your message. This is the psychology that Cicero knew you needed to master.

Enthusiasm: Passion
The only way to navigate the difficulties of the other obstacles is to actually love what you do. That means, you'd do it for free or if no one was reading. He said "You need just one thing: enthusiasm--a passion little short of love." If you don't have that, why bother? People certainly aren't going to want to read what you could barely drag yourself to write. That means working hard, like Demosthenes who would fill his mouth with pebbles and recite verses to strengthen his tongue, who through practice alone broke himself of a stutter. A lot of writers don't have this and it shows; they write about what they think you want instead of what they care about. And that is just sad.

Ask the Experts: Learn from Others
It is the writer's job to know a lot but not everything. So when you don't know, consult the people who do. And with your ability to translate, amplify and support, he said, you ought to be able to make a more powerful argument on the subject then even they are able to. Often the "experts" have spent all their time on the first rule and none on the second, making it opportune for you to navigate a merger. Cicero listed the people he knew who he would turn to when he needed help or advice on a subject outside his expertise. Like him, you should try and cultivate these relationships and have them On Demand. If the Forum was the battlefield he said it was, then this is your armory, a stockade of knowledge for when you need it. Marcus Aurelius said that like a "soldier storming a wall," when you find trouble, it's perfectly fine to have a "comrade to pull you up."

Do the Opposite: Speak to Write Better
Cicero felt that the best way for a speaker to attain eloquence was to write extensively--that practice in the more meticulous and thought-out medium would help in extemporaneous discussions. In writing, the converse is true. Getting better at speaking, developing the ability for words to roll off your tongue will translate into a more fluid prose. As you raise your threshold on the state or at the podium, you ought to see your writing improve as well. He also recommends (as do I) to re-write (speak) the great works that have come before you. As you transition to original creation you can take that momentum with you. It's like getting a massive head start. In fact, it was in translating classic Greek to Latin that Cicero invented and gifted us the words "quality" "individual" "vacuum" "infinity" "moral" "notion" and "comprehension."

Conclusion:
Just as Sun Tzu said that if you know yourself and the enemy you will win every time, if you know the material and people you will do the same. If you are concrete, work hard and rely on experts for specialized knowledge, that victory will be a landslide. Cicero could put down rebellions with impassioned speeches, so surely you can convince the reader of the merits of your arguments with the same tactics. Unfortunately, these are not the lessons taught in school--we learned to write on things we didn't know much about, were told to divorce ourselves from how people normally think, to be theoretical and quote only from certain sources. That's not what I want to get in the habit of doing. And I absolutely hate it when I can tell that other writers are. We'll probably never be as eloquent as Cicero (at least I won't) but even if you make it halfway, you'll be clearer, more inspiring and have more passion.

If you liked this, then try this: On the Spartans and the Perfect Paper

Source: On the Good Life is the collection of Cicero's essays that I used for this post. The translation is excellent. You should buy this book.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (15)

There is this town next to the one I grew up in called Orangevale. It's come to symbolize everything I don't want my life to lead up to. I remember as a kid just getting this choking feeling in my throat whenever I would visit friends there. I remember realizing "I'd rather put a gun in my mouth than end up living here."

Not because it was poor--it wasn't--but because it was just sad. You could just feel the toll that getting up everyday and working 40 hours a week as mediocre insurance salesman or secretary took on people. I drove through it a while back and from the cocoon of my car remember hearing those piercing screams of desperation rattling off chain link fences and dry, brown lawns. People just waiting for the weekend so they can sit and eat dinner on tv trays or yell at their kids. Alinsky called this "living in illusions of partial escape."

I still feel that choking--that fear. I just cannot end up there. To work your whole life at the governmentally mandated limit for what? At something you're ok at but would quit if you could get a few more dollars doing something else, for what? To have the white picket fence that needs so desperately to be repaired but you just don't care enough to do it, for what? To be so angry, and confused, and wonder why your kids act out in violence, for what?

And for some reason, kids I went to college with are just counting the days before they graduate and move back. No wonder it's all about indulgence, artifice, delusion and those "if I don't travel abroad now, I'll never get to do it again" trips they have the state pay for. It's a last gasp before they voluntarily go under. Worse, most of my friends never even left.

That's not me. I won't let it be. I'd rather be dirt-fucking-poor and doing exactly what I want then take the sucker's payoff of that life. Or, better yet, have both--the money that comes with rarity and value and the passion of a life of meaning. But you'll hear a lot of excuses for why that's not possible or not worth it or too hard--ask yourself, as I try to, "according to who?" And then you'll see them as the tinny, self-serving rationalizations from people scared to death of life and effort that they are.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

"Can I get a cup of water?"
"We don't have water here."

I was at a Pinkberry in LA earlier in the week overpaying for desert and I got thirsty and assumed they'd give me a drink for free. But they didn't. And I guess I should have gotten mad--it's pretty awful customer service--but I couldn't. I respect the balls that that took. Somewhere along the line, someone made the conscious choice not to serve water. IKEA did it too. Someone said "Why do we pay to give everyone bags that they just throw away when they get home?" and they stopped doing it.

You can see countless examples of industries that have decided to die with whatever practices they were born with. The album, regardless of whatever musicians cry, is not a collective artistic statement. It's just a packaging device designed to deal with fixed costs. Otherwise, iTunes would show that songs in "classic" albums were downloaded equally. Nope, 3 or 4 songs are almost always significantly more popular than others while others are almost actively disliked. But bands keep cranking out albums even though they could sell the songs online as they make them. Why isn't the mail delivered on Sunday? Why do the newspapers still publish stock tables? Why do cars still have cigarette lighters instead of electrical outlets? And why does the penny even exist anymore?

Because no one has bothered to stop and questioned "the way things have always been."

The United States Constitution of the isn't a suicide-pact. Should anything else be? Things are changing at a phenomenal rate of speed. You cannot get in the habit of traditional or emulative thinking. If the data doesn't support your position, you're probably being generous when you call it a position. Business have at least some excuse: Bureaucracy. What excuse do we [people] have?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[*] I started taking Flaxseed oil (pills) everyday and a Vitamin Water. I feel more energetic and waking up in the morning hasn't been the awful--I wish I was dead--experience that it always used to be.

[*]This Free Rice game is amazing. It's like Puppy War but with an academic rationalization.

[*]Got this quote from someone.

"The first step -- especially for young people with energy and drive and talent,
but not money -- the first step to controlling your world is to control your
culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To
write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art." Chuck Palahniuk

[*]Have a TON of books I want to get into. This is the list.

[*] I mentioned the word "viral" in my in this post about marketing. I will never use the word again. I just heard someone use it to describe the paid distribution of fliers outside a concert. Officially, done.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

People are liars. They just fucking lie all the time. "This is how much traffic I do." "I'm actually went to high school with [insert celebrity]" "I got in to this college, this college and this college, but I inexplicably decided to go to [lesser college]" "I've been with [this many] chicks" Most of the time, when people tell me anything about themselves, I just assume they are exaggerating--if not flat-out lying.

John Boyd forced all his acolytes to underestimate numbers when they were in their favor and be generous when they weren't. And then when they were challenged, the real math only proved them more correct and made the bluff-caller look like an idiot. I figure that's not a bad way to live your life. It's certainly more moral to be honest. For instance, I don't count any book as read if I didn't go from cover to cover. I can't say 5 miles anymore because I've reduced it to about 4 and started eating better--so you won't see me say 5 unless that's what the number is again. And as a added benefit, it pushes you to match your actions with the standing declarations you have made.

I assume most of the people who matter as as skeptical as I am. Because really, it's just not probable that every single athlete I've ever talked to "won State." [Really? What was the score of the New Hampshire Bowl?] So by being totally honest, you're already being underestimated. And being overestimated is a short-term, ego-driven strategy.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

They say the sign of a bubble is when people start to say "this time is different." That is, when people ignore history and start to act irrationally on hope. And that is true and it is a fallacy. But it is counter-balanced by a similar sort of ignorance--the dismissal that "they said it was different last time and it wasn't, so it isn't now either."

Every day I have to butt heads with people who just can't accept that it is different now. It has just completely changed. And what we see is people greedy enough to demand the benefits and the attention of new audiences but not willing to give up anything in return. "Why can't I have a viral movie AND get to control the message?" This wishful thinking forgets that it was precisely that control that prevented content from spreading virally before. (For the record, I hate the word) It's everywhere. "I gave my child a computer so he would have the world at his fingertips but now it distracts him from his school work. Why can't I have both?" Perhaps the latter was constraining the former. " We're fine with giving the country freedom, but they better choose what we want." Yeah, that's just not realistic. The fundamental change is this: We have unleashed a massive force by connecting and empowering society to do as it pleases. And what they wish to do isn't necessarily the same as what the powers wish they'd do.

It's all about ceding control. Nothing is free. Everything has costs. Boyd pushed the Marines to trade brute force for maneuverability. Smart entertainers are swapping front end profits for back end reapings. The military now needs to trade the support of infrastructure for the exponential power of individuals. Perez opened himself up to lawsuits in order to become the most popular personality on the internet. The guy you've never heard of? He's petrified of them. Today, I have to try to get this across: You're no longer in charge. The people are holding the party now and you either have to be invited or you have to come bearing gifts. Soulja Boy brought something fun. The Daily Show and the Colbert Report were dragged in because they were just that cool. They say it's not so much PR as it is is participation and that is it in its essence. If you want back in the game, you've got to ante up.

Chances are we don't want to watch your movie trailer. If you want us to, it has to be worth our while. That means it has to be good. Why should the military be treated as liberators? You know, unless they are liberating. How can you expect freedom of movement and still demand the luxury that comes from your baggage? There is no chance of massive success without the willingness to take a few risks--without the willingness to cede control.

So of course you've got to keep the exuberance tempered with perspective. The old regime will still have enough power to swoop in and shit on things for the foreseeable future. But is it more likely that the simultaneous switch from a seller's market to an overwhelming buyer's market all across our lives is just a slight variation on an old theme or paradigm altering moment? It truly is different now and things will never be the same. And the first step into the future requires admitting that you're willing to accept the benefits of that difference in exchange for the loss of the old.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Godin listed the skills he felt couldn't be outsourced.

analysis insight surprise responsibility humor creativity guts respect charisma vision calm love

Did you learn any of those in a classroom? The only way I've found them is to surround yourself with people that already have them. To absorb them through iteration and imitation until they become dispositional. Books are only a mediocre substitute. The key though is to avoid the academic pressures that push you away from those skills and towards sycophantry, cautiousness, repetition, tradition, jealousy and shortsightedness. Because once you tattoo yourself with those any of these viewpoints, the scars never go away.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

The Effect of Word of Mouth on Sales: Online Book Reviews--Judith A. Chevalier
DO NOT read this paper. It's awful. It actually uses this sentence as its conclusion "The evidence suggests that customer word of mouth has a casual impact on consumer purchasing behavior at two internet retail sites. We believe this has not been shown before." Groundbreaking.

Street Gangs: The New Urban Insurgency--Max G Manwaring
I wrote about this here.

Brave New War--John Robb
A MUST read. Wrote about it here.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
It's the third time I've read it this year. Every time I do I become more convinced that it ought to be included in high school canon. It ought to go Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, The Jungle, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Catcher in the Rye, Fahrenheit 451, Fight Club. Is there a better book that sums our age? Anything that better encapsulates the existential vacuum and how a society struggles to overcome it? Everyone of those other books were banned or disparaged or slighted by critics but in time we came to see how valuable they were. FC is the same.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

There is some throwaway Tucker line about how if you're going to be fat, you better be cool because if you're not, what are you offering the world? My point in the post about traffic and about Atlas Shrugged is "if you don't make the world a better place, why exactly do you exist?" My feeling is that if you don't make the people around you better then you are not working hard enough, you're not bringing enough value to the table.

And that is why I run every night--in the rain or when I'm tired. It's why I start my day a 7:30 and finish well after midnight. It's why even when I eat, I read. And my only real break is when I spend time with my girlfriend--who by association makes me a better person. It's why for most of what I get paid to, I'd probably do for free if I had to. It's why this quote is above my bed.

History is composed of individuals who pushed ahead--who for whatever reason, innovated and raised the playing field. And at the same time, they were combated every single step by people who cherished regression and lived for spite. We broke through each sociological, intellectual and economic barrier because one was a little stronger than the other. We avoided equilibrium and stasis through their will and their insistence on having the last word.

There are an infinite number of ways for you to be part of the former and an equally large and tempting number of ways to be part of the later. But it doesn't seem to me like it is much of a choice. So my question is this: If you're not spending your time trying to improve yourself and by extension everything around you, what exactly are you spending your time on?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (23)

Technology hasn't worked out quite like we imagined. For you and I, it has made us dramatically more efficient. But institutions, despite superficial changes, remain fundamentally unchanged. Tim Ferriss looked at this paradox in the the Four Hour Work Week, asking how, with the advent of the computer, internet and cell phone, could office habits and expectations still be exactly the same as they were fifty years ago. And now people are turning that thought process towards warfare--specifically John Robb in Brave New War (he also has an awesome blog) and Robert Greene.

The problem is that on one end we have groups competing amongst themselves to be better, more fluid and more powerful and on the other end groups colluding to maintain the status quo. We have nation states (conglomerates) and terrorists (the internet). One of them gets better every day and the other gets a little bit worse. Eventually, those trajectories intersect. So we're seeing that the same tools that have made one man as powerful as a newspaper now make twenty Muslims as powerful as an entire army.

For the first time in almost all of history, the individual can now compete with the state. That is, the path to power militarily or economically doesn't necessarily lead through a nation's capital. And this competition is defined by one pretty immutable law: The people coming up want it more than the people already on top. Do you think that Forbes wakes up everyday as hungry for one more reader the same way that I do? And when they can't compete, they can at least make us look like a bumbling fool. Which really is what terrorism is: the use violence to de-legitimize the state. But it won't always have to be through violence. I could shut down half of LA by abandoning a bus on the 10 Freeway and not even risk my life doing it.

The parallels between the rapid growth and decentralization that we have seen online is precisely what we are seeing in Iraq. Except for a beheading isn't quite as admirable or as inspirational as revolutionizing an archaic industry. But that is essentially what insurgents are: individuals and small groups more efficiently serving the needs of the people more than the standing leaders (which in this case is the State).

When we take away the blinders we see that despite our mass and size, we are being beaten in the exact areas that the size is supposed to be an advantage. Pleasing the people, at providing infrastructure, at distributing global resources, at providing education, at maintaining electricity--these are the things a superpower is supposed to be good at. But Iraq (and well, daily life in America) shows that that is not the case. And just as newspapers and universities are failing at the basic service they were created to provide--getting scoops, investigative reporting, ground breaking research--individuals and private groups have started to step up and replace government functions. Criminal gangs--a major component of insurgencies that we do not acknowledge--work the same way. This is why you see such an affinity for gangs and criminal activity in the inner cities. Where the governments have failed, individuals stepped up and at least attempted to fill the void. Why should rappers and basketball players and hip-hop entrepreneurs suddenly like the State after they've made their money? They learned to exist without it.

The solution that Robb proposes is to embrace the very methods of our adversaries. Of course this seems absurd--but while you're laughing, say hello to the Entrenched Player Dilemma. The state might be slipping you say but it's not on the verge of collapse. Indeed, and that it why we ought to change now. The time to change--in life and in strategy--is before you become utterly obsolete, not after.

Cuban knows what he is talking about. We might be served welled by a politician who just started red-lining laws. We have too many; the enemy has none. Michael Raynor sent me a paper a few weeks ago that suggested this tactic for newspapers and other industries facing emerging threats. His advised the companies set up autonomous and independent divisions to handle the situation instead of trying to do it in-house. This way they could create new institutions around conditions as opposed to attempting to slow alter old ones or ignore the glaring disparity. They would know the space and the culture and avoid the blunders of hubris and projection. I posted a few weeks ago about private vs government monopolies and this is the perfect example. We have the government strangling efficiency in media and technology because it serves the needs of politicians and not the people. This is the philosophy of failure. Our enemies do not think this way.

There are some solutions. Decentralization is one of them. In Charlie Wilson's War, the author discuses a CIA program that paid entrepreneurs to create innovative weapons for Afghani rebels to use against the Soviets. A $10 million cash fund that created incentives for home-made lethality. That power is currently being used against us instead of in our favor. Robb talks about using things like crowdsourcing to limit the effectiveness of calculated strikes and system disruption. And it seems to me that the tragedy of the anti-commons prevents individuals from picking up the burdens that eventually fall on the government. How do you make government work harder? By taking its assets away.

It's funny because on one end I sit and cheer the rise of decentralization and its likely victory over obtuse and inset competitors. On the other, I clearly don't wish to see the United States falter militarily. The rise of the anti-state won't end in Iraq, just as it won't end on the internet or in entertainment. Imagine if Katrina had been a few magnitudes worse, who knows what would have arisen to make sense of that chaos.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

So I read Atlas Shrugged and I liked it. I ended up heading over to UCLA and attending a lecture on Objectivism and Ayn Rand philosophy just to hear more about it. But here is what I don't like about it--the idea that it is somehow noble to just quit and leave. Yeah sure, society was awful to them and the weak used the virtues of the strong against themselves, so on and so forth. How is this not any different than the Allegory of the Cave?

I thought Plato wrapped it up nicely for us. Suppose all we could see were shadows against the wall of a cave, couldn't we be forgiven for thinking that that was reality? Let's say you escape from the cave, and you see the situation for what it was: an illusion. The burden--the Philosopher's Burden--is the price you pay for a peek outside the darkness. If you've been privileged enough to be exposed to the good life, if you start to figure out some truth and see the shadows and dust for all that they are--you have to go back. Of course that's not the best incentive, but if it was about weighing what was easier or came with the fewest consequences, we'd just lay around all day.

They might beat you, or mock you, or laugh at you for your persistence but it is all we have--to try and move collectively from one plane to the next. As Alinsky said, history is a relay race of runners with the torch of idealism.

I don't know, maybe it's just me but I agree with that. You have to get up each morning and try again--even if it never works, even if they never listen. I'm not saying that the world needs more evangelists, in fact, they're part of the problem (they propagated the illusions in the first place) . What we need more of though, are people willing to head back down to the Cave. There is that Roosevelt quote about the gladiators in the arena, or the Aurelius line about how nothing provokes change like seeing the virtues embodied in the people around you.

Even if you push it just one step forward, so long as you hand it off to the next in line. Maybe it's just me but it seems like there is more dignity in that than in cavorting around in a hidden valley in Colorado reciting verbose creeds to unlock magical doors. I'm not saying I want to die on a train like Eddie Willers, not knowing what I was working for or why, but if they'd never turned it around and the world had ended, I'd have rather gone out as Dagny Taggart than as John Galt. Because at least she tried.

Thoughts?

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (25)

Most days to the office, I wear jeans and a white t-shirt. It's the same thing I wear on the weekends...and have for pretty much every other day of the last three or four years. I like it. It's comfortable. I don't have to stress about brands. It makes me happy and that is why I do it.

But a lot of people dress up. I have a feeling it's because they think they're supposed to, not because they like it. What are the chances of everybody picking the same style?

When I was in 2nd grade, they took us to the computer lab for the first time. The same year, they forced us to learn cursive. "Nice handwriting is key to business documents." How wrong did that turn out to be? It was the first thing I decided not to learn. To this day, I cannot write in cursive. What teacher was going to fail me because I couldn't add a tail to my vowels? I can fake it--I can sort of drag the pen on the paper and connect the letters, but I can't write in cursive.

That's the thing. You can walk in other people's footsteps and you make all the moves they tell you to make. But see, the people teaching you have a certain bias they don't like to disclose. If they teach you their rules then you're a lot less likely to challenge them on your own terms. And they've already got a solid head start when it comes to the old system. Think of it this way, if there is a general rule or aphorism that lays out your path then it's probably a common one. And thus it lacks any scarcity or value. We know for sure at least one person has already done it, and enough followed to propagate a cliché about it. Is that what you want? Does that sound like the field or the life for you?

A crowded field with a lot of competition is one low profit margins--so success hinges on brute strength, on bearing the unpleasantness longer than everybody else. You've decided to beat them in cursive instead of in content--and gotten all the joy that comes from staring a page with curly letters. Enjoy.

So you can dress like everybody else, and you can pay your dues. You can go to grad school because that's what your brother did, or you can become the best damn paper filer in the entire world so then you can be the best trainer of paper filers and then later you can maybe pick which papers they have to file. And then you can pray to everything that is holy that the world will remain exactly as it is so you can get the same payoffs as everyone else.

Or, you can understand strategic options and flexibility. And grasp that a lot of people have done it their way but no one has done it your way. Thucydides realized way back then that the weak subsidize the strong. [ "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."]. If you bring something to the table, you get to take something back. When you add value, you get to decide the terms of its delivery. So seriously, you can do pretty much whatever you want.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Apparently I made Violent Acres really, really mad. Upset enough it seems, that she dedicated a second post to how wrong I am in thinking that actively causing traffic is stupid.

But if you want to read about me, don't bother reading what she wrote. It's not even about me. I'm just a proxy. She really hates Tucker Max.

Which is really funny because she can't keep his name out of her mouth. It's the fourth time this year she's written about him. She obviously trolls the messageboard (and posts occasionally) and eagerly gobbles the latest news, then she pisses and moans about it, or gossips about how much actual Rudius authors get paid, and is probably one of the two people who constantly vandalize his Wikipedia page.

But if I recall, this whole thing started over my post about driving. I think cars should travel with the flow of traffic and generally allow for people going the speed limit to pass unencumbered. Is that even a debate? Should we really concern ourselves with people who say things like this:

Some fuck started tailgating me anyway and for reasons unbeknownst to me; he refused to pass me in the slow lane. So, I reduced my speed. I picked up my cell phone and dialed my friend's phone number. "I'm going to be late," I calmly told her, "I'm about to get into a traffic accident." Then I turned off my phone and slammed on my brakes.

I wonder if this was before or after she decided to go homeless to pay off her credit card debts? Or if it's in the same fantasy world where she's not fat and bitter and making up stories is OK? This has got to be a joke. I said she was laughable before, and that was before I knew she was so sad and desperate for attention that she'd actually hurt people to get it.

While we're at it, let's look at her record: Hollie Toner. One of her readers was nice enough to send me her traffic history and another sent me her IP address, which all just happen to corroborate the traffic logs with the people she's fought with (screenshot here and look in the comments for more). If you didn't catch that, Violent Acres is written by Hollie Toner (more evidence here and here.) And Hollie Toner--the excellent driver--can't figure out how to yield properly. Of course, there could have been a wild teenager nearby and it caused her bitter little hand to slip off the wheel.

Hollie, I realize why I made you so upset:

You're one of those people. You hate your life and figured, "If I'm going to be a loser, I might as well make a scene doing it." So you cause car accidents and bitch about sites with New York Times Bestselling authors and writers whose material people actually care about. Instead of being content to offer nothing to the world, you decided you ought to take from it.

And then of course, there is your obsession with Tucker. We get it. You think you're better than him but you'd still die for his attention. So you hate us both for it. I've got to tell you Hollie, if 2007 made you mad, just wait until 2008. You are going to be pissed. Looks like you've got a few more car accidents to look forward to.

Update: It's on Digg if you want to vote for it.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 01:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (117)

The Dip--Seth Godin
Maybe the best book I've read on work/inspiration/creation since The War of Art. It's only 70 pages and it looks like something someone would give as a joke gift, but it's anything but. Godin talks frankly about quitting and pushing through--and when to do each. Quit when you'll be mediocre, when the returns aren't worth the investment, when you no longer think you'll enjoy the ends. Stick when the dip is the obstacle that creates scarcity, when you're simply bridging the gap between beginner's luck and mastery.

10 Discoveries that Rewrote History--Patrick Hunt
This is a short read but definitely worth it. It gives you a great introduction to the discovery of Troy, Pompeii, The Tomb of 10,000 Warriors, Thera (possibly Atlantis) and the Rosetta Stone. Again, it doesn't go far in depth and it is very anecdotal, but I found the stories to be fascinating. Hunt starts with the discovery process and ends with the implications--which really, unless you plan on pursuing the field--is all you need. Before the book I had no idea how pivotal the Rosetta Stone was in deciphering Egyptian Culture.

Learning from Iraq: Counter Insurgency in American Strategy (academic paper)--US Army Strategic Studies Institute
Part of some research I am doing on strategy in Iraq. This paper breaks down a lot of the assumptions we have about the conflict--that we're not fighting an insurgency but a hybrid of criminal gangs and guerrilla fighters and that we are simply engaged in a propaganda war in which violence is particularly successful. The only solution is to wage a battle for information, which of course is something that goverments (and Bush specifically) are atrocious at.

Trends in Marital Stability (academic paper) Justin Wolfers at Wharton
Basically, the rise in divorce rates (from some recent studies) that stupidly forgot to synchronize their dates. But interestingly, some of the rise in divorce rates is explained by the fact that people are living longer and thus *obviously* more susceptible to the risk factors that cause people to split. (The paper was pretty mediocre, you should probably skip it)

Learning from the Behavior of Others: Conformity, Fads, and Informational Cascades-- (academic paper) Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer
A post on this is coming but this paper is a short form version of The Tipping Point. Interestingly it actually analyzes what information cascades mean, not just how they happen. Turns out, they aren't all that great as far as information goes.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh no, Violent Acres has thrown her trademarked bitterness at me!

If I had posted and discovered that my audience was filled with people who like to drive below the speed limit and are completely oblivious to the world around them, I would have just hung it up and quit. What does it say about you that your readers are so worthless that they like to evangelize how slow they drive? "I do it on purpose, just to bother people."

No that totally makes sense. I should leave earlier everyday so I can creep behind people who won't get out of the way of an entirely empty lane. Sounds like the life for me! I'm just a crazy young teenager because I hate pointless waste and inefficiency. Yup, that's just what I am, a product of the Me-Generation because I think it's ridiculous to obstruct others.

Maturity though--that's being a shrew who sits at a computer, drums up discussion then refuses to take part in it because she's too good for it. It's claiming that other people should be polite when you're busy, everywhere except the road. Or maybe you don't allow comments because you're just laughable. I'm not even going to respond to the fact that you clearly can't read. But that's just because I don't think I could fill it with enough random hyperbole.

We get it. You're not like all those other people. You're a contrarian. And you pull in $25 dollars a week from blogads by screaming Bill O'Reilly like headlines that appeal to the latent misogynists at Digg and the 4th Wavers at Gawker. Look at me! I'm different (not insecure), shower me with attention so I can ignore it.

What do I know? After all, I find lose-lose situations to be frustrating and try to avoid them.

But again, I really appreciate all 700 people you sent my way.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (32)

Added to Book Quotes and Passages

If I let Chance get over on me then that's who I would be in the streets: the nigga you can get over on. I had to rearrange the discussion to where I was in a position of power, and I had to do it fast.
50 Cent
From Pieces to Weight

That's when I realized that as long as you don't broadcast your beefs, you can get away cold with murder. It's even better if you don't allow the beef to take place. If someone disrespects you, you can know in your heard that you're going to get him, but you don't have to show him there's a beef. You can just look at it like, Okay, this nigga must not know. And then you fall back and you put it down.
50 Cent
From Pieces to Weight

I didn't hit shit but air because them niggas got to running as soon as they saw me jump out of the car. Still, they got it in their heads that that motherfucker don't have no restrictions--he'll air anything out, anytime.
50 Cent
From Pieces to Weight

What do you mean, I need a rest? No. I don't need a rest. I'll rest in between shows, tour dates, and video shoots. Because you know what? On the corner I didn't need a rest. I didn't even stop sometimes to change my clothes because I was grinding. There were times I slept outside when I was hustling. I was just out there on the bench like everybody else. It's summertime, it's hot, I ain't gone home last night. I didn't quit in my old business and I'm not going to quit in my new business either.
50 Cent
From Pieces to Weight

I didn't survive being shot nine times for nothing. I didn't claw my way out of the hood just because it was something to do. I know I've got a purpose--a reason for being on this planet. I don't think I've done everything I'm supposed to do yet. But I do know this: I ain't going nowhere 'till I've done it all.
50 Cent
From Pieces to Weight

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 02:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When this goes down as the age that redefines all other ages, the era where titans exchanged ideas openly and you could rub shoulders and strategize with the next generation of leaders and geniuses posted and mused for free, I want to say: I was there. I contributed. I breathed it. I lived it. And if it costs me some money. So? It could just as easily make me a millionaire many times over. A new renaissance. Utterly paradigm shifting stuff happens everyday. And I get to sit there on the phone and translate it. And adapt. And poise to capitalize. You can't learn this stuff in a classroom except for after it happens.

For the first time in history the cost of information is approaching zero. Almost every American industry is built on the understanding that information must be limited, controlled and restricted. Because when you make knowledge scarce, you can sell bits and pieces of it for enormous amounts of money. You create industries filled with "experts" and "consultants" and "specialists" who know only a tiny bit more than your average person. And most importantly, you can get away with not being all that good. What the internet has done is not free up a bit of information here or there, but ALL information. And thus we see the simultaneous teetering of dozens of major power players. It's a lot harder to sell shitty cars or shitty music or charge the shitty 6% in broker's fees when people can peek behind the curtain. You can do the majority of what they do yourself, and your experiences are no longer isolated to your small clan--you have access to the collective experiences of everyone.

Take the YouTube announcement. No question, it will profoundly changed our world. The Radiohead thing is a stunt. It's mostly meaningless. The price at which bands sell their music is just a tactic, but how content is consumed, distributed and monetized, that is the grand, grand strategy of it all. In doing what they did--the details will surface but I can't discuss all of it because it's for a client--YouTube has altered the basic junction between content and consumer. It will make hundreds of middleman (who had positioned themselves as creators instead of facilitators) obsolete. And they will never come back. Why is that important? Because many of you are training to be those people.

You will be utterly fucked. Outsourcing is not the problem. It is that millions of jobs no longer need to exist. What is more of a threat to bank tellers? Cheap Chinese labor or the ATM? When industries accept mediocrity in service, of course there is going to be a lot of dead-weight and extra positions. So now they're having to go lean just to staunch the bleeding--and it's never going to stop. My whole generation is being taught by people who were shown that limited information worked and then are being sent into a world that is drastically different. They aren't training young people to wade through bullshit, to grasp intuitively what makes sense and what doesn't, or how to treat people well, or how to create stuff that actually appeals to people instead they're teaching them the same stuff that got us here. So we're going to have to learn it on our own, or fail once more.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

I get really angry when I get behind a slow driver and people always tell me to calm down. They don't get where the rage comes from. It comes from not being able to understand how someone can be so devoid of purpose or direction that they not only lack urgency in their own life, but they actively impede others who know where they want to go.

It seems to me that the worst thing you could ever say about someone is "You're not just mediocre, you're contagiously mediocre." We all have problems, areas where we are objectively bad at things, but to drag others down--either via obliviousness or malice--is about the most evil act one can engage in.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 06:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (41)

Since the redesign I have seen a big influx of traffic, so if you're new, this is for you. Or a bit of review for everyone else.

Greatest Hits
The Business of Running
-Why you have set your own pace and stick to it. If you don't, you let others define you and ultimately doom your chances of success.

On the Spartans and the Perfect Paper
I was hesitant to write this but then after I posted it, it went viral on three separate occasions and continues to be my most popular post ever. (It is doing really well on StumbleUpon--and for all of you that voted for it before, the URL has changed and it'd be great if you could vote again)

Of all Virtues...Energy
I wrote this sitting in the office one day after remembering the Von Clausewitz quote--sort of stream of consciousness--but I'm really glad I did.

Why We Could Eliminate the A-List Bloggers and Be Smarter for It
Everyday the head of the Long Tail gets less and less relevant. This post was big for me too, I ended up discovering a lot of latent agreement from big people that didn't want to admit it publicly.

Well son, what do you want to do with your life
I'm still not exactly sure, but I'm a lot closer to figuring it out. The comment section on this did really well.

Important Pages:
The Reading List (read them, they won't let you down)
Book Quotes and Passages (almost 15,000 words at this point)
About Me (work in progress)
Ryan on Rudius
Ryan on TMMB
Ryan on Myspace
Ryan on Facebook
Ryan on Digg
Ryan on Del.icio.us

One last thing:
And even though the design is awesome, the site really is easier to read via RSS. If you subscribe you'll get all the updates within minutes of them being posted--and you won't have to deal with ads, or load times or partial feeds, or any of that other stuff. I suggest Google Reader. If you want to subscribe to my feed, click here. I'd appreciate it if you would.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 03:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Tim Ferriss is promoting a new charity idea that he is working on called LitLiberation.

It's not really my thing but I think it would be really cool if a charity announced a partnership with WheresGeorge.com, the money tracking site. All charitable donations would converted to cash before they were deposited and then their serial numbers would be entered into the database. For the rest of that bill's circulation, as it was tracked by its exchangers, the donation giver's name would show up as the originator and labeled as "charitable." But more importantly, they could trace its path all over the world, seeing the "good" that it is doing--maintaining ownership in a way that keeping it would have never really touched. And here's the thing, it looks like the ultimate transparency, a truly open charity. But it's really since it all goes to the bank, they aren't significantly more accountable then they are now. Wouldn't every other charity have to do the same thing? I know where I would put my money.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

When people screw up in front of me, the first thing I like to think about is how close I've come to doing the same thing. Or, how many times I've probably done it and never even known.

Last week, I spoke to advertising company about working for just one of the Rudius sites. Later in the conversation, I dropped another major client in their lap, for the good of everyone involved. And by major, I mean a site who's pageviews are measured in the millions, monthly. The person on the phone, thinking that the Rudius property was of little value, turned around and gave the private information to a competitor. Thinking that I was little, and thus didn't matter, he felt that it was safe to act without integrity. But the problem with that is that you never know who someone has lines of communications with and who else is packaged along with them. In the midst of what the rep thought was a big coup for he and his sales friends, he fucked himself out of nearly 30 million monthly pageviews and that's just the immediate present. More than that, he placed me in a troublesome situation, for which I will never forgive his company.

It is almost never safe to act without integrity. And even more dangerous to think that you can get away with it. You won't be confronted about it, people will just move on. Rudius will go with another advertiser (because you can't be trusted) and I don't plan on recommending this to any of the other properties that I'm working to monetize.

For me, I'm quickly learning that people often have influence where you wouldn't expect them to have--especially when knowledge is scarce. But more importantly, since I know that I purposely reveal very little about myself, most other people do it too. It's better to be safe and treat people right, then the folly of underestimation.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 09:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On Tuesday night, I ran until I vomited, wiped off my mouth and kept going. Goddamn it felt good.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recently Finished:
Atlas Shrugged- Ayn Rand
From Pieces to Weight- 50 Cent
Meditations (partial reread)
Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of Americans with Disabilities Act (Academic Paper)

Reading:
How to Be Creative- Huge MacLeod
A Farewell to Alms- Gregory Clark
It's a really fascinating book about Malthusian traps and the Industrial Revolution. The basic assertions ishat life in from 5,000 BC to 1800 AD was almost completely unchanged. And that the gains from hunter-gatherer societies to preindustrial societies were abysmally small compared to the changes from preindustrial to industrial. But within the span of 1200-1800 AD, the rich were massively more successful reproductively and thus their values outpaced the poor's values, and we were left with the Western man. Without the trickling down of the genes of the successful, industrialism never would have been possible. So that it wasn't technology or institutions facilitated the paradigm shift but rather the culture created by specific natural selection in England.

I'll post more when I've finished.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Last week I wrote about learned helplessness and how the world tends to be a breeding ground for it. In between the time it was written and published I had a stream of relatively random and inexplicable bad luck. I got a parking ticket because LA--the city that doesn't mind having the dirtiest air in the world--insists on weekly street sweepings at 8am. My car was towed because apparently parking too long in an enormous lot is harmful to business whereas a shantytown of homeless people is fine to go unnoticed. Then there were some problems at work. And then I got so sick that I woke up in the middle of the night sweating out my fever so fiercely that I was convinced I'd pissed the bed. None of it made any sense and I just wanted to quit.

Then I remembered what I'd written. The only real thing separating the winners from the losers is if they get back up. Am I going to appreciate these events for their extreme improbability or am I going to delude myself into thinking I am cursed forever? If you stretch the graph out long enough, statistically paranoia and fearfulness and timidity start to pay off. Were boldness to become commonplace, it would no longer exist as a viable strategy. Risk can lead to total failure but cautiousness just the absence of success. Zap, Zap, Zap, Zap--our bodies resign to its infinite continuation and prepares to minimize anguish. It would seem to me that the odds of playing dead were better for survival than pushing through and hoping for a chance win. That might be a way to survive, but not a way to live.

So I didn't quit. And with the perspective that it's very easy--but ultimately self-defeating--to look at things with a pessimistic explanatory style, you can resist that impulse. All I know is that my cycles are getting shorter and shorter because I stop before it spins out of control. My cycle is probably different from yours. I start feeling the symptoms of the flu. You might get angry, or restless, or the desire to radically change course. Or that's when you might get high and tell yourself "that it's what you need to be inspired." Whatever. The fact is we all have coping mechanisms that do little but ignore the problem. For me, they actually make it worse.

But what I've learned is that in monitoring your SIGs and responding not instinctually but appropriately, you can focus your energy on the stuff that matters. And it's not that the things weren't my fault, it's that there is a difference between accepting responsibility and burdening yourself with blame.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

If I could impart one lesson on politics or economics here it would be this simple one: Private monopolies are ALWAYS better than government monopolies because one is implicitly backed by a gun and the other could be taken down tomorrow by a dude with ambition.

Posted by Ryan Clark Holiday at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (16)