“Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet with the busybody, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful and of the bad that it is ugly, and the nature of him who does wrong, that it is akin to me, not [only] of the same blood or seed, but that it participates in [the same] intelligence and [the same] portion of the divinity, I can neither be injured by any of them, for no one can fix on me what is ugly, nor can I be angry with my kinsman, nor hate him. For we are made for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and to turn away.”

“…but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy.”

“For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.”

“…and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion.”

“And he remembers also that every rational animal is his kinsman, and that to care for all men is according to man’s nature.”

“Let no act be done without a purpose…”

“Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”

“…making thyself neither the tyrant nor the slave of any man.”

“Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its places, and this will be carried away too.”

“Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.”

“He who loves fame considers another man’s activity to be his own good; and he who loves pleasure, his on sensations; but he who has understanding, considers his own acts to be his own good.”

“…and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die; and above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before.”

“When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong…It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if thou dost not think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be well-disposed to him who is in error.”

“Think of thy last hour. Let the wrong which is done by man stay there where the wrong was done.”

“…to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more wilt thou see?”

“Consider thyself to be dead, and to have completed thy life up to the present time; and live according to nature the remainder which is allowed thee.”

“Take care not to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards men.”

“The perfect moral character consists in this, passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited, nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite.”

“…thou hast leisure to be superior to love of fame, and not to be vexed at stupid and ungrateful people, nay even to care for them.”

“Receive [wealth or prosperity] without arrogance; and be ready to let it go.”

“No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be such.”

“Constantly consider how all things such as they now are, in time past also were; and consider that they will be the same again. And place before thy eyes entire dramas and stages of the same form, whatever thou hast learned from thy experience or from older history;”

“Severally on the occasion of everything that thou doest, pause and ask thyself, if death is a dreadful thing because it deprives thee of this.”

“These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyzes itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit which it bears itself enjoys—

“But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless he only assumed it.”

“Men despise one another and flatter one another; and men wish to raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another.”

“Sixth, consider when thou art much vexed or grieved, that man’s life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead.”

“…but that mildness and gentleness, as the are more agreeable to human nature, so also are they more manly; and he who possesses these qualities possesses strength, nerves and courage, and not the man who is subject to fits of passion and discontent.”

“…for there is no veil over a star.”

One of my favorite books is The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. Beyond it's social implication what I like most about the book is that it is a story of a man going through constant adversity and ultimately changing for the better. While re-reading the book I took note of certain themes or lessons that I could take away from it that apply to self-improvement and personal growth. I came up with seven of these lessons and could definitely go back and find some more but for now I think that these will suffice.

1. Reject Doubters and Naysayers

During Malcolm's childhood he expresses his desire to become a lawyer when he grows up and a teacher suggests that he should instead become a carpenter. Malcolm is clearly one of the brightest students in his class but because he is black nobody takes him seriously. Throughout your life you will come across people that will cast doubt upon your goals and while hopefully they won't be racially motivated you cannot let these types stop you from reaching your peak. Some people will always have limiting beliefs in their own lives and try to project them on to you and if you let them effect your psyche they can tear you down.


2. Don't Pretend to be Something You're Not

When Malcolm moves to Boston he has a level of contempt towards the middle class blacks for trying to fit in with the white society. Also, we get details of how they used to conk their hair to make it straight and it is a very painful experience with an undertone of self hatred. Malcolm is not immune to trying to fit in and be popular when he dates a white woman named Sophia even though he has no feelings for her. Society is full of pressure to conform who you are or what you want to do. If you ever find yourself struggling with a decision that compromises the very nature of who you are as a person it is a telling sign that you're on the wrong path.

3. Observe and Learn From Your Surroundings

Malcolm moves to Harlem and learns the ways of hustling for money. In an environment with very few positive opportunities he learned how to survive by using his wits and knowing what was happening around him. Plus he further learned human behavior while he lived in a house with prostitutes and saw how the men acted in that environment. From a personal growth standpoint, being aware of your surroundings provides for you the ability to diagnose what is going wrong in your life and will give you the confidence that you know something will work just based of your observations in life. The great thing is that you don't need an in depth education from books (although they would give better understanding) just your own natural ability to learn.

4. Beware Getting Caught Up In Those Surroundings 

Further along in the story we learn that Malcolm has started down the wrong path in life and is soon a drug addict planning robberies. The way he has been carrying himself has garnered him many enemies who now want him dead for slights against them.  Getting caught up in the world that surrounds you often happens to famous people who lose all proportion within their lives but it can also happen to you. It can be as simple as getting wrapped up in your work and losing sight of the big picture. Many things in life are not as serious as we make them out to be and can be quite destructive to our growth and our lives if we don't focus on what is truly important.


5. You're Never Too Smart to Learn From Others.

Malcolm got arrested and landed in jail as a full blown drug addict. Another prisoner named Bimbi helps him to straighten himself out even after Malcolm's initial hesitation. It is from Bimbi that Malcolm learns to be a more serious man and pursue intellectual endeavors. Wisdom can come from anybody, even those who might not be as book smart as you. Being receptive to new ideas is apart of growing as a person and keeping yourself from becoming set in your ways. Things in this world always change so naturally you should adapt right along with them and you cannot do that thinking you're the smartest thing to ever grace the planet. When he makes his pilgrimage to Mecca he notices that their is no racial strife in that region and that some of the friendliest people he met had white skin. Malcolm could not ignore what was right in front of his face and knew that he would have to change some of his ideas towards race.


6. Self-Education Isn't Easy but It's Necessary for Growth.

 After he starts to take his education seriously Malcolm starts to read everything he can get his hands on in prison, even writing out the entire dictionary in order to improve his vocabulary. Later on he joined the prison debate program so he could better convey his ideas to groups of people. School is fine for basic education but setting aside personal time to study further is where you really begin to develop as a person. Pick a topic that interests you and start doing what Malcolm did going through everything you can find on it. Or jump from topic to topic and try to connect what you learn from each into something that you can use in life. Learning never ends but school does, so that means you're going to have to do it yourself the rest of your life.

7. Pass Up Security to Do What You Believe In

It was all well and good for Malcolm to be studious while confined to a prison cell but would he revert back to his old ways when released? No, he did not. He actually got a job working for Ford which probably could have been a decent and stable income but eventually gave that up to further the work of the Nation of Islam. He owned very little personally and the Nation provided him with the transportation to get from place to place and recruit new members but it didn't matter to Malcolm he was doing what he felt was right. Letting go of what you really want for a secure job happens all the time. But in reality you're giving up your ideal life for one that really isn't all that secure, how many people in the past two years lost jobs they thought were very secure? For all we know we only get one go round at life and if you don't take chances to live the way you want it will all be a waste.

If you have never read this book I highly recommend that you pick up a copy because it will at least be a thought provoking experience for you and you may be surprised by what you can learn from Malcolm X.

Complacency can be the murderer of success. When we get into a comfortable position in life we tend to stop working, stop growing, and just not have the hunger we once did. Unfortunately for us the world around us doesn't stop changing and while we are standing still it is moving forward. We keep doing the same things that once worked well for us hoping to replicate earlier success and it doesn't work anymore because we failed to adapt all of life's little changes. This isn't to say that persistence and consistency aren't keys to success in life they are but when you allow your growth to be a rigid dogma of ideas you stop growing. How do we avoid this complacency and experience a lifetime of being on top of our game instead of just a few good years? By opening ourselves up to new ideas.

Any given year you can find a musician that has a great run of success and then won't ever be heard in a meaningful way ever again. It may be because they got lucky with a hit song and not really have much talent but there are plenty of others who are damn good musicians that fail to maintain their stardom mostly because they fail to adapt to changing tastes. It's like the disco craze, how many artists' careers did that claim? You see when you have success in one field or method you tend to get associated with that and that may be fine for awhile but it isn't very good for growth. This boxing yourself in forces you into stagnation and makes your life very predictable and without challenges.

The thing is that our educational system usually does the job for us by program specialization. Too many people choose a major and then ride it out for their entire careers without making a change even when they are experiencing diminishing returns. About a year ago before I had any concrete idea of how I was going to get to where I wanted to go I went to my student advisory meeting to see what kind of schedule I could put together. I hadn't declared a major yet and when the councilor asked me what I was looking into I said History and Biology. You would have thought that I had told a joke because he actually kind of laughed at the idea. Sure the two subjects aren't very similar and it would have required lots of work on my part but the idea of pairing two distant things was comical to him. To me the idea was just a way of exploring different concepts and finding a way to weave them together like I had read about with Benjamin Franklin, Cicero, da Vinci,Goethe, etc. These men weren't great because they narrowed their field of study but precisely because they never stopped expanding it.

Each new thing that you try can keep pushing you into a new direction and open up further doors for you. You let your ideas become fluid and less tightly controlled. Of course you must maintain some semblance of control and focus to master the new ideas but new methods and ideas shouldn't threaten you they should excite you. If you've ever watched what passes for political discussion in this country you know exactly what I mean, the other side has no good ideas and everybody is too stubborn to be proven wrong or think in another way. It's no wonder that nothing really ever gets done and the things that do are often watered down and ineffective. Without experimentation it becomes very difficult to solve problems and chokes any type of growth you may have experienced, remember Success is Made Out of Lots of Failure.

Experimentation and learning moves us forward and allows for us to adapt to a changing world. By casting your net wide you never allow for complacency to set in because as soon as you meet your goal in one area you are immediately drawn to something else that you're passionate about, hence you never rest on your laurels. You could say that you would never be the best at anything if you spread out your interests and that very well may be true but the king of the mountain can only go down or stay on top. If you knowledge or skill set is very specialized and you're the best at it what happens to your growth? You must now spend all of your time defending your spot at the top and in the process may very well become obsolete due to changing times. The security you feel in your position is in all likelihood just an illusion and if you aren't prepared for a rapid change you can often just get left in the cold. Think about all of the people who spent years working one job and becoming damn good at it only to be fired one day and not be able to move on to something else. They lost their mobility and became too rigid and comfortable seemingly unaware of how precarious their lives had been the whole time.

Always keep in mind that if you're not improving you're ultimately declining. So shake off the idea that your livelihood is guaranteed if you just show up and go through the motions, the world doesn't stop and neither should you. Take the time to examine yourself and what you want to have happen in your life then go out and pursue it without fear. Complacency can set in slowly but it is always a real threat to everything that you worked to build before it. Don't let it get you.

Searching for textbooks is something that every student I know hates to do because it is so damn expensive. It still amazes me that people buy their texts from the bookstore at the insane prices those books sell for. While I always by old editions online it got me to thinking about how much a degree equivalent education could be acquired for. I looked at the classes that were necessary to successfully complete a degree and for all majors the classes number from 15-25 (not including general education classes but rather classes for the major). With used textbooks available on amazon for $4 a piece it seems that an entire education could be had for less than my LCD monitor. Now the purpose of this post is not to rail against college and its price because while it is expensive I do still enjoy going but rather I wanted to write about learning on your own beyond whatever education level you finished. It seems to me with the amount of information available freely on the internet and in public libraries you could teach yourself the same knowledge you would learn in any major within a year or two. Imagine getting a new degree every year or two just by diving into the material yourself, think that would give you some business ideas?

Right now I am going through what I have termed 1 year film school where I will study everyday about some aspect of film making, currently it is screenwriting. Obviously it will take me longer than a year to truly learn enough about all aspects to be competent and I still need to work in the field after my self education is complete. But with a vast array of information at my disposal I can still get a film school education for next to nothing in dollar terms and when I am done do with the information as I please or do nothing and move onto some other subject. But what if you don't know how or where to start you own personal education?

1. Search online for class textbook lists.

At most universities they have it set up where students can buy their textbooks online by using a drop down menu to select a course. So say you chosen interest is in economics (my major) go through the lists and write down the text names. From here you can choose to search for the texts online for cheap at sites like amazon.com or to find the information for free. Start with the basics in this case simple microeconomics would be a good beginning for you.

2. Audio books or Project Gutenberg.

Librivox.org and reading free text at Project Gutenberg is a great way to get educated in the classics. These sites give you complete access to pretty much all of the greatest works mankind has ever produced. If you choose to start with the classics first it will teach you a lot about how people act and expose you to ways of thinking that too often get overlooked.

3. Free classes.

Top universities around the world including Yale, Oxford, MIT, Stanford, and California have made available video lectures from their introductory courses. Yale in particular has many complete courses available to view or listen to in audio format. You get to sit in and listen to the professors just the same as if you went to the schools themselves.

4. Look to those who came before you.

If you have a field that really sparks your interest find out who is or was the best that ever worked in that field. For example, I am currently watching Lawrence of Arabia which I have to say is quite an entertaining way to study film. Studying the works of the best will not only help you to understand what works and what doesn't but also give you endless sources of inspiration to help keep you moving forward.

5. Let you curiosity get the best of you.

Did you ever no someone that always loved to take things apart just to figure out how they worked? Probably the fastest way to become self educated is to throw yourself in the deep end and learn as you go. Perhaps you can find work in what you're interested in and start from the bottom picking up knowledge as you move along. Many successful people have started out this way with no formal education but learning only from their experiences.

Always keep in mind that school isn't going to teach you everything you need it is merely a tool to help teach you how to learn. If you want something in life you have to go out and get it and self education is the path that will move you forward.

http://conquerweshall.com/snap-back-to-reality/

This afternoon I went to the library at my university for a bit of research on movie making and screenwriting to help continue my development of a screenplay. The library features 10 full floors of books and even though the film section is relegated to a single row on a single floor it still features more material than I could reasonably read even with years at my disposal. When I thought about this fact while making my way from shelf to shelf I realized that while I read every single day I probably have only read 20-30 entire books so far this year. It dawned on me that most of my information comes through articles and reading the parts of books that interest me and that actually may be a good thing.

Today for instance I pulled books off of the shelf on Woody Allen films,a book on Ridley Scott's films, a book of essays on Blade Runner, and three separate books on writing and selling screenplays. Now unless I had mounds of time that I wanted to dedicate to reading these books let's say it could take a month or so of my life to sit down and read each page. Sure it would be an accomplishment of sorts but would the time invested be worth it? No. I knew exactly what I wanted to read about going into the day, developing a screenplay. So as a result upon opening each books I scanned the table of contents to pick out the sections that would be most beneficial for me. I read about the characters and their relationships in Manhattan, I read about interpretations of Blade Runner and the production of that Los Angeles cityscape , and then I focused specifically on writing scenes and took notes from each of the three books on their specific advice.

In three hours I managed to gather all the information I wanted today and read some nice tid bits about two movies I enjoy that made me feel creative. Now I'm not saying that I want to start doing this with every single book I pick up but let's face it many books especially non-fiction that don't require you to follow in a linear fashion because up to half of it can be fluff. When I looked through these books on screenplays entire chapters were devoted to why would you want to write one? This may be well and good if you lack motivation to do something but I'm in a library on a day I could have done anything I wanted but instead I wanted to learn further about crafting scenes, I think I can safely skip those types of chapters.

It's just like the textbooks you buy for a class have any of your professors covered every chapter that's in those mammoth back breakers? None of mine have but did it stop you from feeling like you didn't learn? Would you have learned more if the professor tried to squeeze 50-60 chapters into 4 months of the semester? No you have to be efficient with your learning and break things down into further sections just like you have separate classes for a major. If i were to sit down and read one giant book that covered every topic of screenwriting I highly doubt that I could write a better script than if I had taken the same time and read only about creating scenes from several sources. The first option would give me shallow understanding of everything instead of a great deal of knowledge in one area and the movie maybe crap and other areas but it might have enough memorable scenes to carry it to decency.

I still want to read complete books every month and I'm doing so especially with classics on audio book which just listening to at the gym could net me and extra 5-10 per month but I also need to ramp up my intensity for going after specific knowledge in books. I need to stop feeling like it was somehow a failure that I checked out a book and didn't finish the whole thing and cut through the fluff. It's like I mentioned in this post: Become World Class at Something about utilizing short bursts of intense focus on one aspect of a subject and becoming great at one thing instead of trying to learn a whole broad topic at once and I think I may have just found it's application in crafting a screenplay. I'll have to think on this some more and I'll let you know in future posts what my course of action will be. Keep reading.

I got the list of these books from the selected bibliography of the 48 Laws of Power and linked the titles to places on the internet where they could be found. For the majority of these books I linked right to the Amazon page because they aren't very popular and still under copyright so finding them on the web for free was a no go. However, for many of the books I did link the free text or audio versions because they are classics that belong to the public domain. I don't think I'm going to go through this whole list and read everything myself but if you're up to the challenge by all means dive in.


Fables of Aesop by Aesop

The Chinese Machiavelli by Dennis Bloodworth and Ching Ping

Cheating: Deception in war & magic, games & sports, sex & religion, business & con games, politics & espionage, art & science by J. Barton Bowyer

The Book of the Courtier by Baldesar Castiglione

On War by Carl von Clausewitz

The Court Society by Norbet Elias.

The Power of the Charlatan by Grete de Francesco (try your local libraries for this one it's apparently hard to come by).

The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ and Other Essays by Jay Haley

The Complete Works of Han-fei-tzu by Han-fei-tzu
I linked the basic writings because the book was out of print.

The Histories by Herodotus. Free audio book here: Librivox

Kissinger: A Biography by Walter Issacson

Selected Fables by Jean de La Fontaine

Life, Letters and Epicurian Philosophy of Ninon de Lenclos, The Celebrated Beauty of the 17th Century by Ninon de Lenclos.

Bismarck: The Story of a Fighter by Emil Ludwig.

The Prince and The Discourses by Niccolo Machiavelli.

Selected Military Writings of Mao Tse-tung by Mao Tse-tung.

Monstrous Regiment: Women Rulers in Men's Worlds by Betty Milan.

The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne.

The Art of Winning Wars by Col. James Mrazek.

Hustlers and Con Men by Jay Robert Nash.

The Birth of Tragedy and On the Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Talleyrand: The Art of Survival by Jean Orieux.

Makers of Rome and The Rise and Fall of Athens by Plutarch.

Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli's Confidence Men by Wayne A. Rebhorn.

Memoirs of Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz by Cardinal de Retz.

Cha-no-yu: The Japanese Tea Ceremony by A.L. Sadler.

Amoral Politics by Ben-Ami Scharfstein.

Mirrors, Masks, Lies, and Secrets by Karl E. Scheibe.

The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims by Arthur Schopenhauer.

The Book of Stratagems: Tactics for Triumph and Survival by Harro von Senger.

The Craft of Power by R.G.H. Siu.

The Art of War by Sun-tzu.

The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides.

Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution, and Conformity by Perez Zagorin.

The Con Game and "Yellow Kid" Weil by "Yellow Kid" Weil.

If you've ever watched any cable news channels you might have noticed the amount of so-called experts they present to discuss whatever topic they are hammering away on that particular day. But how many of them are what could be called world class? Malcolm Gladwell stated that it takes 10,000 hours of practice/learning to become world class at something which got me thinking what have I spent 10,000 doing in my life that I could claim some type of mastery in?

Basketball came to mind as something I may have spent that many hours of my life doing but I am certainly not world class, if I were I would be playing in the NBA making a nice bit of change. But besides being proficient at playing the game I would also need world class athleticism (I don't have that but I'm certainly above average). Nonetheless I do have a certain ability to play the game that is now ingrained in me for life. For example I recently started to play in pick up games regularly again after playing maybe 15 times in the past 5 years but what is great is that besides a little rust and fatigue I am still competitive with or better than the other guys on the court. Do I have what it takes to be world class if I were to devote my life to the game and physical training? I don't know, probably not but I don't ever like to tell myself that I cannot accomplish something.

Is there anything else that comes close to the 10,000 mark? Reading perhaps? But that is too broad to be world class at. For the past few days I have started to immerse myself in the history of the Roman Republic for the course I am taking this upcoming semester. Putting in these hours isn't going to give me the doctoral knowledge equivalence within a few months but it should certainly give me mastery over the topics covered in class (maybe not as much depth). But what if I were to pick a specific topic and in one 6 month burst studied everything that I could on that topic? (182.5 days x 8 hours per day = 1460 hours) If it were a specific enough subject I could definitely climb to the top 1% of the population in regards to knowledge. Then by further expanding into related topics you could become a master in a much broader field.

There isn't really anything that I want to be world champion at or have any recognition as being the best there is but there are things that for financial or other reasons that I would like to have great understanding of. Unless you have that burning desire to be the best at one thing it might make better sense to be great at multiple things as long as you don't spread your knowledge to thin across too many interests. For me I believe the best option is intense short term focus on one thing then maintaining and enhancing my performance through repetition. I like lots of different topics so having a single passion in life isn't for me but I definitely have related interests.

Obviously what separates average from the best is the extra commitment of time, learning, and execution which begs the question what have you done today to help propel you forward?